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This paper analyzes and discusses the process of institutionalization of citizen participation in Mexican municipalities. The source for this exercise are the databases of Local Government Award (PGyGL) developed in the CIDE which analyze quantitatively and qualitatively the cases brought under the category of citizen participation. The aim is to discuss whether this involvement can be seen as a result of the change emerged in the process of transition towards a new institutional and whether it has instituted a practice of government. The paper has the following structure: in the first part discuss the process of institutional change and the role of citizen participation in local government in this process, secondly are discussed in general the results of PGyGL emphasizing the category of participation data citizen. In a third stage are discussed in detail the experiences that have achieved some recognition in order to evaluate the actors involved and main achievements of the programs, this allow us to know the evolution of the municipalities have had on this issue. We favor the use of empirical data that account for dimension of local government performance and its relationships with citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The percentage of women heading a municipal government has only increased a point (from 2.9 to 3.8%) over a decade (1986-2006), as opposed to women in other areas, for example the legislative sphere. This paradox has called the attention of several scholars. This paper reviews the literature on female municipal presidents produced in Mexico. The main debates, approaches and findings on the topic are identified. The paper concludes by pointing out some important research needs: state and regional case studies; the socioeconomic characterization of both male and female municipal presidents at the national level and from a comparative perspective; the analysis of the meanings and costs of political participation for women, and the construction of more sophisticated theoretical approaches, capable of explaining the social determinants at play when women make life choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certainly, the appearance and implementation of the Career Professional Service (CPS) in the federal public administration has transformed, in many ways, the being and work of people management. However, we still do not know the real cost of its results. On the one side, its implementation has not been easy, filled with backward steps, obstacles and resistances, but, on the other side, it has had an interesting record of a series of advances. This paper is aimed at assessing these three years regarding the description of some results, the identification of strengths and weaknesses of the Career Professional Service, and to present some reflections on the present and future of this institution. The paper is divided in the following way: Problems and difficulties in the CPS implementation; CPS organization and results; CPS strength and tension points; Where are we going from here?; and Conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analize four competitiveness indices for Mexican federative entities produced by two local higher educational institutions and two local agencies. The results indicate that while these studies require indicators to continuously improve their quality and explanatory power, these changes are greater compared to the main international competitiveness indices. Relevance and reliability for the economic planning will be greater for decision makers, policy makers and individuals concerned as usefulness and benchmarks in the design and monitoring of local public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper highlights the historical construction of the concept of rural development in Mexico, particularly is a synthesis of its institutionalization and its evolution in public policy by governments and development agencies. We emphasize the contents of the various rural development approaches, methodologies and the role of government. All this in order to reflect on the prospects of the Mexican rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies on financial dependence of Mexican states have concentrated on the effects of the National System of Fiscal Coordination, established in 1980, and regional characteristics of the states. In this paper we analyze the effects of the political framework over states' financial dependence on revenue sharing transfers. The variables comprising the political framework are constructed with the political affiliation of the state governor, the composition of the local congresses, the political affiliation of the Mexican president, and the electoral cycles. In order to study the influence of such framework, we propose and estimate empirical fixed effects models with the panel data approach. We use a data base consisting of a pooling of cross sectional (31 states) and annual time series (1998-2006). The results show evidence that the impact of confluence and political cycles on financial dependence is different, depending on political affiliation of the governor. It is in that sense that not only institutional, economic, fiscal, and regional factors influence states' financial dependence: the political framework is also important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are some scholars who believe that Mexican political science has followed the standard of American political science and the former has accumulated the same flaws of the later, whereas other scholars consider that the practice of the discipline is still far from the American standard but that should be its goal. The current discussion is dominated by personal impressions rather than by empirical evaluations on the actual state of the discipline. This paper analyzes a sample of 231 published articles in three leading political science journals between 1990 and 2007. Contrary to beliefs about the Americanization of Mexican political science, results show that the later is dominantly descriptive, monographic and qualitative. The main conclusion is that beyond debating the preeminence of any method in particular, the discipline in Mexico will contribute more to the extent that it starts debating substantive aspects of the research methods and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although regulatory authorities have always been a part of the institutional makeup of Mexican public administration, the idea of independent regulatory authorities was introduced only in the early 90's, when the process of economic reform was well underway. These independent regulatory authorities can be grouped into two broad categories. The first includes typical sectoral regulatory entities (e.g. energy and telecommunications). The second category comprises independent agencies created to anchor continuous horizontal reform processes, such as competition and access to information. Based upon the Mexican regulatory authorities' experience, this paper proposes a framework for the analysis of accountability mechanisms of independent regulators. An important lesson from this review is that the use of mechanisms such as access to information and regulatory impact analysis, enforced by other independent regulatory agencies, strengthen the horizontal accountability of sectoral regulatory authorities and reduces the risk of capture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the limitations to regional planning are exposed, especially regarding ecological ordinances since they need horizontal and vertical coordination among different government levels and several actors to better know, adapt and apply the law in their own competences. We propose the possible use of Strategic Environmental Assessment as a tool to motivate transversal coordination among these different agencies to formulate, apply, evaluate and monitor ecological and territorial ordinances. Besides, we express the need to motivate a government transversal coordination scheme to operate coastal lands and vertical coordination among them to attend all types of ecological ordinances (general, regional, local and marine). We took as an example the regional ecological ordinance and the regional environmental impact assessment applied to one of the most ambicious projects of Vicente Fox presidential period named "Nautic ladder of the Sea of Cortes, Mexico". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is focused on the relevance of routines as a part of the current institutional framework in the context of Mexican local governments. Its purpose is to analyze the implementation network considered in the Law of Sustainable Rural Development, in relation to the procedures the new normative framework establishes, like guidelines of forced behavior for the municipal governments, and, simultaneously, as a condition for success for one of its modalities of execution. The authors consider if the implementation network fits the actual way municipalities effectively pursue rural development policy. In this way, they try to identify the organizational adjustment that exists between the new policy design and the routines previously adopted by local governments. The hypothesis is that local governments tend to adapt the new policy to their own routines, instead of modifying their behavior in relation to the new policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2000, Mexican politics has changed in two important ways. First, the PRI's defeat in the 2000 elections has ended a 70-year long one-party system. Second, the president no longer holds a majority in either chamber of a bicameral congress. In what is likely to be a new era of divided government, constitutional engineers proposed a multitude of constitutional reforms to promote good governance under a separation of powers system. While some reforms attempt to decrease the likelihood of minority presidents, others aim at strengthening the constitutional powers of the president. This paper argues that a viable and desirable strategy of constitutional change should avoid these two extremes. Instead, reforms should generate incentives to promote inter-branch cooperation during divided government. This paper discusses the benefits of a partial reform consisting of two parts: 1) electoral rules that promote correspondence between the preferences of citizens and those of policy makers and 2) constitutional powers that encourage coordination between the president and the congress in the process of policy making and cabinet formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]