Democracy in "Two Mexicos"

Political Institutions in Oaxaca and Nuevo León

G. Correa-Cabrera

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137263032
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explains some of the ways in which deteriorated socioeconomic conditions (inequality in particular) and institutional limitations (corruption, electoral exclusion, and a weak rule of law, among others) affect political stability in extremely unequal developing countries, like Mexico, where democracy is not yet fully consolidated.

P A R T I

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY

C H A P T E R 1

POLITICAL FACTIONALISM IN “DEMOCRATIC” MEXICO: THE CONTEXT, THE VARIABLES, AND THE MAIN ACTORS

PART I PRESENTS THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY utilized in this book to explain civil upheaval and violent political turmoil—referred to here as “active political factionalism,” APF, or simply “political factionalism”—in Mexico. The first chapter of this part describes the concept of political factionalism and identifies its main causes. It provides a careful description of the variables utilized in the study and briefly mentions the causal mechanisms that are most often invoked by scholars attempting to explain political factionalism and contentious politics. The final part of this chapter identifies the limitations of existing analytical frameworks used to study such phenomena, developing an improved theoretical model that will be applied to the Mexican case.

UNDERSTANDING POLITICAL FACTIONALISM: VARIABLES AND CAUSALITY

THE DEPENDENT VARIABLE: ACTIVE POLITICAL FACTIONALISM (APF)

The purpose of this study is to explain the extra-institutional protest politics and uncivil modes of political action that significantly affect political stability or cohesion in fragile democracies today. These phenomena are related to what Marshall and Jaggers call active political factionalism. According to these authors, “active” factionalism is a specific form of division within a democracy that occurs when certain groups are engaged in antagonistic relations that “challenge the coherence and cohesion of authority patterns” (2–3). The dependent variable of the present study refers to actions that reflect a clear tendency toward political alienation or destabilizing political violence. This concept refers to major manifestations of popular discontent and antigovernment actions that seriously affect political cohesion and have a negative impact on democratic advancement and consolidation.¹

Most developing democracies today—such as the Latin American ones—show diverse manifestations of political factionalism. Over the past couple of decades, several countries in Latin America have experienced important political crises in the form of massive antigovernment protests, widespread riots, political assassinations, local struggles for autonomy and resource control, guerrilla violence, and so on. Among these phenomena are Mexico’s 2006 post-electoral conflict and the Zapatista uprising, Venezuela’s brief coup of April 2002 and the subsequent civil turmoil, urban riots in Argentina, and indigenous protests in Bolivia.

It is worth noting that not every manifestation of popular dissent should be included in the ambit of APF. In fact, sociopolitical dissent does not always represent an obstacle to governability and democratic advancement. It may have positive effects on democratic development in cases where popular mobilization and identity diversity are effectively managed, as in the case of consociationalism² or pluralism. The expansion of pluralist and competitive politics creates opportunities to deepen democracy. Certain political parties, social movements, NGOs, and other groups can play a crucial role in promoting further democratization. Manifestations of sociopolitical dissent include forms of social mobilization that, under certain circumstances, can play an important role in attacking corruption, demanding certain fundamental rights, and securing justice and transparency. Social mobilization can also contribute to engaging previously excluded groups in the political process by incorporating women, ethnic and racial minorities, and unorganized and informal-sector workers (Agüero and Stark; Korzeniewicz and Smith).

Likewise, not every disturbance of the public order is detrimental to democratic advancement and consolidation. Crime, nonviolent strikes, peaceful demonstrations, and minor cultural conflicts (ethnic and religious) apparently take place in every developing democracy and do not seem to pose a major threat to democratic performance or democratic quality. It is important then to differentiate routine forms of sociopolitical unrest from influential anti-regime rebellion, destabilizing political violence, and those actions that reflect a clear tendency to political alienation—such as massive antigovernment protests, widespread riots, political assassinations, or guerrilla warfare.

In brief, the present analysis considers only relevant instances of political violence, massive antigovernment demonstrations, and other uncivil modes of political action that seriously affect political stability and cohesion. Additionally, the notion of APF includes the emergence of destabilizing protest movements among the urban poor, indigenous insurrections, mass peasant movements, and so on. These manifestations of social unrest in themselves may not be cause for concern, but they can provoke major disruption if increasing belligerence by robust mass movements is directed at challenging regime authority, or if such manifestations of unrest escalate into severe political violence.

Hence, the dependent variable of the present study includes, among other actions, “the assassination of political competitors; attacks against the liberty, physical integrity, and property of political adversaries; the violent intimidation of voters and candidates . . . and the expressive destruction of public property.” Additionally, the concept of APF incorporates the presence of groups or individuals who “do not accept the outcomes of democratic elections but rather mobilize extra-institutional protest, boycott elected assemblies, or take up arms to overthrow elected authorities by force” (Schedler 71). These actions can be accompanied by violent responses from the government, or by the government’s implementation of restrictive (coercive) measures to retain power.

It is important to mention that manifestations of APF, as defined here, are not exclusive to democracies; they take place across regimes. Both authoritarian and democratic states coexist with guerrillas, diverse kinds of political violence, major manifestations of popular dissent, violent repression of dissident groups, and so on. What is more, these phenomena do not seem to threaten the democratic regimes themselves; rather, they undermine democratic performance or the quality of democracy. In extreme forms, active political factionalism could escalate to constitutional crises and regime breakdown. However, most developing democracies today do not present the kind of extreme political or ideological polarization that typically precedes regime collapse.

What matters for the purposes of this research are those cases where civil upheaval and political violence negatively affect democratic performance yet where the breakdown of democratic institutions and practices is not evident. This seems to be the case in most Latin American countries. At present, the nations located in this region generally show moderate levels of conflict and political violence. However, civil upheaval and political violence in most countries of Latin America have not yet reached critical levels that clearly challenge the survival of democratic institutions.

EXPLANATORY FACTORS

What are the main factors that cause major protest actions, cycles of violent protest, and vast societal crises in fragile democracies? In other words, what are the main causes of active political factionalism in relatively weak or developing democracies? Several scholars have offered theories to explain some forms of extra-institutional protest politics, including major civil upheavals and violent political turmoils. Popular explanations are frequently related to the presence of deteriorating socioeconomic conditions, such as widespread poverty, poor economic performance, and high levels of inequality. However, it is not obvious that economic conditions are the ultimate cause of APF-related phenomena. In similar socioeconomic contexts, some groups rebel violently, while other groups with comparable social and economic characteristics do not.

Deteriorating economic conditions and/or problems of economic exclusion are apparently major causes of political factionalism in the current era. Among these conditions, economic inequality has been identified as crucial to explain AFP-related phenomena. In several regions of the world, distributive conflicts are a significant source of political factionalism. However, high (and, in some cases, increasing) economic inequality is not necessarily the only—nor even the most important—cause of popular rebellion and political violence. Institutional limitations (including electoral exclusion and corruption), population pressures, ethnic and religious differences, and international conditions and other external influences all have an impact on the occurrence of major political upheavals. At the same time, the organizational capacities of rebellious groups (including material resources and political opportunities; leaders’ choices, initiatives, and strategies; interest group structure, among others), as well as government reactions to popular protest, mediate the occurrence of major political turmoils.

In short, a diversity of factors interact in complicated ways to produce what is defined here as active political factionalism; there is no simple (much less exclusive) economic or political explanation of the occurrence of AFP-related phenomena in developing democracies. Rather, the presence of violent political conflict, massive antigovernment mobilizations, and vast societal crises involve intricate interactions among structural, institutional, strategic, and individual leadership factors. A more sophisticated and complex explanation of these phenomena is thus required. A consistent explanation of political factionalism in developing democracies should consider a variety of independent variables or sources of causal influence, including economic disadvantages (poverty, inequality, and lack of economic development); institutional limitations (electoral exclusion, corruption, a fragile rule of law, etc.); cultural factors (religion, usages and customs, etc.); demographic factors; and international conditions.

None of these factors alone seems to determine the occurrence of political factionalism, and the degree of causality varies according to each explanatory variable. Two main groups of variables are often identified as producing APF in fragile democracies: deleterious socioeconomic conditions and institutional weaknesses. However, the presence of relevant socioeconomic or institutional conditions is apparently “necessary” but “not sufficient” for the occurrence of APF. The impact of these two broad classes of phenomena is mediated by other factors, such as political leadership and choice; organizational factors available to rebellious groups; and other external shocks that have an impact on the behavior of dissident groups or the government. Additionally, there are other explanatory variables that do not always seem to be necessary conditions for the occurrence of APF but that often encourage major political conflict. This could be the case of certain cultural factors, demographic characteristics, or international influences.

The present study focuses on the two broad classes of variables that essentially provoke political factionalism: (1) deteriorating socioeconomic conditions and associated problems of economic exclusion (particularly unequal distribution of incomes and wealth), and (2) institutional limitations (primarily problems of electoral exclusion, including fraud, repression, or manipulation of the electoral process). The following sections of the present chapter provide a brief account of key analytical frameworks that incorporate these variables and which are generally utilized to explain contentious politics or uncivil modes of political action. After identifying the basic limitations of these analytic schemes, this work presents an improved theoretical model that illustrates the plausible links between institutional/socioeconomic matters and APF. Such a model seems better suited to analyzing political factionalism in Mexico.

THE SOCIOECONOMIC EXPLANATION AND THE SPECIAL RELEVANCE OF INEQUALITY

The goals, perceptions, and choices of rebellious groups, political leaders, and political actors in general are decisively shaped by the socioeconomic context in which they perform. Explanations of massive popular mobilizations, revolts, and insurrections are frequently related to the social frustrations that arise in contexts of economic crisis or stagnation, massive poverty, and extreme inequality (Cloward and Piven; Gurr; Yates). These accounts generally link variations in protest activities to people’s changing perceptions and assessments of their economic situation. Thus, according to this view, political stability and social cohesion are greatly influenced by the ability of governments to promote sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty and inequality.³

According to Richard Posner, for example, poor economic conditions increase deprivation, which fuels political instability as citizens perceive their government to be ineffective (344). In fact, numerous empirical studies (e.g., Annett; Blomberg and Hess; Booth; Cuzan, Moussalli, and Bundrik) show a direct relationship between low-income growth and political instability—albeit defined in different ways. Likewise, Collier and Hoeffler argue that when income is low or decreasing, the opportunity cost for an individual to revolt is also low (563). In such conditions, individuals have incentives to quit their participation in productive activities and partake in protests and insurrections (Grossman 912).

Among the variety of socioeconomic factors allegedly causing massive popular rebellion and cycles of violent protest, economic inequality has often been considered the most important one.⁴ According to this perspective, persistently high levels of economic disparity translate into intensified resentment, thus increasing sociopolitical polarization and provoking popular uprising...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Introduction
• Part I   Theoretical Framework and Methodology
• Part II   Case Study 1: Oaxaca
• Part III   Case Study 2: Nuevo León
• Conclusion: Effective Rules, Economic Inclusion, and Political Stability; Lessons for Young and Unequal Democracies
• Epilogue: Mexico After 2006 and the Case of Nuevo León
• Appendix: List of Interviews
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index