Executive-legislative relations and democratic consolidation in Mexico

Darren Wallis

pp. 202-214

in: Chris Pierson, Simon Tormey (eds), Politics at the edge, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

Mexico occupies an ambiguous position in the literature on democratic transition and consolidation. Whilst the federal elections in 1994 and 1997 were relatively free and fair — and were acknowledged as such by national and international observers — the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) maintains its 70-year grip on power. As military governments and communist parties have crumbled around it, Mexico's "perfect dictatorship" has endured.