The Failure to Predict the Timing and Nature of Mexico's Democratic Transition: Why Modernization Theory is Right, What Went Wrong, and How to Fix It.

Modernization theorists in the 1960s and 1970s predicted that One-Party Revolutionary regimes would tend to evolve into more competitive party systems because of the institutional and cultural consequences of industrialization. Industrialization would produce an urban middle class and a complex society demanding representation best achieved by a competitive party system. The political leadership would transition from populist to technocratic in response to changes demanding greater economic efficiency. Mexico had industrialized and produced a large middle class by the late 1960s but did not democratize as predicted. This study argues that state led industrialization produced a state-dependent middle class that helped prolong pre-modern politics and slowed down the transition. Evidence from local transitions confirms the powerful relationship between level of industrialization and the level of democratic change, as long as economic growth leads to an independent middle class. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]