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March 4 - 5 Conference

What Kind of Democracy Has Mexico? The Evolution of Presidentialism and Federalism

This initiative is made possible with the generous support of the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

March 6 San Diego Union-Tribune article on conference: "Mexico's presidency called one of the weakest in Latin America"

Agenda (PDF)
Agenda (HTML)

Matthew Soberg Shugart and Jeffrey Weldon, Organizers

In less than a decade, the Mexican political system has evolved from being one of the most unusual authoritarian systems in the world to being one of the most unusual democracies in the world. The current period represents Mexico’s first experience with a presidency from a party other than the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which held all political power for over seven decades until 2000. This conference, and the book that it will lead to, is aimed at deepening understanding of how political institutions and parties are shaping the evolving democratic system in Mexico as the country approaches its next national elections in 2006.

For decades, Mexico’s political system confounded political science. Mexico held regular elections, had reasonably orderly transitions from one presidency to another, and mostly worked within a constitution resembling that of its northern neighbor. Yet one party completely dominated; Mexico was authoritarian, but not ruled by its military like many other Latin American countries in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the 1990s and especially after 2000, the picture has changed dramatically. With fluid three-party competition, Mexico’s political system is now unmistakably democratic.

The conference and book will explore the emerging new roles for competing political parties, executive–legislative bargaining, and state governors, all operating within a constitutional framework that is largely unchanged since the days of single-party hegemony. The participants in the conference include leading political scientists who specialize in Mexican and Latin American politics and in the comparative analysis of democratic institutions.

Participants:

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