Institutional Design in New Democracies: Eastern Europe and Latin America by Arend Lijphart

Author:Arend Lijphart [Lijphart, Arend]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780429968334
Google: hQDFDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 40000013
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1996-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Changing the Balance of Power in a Hegemonic Party System: The Case of Mexico

Juan Molinar Horcasitas

MEXICAN POLITICS HAS been dominated by one party and noncompetitive elections since 1929, but the Mexican political system has never been a strictly single-party system.1 This, concisely, is one of the mysteries of Mexican politics. How can a hegemonic party exist for seven decades without the situation evolving into single-party politics? On the other hand, how has it been possible that a political system with multiparty elections, at least at the national level, has not evolved into competitive elections? Both puzzles are two sides of the same coin—a coin that has stood on its edge for seventy years. In this chapter I focus on one institutional aspect of the process that has enabled this stability: the different electoral systems that—through a permanent process of adaptation—have supported that singular piece of equilibrium, the hegemonic party system. □

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