Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

We know little about how formerly hegemonic parties react to drastic changes in the external political environment. Under non-competitive electoral conditions, the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) was characterized by centralized legislative recruitment and candidate selection that delivered a large percentage of coveted senate candidacies to national-level party politicians and bureaucrats. This centralized and nationalized recruitment gave the leader of the PRI enormous control over his wide-flung political elite. Since elections have become competitive, the PRI has decentralized its recruitment of senate candidates, searching out those most popular with state voters. This work compares the PRI candidates’ backgrounds from the non-competitive and competitive periods, and runs a logistical regression to ascertain if there is a relation between competition and types of party politicians winning nominations. The article demonstrates, using first-of-its-kind data on professional backgrounds of candidates (rather than sitting legislators), that legislative recruitment in a federal context has been decentralized in Mexico.

Keywords

candidate recruitment hegemonic federalism Mexico Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI)

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aldrich, John (1995) Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .

Appleton, Andrew and Daniel Ward (1993) ‘Party Transformation in France and the United States. The Hierarchical Effects of System Change in Comparative Perspective’ , Comparative Politics 26: 69–98 .

Bille, Lars (2001) ‘Democratising a Democratic Procedure: Myth or Reality?’ Party Politics 7: 363–380 .

Camp, Roderic A. (1977) ‘Losers in Mexican Politics’, in James Wilkie and Kenneth Ruddle (eds) Quantitative Latin American Studies. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Latin American Center Publication .

Camp, Roderic A. (1995a) Mexican Political Biographies, 1935–1993. Austin: University of Texas Press .

Camp, Roderic A. (1995b) Political Recruitment Across Two Centuries: Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press .

Carey, John M. and Matthew S. Shugart (1995) ‘Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote: a Rank Ordering of Electoral Formulas’ , Electoral Studies 14: 417–439 .

Cornelius, Wayne (1996) Mexican Politics in Transition: The Breakdown of a One-Party-Dominant Regime. University of California, San Diego, CA: Center for U.S.–Mexican Studies .

Cox, Gary and Frances Rosenbluth (1996) ‘Factional Competition for the Party Endorsement’ , British Journal of Political Science 26: 259–269 .

10.

Craig, Ann L. and Wayne A. Cornelius (1995) ‘Houses Divided: Parties and Political Reform in Mexico’, in Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully (eds) Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press .

11.

Czudnowski, Moshe (1975) ‘Political Recruitment’, in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (eds) Handbook of Political Science: Volume 2, Micropolitical Theory. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley .

12.

Díaz-Cayeros, Alberto (1997) ‘Political Responses to Regional Inequality, Taxation, and Distribution in Mexico’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Duke University.

13.

Epstein, Leon D. (1980) Political Parties in Western Democracies. New York: Transaction Books .

14.

Gallagher, Michael and Michael Marsh (1988) The Secret Garden of Politics: Candidate Selection in Comparative Perspective. London: Sage .

15.

Garman, Christopher , Stephan Haggard and Eliza Willis (2001) ‘Fiscal Decentralization: A Political Theory with Latin American Cases’ , World Politics 53: 205–236 .

16.

Hale, Jon (1995) ‘The Making of the New Democrats’ , Political Science Quarterly 110: 207–228 .

17.

Harmel, Robert , Uk Heo , Alexander Tan and Kenneth Janda (1995) ‘Performance, Leadership, Factions and Party Change: An Empirical Analysis’ , West European Politics, 18: 1–33 .

18.

Hernández-Rodríguez, Rogelio (2003) ‘The Renovation of Old Institutions: State Governors and the Political Transition in Mexico’ , Latin American Politics and Society 45: 97–128 .

19.

King, Gary , Michael Tomz and Jason Wittenberg (2000) ‘Making the Most of Statistical Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation’ , American Journal of Political Science 44: 341–355 .

20.

Koelble, Thomas (1992) ‘Recasting Social Democracy in Europe: A Nested Games Explanation of Strategic Adjustment in Political Parties’ , Politics and Society 20: 51–70 .

21.

Loaeza, Soledad (1999) El Partido Acción Nacional: la larga marcha, 1939–1994. Oposición leal y partido de protesta. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económico .

22.

Lundell, Krister (2004) ‘Determinants of Candidate Selection: The Degree of Centralization in Comparative Perspective’ , Party Politics 10: 25–48 .

23.

Mizrahi, Yemile (2003) From Martyrdom to Power: The Partido Acción Nacional in Mexico. South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press .

24.

Norris, Pippa (1996) ‘Political Recruitment’, in Lawrence LeDuc , Richard G. Miemi and Pippa Norris (eds) Comparing Democracies. Elections and Voting in Global Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .

25.

Pacheco, Guadalupe (1991) ‘Los sectores del PRI en las elecciones de 1988’ , Mexican Studies 7(2): 253–282 .

26.

Panebianco, Angelo (1982) Modelos de partido: Organización y poder en los partidos políticos. Espaòa: Alianza Universitaria .

27.

Poiré, Alejandro (2002) ‘Bounded Ambitions. Party Nominations, Discipline and Defection: Mexico's PRI in Comparative Perspective’. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard University, Department of Political Science.

28.

Ranney, Austin (1981) ‘Candidate Selection’, in David Butler , Howard Penniman and Austin Ranney (eds) Democracy at the Polls: A Comparative Study of Competitive National Elections. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research .

29.

Reyes del Campillo, Juan (1992) ‘Candidatos y campaòas en la elección federal de 1991’, in Alberto Aziz and Jaqueline Peschard (eds) Las elecciones federales de 1991. Mexico: Miguel Angel Porrua .

30.

Sartori, Giovanni (1976) Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

31.

Scarrow, Susan (1996) Parties and Their Members. Organizing for Victory in Britain and Germany. Oxford: University of Oxford Press .

32.

Shefter, Martin (1994) Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press .

33.

Smith, Peter (1979) Labyrinths of Power: Political Recruitment in Twentieth-Century Mexico. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press .

34.

Ware, Alan (1995) Political Parties and Party Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press .

35.

Wattenberg, Martin P. (1990) ‘From a Partisan to Candidate-Centered Electorate’, in Anthony King (ed.) The New American Political System. Washington: American Enterprise Institute Press .

36.

Weldon, Jeffrey (1997) ‘Political Sources of Presidentialismo in Mexico’, in Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Shugart (eds) Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press .

The Changing Party of the Institutional Revolution

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References