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Electoral Competition, Legislative Pluralism, and Institutional Development: Evidence From Mexico's States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Frederick Solt
Frederick Solt*
Affiliation:
Rice University
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Abstract

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In presidential systems such as those of Latin America, the institutionalization of legislatures as autonomous representative bodies able to constrain executives and check abuses of power is an important aspect of democratization. Drawing on the experiences of Mexico's state governments, this paper seeks to explain differences in legislative institutionalization. It argues that pluralism within the legislature, rather than electoral competition in itself, provides the best explanation for institutionalization. A process-tracing analysis of the state legislature of Michoacán supports this argument, and a statistical analysis of Mexico's thirty-one states confirms that pluralism in the electorate does shape legislative pluralism—and so indirectly the extent of pressures for institutionalization—but reveals that differences in state electoral laws also play an important role.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , 2004 , pp. 155 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Evelyne Huber, Lars Schoultz, and John Stephens as well as the LARR editors and reviewers for their helpful comments on this work. My thanks also to the Graduate School of the University of North Carolina and the Institute of International Education for research support. I am especially grateful to Juan and Rosita Campo; their friendship made the completion of this work possible.

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