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Electoral institutions in democratic states produce incentives for politicians to manipulate economic policy for electoral gain. A growing literature on political institutions in non-democratic states has begun to focus on the effects of these institutions on political and economic systems. Recently, Gandhi and Przeworski (2001) have argued that democratic institutions function by giving support to the autocratic regimes in which they are embedded. If non-democratic institutions are functional, the natural question is whether or not they are consequential. Do democratic institutions have political and economic consequences in non-democratic states that are analogous to those of democratic institutions in democratic states? I argue that the answer to this question is yes, and build on the literature on political business cycles (PBCs) to explain how. Elections in non-democratic regimes bestow legitimacy on the ruling government by purportedly demonstrating its widespread popular support. Ruling parties in non-democratic regimes are interested in maximizing their perceived legitimacy among the population, as such legitimacy gives them free reign to pursue their policy objectives with a minimal amount of domestic opposition. Whereas some authoritarian regimes with a tight control over the press and the exchange of information can create the illusion of a wide popular mandate, other non-democratic regimes must resort to more subtle political means to garner high levels of popular support. I focus on the latter group, which Levitsky and Way (2002:53) refer to as “competitive authoritarian regimes,” where conditions are ideal for the manipulation of economic policy for electoral gain. With the significant informational asymmetry regarding macroeconomic policy in the government’s favor, I predict that non-democratic regimes manipulate fiscal policy to create popular support for the incumbent regime. I demonstrate the applicability of this reasoning with a study of fiscal decision-making accompanying the 1982 presidential elections in Mexico. Turning to a longitudinal study, I develop a more rigorous test of the hypothesis through a time-series analyses of the political and economic correlates of national account balances in Malaysia. Employing an autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model and adjusting for seasonal effects, I find a robust association between elections and lower quarterly budgetary surpluses from the years 1967 to 1997. At least in Malaysia, non-democratic regimes are characterized not simply by an unresponsive government, but rather by a dynamic political process. This paper contributes to comparative politics in two ways. By focusing on some of the more observable implications of economic policy manipulation in a well-defined population of states, this model lends itself to empirical verification, often difficult in the study of non-democratic states. My study also demonstrates ways in which researchers might conceive of the relationship between authoritarian regimes and the populations that they govern, illuminating directions in which the study of non-democratic governance might proceed in the future. References Gandhi, Jennifer, and Adam Przeworski. 2001. “Dictatorial Institutions and the Survival of Dictators.” Paper presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco. Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way. 2002. “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism.” Journal of Democracy 13(2). pp. 51-65. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a lot of interest in how party primaries affect the characteristics of candidates, most work has focused on U.S. presidential candidates, limiting scholars’ ability to compare the effects of primaries across large numbers of candidates. The gap is understandable, as it is rare for parties to use different selection methods simultaneously across districts. In new democracies, more experimentation takes place. One such case is Mexico, where the two largest parties used a variety of selection procedures to choose their 2006 candidates for plurality district seats, from open primaries to designation by the national leadership. Since re-election is prohibited, there were no unopposed incumbents. This paper looks at how selection methods affect the candidates chosen, drawing on two surveys, of congressional candidates prior to the 2006 election and of congressional deputies in March 2008. Since the decision to hold a primary is separate from who wins the primary election, I use a Heckman two-stage model to control for selection sample bias. The paper analyzes whether candidates selected in primaries are systematically more moderate or more extreme than the median candidate for each party. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a discussion of three questions central to the practice of indigenous autonomy in southern Mexico. Why did the federal government grant it? Is it consistent with liberal democratic principles? Does it benefit indigenous Mexicans? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper relaxes the informational assumptions of Weingast's (1997) model of democratic stability by applying the solution concept of quantal response equilibrium (QRE). Case studies of The American Colonies, Mexico, and China illustrate the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The democratic transition and consolidation literatures recognize the key role that civil society plays in the consolidation and deepening of electoral democracy. As a corollary, societies with a weak civil society will have a difficult time consolidating an already vulnerable democracy. This then begs the question, how can civil society be encouraged to grow? Civil society can be encouraged to develop indirectly through a variety of mechanisms including funding for civil society organizations and tax deduction laws that create legal incentives. However, in some Mexican states controlled by the PAN, state governments have tried to create civil society directly by establishing neighborhood committees to mediate between government and society. The neighborhood committees are intended to build consensus about desired infrastructure projects, petition the government accordingly, and mobilize resources to pay for projects. This paper seeks to determine whether these committees are a successful government led creation of civil society or merely a different form of the same government control that has plagued organization life in Mexico’s past? This study proposes a survey of, and selected interviews with, the presidents of Tijuana’s neighborhood communities. Controlling for income and service levels, the study examines democratic practices within the committees, links to other civil society organizations, and their relationships with the PAN lead government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses evidence from Mexico to test two competing visions about how democracy produces responsive government. Electoral theories of democracy, such as accountability theory, posit that democracies are responsive to the public interest because citizens are able to use elections as a means of controlling politicians. Participatory theories explain levels of responsiveness as a function of a citizenry?s ability to articulate demands and influence government through a wider range of political action. I test hypotheses derived from these two theories, using an original dataset that combines electoral, socioeconomic, public-financial, and demographic indicators for virtually all of Mexico?s 2400 municipalities, from 1980 to 2000. Although most recent research on Mexico has emphasized the importance of elections as instruments of democracy, my data show that electoral competition has little effect on municipal government performance. Non-electoral forms of participation, on the other hand, are closely and strongly correlated with government performance. Most surprisingly, the data show no evidence of an interactive effect: a competitive electoral environment does not appear to be a necessary condition for participation to be influential. I argue that Mexico?s institutional context is responsible for the failure of elections to influence government responsiveness in Mexican municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rising literature on voting behavior emphasizes a “two step” model (originally argued by Dominguez and McCann in Democratizing Mexico), where a voter first examines their attitudes toward the dominant party and then towards their personal economic or personal interests. However, there are divergent findings from tests of this model, and there are methodological differences that limit our ability to make consistent conclusions. In this paper, we reexamine the validity of the “two-step” argument using data from the 2000 Mexico and 2006 Paraguay elections and employ methods we argue are more appropriate for these tests: 1) a mixed logistic estimation and 2) statistical backwards induction. From the mixed logistic regression, we conclude that voters in nations with hegemonic parties confer greater importance to the image of the dominant party, confirming the “two step” model. From the statistical backwards induction analysis, we confirm that the existence of the two steps respond to strategic considerations of voters. These findings have relevant implications for transitions to a multi-party democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The organization of fair elections requires impartial and independent electoral management bodies. This paper analyses the impact of electoral competition on the independence of state level electoral institutions in Mexico, an emerging democracy. We posit a simple model where increased political competition in local elections leads to more independent electoral management bodies through various mechanisms at different stages of a democratization processâ??noting that competition in local, state assembly or gubernatorial elections do not produce the same incentives for electoral reform among all political parties. We develop an original index of the independence of electoral institutions for the Mexican states during the 1990 to 2004 period, and analyze a number of measures of political competition to assess some of the hypotheses derived from our model. Results indicate that increased competitiveness in governor and legislative races leads to more independent electoral institutions, whereas competition in municipal races does not. Increased competition from some political parties elicits larger increases in independence than others. We also find that, as the number of effective political parties increase, the pressure for further electoral reform eventually settles down. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the impact of democratic governance on the pension reforms in Mexico. The country's regime transition to democracy seems to have little effect on pension reforms. The democratic transition did not significantly improve the capability of the National Union of Workers of the Social Security and its labor allies to resist important socioeconomic reforms set forth by the government. This could be attributed to several factors, which includes the lack of popular support for independent labor's discourse.

Analysis of panel data from Brazil, Mexico, and Russia suggests that presidential campaigns have ambiguous effects on inequalities in mass-level political knowledge. In all three campaigns, the gap in political knowledge between individuals with fewer socioeconomic resources and those with more resources stayed the same or widened. At the same time, less affluent, less educated citizens who paid a great deal of attention to the campaign learned more than equally attentive high-status citizens. These findings suggest that electoral campaigns have the potential to mitigate the knowledge gap, even if they fail to do so in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political acculturation remains a topic of substantial interest to both scholars and policy-makers. In this article, we draw on data from the Democracy through U.S. and Mexican Lenses Project and the Latino National Political Survey to analyze the relative ?stickiness? of political attitudes among Mexican-origin people in the United States. We find that some differences in political attitudes and behavior are small or evanescent, but other differences persist even when demographic factors are taken into account. In general, political acculturation seems to be more thorough on elements of democratic process whose results are more tangible and whose operation is more easily understood. By contrast, large differences between the Mexican-origin population and non-Mexican Americans persist for more subtle or intensive elements of the political process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between political parties' performance in government and effective democratic governance. It provides a theoretical framework for the study of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On what basis voters select political leaders affects the quality, and potentially the durability, of new democracies. Not surprisingly, standard models of vote choice, which include policy stances, performance evaluations, and candidate trait appraisals as predictive variables, typically demonstrate that candidate appraisals have a predominant effect on voting behavior in new democratic contexts. Such findings appear in accord with the notion that voters in new democracies are lured to vote for the most charismatic or charming personality, who is then allowed to “govern as he or she sees fit (O’Donnell 1994, p. 59).” While scholars have studied the nature of the candidate trait vote in advanced democracies, primarily the United States, little is known about the processes that underlie this behavior in new democracies. Is this type of voting indicative of an ignorant, ill-prepared, or even non-rational voter, or is there something more substantial to the candidate trait vote in newly democratic contexts? In this paper I draw on studies of voting behavior in advanced industrialized countries to first argue that candidate trait appraisals, in any democratic setting, are comprised of three elements – superficial assessments, policy stances, and performance evaluations. I then develop and test the following hypotheses, using Mexico’s newly democratized context as one representative new democratic case: first, that candidate trait appraisals in Mexico are based, at least in part, on policy stances and performance evaluations; second, that sophistication affects the relationship between substantive factors and candidate trait appraisals; and, third, that sophistication conditions the impact of candidate trait appraisals on the vote choice. The data that I use are from the 2000 Mexico Panel Study. The results support the contention that voters do weight substantive factors, particularly performance evaluations, into their appraisals of candidates’ traits. The results also show that there is a greater tendency among more sophisticated individuals to relate policy stances to candidate trait appraisals. And, finally, while political sophistication does not condition the impact of candidate trait appraisals on the vote, education does, but in an unexpected manner. In conclusion, the results show that the emerging literature on vote choice in new democratic settings must take into account the endogenous nature of candidate trait appraisals, else risk overlooking the total substantive basis of vote choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, Mexican politics has been characterized by electoral competition and government turnover. Although the literature on democratization and public good provision would argue that this political scenario is expected to translate into a wider provision of public goods, evidence illustrates that in some Mexican states the result is the opposite. This paper focuses on the institutional characteristics of the Mexican federalism that work as a mediating factor on the end result at the local level to shed light on this matter. We contend that in order to analyze the true effects of increased competition and competitiveness on the provision of public goods, it is necessary to go beyond the national level approach, and look at differences at the state and local levels. By studying changes in the provision of education, health and poverty relief benefits at the state level as a result of changes in party competition and competitiveness, we hope to contribute to the literature on democratization and public good provision. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, elections have sparked mass demonstrations in a range of developing countries from Ukraine, to Mexico, to Zimbabwe. When political parties take to the streets to protest the results or conduct of an election should we have hope for democratic progress, or do such actions have dangerous consequences for fragile democracies? This paper examines the consequences of election-related protests for political stability. First, the immediate consequences of post-election protest are investigated, in terms of violence, international reactions, and immediate government responses. Next, the potential for post-election protest to lead to democratic interruption, regime breakdown, or some sort of democratic compromise is assessed. First establishing the causes of election-related protest, allows the employment of a matching method so that instances of post-election protest are compared to similar cases where protest did not occur. This method has the advantage of addressing some of the problems of endogeniety inherent to the causes and consequences of protest. Based on this matching method, the consequences of post-election protest are mixed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do citizens in new democracies respond when they perceive that democracy is failing to attenuate social inequality and ameliorate poverty? Do they stop voting? Do they disengage from politics? Or do they channel their political activity outside institutional means? Using data from an original, nationwide survey (buttressed by secondary sources), this paper addresses these questions in Mexico. There are two routes through which social inequality affects political participation. First, inequality spreads unevenly the material and cognitive resources that enable people to participate meaningfully in politics. Second, perceptions of persistent inequality discourage citizens, especially “substantive” democrats who see democracy as greater socioeconomic equality, who come to believe that institutional participation is futile. Some withdraw from politics; a few protest. I examine the effect of social inequality and satisfaction with democracy on voting, institutional civic engagement, and contentious politics. The dissatisfied vote less and are also otherwise less civically engaged, and protest more. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prediction by Modernization theorists about the fading of religion in politics failed toaccount for an emergence of religious conflicts that translate into the electoral arena innew democracies. In this paper we show evidence that a religious cleavage may begaining centrality in the Mexican party system. Long dominated by a one-party rule,Mexican politics is increasingly driven by moral issues and religious symbols in politicsthat mobilize a religious vote. In addition, the governing PAN with links to theinternational Christian Democratic movement, is increasingly favored by the country'sCatholic structure and voters. We analyze individual and aggregate level data to showthat an old religious conflict in Mexico, as well as new manifestations of religiosity, is reemergingin the electoral arena. Our primary evidence comes from the Mexican samplesof the World Values Survey conducted in 2000 and 2005, and from national exit pollstaken during the 2000 and 2006 presidential elections. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mexicans' rapid, deep disenchantment with their democracy is puzzling. Normally, the "reservoir of good will" that newly democratized regimes enjoy enables them to overcome performance deficits. This paper marshalls evidence from an original survey, Desencanto Ciudadano en México, to argue that part of the reason for the quick disillusionment is a prevalent "substantive" conception of democracy emphasizing socioeconomic improvement and equality, combined with poor government performance in precisely those areas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the consequences of political knowledge for citizens' participation in politics and for political tolerance and preference for democracy in Mexico. The findings show that political knowledge is a resource more abundant among the more educated and the wealthier Mexicans. While it is positively associated with participation in national politics, its effects on local participation are uncertain. The more politically knowledgeable are also more tolerant, and they prefer democracy in greater degree than their less aware fellow citizens. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to political and economic transitions in Latin America beginning in the 1970s, a third transition involves a marked increase in violent crime. The problem has reached the point that surveys in the region typically rank public insecurity among the top two or three issues of concern to respondents. This paper explores the relationships between violent crime and democracy in Mexico, which is a deviant case in the region. In all the other cases examined, violent crime increased with democratic transitions, but in Mexico the homicide rate actually fell substantially between 1993 and 2001. We find that violent crime is correlated with support for democracy at the attitudinal level. While we can link attitudes with behavior in some respects, we are unable to connect attitude with behavior with respect to voter abstention. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After Mexico's transition to democracy, why have legislators not amended the constitution to pursue long-term careers in Congress? My paper examines legislators' preferences about consecutive-terms reelection. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's perception of the responsiveness of the political system affects the way that citizens approve the president. In an autocratic regime such as the PRI hegemony (93-00), citizens tend to focus their attention on economic problems such as unemployment when they evaluate the president. In the emerging Mexican democracy (01-06), political problems such as crime and corruption become more important when people examine the president's performance. This finding can be explained by a change in citizens' expectations of the president, the salience of crime as a national issue in Mexican politics since the mid-1990s, and the strong association in citizens' mind between the old PRI regime and corruption. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considers the effect that gestures of goodwill from state officials have on political attitudes in a post-authoritarian democracy. I conducted a field experiment in the Mexican state of Baja California, in which randomly selected individuals in the treatment group received a short letter from the state designed to improve residents' evaluation of government efforts to rehabilitate their neighborhoods. Overall, I find that a gesture of goodwill has a mixed effect on political attitudes relevant to democracy. While the treatment has a negative effect on levels of efficacy and evaluations of government performance, it also has a positive effect on willingness to become more involved in politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's perception of the responsiveness of the political system affects the way that voters approve the president and his policies. In an autocratic regime such as the PRI hegemony (89-00), citizens tend to focus their attention on the state of the economy and economic problems such as unemployment when they approve or reject the president and his policies. In the emerging Mexican democracy (00-06), political problems such as crime and corruption become important when voters examine the president's performance and policies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a cross-regionally comparative study on the determinants of the approval of migrants' political rights legislation at the sub-national level in Mexico and its implications for the democratic system. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four years after Mexico culminated its democratic transition, elation has turned to disenchantment. A two-wave poll is used to explore the causes and consequences of malaise. Dissatisfaction with may not reduce commitment to democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using original and secondary survey data, I show that Mexicans who are dissatisfied with democracy in their country vote and participate in other conventional ways less, while changing electoral preferences and protesting more. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The breakdown of Mexico's hegemonic party system raises questions about the nature of the new system and of the prospects of consolidating Mexican democracy. The concern addressed in this article is that, at the very same time that democratization has made Mexicans' electoral choices more significant, frequently changing party allegiances among candidates and even elected officials renders these choices less meaningful. Since parties "matter" in a democratic polity, party-switching may prove an impediment to the development of a liberal and stable democracy. Partisan shifts within the state congress of Morelos illustrate this point. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that the PRI's ability to resolve intra-elite conflict in a manner which included both rural and labor incorporation enabled the authoritarian regime to have such long-term resiliency over the course of the 20th century. Yet this very same incorporation, when combined with new international economic challenges in the 1990's, contributed to the controlled quality of Mexico's transition to democracy. The economic integration of Mexico created a catalyst for the eventual breakdown of the authoritarian regime. However, the initial rural and labor incorporation established following the Mexican Revolution ensured that the succeeding regime would take a democratic form, rather than an alternative authoritarian form, and that the transition would be comparatively temperate. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does Mexicans? declining satisfaction with democracy owe more to negative economic or political evaluations? Analyzing a two-wave panel with dynamic loglinear latent class models, I conclude democratic performance outweighs the economy. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]