Abstract
The dynamics of Mexican electoral competition provide a unique opportunity to compare policies undertaken during the seven-decade-old one-party system with multi-party policies. I test empirically whether the incumbents’ one-party policy choices change with three parties competing for office. I find that incumbents undertook the same policies before and after the institutional change, but there is a lower level of registered and perceived government corruption during the multi-party years.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
In Mexico, no office-holder re-election is allowed at any level of government.
Note that the median voter's preferred policy would be the same as the old-PRI policy choice only by chance, since absent electoral competition voters’ support becomes relatively unimportant.
Collective labor contracts, for example, can have indefinite duration and survive any firm management change.
Source of unionization statistic: US Department of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs.
The Associated Press, 27/08/2002.
The election of the union leader is not done via secret votes of workers, but instead is a controlled process in which, given the exclusion clause (a worker cannot work unless she belongs to the firm's union), workers’ votes are manipulated with political objectives (Revista Proceso 07/02/2002).
The entity in charge of dealing with labor conflicts is called ‘local conciliation board’; the state governor freely appoints and dismisses its members.
Consulta Mitofsky, www.consulta.com.mx
References
Becker, G . 1983: A theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 98 (3): 371–400.
Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo AC, http://www.cidac.org.
Fox, J . 1994: The difficult transition from clientelism to citizenship: lessons from Mexico. World Politics 42 (2): 151–184.
Hansen, S . 1975: Participation, political structure, and concurrence. American Political Science Review 69 (4): 1181–1199.
Haggard and Kaufman . 1995: The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions. Princeton University Press.
Klesner, JL . 2001: The end of Mexico's one-party regime. PS: Political Science and Politics 34 (1): 107–114.
Klesner, JL . 2005: Electoral competition and the new party system in Mexico. Latin American Politics and Society 47 (2): 103–142.
Mulligan, C, Gil, R and Sala-i-Martin, X . 2003: Do democracies have different public policies than nondemocracies? NBER Working paper no. 10040.
Myerson, RB . 1995: Analysis of democratic institutions: Structure, conduct and performance. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 9 (1): 77–89.
Osborne, JM and Rubinstein, A . 1998: A course in game theory. The MIT Press.
Peltzman, S . 1976: Toward a more general theory of regulation. Journal of Law and Economics 19 (2): 211–240.
Peltzman, S . 1980: The growth of government. Journal of Law and Economics 23 (2): 209–287.
Revista Proceso 7 February 2002, http://www.proceso.com.mx.
Stigler, G . 1971: The theory of economic regulation. Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science 2 (1): 3–21.
US Department of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs and US Embassy. 2002: Foreign labor trends, Mexico. Prepared and Released by US Department of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs and US Embassy, Mexico City.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Trevino, R. Coalitional Approach: An Analysis of Mexico's Political Change. Comp Econ Stud 53, 149–162 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/ces.2010.31
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ces.2010.31