Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T15:47:07.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How Did We Get Here? Mexican Democracy after the 2006 Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2007

Chappell Lawson
Chappell Lawson
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

On July 2, 2006, Mexican voters elected National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderón as the next president of Mexico. Calderón's victory was extremely narrow; he won under 36% of the total vote and less that 0.6% more than his leftist rival, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. This potentially problematic situation was aggravated by López Obrador's decision to challenge Calderón's victory, both in the courts and in the streets. López Obrador's protest campaign culminated on September 16, when tens of thousands of his followers gathered in downtown Mexico City to acclaim him “legitimate president” of Mexico. Meanwhile, in the legislature, leaders of López Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) oscillated between hints that they would collaborate with Calderón's administration and signs that they would adopt a posture of untrammeled hostility.

Type
SYMPOSIUM—THE 2006 MEXICAN ELECTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , January 2007 , pp. 45 - 48
Copyright
© 2007 The American Political Science Association

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

Bermeo, Nancy. 2003. Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times: The Citizenry and the Breakdown of Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruhn, Kathleen, and Kenneth F. Greene. 2007. “Elite Polarization Meets Mass Moderation in Mexico's 2006 Elections.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (January): 33–38.Google Scholar
Diamond, Larry. 1999. Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, Todd A. 2007. “The Origins and Rationality of the ‘Legal versus Legitimate’ False Dichotomy Invoked in Mexico's 2006 Post-Electoral Conflict.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (January): 39–43.Google Scholar
Greene, Kenneth F. Forthcoming. Defeating Dominance: Party Politics and Mexico's Democratization in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Klesner, Joseph. 2007. “The 2006 Mexican Elections: Manifestation of a Divided Society?” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (January): 27–32.Google Scholar
Langston, Joy. 2007. “The PRI's 2006 Electoral Debacle.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (January): 21–25.Google Scholar
Lawson, Chappell. 2003. Building the Fourth Estate: Democratization and the Rise of a Free Press in Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lawson, Chappell. 2006. “Preliminary Findings from the Mexico 2006 Panel Study: Blue States and Yellow States.” Unpublished manuscript available at http://web.mit.edu/polisci/research/mexico06/Pres.htm.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott. 1993. “Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy: The Difficult Combination.” Comparative Political Studies 26 (2): 198–228.Google Scholar
Moreno, Alejandro. 2007. “The 2006 Mexican Presidential Election: The Economy, Oil Revenues, and Ideology.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (January): 15–19.Google Scholar
O'Donnell, Guillermo, and Philippe C. Schmitter. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar