Electoral institutions and democratic consolidation in the Mexican states, 1990-2004

Abstract

The organization of fair election requires impartial and independent electoral management bodies. We exploit the longitudinal variation in political competitiveness in Mexico’s local and state elections from 1990 to 2004 to analyze its effect on the formation and development of independent electoral management bodies. We posit a simple model where increased political competition in local elections leads to more independent electoral management bodies through various mechanisms at different stages of a democratization process —noting that competition in local, state assembly or gubernatorial elections do not produce the same incentives for electoral reform among all political parties. We develop an original index of the independence of electoral institutions for the Mexican states during the 1990 to 2004 period, and analyze a number of measures of political competition to assess the hypotheses derived from our model. Our results indicate that increased competitiveness in governor and legislative races leads to more independent electoral institutions, whereas competition in municipal races does not. Increased competition from some political parties elicits larger increases in independence than others. We also find that, as the number of effective political parties increase, the pressure for further electoral reform eventually settles down.

La organización de elecciones justas requiere órganos de administración electoral imparciales e indepentientes. Este documento explota la variación en la competitividad electoral en contiendas municipales y estatales entre 1990 y 2004 para analizar sus efectos en la formación y desarrollo de órganos estatales electorales independientes. Planteamos un modelo donde mayor competencia política conduce a la creación de órganos electorales más independientes mediante diversos mecanismos a lo largo de un proceso de democratización —enfatizando que la competencia en contiendas locales, legislativas y de gobernadores no producen los mismos incentivos para promover reformas electorales. Con base en un índice original de independencia de los institutos estatales electorales en México, ponemos a prueba algunas implicaciones de nuestro modelo utilizando diferentes medidas de competitividad política. Los resultados indican que a mayor competencia en contiendas legislativas y para gobernador conduce a órganos electorales más independientes, mientras que la de contiendas municipales no tiene tal efecto. El impacto de la fuerza electoral del PAN y PRD es distinto. Finalmente, la presión por reformas electorales disminuye a partir de cierto umbral de número efectivo de partidos.