Suchergebnisse

Democratic erosion—the undermining of republican government by a leader with authoritarian tendencies—depends on the improper use of the state apparatus of the state against opponents ("political targeting"). Because political targeting sometimes falls into a legally gray area, and because officials have some maneuvering room in how to respond to the orders they receive, their preferences matter. In the United States, officials' behavior seems to be most influenced by a) the professional risks of refusing improper orders, b) normative obligations to uphold the rule of law and to act ethically, and c) attitudes toward the leader. These factors are, in turn, largely a function of 1) how officials are selected and 2) the extent of oversight and procedural checks they face. These findings have potentially broad implications for democratic erosion.

On July 2, 2006, Mexican voters elected National Action Party (PAN)
candidate Felipe Calderón as the next president of Mexico.
Calderón's victory was extremely narrow; he won under 36% of
the total vote and less that 0.6% more than his leftist rival,
Andrés Manuel López Obrador. This potentially problematic
situation was aggravated by López Obrador's decision to
challenge Calderón's victory, both in the courts and in the
streets. López Obrador's protest campaign culminated on
September 16, when tens of thousands of his followers gathered in downtown
Mexico City to acclaim him "legitimate president" of Mexico.
Meanwhile, in the legislature, leaders of López Obrador's
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) oscillated between hints that
they would collaborate with Calderón's administration and
signs that they would adopt a posture of untrammeled hostility.

A review essay on books by (1) Sarah Babb, Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism (Princeton: Princeton U Press, 2001); (2) Roderic Ai Camp, Mexico's Mandarins: Crafting a Power Elite for the Twenty-First Century (Berkeley: U California Press, 2002); (3) Matthew C. Gutmann, The Romance of Democracy: Compliant Defiance in Contemporary Mexico (Berkeley: U California Press, 2002); & (4) Victoria E. Rodriguez, Women in Contemporary Mexican Politics (Austin: U Texas Press, 2003).

Comments on Adeed Dawisha & Karen Dawisha's article "How to Build a Democratic Iraq" (Foreign Policy, 2003, May/June).