Assessing the Consequences of Electoral Democracy: Subnational Legislative Change in Mexico

Abstract

Recent research has taught much about the dynamics of democratic transition and consolidation.1 Yet important questions about regime change remain unanswered. Most notably, what are the consequences of political democratization? As democracy has taken root across Latin America, many scholars and citizens of the newly democratic countries have expressed disappointment with the substantive results of the political transitions.2 National democratic governance has not successfully addressed problems of pervasive inequality and poverty. As international financial institutions increasingly prescribe decentralization to solve the region's intractable problems, many have begun to look toward subnational governments for solutions. Yet in many cases regional disparities continue to grow, and subnational authoritarian enclaves remain resistant to change.3 One of the most significant obstacles to the development of greater equality and more meaningful citizenship in new democracies is the lack of effective democratic representation.4 Popular assemblies have generally performed the function of democratic representation in established democracies. In Latin America, however, legislatures have been weak and often largely irrelevant to politics.5 Mexico is no exception to this regional pattern. Mexico's hyperpresidentialism traditionally has relegated the legislative branch to a mere symbolic position in the political system.6 Yet, as electoral competition has increased across Mexico, the national legislature and some state legislatures have achieved new influence over the policymaking process. In the 1997 mid term elections the ruling party lost its absolute majority in the lower house of the national legislature for the first time in seventy years. Since then the legislature, led by a coalition of opposition leaders, has demanded a much greater policy role. The emerging influence of the national legislature has created an entirely new set of rules for public policymaking and legislative behavior in Mexico.7 Similarly, as opposition parties have gained strength in subnational elections, new sets of rules governing state legislative-executive relations have emerged. The transformation of the Mexican political system raises important questions about democratization and political representation. How does the process of democratization play out at the subnational level? What are the consequences of increasing political contestation for state legislative behavior? Are legislative institutions changing in response to growing electoral competition and challenges to the longruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)? The vast majority of studies of