POLI 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Institutional Revolutionary Party, Electoral Fraud, Autocracy
17 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
One-Party Democracy
• Meico’s istitutioal reolutioar part PRi held poer for 0 ears – more electoral
autocracy than democracy
• 1968 – Mexico hosted the Olympics
o There were protests from students
o They were mass murdered
o The state had demonstrated its ability to crush even peaceful protests
Democratic Transition and Electoral Reform
• The Pri held power until 2000
• Its hold on power loosened over several decades, not just overnight
o Increasingly widespread dissatisfaction with the ruling power
• Mexico began a democratic transition
o There was no clear-cut authoritarianism
o Began a transition towards full democracy
• Remodeled its electoral institutions
o Began to build a legit electoral system
o Ended electoral fraud
• Instituted:
o Independent judiciary system
▪ Checks and balances
o Independent electoral body
o Mechanism to ensure oversight by other parties
• Led to widespread hope that things were about to change
The eergece of ecooic ciil ar
• Technically a civil war involves a government with at least one rebel movement
• Mexico does not have a rebel movement with a political agenda
• Rather the emergence of drug gangs who have an economic platform rather than a
political platform
• They are nonetheless similar to a rebel group – heavily armed
o Challenges states monopoly of the legit use of force
• I the 0’s ad 0’s – Columbia was focal point of drug trade
o Mexico has overtaken Columbia
o Columbian politics are no longer shaped by the drug-gangs
• Mexican government in 2006 decided to take militarised approach
o Took law enforcement issue and instead militarised it
o Mission of defeating them conclusively
o This backfired and even made more people turn to drug gangs
• There is a steady death toll equivalent to a civil war
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