Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T02:25:38.878Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Who Participates? Determinants of Political Action in Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Joseph L. Klesner
Joseph L. Klesner*
Affiliation:
Kenyon College. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article seeks to determine the main predictors of political participation in a newly democratic regime: Mexico. Compared to other nations, Mexico fills a moderate position in terms of the volume of political participation. Following the literature on participation, this study develops a set of participant modes—voting, communal activity, petitioning, direct action, and political organization membership—and then seeks to determine the socioeconomic, demographic, attitudinal, and social capital factors that best explain participation. Distinct resource inequalities limit the participation of the less educated, the poor, women, and workers, although peasant participation is robust. The strongest determinant of political participation of all kinds is involvement in social capital–generating activities: belonging to nonpolitical organizations and engaging in charitable work, activities typically dominated by the middle class. Building social capital is essential to promoting robust rates of political participation in Mexico.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , Autumn 2009 , pp. 59 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almond, Gabriel A., and Verba, Sidney. 1963. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton : Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Asher, Herbert B., Richardson, Bradley M., and Weisberg, Herbert F.. 1984. Political Participation. Frankfurt : Campus Verlag.Google Scholar
Bennett, Vivienne. 1995. The Politics of Water: Urban Protest, Gender, and Power in Monterrey, Mexico. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Benson, Michelle, and Rochon, Thomas R.. 2004. Interpersonal Trust and the Magnitude of Protest: a Micro and Macro Level Approach. Comparative Political Studies 37, 4: 435–57.Google Scholar
Booth, John A. 1976. A Replication: Modes of Political Participation in Costa Rica. Western Political Quarterly 29, 4: 627–33.Google Scholar
Booth, John A., and Seligson, Mitchell A.. 1978. Images of Political Participation in Latin America. In Political Participation in Latin America: Citizen and State, ed. Booth, and Seligson, . New York : Holmes and Meier. 3–33.Google Scholar
Booth, John A., and Seligson, Mitchell A.. 1979. Peasants as Activists: a Reevaluation of Political Participation in the Countryside. Comparative Political Studies 12, 1: 29–59.Google Scholar
Booth, John A., and Seligson, Mitchell A.. 1984. The Political Culture of Authoritarianism in Mexico: a Reexamination. Latin American Research Review 19, 1: 106–24.Google Scholar
Booth, John A., and Bayer Richard, Patricia 1998. Civil Society, Political Capital, and Democratization in Central America. Journal of Politics 60, 3: 780–800.Google Scholar
Buendía, Jorge, and Moreno, Alejandro. 2004. The Political Culture of Mexico, 2004: Mexico in Times of Electoral Competition. Nashville : Latin American Public Opinion Project, Vanderbilt University.Google Scholar
Burns, Nancy, Lehman Schlozman, Kay, and Verba, Sidney. 2001. The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality, and Political Participation. Cambridge : Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Burstein, Paul. 1972. Social Structure and Individual Political Participation in Five Countries. American Journal of Sociology 77, 6: 1087–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camp, Roderic Ai. 2003. Learning Democracy in Mexico and the United States. Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 19, 1: 3–27.Google Scholar
Clarke, Harold D., and Acock, Alan C.. 1989. National Elections and Political Attitudes: the Case of Political Efficacy. British Journal of Political Science 19, 4: 551–62.Google Scholar
Cornelius, Wayne A. 1969. Urbanization as an Agent in Latin American Political Instability: the Case of Mexico. American Political Science Review 63, 3: 833–57.Google Scholar
Cornelius, Wayne A. 1974. Urbanization and Political Demand Making: Political Participation among the Migrant Poor in Latin American Cities. American Political Science Review 68, 3: 1125–146.Google Scholar
Cornelius, Wayne A. 1975. Politics and the Migrant Poor in Mexico City. Stanford : Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Craig, Ann L., and Foweraker, Joe, eds. 1990. Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico. Boulder : Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Craig, Stephen C., Niemi, Richard G., and Silver, Glenn E.. 1990. Political Efficacy and Trust: a Report on the Nes Pilot Study Items. Political Behavior 12, 3: 289–314.Google Scholar
Dietz, Henry. 1998. Urban Poverty, Political Participation, and the State: Lima 1970–1990. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Domínguez, Jorge I., and Lawson, Chappell, eds. 2004. Mexico's Pivotal Democratic Election: Campaign Effects and the Presidential Race of 2000. Stanford : Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Domínguez, Jorge I., and McCann, James A.. 1996. Democratizing Mexico: Public Opinion and Electoral Choices. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Ponte, Durand, Manuel, Víctor. 2004. Ciudadanía y cultura política: México, 1993–2001. Mexico City : Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
Eckstein, Susan. 1977. The Poverty of Revolution: The State and the Urban Poor in Mexico. Princeton : Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Encuesta Nacional sobre Cultura Política y Prácticas Ciudadanas (ENCUP). 2003. Questionnaire and data. Available at Ministry of Gobernación. <http://www.gobernacion.gob.mx/encup/>..>Google Scholar
Fairris, David, and Edward Levine. 2004. Declining Union Density in Mexico, 1984–2000. Monthly Labor Review (September): 10–17.Google Scholar
Finkel, Steven E. 2003. Can Democracy Be Taught? Journal of Democracy 14, 4: 137–51.Google Scholar
Foweraker, Joe. 1993. Popular Mobilization in Mexico: The Teachers' Movement, 1977–87. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fox, Jonathan. 1993. The Politics of Food in Mexico: State Power and Social Mobilization. Ithaca : Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornelius, Wayne A. 1994. The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico. World Politics 46, 2: 151–84.Google Scholar
Goodman, Gary L., and Hiskey, Jonathan T.. 2008. Exit without Leaving: Political Disengagement in High Migration Municipalities in Mexico. Comparative Politics 40, 2: 169–88.Google Scholar
Haber, Paul Lawrence. 2006. Power from Experience: Urban Popular Movements in Late Twentieth-Century Mexico. University Park : Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
Harvey, Neil. 1998. The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy. Durham : Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Holzner, Claudio A. 2007. The Poverty of Democracy: Neoliberal Reforms and Political Participation of the Poor in Mexico. Latin American Politics and Society 49, 2 (Summer): 87–122.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P., and Nelson, Joan M.. 1976. No Easy Choice: Political Participation in Developing Countries. Cambridge : Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). 2004. International Social Survey Programme 2004: Citizenship. Questionnaire and data available at Central Archive for Empirical Social Research, University of Cologne, study no. ZA3950. <http://zacat.gesis.org/webview/index.jsp?object=http://zacat.gesis.org/obj/fStudy/ZA3950>..>Google Scholar
Klesner, Joseph L. 1988. Electoral Reform in an Authoritarian Regime: the Case of Mexico. Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Klesner, Joseph L. 1998. An Electoral Route to Democracy? Mexico's Transition in Comparative Perspective. Comparative Politics 30, 4: 477–97.Google Scholar
Klesner, Joseph L. 2007. Social Capital and Political Participation in Latin America: Evidence from Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. Latin American Research Review 42, 2: 1–32.Google Scholar
Kurtz, Marcus J. 2004. Free Market Democracy and the Chilean and Mexican Countryside. New York : Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Latinobarómetro. 2006. Informe Latinobarómetro 2006. Santiago, Chile : Latino-barómetro.Google Scholar
McCann, James A., and Domínguez, Jorge I.. 1998. Mexicans React to Electoral Fraud and Political Corruption: an Assessment of Public Opinion and Voting Behavior. Electoral Studies 17, 4: 483–503.Google Scholar
Moreno, Alejandro. 2003. El votante mexicano: democracia, actitudes políticas y conducta electoral. Mexico City : Fondo de Cultura Económica.Google Scholar
Nie, Norman H., Bingham Powell, G., and Prewitt, Kenneth. 1969. Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relationships. American Political Science Review 63: 361–78, 808–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oxhorn, Philip. 1994. Where Did All the Protesters Go? Popular Mobilization and the Transition to Democracy in Chile. Latin American Perspectives 21: 49–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oxhorn, Philip D., and Ducatenzeiler, Graciela, eds. 1998. What Kind of Democracy? What Kind of Market? Latin America in the Age of Neoliberalism. University Park : Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Paley, Julia. 2001. Marketing Democracy: Power and Social Movements in Post-Dictatorship Chile. Berkeley : University of California Press.Google Scholar
Parás, Pablo, and Coleman, Kenneth M.. 2006. Cultura política de la democracia en México: 2006. Nashville : Latin American Public Opinion Project, Vanderbilt University.Google Scholar
Posner, Paul W. 1999. Popular Representation and Political Dissatisfaction in Chile's New Democracy. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 41, 1 (Spring): 59–85.Google Scholar
Posner, Paul W. 2008. State, Market, and Democracy in Chile: The Constraint of Popular Participation. New York : Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Power, Timothy J., and Clark, Mary A.. 2001. Does Trust Matter? Interpersonal Trust and Democratic Values in Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico. In Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America, ed. Ai Camp, Roderic. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press. 51–72.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton : Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 1995. Tuning in, Tuning out: the Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America. PS: Political Science and Politics 28, 4: 664–83.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York : Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Seligson, Amber. 1999. Civic Association and Democratic Participation in Central America: a Test of the Putnam Thesis. Comparative Political Studies 32, 3: 342–62.Google Scholar
Seligson, Mitchell A. 1980. Trust, Efficacy and Modes of Political Participation: a Study of Costa Rican Peasants. British Journal of Political Science 10, 1: 75–98.Google Scholar
Seligson, Mitchell A. 2001. Costa Rican Exceptionalism: Why the ‘Ticos’ Are Different. In Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America, ed. Ai Camp, Roderic. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press. 90–106.Google Scholar
Seligson, Mitchell A. 2005. Can Social Capital Be Constructed? Decentralization and Social Capital Formation in Latin America. In Developing Cultures: Essays on Cultural Change, ed. Harrison, Lawrence and Kegan, Jerome. New York : Routledge. 361–77.Google Scholar
Ventura, Somuano, Fernanda, María. 2005. Más allá del voto: modos de participación política no electoral en México. Foro Internacional 45, 1: 65–88.Google Scholar
Uslaner, Eric M., and Brown, Mitchell. 2005. Inequality, Trust, and Civic Engagement. American Politics Research 33, 6: 868–94.Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, and Nie, Norman H.. 1972. Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. New York : Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Lehman Schlozman, Kay, and Brady, Henry E.. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge : Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Nie, Norman H., and Kim, Jae-On. 1971. The Modes of Democratic Participation: A Cross-National Analysis. Sage Professional Papers in Comparative Politics 2, no. 01–013. Beverly Hills : Sage.Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Nie, Norman H., and Kim, Jae-On. 1978. Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Heather L. 2001. Social Movements and Economic Transition: Markets and Distributive Conflict in Mexico. New York : Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar