Courting Democracy in Mexico: Party Strategies and Electoral Institutions / Edition 1

by Todd A. Eisenstadt

Overview

Pitting opposition activists' post-electoral conflicts against their usage of regime-constructed electoral courts, this study of Mexico's gradual transition to democracy addresses the puzzle of why its opposition parties failed to use these autonomous courts. The electoral courts were established to mitigate Mexico's often violent post-electoral disputes at key moments of the country's 27-year democratic transition, and had formal guarantees of court independence from the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521820011
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/24/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.18(d)

Table of Contents

Figures and tables; Acknowledgements; 1. Electoral courts and actor compliance: opposition-authoritarian relations and protracted transitions; 2. Ties that bind and even constrict: why authoritarians tolerate electoral reforms; 3. Mexico's national electoral justice success: from oxymoron to legal norm in just over a decade; 4. Mexico's local electoral justice failures: gubernatorial (s)election beyond the shadows of the law; 5. The gap between law and practice: institutional failure and opposition success in postelectoral conflicts, 1989–2000; 6. The National Action Party: dilemmas of rightist oppositions defined by authoritarian collusion; 7. The party of the democratic revolution: from postelectoral movements to electoral competitors; 8. Dedazo from the center to finger pointing from the periphery: PRI hard-liners challenge Mexico's electoral institutions; 9. A quarter century of 'Mexicanization': lessons from a protracted transition; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...a detailed and thorough account of the gradual transition to democracy in Mexico that focuses on the roles played by the two main opposition parties...provides a wealth of data...makes important contributions to our understanding of the complex and varied conditions under which democracy can be implemented, especially in his discussion of the interplay between formal and informal institutions." M.T. Kenney, Austin Peay State University, Choice

"Eisenstadt's book is a remarkably detailed and comprehensive analysis of Mexico's "protracted" move away from a single-party authoritarian system." Latin American Politics and Society, Emily Edmonds-Poli, University of San Diego

"Meticulously researched and theoretically rich, Eisenstadt's book provides the most extensive account we are likely to see of the interaction between national-level elites—from both regime and opposition—and party activists at the state and local levels as the opposition parties began to seriously contest elections in the late 1980s and 1990s." Political Science Quarterly, Joseph L. Klesner, Kenyon College

From the Publisher