Effectiveness and Legitimacy in Democratic Reform: The Case of Transparency Reform inMexico

Abstract

This article identifies political practices that simultaneously increase negotiation effectiveness and democratic legitimacy as key enabling factors for democratic legal reform. This finding goes against theHabermasian idea that success‐oriented negotiations run counter to the logic of reason‐based deliberations that are necessary to produce democratic legitimacy. Based on the sequence of practices that led to the 2007 transparency reform inMexico,Ioffer several examples of how negotiation effectiveness and democratic legitimacy may reinforce each other.Iconclude that champions of democratic reform need to engage in action that is both strategic and communicative to move beyond weak democracies or hybrid regimes toward more democratic institutions. Practices such as deliberation in small, but plural working groups, or the detailed discussion of specific policy options in plural public forums are examples of practices that may add democratic legitimacy and negotiation effectiveness to a reform process. Effective and legitimate reform processes might also entail some degree of compromise with powerfulde factoveto players, so long as the negotiation process is steered toward the effective institutionalization of insight acquired communicatively.