Ebook: Mexico's New Politics: the Pan and Democratic Change

Mexico’s presidential elections in July 2000 brought victory to National Action Party (PAN) candidate Vicente Fox—and also the hope of democratic change after decades of single-party rule. Tracing the key themes and dynamics of a century of political development in Mexico, David Shirk explores the evolution of the party that ultimately became the vehicle for Fox’s success. Shirk examines the factors that constrained democracy in postrevolutionary Mexico, as well as the protracted democratic transition that occurred over the last few decades. In the process, he shows that Fox’s victory was also the triumph of a new Mexican politics in which voters, candidates, money, and media-driven campaigns—not party leaders or machines—drive political competition. Indeed, Fox’s ability to bring democratic change to Mexico, Shirk demonstrates, was fundamentally constrained by the very trends that brought him to power—with enormous implications for Mexico’s political present and future.