Poverty of Democracy: The Institutional Roots of Political Participation in Mexico (review)

Claudio Holzner's book examines how the institutional incentives created by neoliberalism and democratization have differentially structured political behavior, resulting in a growing participation gap between the middle- and upper-income classes and the poor. Most studies of the impact of neoliberalism and democracy on participation use aggregate data on protest or turnout. Holzner bypasses such data to look at the micro-level foundations of political participation. In so doing, he takes on the behavioralist literature, which emphasizes individual gaps in resources as the reason why poor people participate less. His argument highlights the importance of institutions and their uneven impact across social classes to explain the growing lack of interest of Mexico's poorest citizens in most political participation. He relies on data from interviews in four communities in Oaxaca and on a 2003 survey by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems to demonstrate the broader applicability of his conclusions. Though he affirms the claim of many that neoliberal reforms discourage participation, his contribution lies in careful tracing of the causal mechanisms that connect structural change and individual responses.

Some of Holzner's most interesting findings stem from his examination of the impact of democratization, which turns out to be conditional on the partisan structure of competition. Free and fair elections do not necessarily convince the poor to participate; it depends on whether the right or the left competes with the former ruling party, and on whether the poor see their preferred party as having a reasonable chance to win power. The failures of the Mexican left come into high relief in this story.

However, the book's principal weakness also emerges here. Holzner finds that clientelism, import substitution industrialization (ISI), and participation by the poor are strongly associated: thus, "where provincial [PRI] autocracies endure, political participation rates may be more equalized because political machines tend to target the poor for participation" (p. 193). The author's measure of participation uncritically adds together individual reports of participation in campaign activities (such as attendance at a rally), voting, protests, and petitioning. The author seems quite aware that participation motivated by clientelism does not necessarily reflect influence (p. 193), yet in other passages suggests that, "the poor living in states controlled by the PRI potentially have considerably more voice, more representation, and more clout than their counterparts elsewhere in Mexico" (p. 118), and that "ironically, clientelist political recruitment is one of the only factors that holds some promise for reducing the participation gap between the rich and the poor . . . we would be hard-pressed to argue that more voting is worse than less, even if it is clientelistic voting" (p. 126).

Unfortunately, given the limited resources of the poor, energy expended in one form of participation may directly reduce the energy available for other, more autonomous forms. Moreover, participation of this nature long sustained the PRI in power and limited the capacity of all Mexicans to exert meaningful influence on the government. One must wonder whether we should care about participation by the poor if the quality of this participation is so low that it tends to support authoritarian enclaves rather than establish accountability. Were the days of PRI hegemony really the glory days of participation by the poor? Or should the quantity of participation matter less than its quality?

Nevertheless, Holzner does a good job of highlighting the institutional obstacles to participation. He portrays the poor as rational agents, entering the political arena when it makes sense and exiting when it does not. Holzner's suggestion that expansion of technocratically inspired poverty-alleviation programs can inspire more participation does not fully fit with his own logic—that people petition the government when it might result in extra (discretionary) benefits. But time will tell whether the increased efficacy he finds in recipients of these government benefits translates into political activity. In the meantime, his work is a useful contribution to our...