Testing the Waters or Opening the Floodgates? Evangelicals, Politics, and the "New" Mexico

Abstract

Pluralist democracies are emerging in many corners of the globe. Latin America is no exception and by some measures took the lead in the 1980s with a return to democracy in several countries. While Chile, Brazil, and Argentina are some of the most encouraging cases, Mexico has also enjoyed a bit of a resurgence of democracy, if for no other reason than the simple fact that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), faced with pressure from important trading partners and pro-democracy groups, had little choice but to begin to open up its political system and play by fairer and more vigorously enforced rules. While certainly not all members of the PRI may be called born again democrats eager to shed their power and privilege in the name of greater pluralism—some are doing their best to thwart reform—ob servers do see greater respect for the rules of democracy than has been evident in the last twenty years or so. Where there is more democratic activity in Mexico, often it takes on an important form—more societal groups are being allowed access to the political arena. True, these groups may ultimately face the chal lenge of all groups who would attempt to gain a say in Mexico: coop tion, and perhaps in extreme cases, repression. But some in the PRI appear to be willing to widen the playing field, especially to certain groups and individuals that for over seventy years were officially banned from participating in politics. These groups and individuals, the subject of this essay, are religious in nature, and that fact makes this study all the more relevant given the political involvement of religious groups in other Latin American countries, whether the groups are Protestant Evangelicals or Roman Catholic. The argument made here is that the ruling party of Mexico, via the state it controls, has taken steps to open up the political arena to reli gious groups and persons who wish to comment on politics, lobby the