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This article evaluates the evolution of democratic federalism in Mexico through a case study of central government involvement in the selection and removal of governors in the state of Yucatan. The research address debates regarding the nature of federalism in authoritarian systems and on the dynamics of democratization in a federal context. First, it challenges conventional characterizations of state politicians in authoritarian systems as submissive and lacking autonomy vis-a-vis the centre. Instead, the case demonstrates that regional political bosses can exercise an important constraint on the powers of national-level rulers by requiring that they select governors acceptable to local political elites. A second issue is to what extent national or subnational political change drives transitions from authoritarian rule. Recent literature on the Mexican case has emphasized the impact of state and local democratization on national-level change. In contrast, this study's analysis of reforms in the ...

This article compares the failed military coups in Ecuador (2000) and Venezuela (2002) with the successful 1999 military putsch in Pakistan in order to identify what factors affect coup outcomes in third-wave democracies. The unity of the armed forces in support of the Pakistani coup, and its division in the two Latin American cases, are critical in explaining the divergent outcomes. In turn, the degree of cohesion within the military in each case was affected by perceptions of domestic support and international reaction to military rule. In Ecuador and Venezuela there was greater public antipathy for military rule and stronger international opposition. This increased the armed forces' perceptions of the costs of governing, fostering divisions within the officer corps that ultimately scuttled the coups. In contrast, the successful coup in Pakistan was largely attributable to the unified military, which was a product of greater domestic and international tolerance of military rule.

This article evaluates the implementation of Mexico's Municipal Reform of 1983 in three states: Chihuahua, Oaxaca and Yucatán. The research focuses on one element of the reform, the transfer of public services from the state to the municipal level. The case studies were selected to examine the impact of two key variables on reform outcomes: fiscal capacity and partisan control of state and municipal governments. Counter to expectations, the reform has not advanced more in municipalities with greater fiscal capacity. Also counter to expectations, there is no evidence that devolution advanced more in municipalities controlled by the opposition. This is due to the fact that state governors have a high degree of discretion that allows them to block implementation for partisan motives rather than rational/technical ones. The Municipal Reform of 1999 attempts to remedy this problem by limiting gubernatorial discretion while increasing the legal recourse municipalities have in soliciting the transfer of services. This recourse includes filing suit before the Mexican Supreme Court.

In the wake of Mexico's electoral watershed of 2 July 2000, many scholars are willing to classify the country as an electoral democracy, yet debate persists over whether Mexican democracy is consolidated. This article seeks to advance this debate by clarifying the meaning of the term democratic ‘consolidation’ and how it should be operationalised. It argues that the concept should refer exclusively to a regime with a low probability of democratic breakdown. This avoids the conceptual confusion created by viewing consolidation as any change that improves the quality of democracy. In terms of measuring consolidation, it maintains the importance of placing greater weight on the proximate cause of regime instability, anti‐democratic behaviour, and discounting more remote causes of democratic breakdown, including economic performance, institution building, and attitudinal support. Based on this understanding, the article explains why Mexican democracy is fully consolidated.