Blind spots in democratization: sub-national politics as a constraint on Mexico's transition

Democratization

Volumn 7, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 117-132

  Cornelius, Wayne A ^a  

^a University of California   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION; DEMOCRATIZATION; NATIONAL POLITICS; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

MEXICO;

EID: 0033748199     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13510340008403674     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. The term 'sub-national' is used in this article mainly to refer to state-level political regimes. With few exceptions (such as the indigenous government of Juchitán in Oaxaca state and municipalities controlled by a party different from the party in power at the state level) local and regional political regimes in Mexico today can be treated as extensions of state-level political organizations controlled by incumbent or former slate governors.
2. See, for example, Yemile Mizrahi, 'Pressuring the Centre: Opposition Governments and Federalism in Mexico', Centre de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, División de Estudios Politicos, Documentos de Trabajo, 71, 1997.
3. They include Vicente Fox, ex-Governor of Guanajuato, presidential candidate of the centre-right National Action Party (PAN); Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, former head of the Federal District, which includes Mexico City (this position being the functional equivalent of a state governorship) as well as ex-Governor of the state of Michoacán, presidential candidate of the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD); and three politicians who campaigned actively for the presidential nomination of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI): Manuel Bartlett, ex-Governor of Puebla; Roberto Madrazo, the incumbent governor of Tabasco; and Francisco Labastida, former governor of Sinaloa and Interior Minister under President Zedillo. Labastida won the PRI nomination handily in an open primary election held in November 1999, before losing by a six-point margin in the general election to Fox.
4. The displacement of state governors and other career politicians by 'técnicos' at the highest levels of government in Mexico from the 1970s to the 1990s is well-documented and explained in Miguel A. Centeno, Democracy Within Reason: Technocratic Revolution in Mexico (2nd edn., University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).
5. See Wayne A. Cornelius, Ann L. Craig, and Jonathan Fox (eds.), Transforming State-Society Relations in Mexico: The National Solidarity Strategy (La Jolla, CA: Centre for US-Mexican Studies, University of California-San Diego, 1994).
6. Victoria E. Rodríguez, Decentralization in Mexico: From Reforma Municipal to Solidaridad to Nnevo Federalismo (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997); and Peter M. Ward and Victoria E. Rodríguez, Bringing the States Back In: New Federalism and State Government in Mexico (Austin, TX: Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas-Austin, US-Mexico Policy Studies Monograph Series, 2000).
7. Victoria E. Rodríguez, Decentralization in Mexico: From Reforma Municipal to Solidaridad to Nnevo Federalismo (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997); and Peter M. Ward and Victoria E. Rodríguez, Bringing the States Back In: New Federalism and State Government in Mexico (Austin, TX: Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas-Austin, US-Mexico Policy Studies Monograph Series, 2000).
8. SEDESOL (Secretaría de Desarrollo Social, México), Solidaridad: seis años de trabajo (México, DF: SEDESOL, 1994), p.27.
9. See Neil Harvey, The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998).
10. See, for example, Guillermo O'Donnell, 'Transitions, Continuities, and Paradoxes', in Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O'Donnell, and J. Samuel Valenzuela (eds.), Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), pp.17-56.
11. Manuel Camacho, 'El poder: estados o "feudos" politicos', in Centro de Estudios Internacionales, La vida político en México, 1970-1973 (México, DF: El Colegio de Mexico, 1974), pp.77-99.
12. This is actually a rather good and certainly prophetic analysis of what occurred in Chiapas since the late 1980s, when neo-liberal economic policies began to damage the interests of small agricultural producers. See Harvey, op.cit.
13. See Richard R. Fagen and William S. Tuohy, Power and Privilege in a Mexican City (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972).
14. Lorenzo Meyer, 'Un tema añejo siempre actual', in Blanca Torres (ed.), Descentralización y democracia en México (México, DF: El Colegio de México, 1986); Alan Knight, 'Historical Continuities in Social Movements', in Joe Foweraker and Ann L. Craig (eds.), Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1990), pp.78-102; Jeffrey W. Rubin, 'Popular Mobilization and the Myth of State Corporatism', in Foweraker and Craig (eds.), op.cit., pp.247-67; and Jeffrey W. Rubin, Decentreing the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, México (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997).
15. Lorenzo Meyer, 'Un tema añejo siempre actual', in Blanca Torres (ed.), Descentralización y democracia en México (México, DF: El Colegio de México, 1986); Alan Knight, 'Historical Continuities in Social Movements', in Joe Foweraker and Ann L. Craig (eds.), Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1990), pp.78-102; Jeffrey W. Rubin, 'Popular Mobilization and the Myth of State Corporatism', in Foweraker and Craig (eds.), op.cit., pp.247-67; and Jeffrey W. Rubin, Decentreing the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, México (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997).
16. Lorenzo Meyer, 'Un tema añejo siempre actual', in Blanca Torres (ed.), Descentralización y democracia en México (México, DF: El Colegio de México, 1986); Alan Knight, 'Historical Continuities in Social Movements', in Joe Foweraker and Ann L. Craig (eds.), Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1990), pp.78-102; Jeffrey W. Rubin, 'Popular Mobilization and the Myth of State Corporatism', in Foweraker and Craig (eds.), op.cit., pp.247-67; and Jeffrey W. Rubin, Decentreing the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, México (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997).
17. Lorenzo Meyer, 'Un tema añejo siempre actual', in Blanca Torres (ed.), Descentralización y democracia en México (México, DF: El Colegio de México, 1986); Alan Knight, 'Historical Continuities in Social Movements', in Joe Foweraker and Ann L. Craig (eds.), Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1990), pp.78-102; Jeffrey W. Rubin, 'Popular Mobilization and the Myth of State Corporatism', in Foweraker and Craig (eds.), op.cit., pp.247-67; and Jeffrey W. Rubin, Decentreing the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, México (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997).
18. Ward and Rodriguez, op.cit.
19. See Todd A. Eisenstadt, 'Electoral Federalism or Abdication of Authority? - Confrontation between the President and the PRI over Tabasco's Governorship', in Wayne A. Cornelius, Todd A. Eisenstadt and Jane Hindley (eds.), Sub-national Politics and Democratisation in México (La Jolla, CA: Centre for US-Mexican Studies, University of California-San Diego, 1999).
20. For example, Isabel Arvide, 'Una noche en el aviario con Mario', Milenio (Mexico, DF), 13 Feb. 2000.
21. See Sara Schatz, 'A Neo-Weberian Approach to Constitutional Courts in the Transition from Authoritarian Rule: The Mexican Case, 1994-1997', International Journal of the Sociology of Law, Vol.26 (1998), pp.217-44.
22. For evidence from Mexico, Jonathan Fox and Josefina Aranda, Decentralization and Rural Development in Mexico: Community Participation in Oaxaca's Municipal Funds Program (La Jolla, CA: Centre for US-Mexican Studies, University of California-San Diego, 1996). For comparative evidence from India, Bangladesh, Ghana, and Ivory Coast, see Richard C. Crook and James Manor, Democracy and Decentralization in South Asia and West Africa: Participation, Accountability, and Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
23. For evidence from Mexico, Jonathan Fox and Josefina Aranda, Decentralization and Rural Development in Mexico: Community Participation in Oaxaca's Municipal Funds Program (La Jolla, CA: Centre for US-Mexican Studies, University of California-San Diego, 1996). For comparative evidence from India, Bangladesh, Ghana, and Ivory Coast, see Richard C. Crook and James Manor, Democracy and Decentralization in South Asia and West Africa: Participation, Accountability, and Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).