Mexico's New Politics. The PAN and Democratic Change/Mexico's Democracy at Work. Political and Economic Dynamics

Abstract

[...]the development and the role of political parties should not only be studied in terms of the processes occurring in the field in which they operate (the exogenous environment), but also, and perhaps even more importantly, in terms of their internal dynamics and organizational development. [...]it was Felipe Calderón (party president between 1996-1999), who clearly represented the party apparatchiks opposed to Fox and who had been responsible for considerable electoral setbacks. [...]the emergence of 'candidate-centred polities', as Shirk notes, has broader significance for understanding modern Mexican politics. [...]it is helpful to come to terms with the spectacular career of López Obrador, Calderón's leftwing presidential contender.

- Mexico 's New Politics. The PAN and Democratic Change, by David A. Shirk. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005.

- Mexico 's Democracy at Work. Political and Economic Dynamics, edited by Russell Crandall, Guadalupe Paz and Riordan Roett. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005.

The process and outcome of the tumultuous Mexican presidential elections in 2006 raises many questions and will keep observers busy for many years. Three broad questions are important: What were the structural and conjunctural causes of centre-left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador not winning the elections comfortably? How are we to understand the emergence and eventual narrow victory (if at all) of Felipe Calderon, in the context of his originally fragile position within the previous PAN-government? What does all this tell us about the quality and future of Mexico's democracy and political situation? It is interesting to look at scholarly works published shortly before the drama that unfolded in 2006 and search for answers. David Shirk's book about the PAN and Mexico's new politics is very useful in this respect: it contains information about the political trajectory in the PAN of now president Felipe Calderón, and makes some interesting claims about broader developments in the Mexican political system. In the first half, the book concentrates on the PAN, but then broadens it's scope by dealing with the 2000 presidential elections. The focus then shifts to the Fox presidency. Although Shirk argues that Fox's policies and politics were conditioned by his ambivalent relations to the PAN, the main topic of the second half of the book differs from the first.

Shirk makes two arguments. Firstly, the development and the role of political parties should not only be studied in terms of the processes occurring in the field in which they operate (the exogenous environment), but also, and perhaps even more importantly, in terms of their internal dynamics and organizational development. This translates into a focus on parties as bodies of collective choice in which political actors cooperate and compete in order to achieve goals. Shirk elaborates this argument with a detailed historical reconstruction of the rivalling traditions, interests and factions within the PAN and how these have produced particular outcomes. One tradition and interest group, represented by founder Manuel Gómez Morín, has liberal democratic roots with legalistic undertones and finds it's social base mainly among urban educated professionals and entrepreneurs. Another tradition and group, represented by another PAN founding father, Efraín Gonzélez Luna, goes back to Catholic humanist thinking, has morally conservative undertones, and finds it's natural social base in Mexico's Catholic heartland. From the late 1960s onwards, an additional division between old party elites and pragmatic newcomers further complicates the factional and programmatic disputes within the PAN. secondly, understanding Mexican politics requires the systematic analysis of subnational actors and processes in the context of a centralized regime. While this argument is well developed in the book through the qualitative examination ofpanismo in three key cities (Léon, Mérida and Tijuana), it is surprising that the author does not situate it in the much wider debate about the relationship between subnational and centralized political processes, a topic that has been widely studied by historians and political scientists.

These two general points are brought together and acquire their explanatory potential on several occasions in Shirk's chronological analysis of the PAN's political performance, especially when he deals with the emergence of the pragmatist newcomer Vicente Fox against the wishes of entrenched party elites, whom he describes as an aloof, insulated and hierarchical central leadership that took shortsighted and centralized decisions, which generated frustration among party activists at the subnational level and stood at the basis of Fox's successful extra-party strategies. An interesting paradox: because party elites wanted to keep the lid on the party, its ideology coherent and its membership loyal, they pushed Fox to circumvent that same party and hence weaken the latter's grip on political developments. Moreover, it generated 'a new style of candidate-centred polities' (p. 127).

Shirk's analysis is relevant for understanding more recent developments in at least two ways. Firstly, it was Felipe Calderón (party president between 1996-1999), who clearly represented the party apparatchiks opposed to Fox and who had been responsible for considerable electoral setbacks. Shirk also identifies Calderón as a bright intellectual descendant of González Luna's conservative panismo. Calderon's presidential candidacy of the PAN in 2005 should thus be seen as a vindication of more dogmatic party interests. His study also raises questions about how to interpret the current relations of forces inside the PAN, where current president Calderón has to deal with a powerful conservative group around party president Espino. If Shirk places Calderón in the tradition of González Luna's 'compassionate conservatism' (p. 61), where are we to place Espino and his conservative Catholic clique, with strong links to the Spanish right? And, perhaps even more important in the long term, where does this leave the more liberal democratic current within the PAN that goes back to Gómez Morin? Secondly, the emergence of 'candidate-centred polities', as Shirk notes, has broader significance for understanding modern Mexican politics. More precisely, it is helpful to come to terms with the spectacular career of López Obrador, Calderón's leftwing presidential contender. His political style and charismatic presence and his strategic decision to build a power base alongside partisan structures and interests made him, much more than Calderón, the embodiment of the trend identified by Shirk.

Mexico 's New Politics makes an ambivalent assessment of Fox's first years in office. It credits Fox with breaking new ground in Mexico's political system, but evaluates his role in government critically. His preference for style over substance and his inability to develop a vision and public policies leaves the impression of a president more interested in popularity polls then in problem solving and political negotiations: Fox was good on campaigning, but bad on governing. But then again, in the last chapter, Shirk concludes that the changes during his administration point to the positive: 'change meant orderly adherence to democratic procedure' and 'the Fox administration's overall direction seemed to confirm Mexico's continued progress toward consolidating democracy' (p. 236).

A comparable ambivalence constitutes the ground tone of Mexico's Democracy at Work, a volume that complements Shirk's analysis, since two chapters about political and social dynamics are followed by three chapters about Mexico's economic transformations in the context of NAFTA and two chapters about foreign policy. Virtually all chapters convey a sense of Optimism, but'. Schedler's study of the nature and driving forces of Mexico's political transition suggests that the Fox victory in 2000 'marked the symbolic end of the democratic transition [... and ...] signalled that democratic consolidation had been accomplished too'(p. 26). This process rests on three pillars: independent electoral bodies, the judicialization of conflict resolution, and comprehensive oversight by political parties. But democracy is never finished, and as examples he points to the contested legitimacy of judicial institutions that qualify elections and the fragile nature of public debate in Mexico. While Schedler's analysis is theoretically sophisticated insofar as it looks at the mutually reinforcing processes of electoral struggles and institutional reform, his conclusion that 'even if democratic progress is not inevitable, the inner logic of the game pulls it away from authoritarianism' (p. 15) seems premature in the light of what happened in 2005 and 2006. His contention that Mexico's alleged exceptional political transition is less a matter of empirical facts than of theoretical frames perhaps also applies to his own interpretation. After all, how can the overt intromission of Fox in the presidential elections of 2006, the blunders of the electoral body and the dubious role of the electoral tribunal be interpreted other than as authoritarian retrenchment, the politicization of the 'autonomous' electoral body and the deference of judicial authorities to presidential power.

Ambivalence about Mexico's future's prospects can also be found in Gereffi and Martínez's excellent article about economic transformation under NAFTA. The authors show how Mexico was very successful in making exports the main motor of the economy and attracting foreign direct investment. But they also look at the consequences of this strategy for industrial upgrading and, more generally, broader development goals such as equality, employment and economic independence. To pick out only one thing: while the productivity of Mexican workers in the export sector substantially increased, their real wages remained stagnant. The authors therefore conclude that while globalization, liberalization and regionalization have contributed to Mexico's macroeconomic health, the eradication of poverty and the reduction of inequality require something else: a strong domestic market and institutional and policy elements, that 'ensure that a majority of firms and individuals evolve into entities that can take advantage of free trade' (p. 144).

Mexico 's democracy at work contains one overarching idea: Mexico is now firmly situated in phase two of political and economic reform. During phase one, macroeconomic restructuring and political democratization established the context for addressing micro issues during the second phase. Nevertheless, there are problems with presenting the situation in this manner: first, to which degree can un(der)employment, poverty, income inequality and migration be seen as micro issues? They are huge issues that partly explain the macroeconomic successes of the country. Mexico's attractiveness for foreign direct investment (e.g. maquiladoras) is undoubtedly based hi part on the presence of impoverished masses willing to work for low wages. second, the idea of the second phase makes it difficult to consider the fact that worsening 'micro conditions' can hollow out and even paralyse the macro reforms accomplished in the recent past. The debate about the country's real priorities was perhaps the key to the 2006 electoral showdown.

Taken as a whole, these two books provide the reader with interesting material on the political and economic situation during the Fox presidency. These studies are all influenced by the mood of ahora si that permeated Mexican society and Mexican scholarship, and as such they are clearly products of the time in which they were written, although this is less the case with Shirk's study, because it contains a more elaborated historical analysis. Nevertheless, for many Mexicans the ahora si, the sense of opportunities for change, has been overtaken by a sense of no sepudo ....