Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T04:36:47.497Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mexico: The Challenge of Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

César Cansino
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

THE MEXICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM IS CURRENTLY GOING through the most turbulent, disconcerting and complex end of a sexenio, or six-year presidential term, in memory. This is not the usual internal turmoil which has traditionally accompanied every change of administration, but a political crisis so great that it portends a process of political change destined to transform the very nature of the Mexican political regime itself.

It may not be altogether new for this political regime to face the ‘democratic demands’ of important sectors of civil society; these demands have been made in the past in a variety of ways and with various consequences. However, this time the call for democracy constitutes an authentic challenge to the continuity and autonomy of the regime, and this is an extraordinary, highly significant development.

Type
Research Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1995 , pp. 60 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Indeed, the Mexican political regime has been characterized as ‘semidemocratic’ (M. Needler; C. A. Almond and S. Verba; F. Chevalier), ‘a combination of democratic process and authoritarian roles’ (C. Almond; N. Hamilton), ‘institutionalized authoritarianism’ (J. L. Reyna and R. Weinart; L. Diamond, J. Linz and S. M. Lipset; S. Kaufman Purcell and J. F. H. Purcell). Also see Cansino, C., ‘México: Una “democracia de fachada,”?’ La Jornada Semanal, Mexico, No. 222. 1209 1993Google Scholar.

2 Finer, S. E., Comparative Government, London, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1970Google Scholar.

3 ‘Being the de facto head of the PRI gives the president a series of powers beyond the Constitutional framework, such as the naming of his successor and of governors, senators, most deputies, and the most important mayors; since the PRI is a hegemonic, semi-government party, made up of sectors, the president has control over the leading worker, peasant, professional and other organizations, such as popular organizations—as they are called in the jargon of the party itself—which represent Mexico’s strongest organizations.’ Carpizo, J., El presidencialismo mexicano, Mexico, Siglo XXI, 1978, p. 228Google Scholar.

4 Sartori, G., Partidos y sistemas de partidos, Madrid, Alianza Universidad, 1980, pp. 259–89Google Scholar.

5 As Sartori himself writes, ‘the hegemonic party does not permit official competition, nor de facto competition, for power. Other parties are allowed to exist, but as second class, authorized, parties, since they are not allowed to compete with the hegemonic party on antagonistic terms, nor as equals. Not only does alternation, in fact, not emerge, it cannot occur, since a turnover of power is not even contemplated. This implies that the hegemonic party will continue in power whether or not it is liked. There is no authentic sanction committing the hegemonic party to act responsibly. Whatever its politics, its domination cannot be questioned.’ Sartori, ibid., p. 278.

6 ‘Despite the revolutionary myth…the PRI is decidedly pragmatic, and so inclusive and agglomerating that it approaches an amalgamation-type party. It is also…the only protagonist of an arrangement centred around a single party, [in turn] surrounded by a periphery of secondary parties’, ibid., p. 283.

7 ‘As a government party, the PRI fulfils certain basic functions for the preservation of the regime. More than a party in the conventional sense of the term, it constitutes an organized representation of certain social interests and conceptions whose relationship with the executive is one of subordination. Through the party, the regime obtains the control and submission of the fundamental sectors of the country. Therefore corporativism is a state function and reproduces a vertical logic of clientelistic relationships, in which support and loyalties are exchanged.’ Cansino, C. and Alarcón Olguin, V., ‘La relación gobierno-partido en un régimen semicompetitivo: El caso de México’, Revista mexicana de ciencias politicas y sociales, Mexico, UNAM-FCPS, 1993, No. 151, pp. 9–33Google Scholar.

8 Sartori writes, I do not suggest, in the slightest, that free and truly competitive elections would dislodge the PRI from power. Indeed, there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. What matters is not whether the PRI would lose if it permitted a free and open opposition. What matters is that the hegemonic arrangement maintains the PRI united and that the passage to a competitive system would put its unity in danger, because it would eliminate the prohibitive sanctions inflicted by the hegemonic formula on divisions [in] and ruptures with the party’ (italics added). Sartori, op. cit., p. 285.

9 Fourteen parties have participated in these elections, although only five parties have taken part in all elections in this decade: the PRI, the National Action Party (PAN), the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDM), the Popular Socialist Party (PPS), and the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution (PARM).

10 Once again, to clarify this, we can turn to Sartori: ‘A hegemonic party system is definitely not a multiparty system, but rather, in the best of cases, a two-tier system in which one party tolerates and assigns, according to its own discretion, a fraction of its power to subordinate political groups. The fact continues to be that the formula of the hegemonic party may give the appearance, although, naturally, it does not create the substance, of competitive politics. It does not allow for open confrontation, nor effective dissent, nor does it approach competitive oligarchy… Outsider parties can never become insider parties, and their opposition is a tolerated opposition.’ Sartori, op cit., pp. 279–80.

11 ‘The constitutional commitment of the Mexican political system to democratic forms of government requires that, in order for it to maintain its legitimacy and efficacy, there be a party system making the electoral process minimally credible, although, as noted, [it is] ineffective in terms of the true power game. Hence, not only has Mexican authoritarianism tolerated, but at certain junctures it has encouraged, the existence of opposition parties assuming the role of loyal opposition, presenting a viewpoint different from the government’s, but without directly seeking power.’ L. Meyer and J. L. Reyna, ‘México. El sistema y sus partidos: Entre el autoritarismo y la democracia’, in Meyer, L. and Reyna, J. L., Los sistemus políticos en América Latina, Mexico, Siglo XXI, 1994, p. 312Google Scholar.