Poverty of Democracy: The Institutional Roots of Political Participation in Mexico

1. The Return of Institutions: Political Opportunities and Participation

1     ChaPTER 1     tHe return of institutions Political Opportunities and Political Participation Mexico’s political system was once hailed as the “perfect dictatorship,” characterized by regular elections, widespread legitimacy, and uninterrupted rule by the same political party (the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI) for seventy years. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Mexico’s brand of authoritarianism was its relative openness to political activity from ordinary citizens and social groups. There was little that was free or fair about this political activism, however. During the PRI’s long reign, political participation was encouraged only when it provided support for the ruling party, tolerated when it was aimed at securing limited material benefits, and violently repressed when its goals were significant political change. This changed after 1990, when a series of sweeping political reforms opened up the political system, encouraged opposition parties to challenge the PRI’s electoral hegemony at the polls, and created significant new opportunities for Mexican citizens to engage in political activities. This combination of political reforms, real electoral competition, and citizen activism worked together to steadily erode the PRI’s power. By the 2000 presidential elections the democratic transformation was complete, as voters finally toppled the PRI from power in elections that were universally regarded as free, fair, and competitive. After a lengthy democratic transition, Mexican citizens were holzner text-3.indd 1 8/6/10 10:52 AM 2  The Return of Institutions now largely free to vote for whom they pleased, protest when they liked, and make large and small demands on the system.1 There is a dark side to Mexico’s democratic transition, however. Evidence from public opinion surveys shows that the poor, who make up as much as 50 percent of Mexico’s population, participate in many fewer political activities than more affluent Mexicans. This is true for almost any kind of political activity, whether voting, protesting, contacting politicians, signing petitions, or working on political campaigns. Not only are the poor participating less, they are on the whole less interested in politics, more skeptical about the ability of elections to give them power over their leaders, and seem resigned to having little say in the political process. Curiously, the participation gap between the rich and the poor widened during the democratic transition, peaking in 2000, when the consolidation of democratic practices should have created incentives and opportunities for all citizens to become more involved in politics. Mexico is not alone. A growing number of studies have revealed the shallowness of Latin American democracies, where deep socioeconomic inequalities are increasingly mirrored in political practice (Agüero and Stark 1998; Chalmers et al. 1997; Holzner 2007a and 2007b; Huber and Solt 2004; Kurtz 2004; Levine and Molina 2007; Oxhorn and Ducatenzeiler 1998a and 1998b; Posner 2008; and Weyland 2004).2 This stratification of political participation by income is troubling for any democracy, since it undermines the core principle of political equality—that the interests and preferences of all will be given equal consideration in the decision-making process. But in Mexico and other Latin American countries, where levels of poverty and income inequality are among the worst in the world, the overlap between socioeconomic and political inequalities has added political significance. It may beget democratic systems that are not representative, responsive, or accountable to more than half of the population. This book seeks to understand how Mexico’s stratified pattern of political participation emerged. Stated simply, why do the poor in Mexico participate less than the rich? I examine the political activity of citizens from all income levels, paying special attention to the political activity of the poor who, despite the promises of industrialization and free trade, still make up half of the country’s population. To many this disparity in participation rates will not seem like a puzzle, since the finding that the poor participate less than the rich is so common in the literature (at least in research that focuses on the United States as a single case), it has become an axiom of politics. The conventional answer places the participatory burden on individuals, who holzner text-3.indd 2 8/6/10 10:52 AM The Return of Institutions  3 choose to participate or abstain according to their personal motivation or individual resource endowments (see Milbrath and Goel 1977; Verba, Nie, and Kim 1971; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995; and Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980). Other political scientists have explored...