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Based on an in-depth examination of Mexico's print and broadcast media over the last twenty-five years, this book is the most richly detailed account available of the role of the media in democratization, demonstrating the reciprocal relationship between changes in the press and changes in the political system

Based on an in-depth examination of Mexico's print and broadcast media over the last twenty-five years, this book is the most richly detailed account available of the role of the media in democratization, demonstrating the reciprocal relationship between changes in the press and changes in the political system.

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.

A flurry of recent studies indicates that candidates who simply look more capable or attractive are more likely to win elections. In this article, the authors investigate whether voters' snap judgments of appearance travel across cultures and whether they influence elections in new democracies. They show unlabeled, black-and-white pictures of Mexican and Brazilian candidates' faces to subjects living in America and India, asking them which candidates would be better elected officials. Despite cultural, ethnic, and racial differences, Americans and Indians agree about which candidates are superficially appealing (correlations ranging from .70 to .87). Moreover, these superficial judgments appear to have a profound influence on Mexican and Brazilian voters, as the American and Indian judgments predict actual election returns with surprising accuracy. These effects, the results also suggest, may depend on the rules of the electoral game, with institutions exacerbating or mitigating the effects of appearance. (World Politics / SWP)

Task force report: Introduction -- Recommendations: Making North America safer ; Creating a North American economic space ; From vision to action: institutions to guide trinational relations ; Conclusion -- Additional and dissenting views -- Task Force members -- Task Force observers