082

Denise Dresser
Mexico: The Decline of Dominant-Party Rule "Constructing Democratic Governance" Edited Jorge I. Dominguez and Abraham Lowenthal Johns Hopkins University Press 2003
"Constructing Democratic Governance"

During 1994 Mexicans from all walks of life seemed to be following the Chinese dictum "May you live in interesting times." An indigenous uprising, political assassinations, kidnappings , the peso's plunge, and the short-lived hunger strike of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari transformed tbe icon of predictable politics in Latin America into the country of uncerteinty. The costs of Mezico's latest bout of economic mismanagement have been felt in the pocketbooks of 85 million Mexicans. However, the country'slide from the Mexican miracle to the Mexican meltdown may, paradoxically, intensify the pace of Mexico's incomplete transition from authoritarianism. The events of 1994 have contributed to the rapid unraveling of domiant-party rule and loosened the grip that the Institutional Revolutionuy Party (PRI) established since its inception in 1929.
In Mexico the PRI has been a way of life: a system of formal and informal rules, elite circulation, patronage distribution, and clientelist practices. Economic reform dazing the 1980s and 1990s, however, challenged tratitional sources of power by redefining relations among all social, economic, and political forces in the country. Structural reforms including trade liberalization, deregulation, and privatization led to the appearance of new players, to the decline of corporatist structures, and to the weakening of the PRI.
As the result of this broad spectrum of changes, Mexico's governance is in a transitional phase and could fit into Philippe Schmitter's description of "fledgling neodemocracies.": Whereas in the past Mexicans were offered economic growth instead of democracy, now the reverse may be true. In order to compensate the population for dramatic declines in income provoked by the devaluation, the government has promised greater political opening. President Ernesto Zedillo's anticorruption crusade and the promise of a "definitive" electoral reform augur an era of unnprecetented power sharing and government accountability. However, despite the optimism fuled by Zedillo's pledges to reform the judiciary, enact a new federalist pact, exercise greater vigilance over government spending, and call former "untouchables" in the political system to account, it is unclear that folly democratic and sustainable institutions can simultaneously emerge and address economic and social problems.
Several actors sueh as the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), radical factions of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD}, former president Salinas, and the narcopoliticians are still unwilling to play by the demoeratic rules of the geme. They use their influence to destabilize the political system {through guerrilla warfare and political assassination) and thus jeopardize policy initiatives. Both the democratic empowerment and the democratic accountability of actors in the government and the opposition have yet to be achieved. Although President Zedillo's imprisonment of Raúl Salinas, the brother of former presitent Salinas, for his alleged involvement in the assassination of a top-ranking PRI official may create new standards of public accountability, the rule of law has yet to prevail at most levels of the political system.
This chapter's main argument is that the legacies of dominant-party rule, including institutional fragility, centralized decision making, and economic and political polarization, constitute serious obstacles to the consolidation of democratic governance in Mexico. Although great progress has been achieved in the electoral arena, the promise of free and fair elections may not be enough to assuage the adjustment fatigue that a third round of economie austerity will undoubtedly create. Mexico faces problems-such as the Chiapas revolt, the growing infiltration of state institutions by drug traffickers, and the antisystematic attitude of many key players-that are broader than those related to the transformation of the country's political regime and cannot be solved electorally. The country is moving toward political demoeracy, but effective power sharing and government accountability are still scarce commodities.
What remains to be done is nothing short of reinventing the political landscape: institutionalizing new actors, practices, and rules, and engaging in a concerted transformation of the Mexican state. This systemic renewal would entail giving legitimate and regular access to those forces, parties, and groups that are outside the PRI or that, because of the PRI's practices, could never flourish while the PRI dominated the party system. The twilight of the PRI will occur only when consensus building among elites and the people, pact making with opposition parties, ant the universal application of the rule of law become a doily part of the country's institutional fabric.
Elections: Free but Not Fair, Important but Not Enough
As Sergio Aguayo, head of the Civic Alliance (AC}, declared: "The Mexican elections give us many reasons to celebrate, to lament, and to reflect." The 1994 presidential election marked a significant step forward in Mexico's unfinished transition to a more competitive, democratic system of governance. However, even though the critical importance of elections was widely recognized, one of the major parties (the PRD) did not accept the results and several groups, including the Zapatista rebels, continued to disqualify the rule of law and reject established institutions and political organizations. Although the 1994 elections were generally perceived as clean and free, the structural inequalities of the political system persisted.
The resilience of the PRI wes proven once again on August 21, 1994, through not immaculatc but relatively decent presitential elections accepted by international observers, the refurbished Federal Electoral Institute, the media, and the Mexican public at large. The PRI demonstrated its time-honed capacity to reinvent itself in adverse circumstances and once again reestablish its predominant position. In the most competitive, scrutinized, and supervised election in Mexiean history, the PRI once again managed to extend its longevity, despite the avowed impetus for change fueled by the Chiapas uprising. Hegemonic party rule acquired an unprecedented legitimacy at the ballot box.
The PRl's victory was rooted in a variety of factors. On August 21, Mexico witnessed the reemergence of an inherent conservatism in the Mexican electorate. Since the Chiapas uprising, Mexico had been immersed in a struggle between two divergent currents and forces. Chiapas propelled Mexican public opinion toward the Center-left, in favor of accountability, change, and renewal, thereby suggesting the demise of Mexican complacency with dominant-party rule. However, the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio Mexican public opinion back to the Center-Right, in favor of permanence, stability, and continuity. On election day, broad sectors of the Mexican electorate had trouble envisioning political life in the country without the PRI. The population turned out in droves - the participation rate was an impressive 77 percent of the registered voters-to vote for the reliable, known, predictable option versus the great question mark that the opposition still represents. In a political climate teinted by suspicion, uncertainty, increased public insecurity, and fear of the future, the PRI handily marketed itself as a guarantor of stability and continuity.
Although circumstantial factors may explain the voto de miedo (fear vote) in favor of the PRI, expectations also played an imortant role. President Salinas successfully govemed Mexico for six years by fueling expectations of better things to come; he off"ed visions of a first world Mexico propelled into modemity by the enactment of the North Arnerican Free Made Agreement (NAFTA). Those expectadons became a powerful political tool for the ruling party. Many voters were afraid that the Salinista economic reform and its expected benefits would be thwarted by the arrival of the opposidon into power.
In addition, August 21 became a great national referendum on President Salinas and the dramatic changes he introduced into Mexico's political economy. Exit polls revealed that satisfaction with his performance translated into votes for the ruling party. Many voters voted their pocketbooks. More than 40 percent of those polled leaving voting booths stated that their economic situation was better in 1994 than it had been six years before. Finally, the 1994 election was won for the PRI by the poor. Large segments of the urban and rural population voted for the PRI, suggesting the effectiveness and popularity of the National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL) and PROCAMPO programs.
An important segment of the electorate voted in favor of "salinastroika"; in favor of structural reforms, trade opening, and the overhaul of the public sector. Beneficiaries of the Salinas revolution rewarded him for "a job well done." The outcome of the August 21 election also suggested that Mexico's basic political axis shifted toward the Center-Right, and that Salinas was capable of providing a certain amount of institutionalization via the ballot box to the kind of Mexico he envisioned. It is not clear whether Salinas won his own election, but he won it for Ernesto Zedillo.
The state of the opposidon also explained the outcome of the presidential race. After the presidential debate, when National Action Party (PAN) candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos jumped from 15 to 30 percent in the polls, it appeared that the Mexican electorate was extremely volatile and could be swayed overnight by a successful media performance. For the first time since its creation, the PAN believed it could win the Mexican presidency. And then, for reasons that have yet to be determined, Fernández de Cevallos disappeared from the political race for more than two weeks. PAN officials offered a host of explanations: illness, weight loss, meeting behind the scenes with the "real factors of power" (such as diplomats and businessmen), and preparing for the economic debate with his contenders that never took place. The candidatets disappearance undoubtedly had a significant impact on the race. What he had won with his televised metamorphosis into a right-wing caudillo, the PAN lost with his disappearance after the presidential debate. The party never fully regained the momentum it had acquired in the weeks after the debate, and thus left potential voters stranded. Many returned to the folds of the PRI on election day. Errors in campaign strategy tumed out to be decisive.
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, the PRD spent the last months of the campaign trying to recover from the death blow the televised debate had dealt to its presidential candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas. Once again the Left was caught in debilitating struggles between factions and personalities, and as a result changed course midway through the campaign. The PRD oscillated from radicalism to moderation, and back to radicalism again when guerrilla leader Sub comandante Marcos endorsed the Cárdenas candidacy. Additionally, the perception of having "lost" in 1988 hurt Cárdenas, amnog voters who viewed his crusade as a futile one, given that in all likelihood he would never be allowed to govern.
Finally, it became clear that the PRI still enjoyed many advantages, subtle and blatant, from its symbiotic relationship with the govemment. The imperative for Mexico's modernizing technocrats was to hold a clean and fair election. The postelection consensus among opposition forces was that the presidential race was clean but not fair. The election was clean and free insofar as the rules of political competidon changed: Citizen Counsellors were incorporated into the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), national observers and international visitors were present at the casillas (Polling booths), limits ware set on campaign spending, and quick counts and exit polls were allowed. These innovations contributed to imbue the electoral process with an unprecedented degree of credibility.
However, the fairness of the political process, beyond election day, remained a source of contention. The PRI still had many powerful weapons at its disposal that strengthened its staying power in a competitive electoral scenario, including the government's marriage of convenience with the television giant Televisa, the entrenched clientelist network created by both the PRONASOL and PROCAMPO programs, and the capacity to manipulate electoral outcomes. The Civic Alliance reported that the vote was not secret in 34 percent of the casillas; people were pressured to vote in 16.5 percent of the casillas; and in 65.1 percent of the casillas, voters with credentials did not appear on the lista nominal {voter registradon list). The debate on irregularities continued after the election, and focused mainly on the voter registration list, campaign spending, media coverage, and the political climate prior to election day. Whether democracy can be fully achieved in a country with long-standing one-party rule will depend on whether structural inequalities and deficiencies in the political system are addressed and resolved.
The results of the election may have laid to rest the foremost source of disputes amnog the country's political actors: electoral fraud. But these results, and the elections themselves, are not enough to create a fully democratic policy. Clean elections are a necesary condition for democracy, but they are not sufficient. Mexico must confront other structural issues. Free elections cannot assure democratic consolidation if the playing field among political parties is not level. A competitive and professional media cannot develop if there is no effective guarantee of freedom of expression. It is unclear that democracy will emerge if there is no commitment to an open debate over policy issues, and if there are no mechanisms by which to hold government officials and other political actors accountable to society and the law.
Democracy is more than elections. The most accepted definition of democracy identifies it with regular elections, fairly conducted and honestly counted. This is the mistake known as "electoralism" or "the faith that merely holding elections will channel political action into peaceful contests among elites and accord public legitimacy to the winners," no matter if they are conducted in an unfair fashion. Elections occur in a discontinuous fashion, and they offer only those choices presented by political parties. True democracies include a gamut of competitive processes and channels (beyond elections) for the expression of interests: associational as well as partisan, functional as well as territorial, collective as well as individual. All are central to its functioning. These processes and channels have yet to emerge and become consolidated in contemporary Mexico.
Fragile Institutions and Traditional Fieldoms
Decades of dominant-party rule have created serious problems of institutional fragility and lack of representation. The PRl's predominance has hampered what Guillermo O'Donnell considers fundamental conditions for democratic consolidation: "the emergence of regularized and predictable practices, embodied in public organizations that process the demands of politically active sectors, in line with the roles of the competitive game.
Mexico's predominant political style has been presidentialist, clientelist, and patronage-driven. This style has created a world antithetical to democracy, "with little institutional mediations, where personal relationships prevail, and the logic of representation functions intermittently. Although Mexican civil society has become stronger, the political immaturity of social organizations has precluded greater political evolution. Relatively autonomous institutions within the popular sector are still easy prey for clientelism. ln addition, the economic debacle of December 1994 has contributed to an even further weakening and discredidng of state institutions and party structures. As elsewhere in Latin America, Mexico's public institutions and several political parties are deeply troubled. Intermediate organizations linking state and society are precarious or in a state of flux.
The country's hegemonic party, the PRI, was conceived tt aid Mexico's revolutionary family in the task of insdtutional construction; the party was designed to build durable links between elites and masses. And for more than fifty years the PRI accomplished its mission. The party functioned successfully since its founding in 1929 as a pragmatic coalition of interests, based on the organized inclusion of the working class, peasants, bureaucrats, and the military. However, as a result of the process of economic overhaul prompted by the debt crisis of the 1980s, the party began to fail in its historic role as interest aggregator, policymaker, and legitimator. Unable to meet the demands of sectors accustomed to a flow of material benefits, the party lost representativeness among its bases. Displaced by a technocrade team intent on implementing economic reform, and wracked by intemel factionalism, the party was increasingly marginalized from the decision-making process. Incapable of guaranteeing mass support via uncontested electoral victories, the party began to fell as a legitirnator of the regime.
Throughout the Salinas term, groups within the PRI struggled among themselves and against the president in search of a new course. Reform-minded factions attempted to dismantle compulsory sectoral affiliation and promote individual militancy in the face of a more competitive electoral scenario, while tradidonalists sought to rnaintein the party's age-old structures and standard operating procedures. Refommists favored Salinas' economic liberalizadon policies, while conservatives decried the death of the interventionist state. In order to circumvent party resistance and push forward his economic modemization agenda, Salinas often resorted to discretionary postelection manenvering that further contributed to deinstitutionalize the country's political landscape.
Mexico's deinstitutionalization was also haled by the growing tension between increasingly competitive state elections and the imperatives of a presidentialist and centralized govemance formula. Extralegal and extrainsdtutional forms of conflict resolution in the states of Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, and Michoacán contributed to the erosion of presidential prestige, institutions, and political parties. Local elections throughout the Salinas term were not nomal processes that expressed the views of the citizenry, but rather conflict-ridden events where, independently of what wes expressed at the polls, ad hoc decisions were taken and baclcroom deals ware struck systematically jeopardizing regional stability and regional governance.
It remains to be seen whether elections under Zedillo will follow the same turbulent path, or whether the relatively clean presidential election will set new standards for political behavior. Zedillo recognized opposition victories in several states but has also failed to punish PRI govemors who have committed electoral fraud or resorted to repression and intimidation to maintain themselves in office.
The conservative National Action Party has emerged as the short-term beneficiary of the economic collapse and has used popular disaffection with the ruling party to make significant electoral inroads, including the govemorship of the state of Jalisco. But the doctorate could very well punish the PAN as much as it has the PRI, if Mexico's right-wing alternative fails to deliver economic prosperity. Economic chaos could thus bring about the birth of alternancia in Mexican regional politics, whereby in each round of elections parties are voted in or out depending on their performance. Economic decline, however, could also contribute to weaken the links between parties and citizens.
Mexico's current deinstitutionalization will make the country's renewed economic adjustment much more difficult to manage politically. Labor has been called on to sacrifice once again, at a time in which the heavy machinery of PRI-sponsored corporatism no longer seems to function. During the Salinas term, luxury imports bought the political alignment of the middle class; after the devaluation, the middle class is no longer a member of the ruling party's captive audience. Economic adjustment will create a much more volatile and much less loyal electorate, thus opening up windows of opportunity for opposition parties on both the Left and the Right of the political spectrum. Whether parties will be able to bridge the chasm of distrust that currently separates them from an increasingly disaffected population is an open question. Economic decline could also lead to widespread disillusionment with the existing political options offered by parties, and to the strengthening of opposition movements working outside of party channels.
Throughout 1994 the efforts of key political actors, including Interior Minister Jorge Carpizo, the Citizen Counsellors, and the Civic A1liance, to imbue the electoral process with greater credibility bore fruit. Zedillo's expressed commitment to refomm the judiciary has been well received by the Mexican public, and the naming of a prominent member of the PAN as attomey general has imbued the government's efforts with a legitimacy they would otherwise have lacked. But the tardiness of these efforts and the difficulty of overcoming decades of distrust and opacity explain the lack of public confidence in state institutions and political parties.
The Mexican party system is only partially institutionalized. The rules that govern interparty competition are unstable, and political elites do not share the expectation that elections will be the primary route to power. The electoral accords agreed upon before the 1994 presidential election suffered from several problems that hampered their effectiveness: they were not sufficiently inclusive or encompassing, and they were not sufficiently binding. Various groups, including factions within the PRD, felt that their interests and concems were not adequately represented, and therefore contemplated the possibility of ignoring or abandoning them. Groups within the PRI resorted to fraud (albeit intermittently) during the election, and the PRD refused to accept the results although the party had committed itself to do so. As a result, the postelection debate in Mexico revealed the persistence of profound disagreements and polarizing tendencies among party actors. PRI spokesmen talked of the need to "perfect" Mexican democracy, while opposition members continued to call for more substantive changes. The absence of clear rules to govem political competition among parties has made politics more erratic, governing more complicated, and the establishment of legitimacy more difficult.
Parties are indispensable for democratic consolidation, yet in Mexico parties have failed to "encapsulate" the demands of major interest groups. As a result, parties often have been eclipsed by politically ambivalent actors and protagonists in civil society, including the EZLN and its sympathizers, renowned members of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), business leaders, and media moguls. In the face of an unstable and conflict-ridden party system, social movements and interest groups have sought alternative vehicles for representation.
In the past, political activities in Mexico have been monopolized by political parties and the state. But since the critical juncture created by the 1985 earthquake, a nascent civil society is gratually strengthening NGOs, altering political discourse, and creating a more auspicious environment for political reform. During the past ten years Mexico has witnessed the emergence of autonomous nongoveramental organizations and informal networks devoted to monitoring elections and promoting governmental accountability. The political activism of these groups has revealed a burgeoning process of citizen participation and consciousness, but also reflects public distrust with established political parties, inherited from decades of authoritarian rule.
As Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully have argued, when a party system is not fully institutionalized, a multitude of actors "competes for influence and power, often employing non-democratic means." In Mexico, nonparty groupings and individuals in civil society have frequently acted above and beyond specifically political organizations. Their role has been a dual one: their newfound activism has contributed to the uncerteinty of the transition but also to its speed. Their antisystemic behavior fueled systemic change. However, radical nonparty actors could create intractable problems for the future. Several of them, including the mercurial Subcomandante Marcos and E1 Barzón sympathizers, have individual agendas and interests that are radically incompatible with the construction of democratic normalcy. Oftentimes the leaders of these organizations espouse apocalyptic and antiinstitutional visions that, if acted upon, could generate polarizations and ruptures that might jeopardize current achievements. The radicalization of nonparty actors has fueled a climate in which multiple currencies, including force, violence, and mass movements, compete for power and influence.
In addition, Mexico still lacks many modern institutional arrangements that could facilitate democratic consolidation by providing predictability and stability in the political arena. In Mexico, most institutions are not neutral frameworks for containing and channeling political change but rather PRI-dorninated fiefdoms. Existing institutions-the judiciary, Congress, business associations, unions-have been kept frozen in the past and are inadequate to address present problems. In the absence of well-developed institutional checks and balances, patrimonialism and clientelism continue to prevail.
Since its creation, the PRI has depended on patronage to assure its predominance, on the historic distribution of perks and benefits to its constituents. In any process of economic stabilization and adjustment, the most politically influential losers have been the officials of the ruling party and their closest allies, and Mexico is no exception. At the height of his power and popularity in 1991, President Salinas attempted to modernize the party, but intemal resistance was too great, and therefore the project was ultimately abandoned. The government-affiliated labor movement was not "democratized" under Salinas. Top-down authoritarian control of unionized-workers by labor union bosses persisted, and many of the antimodem features of the govemment-PRI tandem survived unchecked, including the channeling of public funds for party purposes.
President Zedillo has promised to delink the party from the govemment and also reform the PRI. However, it remains to be seen whether the president will have the ability to implement a democratizing reform within the party and pressure it into creating linkage formulas beyond clientelism. In order to win the election, Zedillo allied himself with same of the more traditional power brokers within the PRI. Zedillo may be too constrained by political commitments and institutional legacies to push forward a significant political modemization agenda against traditiond fiefdoms. In some geographic regions and economic activities, Mexico is still characterized by the existence of powerful cacicazgos {fiefdoms} that rallied behind the Zedillo campaign because they perceived him as a weak candidate and knew that their own survived was at stake. In the face of the modemizing directives Zedillo announced once in office, many traditional govemors and local caciques (power-holders) have closed ranks, opposed the central government's plans, and then proceeded with politics as usual. Mexico seems to be witnessing the growing "feudalization" of the PRI, whereby local power brokers govern their states in the way they see fit, often resorting to violence, fraud, and repression.
The traditional linkages provided by PRI-sponsored corporatism and patronage politics are deteriorating at a fast pace in some parts of the country, but in others the PRI's traditiond structure prevails. In states where the PRI has lost ground, alternative forms of mediation between state and society have yet to emerge. The strength and coherent internal functioning of opposition parties and popular movements remain unclear, and as a result Mexican society lacks organizations for effective representation of interests. Pattems of representation in Mexico are still undergoing significant changes, and until they stabilize, the regime is trapped in the dysfunctional category of a "disintermediated neodemocracy."
Centralized Decisions and Insulated Technocrats
Analysts of the politics of economic reform in the developing world have often identified the importance of bureaucratic "insulation" and "expert change teams" as causes of effective policymaking. Yet in the Mexican case, insulated technocratic rule exacerbated the financial crisis. The havoc unleashed by the devaluation was the unfortunate economic manifestation of a political crisis rooted in insulated technobureaucratic rule. Since the country's first financial fiasco in 1982, the imperatives of managing the economy created incentives for state elites to insulate economic policymaking from societal pressure and centralize decision making in the Economic Cabinet. However, these dual paths of insulation and centralization further contributed to Mexico's widespread lack of accountability, a lack of accountability that allowed President Salinas to postpone ad infinitum a much-needed devaluation of the currency.
In a recent article in the Journal of Democracy, Gulllermo O'Donnell asks: "Do Economists Know Best?" The Mexican debacle would suggest not. Mexico's bost and brightest allegedly knew how to reduce inflation, privatize, dergulate, alleviate fiscal imbalances, and implement avowedly optimal economic policies. President Zedillo's campaign slogan wes "He knows how to do it" {"E1 sabe como hacerlo") in a clear reference to his impeccable technical credentials. However, what the best and the brightest did not know wes how to use shortterm economic achievements as a springboard for sustanable growth. The hypercentralized nature of the political system allowed President Salinas to place personal prestige before economic prudence, and as a result the Mexican population has borne the brunt of a new round of austarity measures unprecedented for their severity.
As Barbara Geddes has argued, to understand why governments underteke or postpone reforms, it is crucial to focus on "the people who make policies, what their interests are, and what shapes their interests." Is strong presidentialist systems like Mexico's, ideas held by the president and his economic advisors are fundamental for understanding what political-economic models are adopted. Presidentialist systems allow the chief executive and his advisors to make their own policy preferences into policy objectives. In the Mexican case, President Salinas did not devalue the currency when he could have for political and personal reasons, such as guaranteeing a PRI victory in the August presidential eletion and assuring his place in history as Mexico's great modernizer. No other institution within the Mexican ~government, not even the central bank, had the power or the autonomy to question the soundness of his judgment. Salinas placed economic policy at the service of his own political interests, perhaps not even, fully aware of the deleterious economic implications of that decision.
Hence the Mexican financial debacle also sheds light on the perils of unbounded presidentialism. From the beginning of his term, Salinas resorted to swift, unilateral presidential action as a means for furthering the economic liberalization agenda. Through the image of a strong and populist presidency, Salinas mobilized the energies and captured the imagination of the population for the modernization effort. By undertaking reforms on a broad spectrum of issues, the president garnered support among constituencies opposed to clientelism and corruption and in favor of change. Salinas was widely perceived as a president con iniciotiva (with initiative) waging a war of modernity against the old Mexico.
However, the institutional and cultural legacies of his hyperpresidentialist rule have created serious obstacles to democtatic consolidation in Mexico. The president's personal style of governance instituted a form of decision making contrary to institutionalization. The president was a promoter of centralized authority and its key beneficiary. He, Salinas, not the political system itself, acquired support from the electorate through ad hoc interventions. Time and time again, in poll after poll, Mexicans gave much greater support to Salinas than to his party and similarly to his decision-making style. Vigorous presidentialism was key to the success of Mexico's adjustment effort, but also a main obstacle to future political evolution: increased presidentialism curtailed the emergence of effective institutions that could both aggregate interests and implement coherent economic policies.
Upon his arrival in office on December 1, 1994, President Ernesto Zedillo was confronted with the institutional vacuum left by his prede cessor and with widespread societal expectations about the need for a strong presidency. Given the lack of institutional support, the new president's political clumsiness exacerbated the financial debacle and turned it into a perceived crisis of leadership. In the aftermath of thc devaluation, public opinion at home and abroad placed complete responsability for political management on the presidential chair. For two weeks that chair seemed to be empty, as Zedillo floundered and seemed unable to present a consistent explanation for the devaluation to foreign and domestic investors and the Mexican population at large. In a highly personalistic and presidentialist system, Mexicans expected Zedillo to respond authoritatively via presidentialist strikes, dramatic moves, and bold measures. It was only when Zedillo launched a political attack on one of the "untouchables" in the political system, the brother of former president Salinas, that public confidence in his ability to govern was partially restored.
In the first months after the devaluation, the first priority for the Zedillo govemment became the herculean task of regaining the confidence of intemational investors. Given that since 199l the ruling technocracy gambled on speculative foreign investment as a fulcrum for growth, it had little choice but to make concessions. The devaluation trapped the Mexican govemment between "the need to rid the economy from its legacy of instability and inefficiency, the domestic political restrictions to do it and powerful and volatile external forces that clouded its vision and compromised its policies." This left the Zedillo team with little room to maneuver given Mexico's need for foreign capital: the only viable option was to negotiate an aid package assembled by the U.S. govemment and intemational financial institutions in order to repay its short-term debt. The package contained strirngent requirements, including that the Mexican government ran a budget surplus and tighten credit through higher interest rates. To fulfill these requirements the Mexican govemment had no other choice but to offer more austerity at home, leading to dramatic declines in income, rampant unemployment, and volatile politics.
Zedillo's response to the political challenges created by the devaluation was to announce the "modemization" of the Mexican presidency. Zedillo offered to reduce discretionary policymaking promote a new federalist pact, decentralize power, and bring an end to the symbiotic relationship between the presidency and the ruling party. As an accidental candidate and outsider to the PRI, Zedillo did not feel beholden to the party and therefore believed that the costs of reform would be lower given that he and his close-knit team of advisors were not previously tied to the beneficiaries of state largesse.
However, outsiders oftentimes fell to achieve what they hope precisely because they are outsiders. Time and again, Zedillo has designed and then failed to implement policy objectives because of opposition within the PRI leadership or its rank and file. Zedillo has been unable to elicit widespread support from established party leaders, and as a result his efforts have often been blocked by traditional factions of the political elite. The president and his team have often underestimated the ferocity of PRI and popular opposition to allegedly optimal economic policies, such as the increase in the Value Added Tax (IVA) from 10 to 15 percent. Zedillo's substantive preference has been to achieve economic stabilization, and as a result he has tended to neglect the political and economic needs of the unstable coalition on which his power is based. Mexican political elites have displayed a marked propensity for undemoctatic decision making, especially in regard to economic policy. Mexico's postdevaluation crisis has accentuated this trend. The aid package once again placed economic and financial considerations at the center of the public agenda and channeled exclusive responsibility for policy design into the hands of Zedillo and his Economic Cabinet.
Zedillo's insulated governance style has led to a debilitating pattern, of erratic policy maneuvers, wherein the president announces a specific policy, is confronted with opposition from affected interests, and as a result the initiative is subsequently abandoned. The president pledged to promote clean elections but then proceeded to support fraudulently elected PRI govemors in the states of Tabasco and Yucatán. Zedillo launched an attack against the Salinas family, then later indefinitely postponed investigations into their alleged involvement in corruption and assassination scandals. Zedillo's selectivity in the application of the rule of law has contradicted the spirit of his proposed democratic reforms and shed doubt on his commitment to enforce the law across the board if that means undermining some of his key political allies.
Skillful political management is critical for the successful implementation of far-reaching programs of political and economic reform. However, Zedillo's perceived lack of consistent leadership has sabotaged many of his refommist efforts and heightened conflicts within Mexico's already divided political class. The brief military incursion in Chiapas in Febrnary 1995 and the government's fitful position on a definitive electoral reform have deepened rifts between modemizing and traditional factions within the political elite. Negotiations over electoral reform have provoked as much polarization in the ruling party as they have in the opposition. Many members of the PRI feel that the party is paying at the polls for the Economic Cabinet's incompetence, and their loyalty to the new president is tenuous at best.
Neither the "hawks" nor the "doves" in the political elite trust Zedillo. Hard-liners feel betrayed by his offer of amnesty to the EZLN and the restraints imposed on the ammy. The "doves" resent the strengthening of the military and the witch-hunt launched against Samuel Ruiz, the bishop of San Cristobal de Las Casas, as well as other groups and individuals sympathetic to the Chiapas rebels. Hard-liners demand a firm hand; doves demand further negotiations. By attempting to satisfy both, Zedillo has lost allies in both camps. Traditional factions of the PRI resent Zedillo for breaking the unwritten rúles that had governed the country since the PRI's creation. Modemizing groups resent him for not dismantling them quickly or thoroughly enough.
Zedillo's lackluster political perfommance is a personal flaw, but his insulated goveming style reflects the age-old vices of the political system itself. Since the birth of the ruling party, Mexico's presidents and their camarillas (cliques) have been able to govern in a relatively unconstrained fashion. The arrival of highly trained economists in political office made policymaking more efficient but not more accountable. Even under the reign of the modernizing technocrats, the traditional ways of doing politics have prevailed. Mexico's political and economic stability has been routinely jeopardized by the lack of rules to govem by and the absence of institutions to govem with.
In the past, because of the unlimited power of the presidency, Mexico had been unable to achieve democratic rule fully; in the future, presidential strength will be required to carry on the critical task of institution building. Zedillo will have to use the presidency to strengthen representative institutions that can order the country's political life and eventually act as counterweights to the presidency and to the PRI. As Wayne Cornelius has argued, a consistent president committed to a profound modemization of the political system will be the key to a successful democratic transition. Zedillo faces the dual task of "modemizing" the presidency and limiting its historically unbounded power, while at the same time controlling his party and demonstrating effective leadership in times of crisis. Strong presidents have traditionally been an obstacle, not a vehicle for democratic evolution in Mexico. But during the transition presidential strength will be needed in order to rein in the rank and file of the PRI. Zedillo may have to curb traditional patronage politics in the ruling party in order to enact further political liberalization while maintaining the PRl's unity and discipline. He will have to decide whether to foment primary elections; whether the PRI's illegal methods of winning elections should be overlooked; whether he will respect legitimate opposition victories at the state level; and whether he mast further consolidate political apertura [opening) by beheading the leaders of Mexico's privileged fiefdoms.
Polarization and Political Divagence
Democratic transitions require a convergence among political elites, pacts through which they can negotiote their basic disagreements and establish rules for competition and cooperation that are acceptable to all players. A basic agreement among elites is necessary for the construction and consolidation of a democratic polidcal culture. This agreement is still lacking in Mexico, despite the encouraging results of a peaceful presidential election. Mexico's political life remains clouded by suspicion and distrust among parties, social movements, and political leaders.
The Salinas term wes marked by a climate of permanent confrontation between the government and the Left. Salinas attempted to promote a centrist convergence between the PRI and the PAN (a strategy baptized as "selective demacracy"), as a way of marginalizing the PRD and deepening the rift between the two oppositions. For more than six years, personal and political animosities between government officials and PRD leaders ran high, and the Salinas government showed little inclination to negotiate seriously with the Left. The behavior of the PRI-government apparatus in several key state and local elections (especially in the PRD stronghold of Michoacán) signaled that it would never allow a Cardenista government to come into power anywhere in the country. The end result was the creation of a climate of uncertainty, distrust, and resentment among the main political actors that ultimately polarized the political process.
Polarization was reinforced by the frequent harassment of opposition forces and individuals including political activists and columnists such as Sergio Aguayo, Jorge Castañeda, Miguel Angel Granados Chapa, and Enrique Quintana. Toward the end of the Salinas term, polarization within the ruling party led to politically motivated violence including the assassination of José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the secretary general of the PRI. Many of the polarizing vices were reproduced by the Mexican intelligentsia, that is, by intellectuals who argued that Mexico needed a democratic political culture in order to transit into democracy but at the same time criticized and ostracized those who did not share their views.
It took an armed insurgency in Chiapas to generate a preliminary political accord among contending forces. On January 27, 1994, eight political parties signed the Agreement for Peace, Democracy, and Justice that led to a new reform of the electoral code and significant changes in the structure of the Federal Electoral Institute. Mexico's organized political forces initially offered an auspicious response to guerrilla warfare: an institutional, negotiated resolution of the challenges created by the Zapatistas. The Chiapas upheaval led fachons within the goveroment and the PRI to recognize the severe limitations of previous electoral reforms that had not included the PRD. Simultaneously, the PRD's leadership recognized the need to incorporate the party into institutionalized politics and abandon (at least temporarily) the temptation of anti-institutional adventures.
Despite the signing of the accord and a peaceful presidential election, political turmoil ensued. The assassination in September 1994 of the PRl's secretary general further deepened conflicts among opposing clans within the PRI. As a result, plans for the modernization of the party were postponed indefinitely. In addidon, the "top-down" designation of Zedillo by incumbent president Salinas, the return of members of the old guard to positions of prominence in the Zedillo cabinet, and the military intervention in Chiapas in Febrnary 1995 contradicted the conciliatory stance promised by the new government. The PRD continued to question the legality of the election, and the Cardenista faction of the party remained ensconced in its strategy of permanent confrontation and delegitimation. Radical factions in the PRD, in the name of "democratic intransigence," once again resorted to the party's usual confrontational strategy given that they did not want to support any kind of pre-election reform that would constrain their ability to denounce unfavorable election results.
The prevalence of serious disagreements among opposition forces and their ambiguous relationship with the PRI have hampered the possibility of a "pacted transition" toward a more democratic political system. Leaders of the PRD embrace the institutional route one day, only to flirt with openly combative tactics the next. Leaders of the PAN call for the need to inject greater transparency into the exercise of government power, only to engage in behind-the-scenes negotiations with the Zedillo administration. The age-old rivalries and personal anirnosities that have marked relations between the Center-Right and the CenterLeft in Mexico have undoubtedly decreased the speed of the Mexican transition.
Ideological polarization has diminished the prospects for stable party competition in Mexico and opened up greater political space for populist and personalistic appeals among members of civil society. Several key actors seem to be waiting for the party system to collapse so that they can lead a broad, national, extraparty coelition into power. As Philippe Schmitter acknowledges, civil society, in and of itself, may not be an unmitigated blessing. In the context of rapid deinstitutionalization, when members of civil society lose their bearings, the temptation to support "national saviors"-those whom they identify with an idealized past (or future) - is a clear and present danger.
It is undeniable that pressure `'from below', has forced the PRI dominated system to move in a liberalizing directdon. However, the potential strength of civil society in Mexico has been hampered by socioeconomic constraints as well as by the cultural legacies of domination by one party. Everyday forms of authoritarian rule, including PRI-sponsored patronage and corruption, suggest that Mexican civil society is still encumbered by what Jonathan Fox calls "the difficult transition from clientelism to citizenship." Numerous groups in civil society are fragmented by opposing agendas, the pressures of co-optation and the politics of polarization. Schmitter considers the norms of "civility" and "autonomy" as functional prerequisites for a liberal civil society. Yet in many fledgling neodemocracies, such as Mexico, these norms have been quite difficult to achieve. The breakdown of Mexico's authoritarian regime has left a culture of incivility in its wake, a culture where vengeance and retribution often prevail over accommodation and reconciliation. Civil society in Mexico still encompasses a host of illiberal and anti-institutional actors who favor increased polarization over political compromise and the search for a political "center."
Other forms of polarization also threaten democratic evolotion, including worsening income disparities. More than 40 percent of the Mexican population continues to live in poverty, and real wages have declined to pre-1980 levels. Extreme inequalities in income and social well-being prevail among states and regions and between urban and rural areas. Between 1984 and 1992 the absolute number of Mexicans living in extreme poverty grew, along with the number of Mexican billionaires included in Fortune magazine's list of the world's richest persons. These disparities will be accentuated by high inflation, a dramatic decline in gross domestic product (GDP}, and the loss of more than a million jobs in the first six months after the devaluation. In addition, the benefits of greater integration with the United States have been unevenly distributed within the country, deepening regional disparities between a prosperous north increasingly tied to the U.S. economy and a backward south (especially the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero) plunged into agricultural stagnation. Mexico is increasingly becoming a "dual society" wherein a growing portion of the population is left without the bounties of frce trade and economic reform.
Social costs wrought by renewed economic austerity will undoubtedly continue to place severe strains on Mexico's political and economic system. The persistence of severe income inequalities could become a serious threat to political stability because of the simmering conflict in Chiapas. The Zedillo government's offer of amnesty and ongoing negotiations may lure away supporters of the EZLN and contribute to the weskening of its hold over sectors of the Chiapas population. And by unmasking Subcomandante Marcos the hero, and transforming him into Rafael Guillén the delinquent, the government has been able to reduce his popularity among certain sectors of the population, including members of the middle class, business groups, the intelligentsia, and the media. However, sympathy for the EZLN's cause still prevails in the Mexican countryside and could grow as the social impact of the economic crisis extends its scope. In all likelihood, the Chiapas conflict will not be resolved in the near future, and tensions between state elites and campesino (peasant) organizations may increase, thus jeopardizing the prospects for govemability in the state and elsewhere.
Another form of polarization that threatens political stability and therefore democratic govemance is the high concentration of private power and the public-private symbiosis. The govemment-business alliance constructed by the Salinas govemment, though crucial for the success of economic liberalization policies, included only the large firms and conglomerates that dominate substantial portions of the Mexican economy. The new understanding between Salinas and the business sector was based on the promotion of concentrated distribution of economic and political power among business elites, which resulted in the growing polarization of the business class. State elites explicitly encouraged a parmership with the "winners" of the economic adjustment process, that is, internationally competitive consortiums, based on shared interests. The Salinas team designed and targeted policies that enhanced the productivity, export, and investment capacity of those groups. However, the govemment's predominant policy stance toward the "losers" {small and medium-size businesses), the victims of trade liberalization and credit squeezes, was of not-so-benign neglect. For the Salinas administration, microeconomic instability among small-scale and inward-oriented sectors of the business class was the price to be paid for macroeconomic stability. Zedillo has applied the same kind of discretionary logic in favor of select business groups, especially in the export and banking sectors. In the aftermath of the devaluation, these sectors have received privileged treatment through debt restructuring programs and subsidized credit.
As a result, one of the weak spots on the road to economic recovery and political stability remains the small and medium business sector, which has not enjoyed the benefits of govemment-sponsored privileges. The prevalence of a discriminatory pattern in favor of the large firms has become a major issue of conflict within business circles. Govemrnent policy discretion has created bitter disappointment and many vocal reactions from businesses outside of the select groups, many of whom have joined opposition movcments such as E1 Barzón. Sectoral crises and microeconomic instability that translate into anti-institutional ventures led by small and medium-size businesses might well preempt the prospects for a stable polity.
Economic reform in Mexico since 1982 has entailed a transcendental process of coalition realignment, as well as a reshaping of the constituencies sustaining the government calition in power. The "inclusionist" coalitions of import-substituting industrialization (ISI) have gradually been replaced by the "exclusionist" coalitions of export-led growth (ELG). Under Salinas the cement holding this narrow coalition together was the expectation of economic recovery augured by NAFTA. Under Zedillo a stricken economy will have to generate jobs for a labor force that is growing at more than 3 percent a year. For the neoliberal experiment to survive in the future, Mexican leaders will need to broaden the coalition of beneficiaries of economie reform and lessen both economic and social polarization. To do so, govemment elites may have to increase spending on social programs and productive projects, even if this entails a return to modest levels of deficit spending. In its efforts to stabilize Mexico's macroeeonomic indicators, the Zedillo team has neglected socially beneficial microeconomic intervention by the state. However, it is at the microlevel, among the followers of E1 Barzón and the EZLN, that some of the greatest challenges to democratic governance are being spawned.
The Democratie Agenda
Mexico's experience as a "hegemonic party system in transition" offers lessons for the future of democracy in the rest of Latin America. As in several other countries in the hemisphere, the quandary facing Mexico today is no longer the initiation of political reform but how to maintain its momentum, assure its consolidation, and avoid political breakdown in a context of renewed economic adjustment. The future of democracy in Mexico, as elsewhere, entails channeling the process of change in a clear direction and assuring effective institutionalization. Mexico still lacks the institutions and attitudes that characterize a true democracy. Few political parties and actors could be described as "democratic" in their everyday activities.
For democratic consolidation to occur, it will be necessary for the main political actors to reproduce and extend the accords that led to the August 21 election. The prospects for democratic governance will be enhanced when the PRI, the PAN, and the PRD recognize the verdict of the polls and commit themselves to legal and institutional routes of political competition. The country's political parties most also transform the sphere in which the majority really counts {the doctoral sphere) into a critical locus of decision making regarding the important issues facing the coflntry.
Strengthening the electoral sphere, however, is only one among many necessary steps. Democratic evolution will require that Mexico's political forces fight against clientelist patterns of authority at all levels of society and isolate authoritarian actors. In the past, inclusiveness and patronage had functioned as critical sources of legitimacy. The historic stability of the Mexican political system resulted from the compromises and commitments agreed upon by winning elites. Depoliticization and economic growth were central ingredients of Mexico's postrevolutionary legitimation formula. Leaders of different parties, armies, unions, cliques, factions, and organizations agreed to participate in and support the PRI-dominated system in exchange for material benefits and privileges, including the promotion of their own interests and those of their constituencies. The groups incorporated into the PRI were highly representative of society at the time, and this lent exceptional legitimacy to the PRI.
In the future, democratic governance will require political-ideological redefinitions, including the abandonment of an age-old formula that equated governability with the permanence of the avowed heirs of the Mexican Revolution, the PRl's familia revolucionaria {revolutionary family). Democratic progress would entail the collective recogrution that the PRI as an electoral machine was probably indispensable given the polarization of the postrevolutionary era, but that today it can be seen only as an obstacle to democratic progress and as a potential source of instability.
The democratic agenda will also need to address the vices of Mexico's educational system. Political learning is crucial for the development of a robust and resilient "civic" civil society. Since the Revolution, the country's educational institutions have not been assigned the task of transmitting democratic values. They have transmitted a vision of history, of myths, of heroic moments that built the ideological backbone of the country's PRI-centric development. The political transition under way must extend to a transformation of the reigning political culture so that it favors competition over political monopoly, all within established and clear roles of the game.
The task for Mexican leaders trapped in an uncertain transition will be to foster the development of a democratic culture while dismantling traditional structures of control and challenging powerful constituencies. The consolidation of democratic governance in Mexico will require a "political education for democracy" that imbues Mexican children with tolerance and respect for alternative worltviews, with respect for legitimate authority, and with the desire to enforce accountability (rendir cuentas). Many Mexicans have yet to learn that communities can and should decide their future via the ballot box and other forms of civic participation.
Among the main obstacles to democratic governance is the persistence of inequalities that influence election outcoma. Key among these is the abusive manipulation of election coverage by Mexico's television giant, Televisa. During the 1994 presidential campaign, Televisa orchestrated an "information blackout" of the PAN's candidete after the televised debate that increased his popularity in the polls. Televisa also devoted extensive coverage to the statements made by Roberto Hernández, president of the National Association of Bankers, who warned that interest rates would skyrocket if an opposition party won, thus contributing to the climate of fear and uncerteinty that ultimately affected the distribution of the vote.
Voters in Mexico require more than political information. They also need to be exposed to different alternatives and thus develop the capacity to evaluate them. Television is key to this process as it would be difficult to envision a consolidated democtacy in Mexico without a truly plural mass media. Political debates in Mexico teke place in the press, not on television. Although gains have been made in terms of media access, the issue of biased coverage still needs to be addressed. The media was opened on a temporary basis dazing the presidential campaign, but opposition parties still need to secure media opening in nonelection periods. In addition, democratic governance in Mexico will require reforms of the goveroment-press rdotionship in order to inject veracity, reliability, and transparency into Mexico's public discourse and into the country's political debates.
In order to assure a level playing field among parties, campaign financing must be regulated. The 1994 presidential election was marked by the persistence of significant loopholes in rules to regulate campaign financing. Another round of electoral reforms will be needed to eliminate anonymous contributions and impose lower ceilings on the total amount of contributions. Electoral fairness will also require the transformation of the Federal Electoral Institute into an autonomous entiiy, a fourth power with the capacity and credibility to organize free and clean elections. A future task for the institute should be the determination of clear sanctions for party operatives who commit electoral fraud
Mexico currently lacks an effective system of checks and balances among the different branches of government. A pending item on the agenda of democratic govemance thus should be a constitutional reform that assures the full autonomy of the legislative and judicial powers. In order to achieve a true balance of power, it will not be enough to limit or weaken the power of the presidency; true government accountability will require the strengthening {both politically and legally) of the two other powers. Legislative reform might contemplate the possibility of granting to Congress and the Senate the capacity to supervisc and even veto the activities of cabinet members.
An essential ingredient in the Mexican transition should be the transformation of Mexico's formal federalist pact into a concrete reality. The federal government must be willing to move beyond bureaucratic centralism and reinvigorate municipal life. The PAN has applied sigruficant pressure on the Zedillo administration to implement a "new federalism,~, and the growing number of PAN governors could lead the central government to commit itself to greatr decentralization. At the same time, Mexico's federalist strategy ought to include a systematic attack against local and national fiefdoms in order to weaken authoritarian actors who might otherwise benefit from the resources generated by decentralization.
The party system undoubtedly requires urgent reforms. Political parties in Mexico leave much to be desired because of their lack of representativeness, credibility, organization, proposals, and clear identity. A crucial task for their leaderehip will be to recognize these flaws and underteke organizational, programmatic, and ideological efforts that might enable party consolidation. For the ballot box to become an enduzing and effective fulcrum for change, both the PRI and the opposition will need to undergo a process of political maturation.
In the future, the PAN will have to extend its support beyond the confines of the urban middle class and anchor its platform in an economic and social agenda that is more than a carbon copy of the PRl's. Mexico's Center-Right option may also have to combat the widespread perception that thc PAN is an elidst and cadre party. PAN leaders will have to decide whether they will continue to support the tacit CenterRight alliance struck during the Salinas years or whether the PAN should be less loyal and more of an opposition. The Zedillo term could witness the radicalization of intemperate sectors within the party-possibly led by the governor of the state of Guanajuato, Vicente Fox-for whom the costs of perpetuating conciliatory tactics outweigh the benefits of a frontal attack on the Mexican state. The PAN will also have to discern the reasons why the party lost in the regions where it had been in power for the first time.
The Left also faces new dilemmas. Will the PRD survive? Vrlll the party seek a new route under new leadership? Will the mercurial former mayor of Mexico City, Manuel Camacho, play a role in the reconstruction of the Center-Left via a new political party? The Left is at a crossroads. The party can remain eneconced in the purist, combative, and delegitimizing behavior of the past, rooted in the perception of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas' moral superiority, or it can choose to reposition itself as the flexible, modern, irlstitutionalized Center-Left that Mexico so desperately needs. In order to assure political stability in the context of economic austerity, the Zedillo administration will need to work out some form of peaceful coexistence with the Left. A critical variable for the establishment of democratic normalcy will be to institutionalize the PRD as a credible opposition force that participates in "normal" politics, provides representativeness to the party system, demands greater microlevel government intervention, and exerts useful pressure for deepening the process of political reform. The incorporation of the Left into a governance pact could also contribute to the eventual solution of the Chiapas conflict.
The PRI itself faces significant challenges. Fifty percent of the Mexican electorate did not vote for Zedillo. Participation rose by 12 pacent, but the PRI's vote also declined by 12 percent in comparison with the 1991 landslide. Young, educated, and urban voters voted against the PRI, and the ruling party clearly dominated only in the rural areas. In order to survive the brant of Mexico's economic crisis, the PRI will have to grapple with the changing nature of the electorate and devise an electoral strategy accordingly. A critical imperative for democratic governance in Mexico will be to separate the PRI from the government. The PRI is still a partido de gobiemo {government party), not a partido en el gobiemo {party in government}. This symbiosis partially explains the persistence of difficulties and anomalies during the August 21 election. The playing field was altered by the quasi-monopolistic privileges of a party that is also a government and that has a bureaucratic reason for existence, given that it provides employment and social mobility to the political class. In order to delink the PRI from the government, it will be necessary to reform most of the country's traditional sectoral organizations, including labor unions, peasant confederations, and business associations.
In addition, what needs to change are the mechanisms by which presidents are selected and cabinet members are appointed. Democracy will not arrive as the result of supposedly optimal policies prescribed by self-appointed technocratic saviors bent on economic stability. True democratization would entail new formulas for presidential selection and elite circulation, including the end of the dedazo (the incumbent president's hand-picked selection of his successor). As Peter Smith has argued, in a democracy, competition mast involve the allocation of genuine power including, and especially, executive power. Mexico cannot achieve democracy as long as it relies on the long-standing destape {the incumbent president's announcement of his successor). A presidential primary within the PRI would provide opportunities for participation and competition among the party's different factions. In tandem with the institution of primaries, electoral laws should be re vised in order to make it authentically possible for an opposition, nonPRI contender to win the presidency.
The political backlash created by the devaluation has strengthened the prospects of an opposition victory in the presidential race in the year 2000, but it remains unclear whether the PRI will continue to muddle through and ultimately be rendered irrelevant or modernize itself and prevail. The PRI faces a process of rapid intemal decay, accelerated by the assassinations of Luis Donaldo Colosio and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu. As prominent Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes has expressed it: "It is as though the PRI has gone out to kill itself, to commit suicide. There are Priístas killing Priístas.... What we see is the internal decomposition of a party, which has, in effect, completed its historic purpose."
In the past, however, the PRI has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to reinvent itself in the face of adverse circumstances, as it did during the 1994 presidential race. The competitive nature of those elections forced the PRI to do something it was rarely compelled to do in the past: behave as a real political party. The PRI devised strategies to mobilize the vote, select better candidates, and construct an effective campaign platform. The real questions are whether the impetus for reform within the PRI will continue in the-future and who will lead it. Hegemonic parties do not give up or share power of their own accord; they do so when they are forced to. Therefore, much of the responsibility for dislodging the PRI from power rests on the shoulders of the opposition and on its capacity to construct a coherent and viable option.
Conclusion: Obstacles and Opportunities
The obstacles to democratic consolidation in Mexico abound, including the prevalence of authoritarian actors who control significant levels of power; the widespread confrontational and antisystemic attitude of many key political players; and the persistence in many social spheres of clientelist patterns of domination. Simultaneously, the erosion of corporatist controls and he deinstitutionalization wrought by the weakening of dominant-party rule may ultimately create favorable conditions for democracy. The decline of the PRI is opening windows of political opportunity for opposition parties and societal actors who are taking advantage of the existing political vacuum to strengthen their positions in the political system. As the PRI withers, other forces grow in stature.
Faced with a financial fiasco and unresolved guerrilla warfare, the reaction of Mexico's organized political forces since January 1995 has been mixed. The government offered an institutional, negotiated resolution of the challenges created by the Zapatistas and the unresolved issue of electoral fairness, but has also resorted to the military to deactivate the Chiapas rebels. President Zedillo has recognized opposition victories at the polls, but at the same time he has caved in to pressures exerted by hard-liners in the ruling PRI. Some factions of the political class have decided to work within established institutions, while others still refuse to play by the established rules. Popular organizations and movements are taking to the streets instead of channeling their demands through the ballot box. Democratic evolution in some spheres has been accompanied by political stagnation in others.
A primary variable shaping the outcome and boundaries of the Mexican transition remains the state of the economy. An improved economic profile could buy time for Mexico's battered PRI class and alleviate the pressures for more profound democratic reforms. Economic recovery could once again feed a growing apathy and complacency among business and middle-class groups. Growth-induced social peace would thus reduce the need for substantive changes that extend beyond the electoral realm, as citizens are periodically summoned to the polls by political technocrats. Throughout the rest of the Zedillo term, Mexicans will vote their pocketbooks, and the PRI may lose a host of state elections. If the government is able to chanad discontent through the ballot box, Mexico may end up poorer but more electorally competitive.
However, Mexico's economic downturn, with its potential contagion effect throughout the hemisphere, underscores the lessons for Latin American technocrats of resurrecting the formulas associated with "performance legitimacy" and limited electord democracy. The postponement of forther political reform during the Salinas adrninistration rendered the PRI highly vulnerable to economic decline. As the harsh realities of the country's economic fundamentals become more evident, the potential for social conflict and violence among the dispossessed may grow, extending beyond the confines of Chiapas.
Zedillo's tasks, therefore, will be to reignite economic growth, generate employment, reinvigorate the microeconomy, and translate economic recovery into concrete benefits for the population at large. The heightening of social inequalities as a result of the economic crisis constitutes a critical challenge for democratic governance. Unless Mexico's economic reforms translate into social improvements, political pressures against the goverament will continue to mount, and the offer of greater pditical liberalization may not be sufficient to appease an increasingly disaffected and impoverished population. As Jorge Domínguez and Abraham Lowenthel have eloquently expresed it: "Democracy speaks to the soul, but has yet to fill the belly."
Mexico's main political actors are walking on the razor's edge. Both government and opposition forces confront the dual challenge of setting the economy on a path toward sustained growth while mainteining the impetus for democratic evolution. At the heart of this challenge is the task of institutional renovation or "stage two reforms." If institutions feIl to evolve and accommodate political and social demands until economic growth is restored, instead of sailing into democracy's safe harbor, Mexico might be forced to navigate through the stormy seas of social unrest.
Hence the main task for the country's citizens, parties, technocrats, social movements, and academics will be to collaborate in the construction of institutions that might enable the country too continue on a path toward genuine temocratization. Democratic polities cannot exist without democratic institutions. Philippe Schmitter has argued, the future of democracy will be increasingly "tumultous, uncertein, and evenful." But in Mexico, as elsewhere in Latin America, uncertainity itself is the essence of democracy. If democracy is indeed the outcome, then the uncertainty and political turbulence haled by Chiapas, political cannibalism, and the devaluatiion of the Mexican peso may be a rather small price to pay.