Fox’s Mexico at Midterm

Issue Date January 2004
Volume 15
Issue 1
Page Numbers 139-153
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With its third national election since the watershed political reforms of 1996, Mexico has successfully consolidated a democratic regime. As the first half of Vicente Fox’s administration has demonstrated, however, certain features of this system seriously impede effective governance. Chief among these features is the combination of presidential rule with a three-party system. Most of the institutional reforms currently under consideration, such as the reelection of federal deputies, are unlikely to solve the problems this system generates. In this challenging institutional context, more is demanded of Mexican political leaders than they have so far been able to deliver.

About the Author

Chappell Lawson is associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he holds the Class of 1954 Career Development Chair. He is the author of Building the Fourth Estate: Democratization and the Rise of a Free Press in Mexico (2002) and coeditor of Mexico’s Pivotal Democratic Election: Candidates, Voters, and the Presidential Campaign of 2000 (forthcoming).

View all work by Chappell Lawson