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The Political Culture of Authoritarianism in Mexico: A Reexamination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

John A. Booth  and
Mitchell A. Seligson
John A. Booth
Affiliation:
University of Texas at San Antonio
Mitchell A. Seligson
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
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Despite certain early efforts to interpret Mexico as a pluralist constitutional democracy, or democracy-in-the-making (Scott 1959; Tucker 1957), scholars today almost universally agree that the political system of Mexico is authoritarian. The trappings of Mexico's liberal constitution and elections notwithstanding, Mexico's Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) serves to integrate the polity under the highly centralized control of a single institution that dominates access to all public office. At the apex of the PRI is the Mexican president, who not only chooses his own successor but controls access to the PRI's candidate lists for all other public offices and therefore dominates both the party and the congress. In sum, as Coleman and Davis argue, Mexico fits the ideal type of authoritarian political organization because “decisions are made almost exclusively by the ruling elite rather than by democratic, pluralist processes” and because “there are severe restrictions placed upon political mobilization” (1976, 195).

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , 1984 , pp. 106 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 by Latin American Research Review

Footnotes

*

An earlier version of a paper was delivered at the Southwest Political Science Association Meeting, 17–21 March 1982, San Antonio, Texas, where it received the Pi Sigma Alpha “Best Paper Award” for that meeting. The University of Arizona's Guadalajara Program and a grant from the United States Department of Labor made it possible to gather the data used in this study. We would like to thank Karl Schmitt for his helpful comments on an earlier draft.

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