In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Mexico’s Democracy at Work: Political and Economic Dynamics
  • Reynaldo Yunuen Ortega Ortiz
Russell Crandall, Guadalupe Paz, and Riordan Roett, eds., Mexico’s Democracy at Work: Political and Economic Dynamics. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005. Figures, tables, bibliography, index, 232 pp.; hardcover $49.95, paperback $19.95.

This collective volume is a good basic introduction to the analysis of some of the major economic and political problems that Mexico is facing. It has, however, a strong "modernization theory revisited" overtone: by talking of "phases" of reform or development (p. 191), it obscures rather than illuminates some of the processes of change involved in Mexico's transition from an authoritarian regime to an electoral democracy.

The book is divided in nine chapters, which include an introductory chapter and a conclusion. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with political challenges, [End Page 191] chapters 4, 5, and 6 with the economic transformation, and chapters 7 and 8 with foreign policy dynamics.

In chapter 2, Andreas Schedler presents a story of democratization as a nested game. He argues, "In Mexico, it was precisely 'the power of elections,' the virtuous interaction of electoral competition and electoral reform, that led the country out of a labyrinth of electoral authoritarianism" (p. 15). Although this picture is not wrong, it underestimates two central issues. First, some of the Mexican electoral reforms between 1973 and 1996 were not oriented toward a more democratic regime; on the contrary, they were basic tools to maintain the authoritarian regime in place. Second and more important, the reforms were the result of long mobilization processes that are absent in his analysis.

As Juan Molinar Horcasitas has argued, some of the reforms of the Mexican electoral system favored the overrepresentation of the hegemonic PRI against the opposition parties (1991, 134). Schedler recognizes this in table 2.3, where he shows that in 1987 the PRI established a governability clause that gave an automatic majority to the major party in the Chamber of Deputies. Thus, the 1977, 1987, 1990, and 1994 reforms were not simply small steps toward democracy; some of them were backward steps.

Schedler reproduces the "myth" of a "velvet transition" (p. 32), which could be contested if we take into account the history of more than 30 years of mobilizations, including the social movements of the 1960s, the political violence of the 1970s, the electoral earthquake of 1988, and the Chiapas rebellion in 1994. We cannot understand the formation of the Mexican electoral democracy without that process of contestation. Between 1988 and 1994, more than 250 partisans of the PRD were killed; Mexico's transition was not a velvet one.

In Federico Reyes Heroles's chapter, "Mexico's Changing Social and Political Landscape," the modernization theory becomes not only a tone but a full explanation. Reyes Heroles repeats Schedler's argument that the Mexican "political landscape has undergone a silent revolution" (as mentioned, there was no silence, but important mobilizations, protests, and even violence), then analyzes some of the "changes" in Mexico's demography, political culture, and social issues. Reyes Heroles argues that the "emergence of a mainstream of values identified with the center-right and a growing population of volatile voters who increasingly define electoral outcomes has important implications. If the current trends in ideological self-definition continue, the political parties that seek to win votes in order to gain access to power will have to situate themselves in the center and center-right in the coming decades" (p. 44). But then he concedes, "However, as the electorate becomes more pragmatic and volatile, and as voters acquire greater exposure to the various political alternatives . . . it is quite possible that a pragmatic [End Page 192] candidate from the center-left could emerge victorious in a not-too-distant presidential election" (p. 43). Like modernization theorists, however, Reyes Heroles forgets that, as Charles Tilly has written, "In between interests and opportunity comes a third factor: organization" (1986, 3).

Elections are the result not only of ideological affinities but of electoral machines and resources. The PRI's capacity to maintain its control over more than half of Mexico's state governments is strongly related to its political and economic resources. One of the...

pdf

Share