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This paper seeks to understand how political ambition plays out in Mexico's federal system where incumbency does not exist because of the constitutional prohibition against consecutive reelection. Using a unique dataset of the prior career paths and ex- post political positions of almost 1,000 federal deputies, this paper finds that Mexico's federal system is much more like that of Argentina and Brazil, and much less like that of the United States in that political ambition (constrained by the nation's formal rules and informal relations) leads the professional politician to begin her political career in the local and state political arenas, and then return to her state when the single three-year term in the Chamber of Deputies concludes. Our empirical analysis estimates the effect of deputies' personal features, prior positions, district types, party labels, and electoral calendar on two types of career choices: the type of position (elected, bureaucratic, or party post) and the position level (municipal, state or national) with multinomial regression models. Results indicate that younger deputies from plurality seats systematically seek elected offices at local levels of government. Experience in local or national positions correspondingly leads to bureaucratic positions in the same political arenas. Partisan affinity with state governors affects the likelihood of getting a non-elected position but not its level, whereas local election calendars affect the future position levels but not its type. PAN deputies are more likely to get bureaucratic and national level appointments than PRI deputies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Zedillo administration in Mexico, the federal government established a formula for distribution to states and municipalities of resources for social infrastructure. The question this paper seeks to answer is wheather the political bias previously observed in PRONASOL is eliminated with the new scheme. This paper uses municipal level data on a Mexican decentralized social program to test for political manipulation in its municipal distribution by the state governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reframes urban informality as a socially produced space. With this framework, I analyze and discuss informality and its policy implications in Mexican cities. I argue that through regularization policy, the main strategy to approach informality in Mexico, the informal space has been partitioned. Placing regularization at the center of governmental strategies addressing urban informality constrains informality to its legal definition. Conversely, understanding informality as a way of life, as a place of political and economical interaction, as a framework of social experience and symbolic representations and as a space containing all these dimensions, may help in drawing a clearer picture of the informal space and in turn better inform the policy to tackle it. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the literature on indigenous political mobilization in Latin America is now quite extensive, relatively little has been published on why ethnic mobilization has not occurred in some indigenous regions. In this paper, I examine a case where there is very little mobilization and organization around ethnic identity: Yucatán, Mexico. I begin with a political history of Yucatán, comparing and contrasting it with neighboring Chiapas state. I then argue that ethnic mobilization in Yucatán is significantly limited by a lack of robust organizational networks available to potential activists. ..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 isolated effect of religious affiliation does not always explain affinities of left-wingers. A solution for this lack is proposed in this paper, where I provide specific individual-level measures that were designed and collected for the first time in Mexico in order to explain preferences in the political spectrum, such as religious awareness, preferences for a horizontal Church, and the political effect of the Holy Masses. The dependent variable in the analysis is party identification with the three major parties and independent respondents, using several religious dimensions as explanatory variables, demographic measures and religious leader's opinions, where identification with the PRI is influenced by religiosity, a stronger preference in favor of religious politics, and conservative moral values; variables as horizontal Church and good opinions about the main Cardinal in the country play in favor of the PAN; and religious awareness, Catholic Church Structure, horizontal Church and political Masses have a positive impact in the identification with the PRD. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I use experimental methods to analyze the effect of both voters and electoral candidates' phenotypic appearance on the voters' evaluation of electoral candidates, in contexts where race isn't a clear line of political/social conflict. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the centralization processes in Mexico and Russia. In this paper, the author traces and compares the development of the centralization processes that occurred in Russia from 2000-present and in Mexico from the revolution of 1910 to the eventual reversal of the country's tightly centralized system in the 1990s. The study demonstrates how the structure and strength of parties of power resulted in a shift in the balance of power between the center and regions and supports Riker's contention that federal institutions oftentimes take a back seat to other political factors in determining the actual distribution of power and resources within a federal polity.

This paper discusses how new democratic elites deal with bureaucracies inherited from authoritarian past. It is argued that both old regime trends and new regime agendas explain differences in timing and scope of administrative reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization under the neoliberal paradigm has reduced the role of state intervention in global markets, and in the process reconfigured state/society interactions at the domestic level. These new forms of politics create the possibility of “globalization from below,” social movements that resist the logic and priorities of the global market by seeking to create autonomous political structures from the grassroots up. This paper will examine the case of the Zapatista autonomy movement in Chiapas, which began at the municipal level in 1994 and expanded into regional structures of autonomous government announced in 2003. The evolution of this movement will be analyzed in relation to changing responses by the Mexican state and global capital. In the comparative context of other new political movements confronting neoliberalism in Latin America–such as landless rural workers (MST) in Brazil, indigenous groups in Ecuador (CONAIE), and mobilizations against privatization and austerity in Bolivia and Argentina–the Zapatista movement can help understand the politics of organizing to confront global capital as the state recedes. The research draws on over a dozen stays in Zapatista communities as a human rights observer since 1994; and particularly in the Montes Azules region, which is the current center of conflict in Chiapas between local priorities and global marketing of commodities such as biodiversity and hydraulic resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization under the neoliberal paradigm has reduced the role of state intervention in global markets, and in the process reconfigured state/society interactions at the domestic level. These new forms of politics create the possibility of “globalization from below,” social movements that resist the logic and priorities of the global market by seeking to create autonomous political structures from the grassroots up. This paper will examine the case of the Zapatista autonomy movement in Chiapas, which began at the municipal level in 1994 and expanded into regional structures of autonomous government announced in 2003. The evolution of this movement will be analyzed in relation to changing responses by the Mexican state and global capital. In the comparative context of other new political movements confronting neoliberalism in Latin America–such as landless rural workers (MST) in Brazil, indigenous groups in Ecuador (CONAIE), and mobilizations against privatization and austerity in Bolivia and Argentina–the Zapatista movement can help understand the politics of organizing to confront global capital as the state recedes. The research draws on over a dozen stays in Zapatista communities as a human rights observer since 1994; and particularly in the Montes Azules region, which is the current center of conflict in Chiapas between local priorities and global marketing of commodities such as biodiversity and hydraulic resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the results of fieldwork conducted in Mexico and Guatemala. Analytically, it looks at differences in the modes of participation of women as high-level negotiators in the peace processes in these countries in the 1990s. How do women behave in negotiations? Are women likely to push for policies that promote women's needs? Do they promote peace agreements that address women's victimization in war? I then use this analysis to re-examine the inclusion of women in the negotiation processes: I argue that without an understanding of what and how claims are made for women's inclusion, we risk jeopardizing the ultimate goals of both conflict transformation and women's inclusion. This paper provides a forum for discussing wider assumptions made regarding women in politics and about conflict resolution processes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epp's 'Rights Revolution' theory provides a compelling appraisal of the rise of rights protection in national policy making. He argues that the expansion of rights litigation in the agendas of high courts in four countries -the U.S., England, Canada and India-, results chiefly from the existence of a support structure in society to bring the cases to court, to finance the costs of litigation, and to encourage popular support for an expansion of rights. In this paper we seek to expand Epp's analysis by filling the gap produced by his methodological shortcomings and introducing Australia, Philippines and Mexico into the analysis. The preliminary results discussed in this paper show that one's conclusions about the existence and extent of a rights revolution in these countries can be sensitive to slight data and methodological issues. Further consideration of England and India reflects a picture of rights protection that differs from Epp's in significant respects. Moreover, a look at Australia, The Philippines and Mexico cast doubt on the leverage provided by the rights-support structure hypothesis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using negative binomial models and data on pro- and anti-Zapatista protest activity from 1994 to 2003, I test some of the claims made in the literature about the dynamics that exist between movement and countermovement actors. The results show that movement and countermovement protests may have no significant effect on one-another when one side has very concrete economic claims, like was the case of the anti-Zapatista protesting actors. Movement and countermovement actors did not discriminate against political parties in power. Their protests were as likely to occur when a political ally or opponent was in power and they tended to decreased as time passed. Neither relevant events around the movement nor media attention on the conflict were significant protest triggers for either of the groups. The most significant factor influencing protest activity of both sides of the conflict were the partial concessions granted to the Zapatistas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior backgrounds and the political experience of legislators can serve as cues to caucus leaders to reduce adverse selection problems in a legislature where seniority cannot be the basis of allocating committee leadership posts. Caucus leaders must delegate a certain amount of decision-making power to committees because of legislative rules, thus creating potential agency loss. Since some committees are more important than others, the risk of delegating authority to the chairs of a "major" panel is greater than that of the "burden" committees. If this is true, we should see significantly different political backgrounds between major and burden committee leaders. Using a dataset of 1,391 federal deputies from the three major political parties (PAN, PRI, and PRD) that were elected to the Mexican Chamber of Deputies between 1997 and 2006, we estimate the determinants of attaining a committee leadership position. Our evidence indicates that better educated legislators, as well as those with bureaucratic experience at the state or federal levels are significantly more likely to lead a major committee than those who lead a burden committee. Legislative experience has no effect on major committee leadership. Being affiliated with a national corporatist organization facilitates a leadership post on "issue" committees. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior backgrounds and the political experience of legislators can serve as cues to caucus leaders to reduce adverse selection problems in a legislature where seniority cannot be the basis of allocating committee leadership posts. Caucus leaders must delegate a certain amount of decision-making power to committees because of legislative rules, thus creating potential agency loss. Since some committees are more important than others, the risk of delegating authority to the chairs of a "major" panel is greater than that of the "burden" committees. If this is true, we should see significantly different political backgrounds between major and burden committee leaders. Using a dataset of 1,391 federal deputies from the three major political parties (PAN, PRI, and PRD) that were elected to the Mexican Chamber of Deputies between 1997 and 2006, we estimate the determinants of attaining a committee leadership position. Our evidence indicates that better educated legislators, as well as those with bureaucratic experience at the state or federal levels are significantly more likely to lead a major committee than those who lead a burden committee. Legislative experience has no effect on major committee leadership. Being affiliated with a national corporatist organization facilitates a leadership post on "issue" committees. ..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]

Mexico is notorious for its endemic problem of police corruption. Unfortunately, the willingness of police to accept bribes has done much more than simply deprive municipal governments of revenue. Police corruption has led to impunity for criminals and organized crime, undermined the rule of law, increased the gap between citizens and their police, and promoted a culture of illegality. This empirical reality is somewhat puzzling: given the mission of the police, efforts to improve the integrity of law enforcement, and over 3,000 different departments, why have only a handful of Mexican police departments managed to professionalize? To answer this question, I explore a case study of one of Mexico's few success stories, the Municipal Department of Public Security (DSPM) of Chihuahua City and compare it with the experiences of other cities in Northern Mexico. I find that the primary difference between Chihuahua and other municipalities has been continuity in leadership and policies. Such continuity has been unattainable in other municipalities where the informal rules of Mexican politics dictate that mayors appoint new police leaders and develop new policies attributable only to their administration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the "Americanization" of Latin American electioneering, few scholars have systematically studied Latin American presidential campaigns or compared them to those in the US. In this study, in contrast, we draw on research on US presidential campaigns to develop a series of testable hypotheses that can be applied to Latin America's presidential nations. Statistical analysis of municipal-level candidate campaign appearances during Mexico's 2006 presidential race is used to test the hypotheses. The analysis reveals that all parties focused candidate campaign visits on large municipalities. However, Mexico's three main parties - the PAN, PRD, and PRI - differed in how they approached municipal-level partisan bastions, inter-party competition, and electoral volatility, with campaign strategy variation depending mostly on the party's organizational structure. In the end, the analysis conducted here shows the theoretical reach of US-based campaign strategy theories, as well as how they can be adapted to explain cross-partisan campaign techniques. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: Drawing on a survey of over 4,000 respondents, this article argues that, contrary to claims by the 1994 Zapatista insurgency, indigenous and non-indigenous respondents in southern Mexico have been united more by socioeconomic and land tenure institution variables than by ethnic identity. Based on statistical models it concludes that in rural southern Mexico, ethnicity alone was less important in shaping peoples' attitudes than whether the dominant land tenure institutions are the "communitarian" state-penetrated ejidos of Chiapas, or the more "individualist" so-called communal lands of Oaxaca. It concludes by affirming that - contrary to many analysts of Chiapas' 1994 indigenous rebellion - external influences (here state-established land tenure institutions) can trump ideology in framing social movements. Rural Chiapas' prevalent communitarian attitudes would seem to have resulted partly from exogenous land tenure institutions (here the more communitarian collective farm or "ejido"), rather than from endogenous indigenous identities alone, as claimed by Zapatista advocates and many scholars. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This presentation analyzes the complicated judicial process before and after the 2001 Yucatan Gubernatorial elections and shows that even after the historical 2000 Presidential Elections Mexican electoral system has flaws at local level. [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]

Economic downturns, armed rebellion, natural disasters, crime waves, political assassinations and scandals are among the numerous crises that have been afflicted upon Mexican citizens over the last several decades. Under conditions in which crises loom or have been realized, citizens' often turn to strong, charismatic leaders who appear capable of handling the given crisis. Deep national crises often coincide with the rise of highly charismatic leaders, such as Juan Perón and Adolf Hitler. Yet even in less extreme conditions, we assert that political leaders can come to be seen as more charismatic and as stronger leaders. To test for such effects, we turn to the 2006 Mexican presidential election. The 2006 Mexican election and its aftermath was a context characterized, at least for many, by conditions of crisis. Some of the issues over which the public was concerned include the political crisis that resulted from uncertainty over the winner of the election, the economy, and crime. In this paper, we argue that individuals who had negative evaluations of the general situation of the country, the economy, and the election should project greater leadership and charismatic qualities onto López Obrador, in part because he was a challenger to the incumbent party. Meanwhile, evaluations of Calderón's leadership and charisma may suffer among those with negative evaluations. We test these arguments using data from the 2006 CSES-CIDE study. We find strong support for our arguments, even after controlling for other factors that might influence these evaluations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade social development policy in Mexico has experienced substantial changes. Explicit rules for distribution, decentralization and the dissemination of information on programs' norms, outcomes and impacts have taken place during this time. A relevant question to ask is if these changes have had an effect on the politics of distribution of government resources. In this paper I review some of the modifications that took place in social development policy design and accountability at the Mexican federal government during the past ten years and then I test for different hypothesis on political strategies on public expenditures' distribution. In the programs analyzed here I find that political variables have had limited influence on the distribution of resources at the municipal level and that programs differences in this respect may depend on program characteristics and rules of allocation. ..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]

In recent years, comparative analyses of presidential regimes have paid more attention to what Guillermo O'Donnell labeled as "horizontal accountability". My paper deals with the idea of "horizontal accountability" in general, but focuses on a very specific aspect: the ability of legislators to review public accounts. I show that the effectiveness of balance of powers in developing presidential regimes hinges upon the capability of legislators to propose, execute and follow up on penalties to bureaucratic agencies. Taking information from five Mexican states, I show preliminary evidence of how the political competition determines the incentives to control bureaucratic agencies and how these incentives also affect the organizational characteristics and resources of auditing institutions. I also show some of the limitations legislators face to enforce sanctions and in so doing, I demonstrate that recent legislative reforms that expand the auditing or oversight responsibilities of legislatures ended irrelevant for the actual balance of powers between the executive and the legislature. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Split-ticket voting has been seldom analyzed in Mexican elections. Evidence shows that about 20% of the electorate engaged in some type of split-ticket voting, and suggests that it might have played a role in Vicente Fox's victory in 2000. This paper seeks to address this question and shed light on some relevant questions. Why did such a large proportion of Mexican voters split their tickets on this particular election? What were the motivations behind their decision? Were they only seeking to oust PRI? Were they seeking to balance government? Or did they just simply knew one presidential candidate better than the others? To answer them, I review the literature and group the explanations in three general hypotheses: the Madisonian hypotheses (i.e. voters split their vote to insure checks and balances in government or to achieve some policy balance), the Expected Utility Maximization hypothesis (i.e. voters will reward the candidate with the highest expected utility differential based on economic performance), and the Relative Uncertainty hypothesis (i.e. voters will split their ticket when they are less uncertain about the positions of a party and about the traits of a candidate from a different party). I derive seven Implications from them and test them using survey data from the 2000 Mexican election. The evidence supports the Expected Utility maximization and the Relative Uncertainty hypotheses, but it fails to support any Madisonian motivations in the electorate. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparing Argentina and Mexico this paper aims to analyze the relationship between transformations in their federal governmental structures and changes experienced in the way in which president and governors negotiate about public policy issues. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of FDI on the Mexican banking sector. Results show that foreign entry had a positive but limited impact on sector development. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an original database covering 50 countries, this paper explores the causes and consequences of market concentration. Focusing on Mexico, it shows that market concentration leads to higher prices and slower economic growth. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the passage of several landmark reforms in 1999, it is generally believed that the deputies of the LVII (1997-2000) Legislature accomplished their goal of dismantling the PRI's institutional advantages, endowing former opposition parties with a much greater capacity to meaningfully contribute to policy production. By objectively examining roll call voting records for the LVIII (2000 - 2003) and LIX (2003 - 2006) Legislatures, this analysis confirms these general beliefs, providing evidence which strongly suggests that agenda control within the Chamber has indeed undergone a remarkable process of democratization. At the same time, however, the results do not seem to support the idea that the PRI has suffered a dramatic decline in its legislative influence. In fact, because of its privileged position as the median party, the PRI still enjoys substantial agenda control, forming Chamber coalitions to ensure that the majority of bills passed are those which it supports. ..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]

We explore the institutional channels subnational governments have used to further their interests nationally and influence federal policies, thus, revealing the reasons underlying why some governments are more active in this respect than others. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]