Leverage, Legitimacy, and the Legislature

LEVERAGE, LEGITIMACY, AND THE LEGISLATURE:

INSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION UNDER MEXICO’S PRI, 1929-2000

Dissertation

Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree doctor of philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By Miryam Chandler, B.A, M.A Graduate Program in Political Science The Ohio State University 2013

Dissertation Committee: Marcus Kurtz (adviser) Sarah Brooks Jeremy Wallace

Abstract

How is it that an institution designed to promote democracy can be subverted to provide long-term support to an autocracy – and then again, later, become the instrument of democratization? Institutions are not stagnant; they perform distinctly different roles over time. The process by which they come to change roles is understood as evolution.

This dissertation answers the question, “How does institutional evolution vary over time?” By examining the case of Mexico from 1929 to 2000, I am able to show that institutional evolution varies in terms of speed and in terms of content.

In the case of Mexico, the same party – the PRI – ruled from 1929 until 2000 in a dominant party authoritarian regime. I study the Mexican constitution to demonstrate that the speed of institutional evolution is associated with the struggle for power between the ruling party and the opposition party or parties, while the content of institutional evolution is associated with the struggle between the executive and the legislature.

Dominant party regimes face challenges for leverage between the executive and the legislature (branch power) and the ruling party and opposition party (party power). When those leverage relationships shift – when one side increases its leverage over the other –

ii the patterns of legislative evolution shift as well. Institutions change course, from favoring one side to favoring the other. The proximate cause of these evolutionary shifts is the regime’s response to legitimacy crises; legitimacy crises create opportunities to alter leverage relationships, which in turn affect the direction of legislative evolution.

I argue that shifts in legislative evolutionary patterns are correlated with shifts in the two leverage relationship axes outlined above, branch power (executive-legislature) and party power (ruling party-opposition party). When the weaker actor – the legislature, in terms of the branch axis, and the opposition, in terms of the party power axis – increases its leverage over the traditionally stronger actor, the weaker actor is able to pursue institutional changes which strengthen its position. I demonstrate this by analyzing constitutional amendments between 1929 and 2000 in Mexico, and showing that those amendments push the legislature towards being a more powerful institution in some periods and towards being a weaker institution in others, as well as enshrining opposition powers in some periods and diminishing them in others. Tracing the path of the legislature’s evolution further highlights that institutions do not evolve in a strictly linear fashion; rather, they may evolve towards an end for some time and then devolve, or move away from that ultimate end, before eventually altering course to evolve once again.

I utilize the comparative method (adapted from Mill’s method) to show an association between my two sets of hypotheses. My theory speaks to two dimensions of legislative evolution: its speed and its content. In terms of the speed, I argue that (1a)

When the ruling party has leverage over the opposition party, rate of constitutional

iii change will be lower and (1b) When the opposition party has leverage over the ruling party, rate of constitutional change will be higher. In terms of content, I posit that (2a)

When the executive has leverage over the legislature, changes are more likely to constrain legislative powers and (2b) When the legislature has leverage over the executive, changes are more likely to increase legislative powers.

The shifts in leverage balance are brought about by the regime’s response to a legitimacy crisis. In the case of Mexico, there were four legitimacy crises bracketing five periods of institutional evolution. The legitimacy crisis – an exogenous shock – forced the regime to take action in order to address the crisis and rebuild its damaged legitimacy.

The regime response facilitated a shift in leverage relationships, which brought about institutional evolution.

Dedication

To my husband Will and my parents, Rhonda Moskowitz and Chris Farrar, without whom I would have given up long ago.

Acknowledgements

There is some great irony to the fact that a dissertation, while technically only written by one person, is in reality the work of many. My name is on the front, but I would not have reached that point without the help and support of quite a few people.

I must of course thank my committee for their assistance over the years. Marcus

Kurtz’s willingness to be a springboard for all of my ideas, from the most far-flung early days (“I’d like to interview some dictators!”) to this ultimate iteration, has been immensely valuable. His patience in sitting through my meanderings and in explaining his thoughts for the umpteenth time made it possible for me to finally sit down and write my dissertation. Sarah Brooks’ careful examination and diligent critiques of each stage of my dissertation work helped me to work through both the logic and the flaws of my arguments and ultimately led to a much stronger document. Jeremy Wallace’s expertise in authoritarian systems helped ensure that I at least thought about cases other than

Mexico.

Far back in the dark ages of pre-candidacy graduate school I had the privilege of knowing Amanda Yates and Rebecca Haimowitz King. From the first day of graduate school, through the terror of candidacy exams, to the prospectus and now to the finish line, they have been my colleagues, my friends, and my cheering squad.

I also owe an immense debt of gratitude to my dissertation group. Across four time zones and three continents, Danielle Langfield, Soundarya Chidambaram, Jennifer vi

Nowlin, Tahseen Kazi, Jiwon Suh, and Emily Lamb offered insightful comments, lasting friendships, and immense support. Danielle and Soundarya in particular paved the way for me; by their examples they made the entire process of completing a dissertation seem possible.

My research in Mexico was facilitated by a series of grants. I am grateful to the

Department of Political Science, the Alumni Grant for Graduate Research, the Office of

International Affairs, and the Mershon Center for funding my fieldwork.

My parents, Chris Farrar and Rhonda Moskowitz, have been enormous sources of support through this entire seven-year marathon. They have fed me when I was too busy to cook, babysat when I needed to work, and unequivocally encouraged me when I became frustrated. Without them, as without my siblings, Rebekah and Zach Farrar, I would have been lost.

Finally, there are two very important people whose role in all of this must be acknowledged. My son Henry will have no memory of his mother’s time in graduate school, but my memories of my last year of school will be enormously lightened by the memories of his first year of life. And my husband, Will, made all of this possible.

When I made the decision to move from Minnesota to Ohio for graduate school, he came with me. When I was so stressed out from exams that I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry, he took care of me. When I considered quitting graduate school multiple times, he talked me out of it. Throughout this entire process he has been my center – he has brought me calm when I am anxious, and offered solutions when all I could see were problems. Without his love, patience, and support I would have given up long ago. This

vii dissertation belongs to him and to all the others who helped and supported me as much as it does to me.

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Vita

2005…………B.A., Political Science and International Studies. Macalester College, St. Paul MN.

cum laude

2008…………M.A., Political Science. The Ohio State University, Columbus OH.

2010-2011……Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow, U.S. Department of Education

2006-2013……Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant

Fields of Study

Major Field: Political Science

Specialization: Comparative Politics

Table of Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….ii Dedication……………………………………………………………………………….v Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………...vi Vita………………………………………………………………………………………ix Field of Study…………………………………………………………………………....ix Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………..x List of Tables………………………………………………………………………….....xii List of Charts…………………………………………………………………..………..xiii List of Graphs………………………………………………………………………...... xiv Glossary of Terms………………………………………………………………………..xv Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………1 1.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………..1 1.2 The Puzzle…………………………………………………………………3 1.3 Institutional Evolution in the Literature: Failure of Existing Arguments …..……………………………………………………………………………...…6 1.4 The Importance of Understanding Institutional Evolution……………..10 1.5 Dominant Party Democracies, Dominant Party Autocracies, and Hegemonic Party Regimes…………………………………………..…...12 1.6 Why Mexico?...... 15 1.7 Hypotheses to be Tested………………………………………………....15 1.8 Legislative Evolution under the PRI: A Periodization…………………..18 1.9 Order of the Dissertation………………………………………………...23 1.10 Conclusion…………………………………………………………….…23 Chapter 2: A Theory of Institutional Evolution under Dominant Party Regimes……….25 2.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………...25 2.2.1 Institutions under Authoritarianism…………………………………..….27 2.2.2 Institutional Evolution…………………………………………………...32 2.2.3 Institutional Disequilibrium……………………………………………...36 2.3 Theory…………………………………………………………………....40 2.4.1 Executive-Legislative Relations………………………………………....49 2.4.2 Constitutional Powers under Dominant Party Authoritarianism………...52 2.4.3 Bargaining under Authoritarianism……………………………….……..54 2.4.4 Leverage Relationships………………………………………………….55 x

2.5 Causal Links: Legitimacy……………………………………………...... 60 2.6 Conclusion……………………………………………………………….62 Chapter 3: Responses to Legitimacy Crises as the Causal Mechanism……………..…...63 3.1 Introduction………………………………………………………….….63 3.2 Theory Review…………………………………………………………..63 3.3 The Causal Mechanism…………………………………………………..67 3.4 Legitimacy Crises in Mexican History……………………………….….80 3.5 Conclusion………………………………………………………….……93 Chapter 4: Testing the Theory: The Evolution of Legislative Powers……………..……95 4.1 Introduction………………………………………………………..…….95 4.2 Mexican History: From the Revolution to 1929………………...... ……96 4.3 Legislative Evolution: A Periodization…………………………………102 4.4 Data Sources and Coding Decisions……………………………………116 4.5 Research Design and Findings……………………………………….…125 4.6 Conclusion…………………………………………………………...... 144 Chapter 5: Case Study: Tracking Legislative Evolution Through Land Reform………146 5.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………….146 5.2 Brief Restatement of Theory……………………………………………148 5.3 Article 27 in the Context of Institutional Evolution……………………150 5.4 A Brief History of Article 27…………………………………………...156 5.5 Accommodating the Theory to the Facts: the Challenge of a Small n....160 5.6 The Amendments in the Historical Context: 1933-1992……………….163 5.7 Research Design………………………………………………………..173 5.7.1 Coding Decisions and Data Sources……………………………………174 5.8 Findings……………………………………………………………...…177 5.9 Conclusion…………………………………………………………...…198 Chapter 6: Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..201 6.1 Existing Arguments Revisited………………………………………….201 6.2 Summary of the Findings…………………………………………….…204 6.3 Unanswered Questions…………………………………………………209 6.4 Conclusion…………………………………………………………...…213 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………....215 Appendix: Executive-Legislative Bargaining in Democracies……..………………….222

List of Tables

Table 2.1: Variation in axes of institutional evolution……………………………….…48

Table 2.2: Deals behind prominent Concertacesión agreements……………………….55

Table 3.1: Explaining variation in institutional evolutionary patterns…………………66

Table 3.2: Summary of legitimacy crises………………………………………………94

Table 4.1: Rate of constitutional change over time…………………………………….104

Table 4.2: Summary: Predicted leverage relationship winners by period………...……115

Table 4.3: Party power and rate of evolution by period………………………………..127

Table 4.4: Branch dominance and legislative power by period………………………..132

Table 4.5: Branch power and modified legislative power by period…………………..135

Table 5.1: Land use and tenure by general type, 1988…………………………………155

Table 5.2: Coding and hypothesis findings by case……………………………………177

Table 5.3: Party power axis leverage findings…………………………………………178

Table 5.4: Coding decisions for hypotheses 1a and 1b………………………………...179

Table 5.5: Branch axis leverage findings………………………………………………189

Table 5.6: Recoded branch axis leverage findings……………………………………..190

Table 5.7: Coding decisions for hypotheses 2a and 2b…………………………………192

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List of Charts

Chart 3.1: Categories of evolutionary shifts…………………………………………..79

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List of Graphs

Graph 1.1: Total constitutional changes to legislative powers by year……………….18

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Glossary of Terms

PRI: Partido Revolucionario Institucional, the ruling party

PAN: Partido Acción Nacional, the primary opposition party

PPS: Partido Popular Socialista, a minor opposition party

PNR: Partido Nacional Revolucionario, the former name of the PRI

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction

In 1977, the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, controlled by the PRI supermajority, passed a package of reforms designed explicitly to increase the number of opposition legislators in that body. The package changed the electoral system from strictly majoritarian to a mixed majoritarian/proportional representation system with a mandated opposition presence. It also lowered the barrier to electoral participation, essentially inviting in all potential opposition parties. The amendments were introduced by PRI legislators, supported by the PRI, and passed by the PRI supermajority. The main opposition party, the PAN, had no role in the introduction of the package and did not advocate for it, despite being the primary beneficiary from the changes. Prior to the reform, the PRI was electorally at its zenith and the PAN was not a threat to regime dominance in elections. The system appeared to be functioning perfectly well without greater opposition involvement. By increasing opportunities for opposition within the legislature, the PRI almost unavoidably risked diminishing its own hold on power –and yet it singlehandedly promoted and passed the electoral reforms.

Why would a party so committed to maintaining itself in power that it held the legislature not just by a majority but by a supermajority initiate, support, and pass a series 1 of reforms explicitly designed to cut into that power? The answer, as my dissertation will show, has to do with how and why legislative evolution occurs in dominant party authoritarian regimes. I contend that legislative evolutionary patterns change based on shifts in leverage capabilities along two axes: the branch power axis and the party power axis. Dominant party regimes face challenges for leverage between the executive and the legislature (branch power) and the ruling party and opposition party (party power). When those leverage relationships shift – when one side increases its leverage over the other – the patterns of legislative evolution shift as well. Institutions change course, from favoring one side to favoring the other. The proximate cause of these evolutionary shifts is the regime’s response to legitimacy crises; legitimacy crises create opportunities to alter leverage relationships, which in turn affect the direction of legislative evolution.

In the case of the 1977 reforms, which will be discussed in detail in a later chapter, the opposition’s failure to nominate a presidential candidate for the 1976 election created a legitimacy crisis for the regime, where it appeared to be running unopposed.

The regime partially based its claim to legitimate rule on electoral victory and being selected over the alternatives in each election.1 The regime’s response to the legitimacy crisis, the reform package, was meant to ensure that there were enough opposition groups and enough of an opposition presence that there would always be an opposition candidate in the presidential election. Although the package appeared to benefit the opposition, it was tailored to protect the regime. However, the changes put in place by the reform

1 As is discussed in chapter 3, the other base for regime legitimacy was its role in the revolution. 2 package changed the leverage relationship between the ruling party and the opposition, and helped set the stage for later reforms which increased the opposition’s power.

1.2 The Puzzle

In a dominant party authoritarian regime, political institutions exist to maintain and strengthen the ruling party. They do not exist to create opportunities for the opposition to increase its power, as the PAN was able to do when it forced the PRI to accept independent administration of elections. Nor do these institutions exist to undermine the authority of the party head, the executive – yet that was precisely what occurred when the legislature severed magisterial terms from the presidential term,2 decreasing the president’s ability to directly control the magistrates’ careers. In a dominant party authoritarian system, these actions to the regime’s detriment should never occur – and yet they did, in Mexico, and in many cases they occurred when the regime’s control was undisputed.

What affects how legislatures evolve under dominant party authoritarian regimes?

What accounts for changes in evolutionary direction – how do we explain an institution that had been progressing towards democracy suddenly regressing towards autocracy?

The cornerstone of dominant party authoritarian regimes is, simply, that the party is dominant. The role of institutions, particularly the legislature, is to maintain the ruling party in power and prevent the opposition from winning. Rank and file party members, in turn, operate to maintain the executive in power – the executive and the party-

2 A move that was later reversed. 3 controlled legislature come together to keep the party in control of the state. Elections are not intended to create an alternation in power; they are intended to return the regime to office. The constitution does not enshrine democratic values and the importance of opposition; it provides a mechanism for legally justifying the regime’s control.

Legislators do not represent the people, they represent the party. It is not an exaggeration to state that virtually every aspect of political life in a dominant party regime is designed to maintain the ruling party. Why, then, would a dominant party regime – a regime with a clear majority or even supermajority of political offices – take actions that diminish its power and create opportunities for the opposition to grow? Why would the legislature pass constitutional amendments that weaken the ruling party’s grip? Why would the executive allow the legislature to strengthen its power at the expense of his power? None of this should happen, and yet, demonstrably, it does. My dissertation aims to answer these questions by proposing a theory of legislative evolution under dominant party authoritarian regimes.

My theory of shifting leverage relations focuses on the evolution of the legislature. This is primarily because the legislature provides the clearest and most consistent examples of interaction between the four actors (executive, legislature, ruling party and opposition party). The recurring cycle of legislative sessions throws all the actors (in the case of the executive, via his appointed go-betweens) together regularly, and the large number of laws presented in the legislature creates a substantial pool of data. Although the basic dynamics I identify – legitimacy crisis, regime response, shifting leverage relationships – should define the evolution of any number of

4 institutions, the actors in this theory are specific to the legislature. Many other institutions are affected; for instance, electoral evolution is driven by changes arising from the legislature and shifts in those relationships – but the connection is indirect, often routed through the legislature.

As laid out in Chapter 2, I argue that shifts in legislative evolutionary patterns are correlated with shifts in the two leverage relationship axes outlined above, branch power

(executive-legislature) and party power (ruling party-opposition party). When the weaker actor – the legislature, in terms of the branch axis, and the opposition, in terms of the party power axis – increases its leverage over the traditionally stronger actor, the weaker actor is able to pursue institutional changes which strengthen its position.3 I demonstrate this by analyzing constitutional amendments between 1929 and 2000 in Mexico, and showing that those amendments push the legislature towards being a more powerful institution in some periods and towards being a weaker institution in others, as well as enshrining opposition powers in some periods and diminishing them in others. Tracing the path of the legislature’s evolution further highlights that institutions do not evolve in a strictly linear fashion; rather, they may evolve towards an end for some time and then devolve, or move away from that ultimate end, before eventually altering course to evolve once again.

3 For the purposes of my dissertation, I treat the opposition as a unitary actor. I make the same assumption of the ruling party, and of the legislature as a whole vis-à-vis the executive. For a more detailed justification of this simplification see chapter 2. 5

1.3 Institutional Evolution in the Literature: Failure of Existing Arguments

There are two major approaches to the study of institutional evolution, and a third lesser-known but important approach.4 The major approaches argue either that institutional evolution occurs gradually (Shepsle 1989), or that it is a series of major shifts caused by critical junctures (Krasner 1984, Mahoney 2001). The lesser-known approach essentially unifies these two divergent theories into an argument for both gradual and major evolutionary moments; practitioners include Greif and Laitin (2004),

Thelen (2004), and Baumgartner et al (2009). Each approach has different flaws. The gradual evolution and critical junctures approaches are flawed in that each is able to explain only one set of changes – the gradual approach cannot explain sudden moments of institutional evolution, and the critical junctures approach cannot explain the slow and gradual accumulation of instances of evolution over time. The unified approach theorists are able to bring in both gradual and sudden change, but generally lack either a theoretical explanation for how the two are related or a practical way to capture those shifts. Essentially, these theorists recognize that evolution may occur gradually or suddenly, but do not discuss how those two categories of change are connected.

My theory, which may be categorized as the landslide approach, bridges this gap.

I argue that institutions are subject to moments of seismic change, which then allow smaller and larger changes to build up and move the institution further down the evolutionary path – a process which continues until the next major change occurs.

Landslides are caused by seismic shifts and composed of major land shifts as well as the

4 These are not specifically theories of legislative evolution, but the legislature should fall under these same theories. 6 flow of minor rubble. The seismic shifts can alter the direction of the overall path followed by debris. The rubble – small rocks and large boulders - taken as individual pieces, appear inconsequential, until they pile up so much that they help to direct the next seismic shift. Similarly, institutions undergo seismic changes which lead to major and minor moments of evolution. The seismic changes suddenly alter the overall evolutionary path of the institution. The major moments jump the institution a ways down the path, making further evolution more feasible. The minor moments, taken individually, do not alter the path – but enough minor moments cascading together can result in a reconsideration of the leverage relationships, which affects the evolutionary paths available at the next seismic shift.

The other major challenge facing many of the existing evolutionary approaches is that they focus primarily on a system change, the shift from autocracy to democracy or vice versa. These are major events, to be sure, but by focusing exclusively on that shift, scholars often miss an equally important but potentially less rare event: a shift in the institution from performing one role to performing an entirely different one, for instance from rubber stamp to check on the executive. The focus on total system change rather than role change means that institutional reversals may be overlooked; that is, by setting the limits of analysis as “starting from autocracy and ending at democracy,” we may miss periods where the institution moves away from that end goal. A state moving from authoritarianism to democracy can still experience periods of authoritarian reversion, where more conservative elements triumph and efforts at liberalization are shut down.

This occurred, for instance, in a different competitive authoritarian setting in Jordan when

7 the king instituted democratic reforms in the legislature and then, upon encountering opposition, disbanded the legislature entirely and nullified the elections (Lust-Okar 2005,

49-55). In that instance, Jordan’s progression from more to less authoritarian was temporarily reversed to a more authoritarian state. As I will demonstrate throughout the dissertation, this same pattern manifested in Mexico, where progress towards democracy was occasionally reversed. The focus of most institutional evolutionary theories on total system shifts leaves devolutionary periods overlooked.

My theory allows for both evolution and devolution by demonstrating shifts in leverage capabilities, as manifested by constitutional amendments. I further show that external events challenge the regime’s legitimacy, but the regime response to those legitimacy crises can force a sudden shift in leverage relationships. The ensuing period of evolution builds on those altered leverage relationships, increasing or decreasing each actor’s power, until the subsequent legitimacy crisis forces another renegotiation of relationships.

As detailed in chapter 3, legitimacy crises are events that challenge the regime’s right to rule the state, less by decreasing the regime’s electoral share than by introducing elements (the absence of opposition, for instance, or obvious fraud) at odds with the regime’s image. In the case of Mexico, these challenges are targeted either at the regime’s electoral victories, or at its connection with the revolution. For instance, when the opposition party PAN had a crisis of direction in 1976 and failed to nominate a presidential candidate, it led to a legitimacy crisis for the regime because of its reliance on the appearance of opposition in elections. Without an opposition candidate over

8 whom to triumph, the PRI’s image as the chosen representative of the people was severely damaged.

Additionally, my theory recognizes the role of actors in shaping evolution, and by doing so demonstrates that shifts in the political balance within the state are often associated with shifts in the direction of the legislature’s development. When actors that are generally in a weaker position are able to maneuver into positions of greater strength, they will use their new power to force institutional changes to their benefit, often in a direction away from that preferred by the regime. As discussed above, there are two axes of tension in the evolutionary process: struggles between the executive and the legislature, and struggles between the ruling party and the opposition. At the height of the regime, the executive is far more powerful than the legislature and the ruling party is far more powerful than the opposition. However, when that balance shifts – when the legislature begins to have more sway vis-à-vis the executive, or when the opposition party can exert its influence on the ruling party – the traditionally weaker actors are able to force concessions that the regime would otherwise refuse to grant. I show that the nature of these concessions is such that the evolutionary process gradually changes direction. This is not to argue that the weaker parties are somehow able to remove the regime from power; rather, I assert that as the opposition party or parties gains leverage on the regime party, and as the legislature as a whole gains leverage on the executive, these weaker actors are able to force the regime and the executive to pass laws that do not benefit the stronger actors.

1.4 The importance of understanding institutional evolution

Improving our understanding of institutional evolution is important on two levels: in terms of understanding transitions, particularly protracted transitions, and in terms of understanding the role of actors.

Many institutional evolution theories are primarily focused on structural causes of change at the expense of agentive ones; as outlined above, most of the theories essentially assume that change is caused by purely structural causes and actors’ capabilities are so circumscribed as to be unimportant. This is not to say that these theories assume failure cannot happen; rather, the assumption appears to be that when failure occurs it is because the wrong option was chosen – not because different actors would have made a different choice. In this way, these theories subsume variation in actors’ preferences. These structuralist assumptions lead to more rigid theories; if actors don’t matter, and alternatives are constantly and unswervingly closed off, only a very narrow evolutionary path is possible. As I demonstrate with Mexico, however, if we look closely at specific cases of evolution, legislative evolution is frequently less rigid and more adaptable and reversible. The core of that adaptability stems from variation in interactions between actors. Purely structural explanations imply more rigid institutions, missing the shifting power dynamics that underlie the institution itself. The focus on purely structural sources of change goes hand in hand with attention to major changes at the expense of minor ones

– but as we see with Mexico, the minor changes can help set the stage for major ones.

Gradual shifts in leverage relationships can manifest in new and dramatic policies at moments of crisis – small evolutionary steps are linked to large ones. By bringing actors

10 back in, we gain a much more complete picture of institutional evolution as a process that operates not in fits and starts but continually over time, at both micro and macro levels.

Understanding institutional evolution in an authoritarian setting also speaks to our perception of the transition process. There is a tendency in the literature to assume transition is a linear process (see for instance O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). The state moves from authoritarianism to democracy, whether by revolution or by pacted transition

– but it consistently moves towards that goal. Problems may arise in consolidating new democracies, but prior to the point of forming the democracy, the path from authoritarianism is monotonic. The problem, however, as my dissertation argues, is that the assumption of linearity can be a false one. States can have periods of forward movement as well as periods of backwards movement as they proceed down the transitions path. Without a full understanding of the evolutionary process, especially how periods of evolutionary reversion – what I call devolution – can occur, we may find ourselves making false assumptions about the transitions process. This is particularly true when we make assumptions of linearity towards protracted transitions, which by their nature have more opportunities to reverse course. Those false assumptions of linearity, in turn, can lead to scholars inadvertently masking some of the actors’ behavior in the transition process, and missing important elements as to how, why, and when transitions occur and are completed.

1.5 Dominant party democracies, dominant party autocracies, and hegemonic party regimes

This dissertation is intended to speak to institutional evolution in dominant party and hegemonic party authoritarian regimes. These terms, however, have similar meanings which need to be parsed out, along with the democratic variant.

The issue of what is – and what is not – a dominant party has been examined in great detail within the literature. Arian and Barnes (1974) essentially argue that there is no difference between autocratic and democratic dominant parties – by their measure, all dominant party regimes are at least minimally democratic. This is a key detail, as it speaks to the historic disagreement over whether Mexico’s regime was democratic or authoritarian. The justification for Arian and Barnes’ argument and others like it is that in a dominant party system an opposition exists, elections are held, and those elections are at least minimally competitive. From that standpoint, the system appears to be a procedural or electoral democracy. The challenge to this approach, however, and one that emerged in later research and led to the complete differentiation of dominant party autocracies and dominant party democracies, is that it fails to recognize how the opposition’s capabilities and options change from system to system. In both autocracies and democracies, a dominant party regime is one in which the same party wins repeated elections and uses its incumbency to build an advantage over the opposition, to return future victories. In a democratic dominant party system, however, the incumbency advantages are legal – for instance, gerrymandering to isolate opposition voters, or using incumbency to monopolize important committees. In an authoritarian dominant party

12 regime, the advantages are extra-legal: channeling government funds to party uses, for instance (Greene 2007).

The amount of time necessary to classify a regime (whether democratic or autocratic) as dominant party varies; there is no strictly accepted timeframe in the literature. Pempel (1990) uses 11 years as a threshold for democratic dominant party regimes; Greene (2007) sets the bar at 20 years for autocracies.5 Przeworski et al (2000) consider a regime to be dominant party if the ruling party wins more than a single election; this seems like an impossibly low bar that could lead to a great deal of misclassification. While there is no consensus on this point, Greene’s 20 year guideline has significant merit because of the impact such a time horizon has on voter expectations.

Greene argues that 20 years represents a generation – enough time for children to grow up without ever experiencing an alternation in power.

A further important distinction, particularly in terms of Mexico, is that between a dominant party regime and a hegemonic party regime. The two terms are often used fairly interchangeably, as Schedler (1998) does in his piece “What is Democratic

Consolidation?” But in fact they have slightly different connotations which are particularly important in the context of an evolving institution. Dominant party regimes are those in which there is some possibility, however reduced, of the opposition winning an election. Hegemonic party regimes, on the other hand, have legal opposition parties but no possibility of those parties displacing the regime. My theory is in fact equally applicable to hegemonic and dominant party regimes, since the outcome is not the

5 Greene offers an excellent review of the dominant party literature in his book. Since this is a major part of his argument and a minor part of mine, I recommend interested readers read pgs X-X. 13 opposition actually winning but simply increasing leverage. However, for clarity’s sake it is important to distinguish between the two, and to examine how Mexico fits into the classification schema. Both Greene (2007) and Magaloni (2006) label Mexico a dominant party regime. This labeling has to do with the time period of primary interest to both scholars – their work starts in the 1980s, when the protracted transition begins. In this period, Mexico is indeed a dominant party system. However, I would argue that the full scope of Mexico under the PRI is more complex. From the inception of the party that would become the PRI in the early 1920s, until the Maximato under Plutarco Calles in the late 1920s, Mexico could be considered a dominant party regime – increasingly the odds were stacked in favor of the PRI, but there was still some possibility that an opposition party might win elections. This possibility of electoral defeat in fact informed the party’s strategy of co-opting as much opposition as possible. However, beginning with the Maximato, when Calles unified the various factions of the party, the regime became hegemonic – while opposition existed, it was not until the 1980s that there was any possibility of the regime actually losing elections. In the 1980s the regime once again can be classified as dominant party, until the 2000 election and the transition to democracy brought it to an end.

Although it is important in terms of accurately understanding Mexico’s history to distinguish between these periods, the distinction between hegemonic and dominant party regimes does not affect my theory, as I am not theoretically concerned with the opposition’s ability to win the presidency. Because it has no impact on my theory, and

14 because it would be confusing to the reader to switch between the two terms throughout the dissertation, I will refer to the Mexican regime strictly as a dominant party regime.

1.6 Why Mexico?

This is a Mexico-specific project. However, the basic argument should pertain to essentially any durable dominant party authoritarian regime (durable here follows

Greene’s argument for 20 years, or one generation), which has at least formal branch separation and a legal opposition party. Given that universe of cases, it is particularly important to understand why Mexico matters, and why it is the appropriate case for this study. Primarily, Mexico tends to be seen as the paradigmatic dominant party regime case, in part due to its longevity (see for instance Magaloni 2006). Identifying patterns present in Mexico helps to predict patterns in other dominant party regimes as well. If the theory is not supported in Mexico, it is unlikely to be supported elsewhere.

The longevity of Mexico’s regime has other practical impacts, as well. The PRI kept extensive records; the long time horizon of the regime, coupled with those extensive records – unusual in an authoritarian setting – provide a much more detailed, in-depth look at the evolutionary process than is typical. Records of legislative sessions allow us to develop a fuller picture of the debates that occurred in a formal setting. As a test case,

Mexico provides a wealth of resources.

1.7 Hypotheses to be tested

I detail the research design in chapter 4. In brief, I utilize the comparative method (adapted from Mill’s method) to show an association between my two sets of 15 hypotheses. My theory speaks to two dimensions of legislative evolution: its speed and its content. In terms of the speed, I argue that (1a) When the ruling party has leverage over the opposition party, rate of constitutional change will be lower and (1b) When the opposition party has leverage over the ruling party, rate of constitutional change will be higher. In terms of content, I posit that (2a) When the executive has leverage over the legislature, changes are more likely to constrain legislative powers and (2b) When the legislature has leverage over the executive, changes are more likely to increase legislative powers. In chapter 2 I outline how these hypotheses are derived, and the logic that underlies them.

Because I am simply interested in showing a correlation between the independent and dependent variables, I use cross-tabs to demonstrate the frequency with which the hypotheses are upheld. My hypotheses require the identification of six variables: ruling party leverage, opposition party leverage, rate of institutional evolution, executive leverage, legislative leverage, and increases/constraints to legislative powers. As discussed in chapter 4, these variables are all drawn from the Diario Oficial. The Diario

Oficial is the Mexican government’s transcript of all Chamber of Deputy sessions and includes the text of proposed amendments, debates, and finalized constitutional amendments. Through a qualitative analysis of the proposed and finalized text of each amendment, I determined how the amendment affected leverage relationships along both the branch power axis and the party power axis. Where possible, I substantiated my findings with government records and letters between significant political actors, collected over 2.5 months of archival research in Mexico City. Rate of institutional

16 evolution is calculated twice: first, in terms of how many amendments are passed in a given year, and then, in terms of how many occur per year over each of the periods of evolution that I have identified and which are laid out in section 1.7.

Because of the Mexican regime’s focus on maintaining and utilizing the constitution – it was amended more than 500 times over the lifetime of the regime, with over 120 modifications relevant to my research – the constitution provides a written record of formal changes to the function of the legislature. Those formal changes are indicative of broader patterns of evolution; whether, for instance, a change increases legislative powers or diminishes them.

I test my hypotheses over two distinct data sets: the set of all constitutional amendments to formal legislative powers (articles 50-79; chapter 4), and the set of all amendments to one specific article, article 27 (chapter 5). This provides a robustness check on the theory, as it ascertains that the same underlying dynamics of institutional evolution are present in two distinct scenarios. The broad test of articles 50-79 demonstrates the applicability of the theory across a significant subset of the constitution, with 123 cases between 1929 and 2000. Article 27, on the other hand, demonstrates how the same dynamics of shifting leverage relationships were present even in the most contested aspects of the constitution. The principles enshrined in the article, which outlined rules of land ownership, were among the cornerstones of the regime’s claim to legitimacy. A major facet of peasant support for the regime was the promise, based in the revolution, to redistribute land rights. Article 27 became one of the most hotly-contested areas of the constitution, and was vital both to the party’s image and to its claim to

17 legitimacy. By demonstrating that the same shifting leverage relationships describe legislative evolution in this most important article as in other, less vital articles, I am able to show that the patterns of institutional evolution I have identified are present throughout a variety of aspects of political life.

1.8 Legislative Evolution Under the PRI: A Periodization

In order to demonstrate at an initial level how the theory fits with the reality in

Mexico, I offer a relatively brief discussion of my periodization of legislative evolution under the PRI. This periodization will be revisited in much greater detail in chapter 4, when I engage in theory testing, but at this point it serves to give the reader a brief understanding of the development of politics in Mexico. It is drawn from major historical events and supported by an analysis of variation in the rates of changes to the constitution over time, an approach following Polina and Yañez (2003). I identified events which threatened the regime’s legitimacy and used those events to separate the years of the study (1929-2000) into five periods, bracketed by the regime’s response to a legitimacy crisis. The periods are: 1929-1945, 1946-1976, 1977-1986, 1987-1993, and

1994-2000. Each period demonstrated markedly different levels of institutional evolution from the periods immediately preceding and succeeding it. The table below shows constitutional changes per year; the vertical lines indicate the breaks between each period.

Graph 1.1 Total Constitutional Changes to Legislative Powers by Year

Total change 16 14 12 10 8 Total change 6 4 2 0 1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005

Following Thelen’s theory of evolution in both large, sudden shifts and small, gradual ones, this dissertation relies on a periodization of institutional evolution. The basic premise is that because institutions undergo dramatic shifts as well as subtle ones, the institution’s development can be broken down into major periods divided by what are essentially external seismic events – events that drastically and fundamentally alter the shape of the institution, but that originate from outside the institution rather than from within. These periods then contain cases of institutional shifts, both large and small, which combine to affect the institution’s evolution. A clearer way of picturing this type of evolution may be through the metaphor of a landslide. Seismic shifts – major, dramatic changes that are external to the piece of land under consideration – occur, causing a landslide to begin. The landslide then shakes loose pieces of the mountain, some large and some small. Both large and small pieces affect the path of the landslide, as large pieces each individually tear out chunks of the mountain and change its shape, 19 while small pieces are shaken loose individually but begin falling in the same direction and eventually exert enough combined force to tear out chunks as well. The landslide continues in this direction until another seismic shift occurs which causes it to shift course. The pattern – seismic shift, landslide, large and small debris – continues until the entire landslide ends. The mountain still bears the same name as it did initially, but looks substantially different.

In the case of this dissertation, the seismic shifts are major events that originated outside6 of the Mexican legislature and had such dramatic effects on political life that the legislature took a shape that would not have been previously possible. This manifested, for instance, in the exclusion of almost all opposition where previously opposition was permitted, and later in the inclusion of that previously excluded opposition.

Changes within each seismic shift can be large (major amendments, caused by the external event) or small (amendments which do not individually shift the institution, but together with the majority of other minor amendments are representatives of the new institutional direction).

Between 1929 and 2000, the Mexican legislature experienced four major external events which bracket five periods (the events leading to 1929 are excluded as being before the period of study because the ruling party had not yet been formed). The periods will be discussed in greater detail in chapters 3 and 4; here I will only offer a brief

6 “Outside” is a relative term. Within the political sphere, many actions may be connected. I do not argue that the actions which cause legislative shifts are wholly independent of legislative processes – proving this would be almost impossible, given the existence of formal as well as informal legislative actions. Rather, they are actions that are not explicitly started from within the legislature – so, not begun by the passage of a bill or a constitutional amendment . 20 overview. The study begins in 1929, with the formation of the Partido Nacional

Revolucionario (PNR) which eventually became the PRI. I do not consider this a legitimacy crisis, as the regime was only then forming. The party’s formation was external to the legislature, but dramatically altered the institution. Prior to the PNR’s founding, Mexico had many small personalistic parties with high party volatility, as parties popped into existence around specific people and then largely disappeared after elections. There was no clear dominant or ruling party until the PNR was formed. In this initial period, opposition parties came and went, but most political power was gradually subsumed into the PNR and its head, who was often (though not exclusively) the

Mexican president. Major internal events in this period, caused by the formation of the

PNR, facilitated the gradual consolidation of power in the hands of the ruling party and the president.

The legitimacy crisis which touched off the second period was the armed rebellion of supporters of rejected presidential candidate General Juan Almazán in 1941.

Almazán was a member of the PRI who did not receive the dedazo, or tap, to name him the presidential nominee. When that happened, his supporters within the PRI split off, formed their own party, and began an armed rebellion. The public nature of the split challenged the regime’s electoral legitimacy, and led to the passage in 1946 of an amendment which severely limited the ability of opposition parties to compete at a national level. The amendment was an attempt to remove any incentive for party members to split, by making it extremely difficult to gain national representation. This

21 caused the legislature to shift from a multiparty system with democratic tendencies, into a functionally single-party system promoting authoritarianism.

The third period began in 1977. The legitimacy crisis that caused it was the 1976 presidential election. Due to division within the PAN, the PRI candidate ran unopposed.

This was an embarrassment for the PRI as it called the legitimacy of the political system into question. That major external event caused internal legislative shifts increasing the opportunities for opposition involvement, such as the change from a straight majoritarian electoral system to a mixed majoritarian/proportional representation system. This period ended with a legitimacy crisis in 1986, in the form of the fragmentation of the PRI as an internal faction, the Corriente Democrático, broke off to form its own party.

The fourth period, then, began in 19877 as a result of the formation of the PRD out of the Corriente Democrático. This period saw an increase in opposition power and capabilities as the ruling party was forced to court the PAN following significant allegations of fraud in the 1988 elections. Major internal events here helped to institutionalize the increased opposition power.

Finally, the last period began in 1994 with the ruling party almost losing the majority in the Chamber of Deputies. It should be remembered that the near-defeat is an external event in that it is not a legislative action; rather, it was an action from the political system which had significant legislative ramifications. Chief among these were the internal shifts from this period, which served to increase the opposition’s power to a

7 As I explain in chapter 4, the CD actually split and formed what would eventually become the PRD in 1986. However, 1986 was the middle of a legislative session. I have divided my periods based on the beginning of the nearest legislative session to the major event, in order to keep rate of change calculations consistent. In this case, the session began in 1987. 22 level where it was on par with the ruling party, essentially driving democratization. The last event, which marked the end of this period as well as the end of institutional evolution as a whole – the end of the landslide – was the PRI’s loss of the presidency in

2000.

1.9 Order of the Dissertation

This dissertation proceeds as follows. Chapter 2 introduces the theory in greater detail, including the relevant literature. Chapter 3 expands on the theory by discussing the causal mechanism, regime response to legitimacy crises. This chapter addresses the regime’s bases for claiming legitimacy – its relationship to the revolution, and its repeated massive electoral victories – and argues that the regime’s responses to crises of legitimacy led to significant evolutionary shifts in the legislature. Chapter 4 tests the theory and hypotheses on a broad set of cases, all amendments to the constitution passed between 1929 and 2000. Chapter 5 tests the theory and hypotheses on a much narrower set of cases, amendments to Article 27 on land rights, in order to show that even in the most contested areas of institutional evolution, the same patterns of shifting leverage relationships prevail. Chapter 6 offers brief concluding thoughts, along with suggestions for future research.

1.10 Conclusion

The study of legislative evolution is particularly important in an authoritarian setting. Understanding how, when and why legislatures evolve helps us to explain 23 transitions, and importantly, brings the actor back into institutional conversations. The recent focus on exclusively structural aspects of evolution masks the important shifts in power relationships that occur below the surface; my dissertation aims to bring those shifts back into focus. In the chapters that follow, I argue for those restructured power relationships, and for the importance of legitimacy crises in shifting the direction of institutional evolution. Although my findings do not provide unequivocal support for my theory, they do point to the importance of further research in this area.

Chapter 2: A Theory of Institutional Evolution Under Dominant Party Regimes

2.1 Introduction

How does institutional evolution vary – that is, what variation exists as an institution comes to perform an entirely different function than their original design? Is it a slow process, where changes to institutional structure occur incrementally? Or is it a rapid process, where the institution is stable and unchanging until suddenly it begins to perform an entirely different role? Most existing theories fall into one of these two camps – either slow incremental change or sudden dramatic change. However, neither of these theories alone can explain institutional evolution in a dominant party authoritarian regime like Mexico. The incremental evolution approach fails to address moments when the entire balance of the institution shifts, for instance from protecting the ruling party to challenging its control. In contrast, the sudden evolution approach cannot explain the myriad small changes that build up over time to alter relationships between the actors.

The accumulation of many small capabilities – for instance, the expansion over time of the areas over which the legislature has sole legal authority – can increase resources available to legislative actors so that, when presented with the opportunity, they opt to challenge the executive.

Neither theoretical approach can fully explain institutional evolution. Therefore, expanding on approaches laid out by Thelen (2000) and Greif (2006) detailed below, I 25 argue for an approach in which both sudden and gradual changes can be explained in terms of shifts in the leverage relationships between the ruling party and the opposition, and between the executive and the legislature. Those shifts occur due to the regime’s response to legitimacy crises.

This chapter lays out my theory of institutional evolution, which aims to answer the question, “What affects how institutions evolve under dominant party authoritarian regimes?” I examine legislative evolution specifically. I define evolution as a total alteration in the institution’s function from its original purpose. In the case of Mexico, the legislature was initially designed as a democratic institution that would provide checks on the executive, to avoid the recurrence of a dictatorship. However, it evolved into an institution designed to maintain the executive and the ruling party in power, and then evolved again to become an institution that promoted democratic alterations in power. My theory argues that legislative evolution is a function of shifting leverage relationships along two axes: branch power, characterized by varying leverage relationships between the executive and the legislature, and party power, or varying leverage relationships between the ruling party and the opposition party or parties. I contend that as leverage relationships shift along each axis, the newly-strengthened side is able to force the newly-weakened side to make concessions. Depending on which side is strengthened, these changes can alter the system to strengthen the regime or the opposition, and the executive or the legislature. These institutional changes come about via bargaining, and are manifested in constitutional amendments. I further argue that this process of institutional evolution is brought about by an exogenous (to the legislature)

26 factor: the regime’s response to legitimacy crises. I will also discuss some of the relevant literature on institutional evolution, as well as other relevant fields of literature like the role of institutions under autocracy, executive-legislative relations, and legitimacy in authoritarian regimes, which divided legislative evolution in Mexico into five periods.

2.2.1 Institutions Under Authoritarianism

In order to understand institutional evolution, I begin by drawing out the role of institutions themselves in authoritarian political life. Specifically, what is the role of the legislature in electoral authoritarian regimes, and how are legislatures linked to institutional evolution? A first step in answering these questions comes in identifying the role legislatures play in authoritarian regimes, providing an area of political life that encourages, and even depends on, opposition participation. In an electoral authoritarian setting, legislatures are unique in that they are one of the few formal political arenas in which opposition may participate. That participation may be constrained – and the opposition itself may also be constrained, both in terms of its capabilities and in terms of who the executive allows to participate – but nevertheless, the legislature remains a forum for opposition participation within the regime. By creating an area for airing opposition, the regime may achieve any of several goals: to provide a veneer of legitimacy (Conaghan 2005), to hand-tie the executive and encourage investment (Levi

1988, Geddes 1999, Wright 2008a and 2008b), or to co-opt the opposition (Gandhi

2008). Brownlee (2007) also points out that legislatures may be used for signaling and information gathering, and Lust-Okar (2005) argues that in certain cases the real role of

27 the legislature is not to affect policy but to allow rent redistribution. Finally, the legislature may function as a theoretical check on executive action (Tsebelis 2002), though often not an actual check. Because, as my theory argues, institutions evolve when the weaker actor can exert pressure on the stronger one, institutional evolution is most likely to occur in a setting where the weaker part has a legal voice. In authoritarian regimes, the opposition is generally shut out of the executive and the courts; while it may participate in elections, elections are discrete events rather than ongoing ones. The legislature, though, meets regularly and has repeated legal opportunities for opposition involvement, making it an institution in which evolution is likely to be visible. If despite the presence and voice of the opposition the legislature does not demonstrate evolution, we must question whether evolution occurs as described anywhere under the regime’s aegis.

It has been noted that this is a theory of institutional evolution in dominant party authoritarian regimes. In chapter 1 I discussed the distinction between hegemonic and dominant party regimes. As I stated there, for Mexico the distinction is relatively inconsequential – the division between the two regime types basically boils down to the absence or presence of an opposition party. For my period of study, 1929-2000, Mexico is actually generally considered both hegemonic (for the first 50 or so years) and dominant party (for the last 20 or so years; see Magaloni 2006 for more). For the theory as a whole, however, while the dynamics of altered leverage relationships should exist in hegemonic regimes as well, the difficulty in consistently identifying informal opposition

28 implies that for testing purposes the universe of applicable cases be limited to dominant party regimes, where there is a formal, legal opposition party.

A further scope condition pertains to regime longevity. In periods of extreme volatility, where regimes are struggling to survive, it may be difficult to determine what the institution’s long-term goal is. Therefore, in order to determine the institution’s initial purpose and allow for some evolution to occur, I propose limiting the sample to regimes that have lasted more than 20 years. This is the same cut-off Greene uses in identifying dominant party regimes, with the logic that a 20 year period is a generation and allows time for all actors to become accustomed to the political situation. The only real scope conditions on the theory, then, are that the regime has lasted a sufficient time to build institutional clarity of purpose, and that there be some opposition. This latter point in particular is met by all electoral authoritarian regimes.

Legislative opposition in an electoral authoritarian regime may take several forms. In addition to regimes where the opposition forms legal parties, the opposition may be in factions from the ruling party itself, or (as Lust-Okar demonstrates) individuals with ties to family groups rather than formal party organizations. In many cases, however – and particularly in the case of dominant party regimes, the category with which I am concerned and which I discussed in detail in chapter 1 – opposition parties are permitted to compete in order to create legitimacy for the regime: “A hegemonic party must therefore accept the existence of opposition parties and share some spaces of power with them. It does so in order to convince both outsiders and its own citizens that the regime is indeed essentially democratic, as well as to encourage opposition forces to

29 continue participating in a game that they know ahead of time they will lose.” (Crespo

2004, p. 61)

The presence of opposition parties and their ability to participate in political life alter the regime’s power dynamics. Without any opposition, the regime risks appearing illegitimate – but with too much or too powerful opposition, the regime risks losing control. It must therefore walk a tightrope between bringing in enough opposition to appear legitimate, but not so much as to threaten its own survival. This balance must be frequently renegotiated as exogenous shocks increase opposition powers or limit opposition presence. In order to bring the opposition in to the legislature, the executive must offer them something in exchange – sometimes rents, as Wright and Lust-Okar argue, or policy control, as Gandhi argues. Although what is ceded to the legislature may vary, the executive must cede something in order to secure opposition compliance.

Along with these types of exchanges, the executive must allow the legislature at least some self-government if he does not wish to have the legitimacy of the institution challenged, either by the legislators or by other elements of society. As will be discussed shortly, the formal powers granted by the executive become actual legislative powers and existing real powers expand when the executive or the ruling party is forced to bargain with the legislature of the opposition, due to legitimacy crises threatening regime survival. Conditional on executive yielding of power, the legislators thus have the ability to change the legislature – to bring about institutional evolution.

The importance of this ability to make changes is the possibility of snowballing change. As legislative powers accumulate, even minor powers, they increase the

30 legislature’s ability to withstand executive intervention. Small powers – for instance, marginal increases in areas of taxation – can build up enough to eventually allow legislative independence. As revenue sources increased, we might expect to see less dependence on the center, and greater legislative independence (for a discussion of regional revenue flow variation and its connection to legislative independence, see Beer

2003).

The legislature also functions as a funnel for broader political life. Rather than engaging with public displays of dissent – protests, for instance, or rallies or strikes – the regime may use the legislature to funnel dissenters’ demands, thus providing at least the appearance of meeting voters’ demands. Having a legislature, particularly a legislature with opposition participation, can help the ruler signal his legitimacy both domestically and internationally. Thus when challenges to regime legitimacy arise in broader society, the legislature becomes a convenient vehicle to attempt to quell concerns.

Does the role of the legislature vary in hegemonic and dominant party regimes as opposed to other electoral authoritarian regimes?8 Magaloni and Kricheli (2010) suggest that it does not. They offer an excellent review of the relevant literature, arguing that essentially all claims made about legislatures in other electoral authoritarian settings also apply to hegemonic and dominant party regime settings. This is a central point for my work since, as I argued in chapter 1, Mexico under the PRI is a hegemonic regime until it transitions to a dominant party regime. Specific to Mexico, however, there are multiple claims about the role of the legislature. Magaloni (2006) claims that the legislature was

8 For a discussion of the distinction between hegemonic and dominant party regimes, see chapter 1. 31 primarily a vehicle for co-opting the opposition, while Gonzalez-Casanova (1970) claims that “legislative power has a symbolic function. It sanctions the actions of the Executive.

It gives them a traditional and metaphysical legitimation.” (Gonzalez-Casanova 1970, p.

20) Regardless of the executive’s precise intent in forming a legislature, what is clear is that authoritarian legislatures do play an important role in maintaining the regime – but that role is generally less important than the role of the executive. In order to understand legislative evolution, we must first understand executive-legislative relations under authoritarianism.

2.2.2 Institutional Evolution

The concept of institutional evolution – that an institution changes over time – hinges on institutional equilibrium, or the point at which the institution is no longer changing. In order to understand what evolution looks like, we must first understand what its opposite, equilibrium, looks like.

While the definition of institutional equilibrium – the point at which no actor has an incentive to alter the institution – is fairly clear from a theoretical perspective, the practical implication of what equilibrium looks like has far less consensus. Identifying institutional equilibria is particularly vital for those studying institutional evolution: without a clear idea of what an equilibrium state is, we cannot explain how such an equilibrium might be reached. And yet, for all the importance of the theory, there is no single clear empirical understanding of institutional equilibrium. Is it the complete cessation of all change, the preservation of the institution in perfect stasis? Or is it

32 merely the point at which changes appear minor, rather than fundamentally altering the institution? Is it a short-term phase that an institution might experience many times, or a longer-term outcome that is achieved only rarely? The answer appears to depend to an extent on scholars’ theoretical approach,9 resulting not so much in a dialogue among scholars about evolution as in a series of monologues by various scholars. Since these conceptions are rarely spelled out, though, such distinctions are often overlooked.

Machlup (1958) points out that what equilibrium is varies between theoretical approaches and practical ones, as well as between economic and political science approaches, and even between scholars interested in different sets of variables. The risk of failing to have a clear empirical definition of equilibrium is that it creates conceptual confusion, which leads to competition between theories. Without a clear base definition and concept, no theory can disprove any other theory, leading to a total disconnect between different schools of thought – in this case, between those who see evolution as a gradual sliding process and those who see it as a series of sudden jumps.

The struggle to identify equilibrium is also an extension of the debate over endogeneity vs. exogeneity in institutional evolution (Engerman and Sokoloff 2008), in terms of where changes originate – whether within the institution or outside it. After the behavioral revolution, institutional evolutionary theorists generally fell into two camps – those who espoused more linear evolutionary theories, and those who espoused punctuated equilibrium theories. The principle distinction between these two approaches is whether change is seen to occur gradually, largely due to endogenous actions, or at

9 Thelen 2003 p. 214-218 offers an overview of different approaches to institutional change and how that affects views of institutions and equilibrium. 33 distinct points, primarily from exogenous shocks. Hibbing (1999) lays out several different approaches to legislative evolution, both exogenous and endogenous, and links this variation to a failure to agree on the primary purpose of institutions: “In effect, we are left to decide whether legislators want to look good (Mayhew), do good (Krehbiel), or ladle pork (Shepsle).” (Hibbing 1999, p. 155) Most scholars, with the notable exception of Thelen and Greif and Laitin (discussed in greater detail in section 2.2.4), argue for either endogenous or exogenous sources of change rather than unifying both sources in one theory. This again contributes to scholars’ tendency to speak past each other on the subject of institutions, making it difficult to identify a single universal conception of equilibrium. The next section explores different conceptions of equilibrium in detail.

Shepsle (1989)’s work is a prominent example of the more linear structural approach to equilibrium and evolution. While he recognizes that change may occur either endogenously or exogenously, his theoretical approach emphasizes the more endogenous changes. His theory of structure-induced equilibrium argues, generally, that form (structure) matters. He defines structure-induced equilibrium as

“an alternative (a status quo ante) that is invulnerable in the sense that no other alternative, allowed by the rules of procedure, is preferred by all the individuals, structural units, and coalitions that possess distinctive veto or voting power… the idea of equilibrium contained in this concept is founded on the structural and procedural features of the process being modeled.” (Shepsle 1989, p. 137) In this scenario, equilibrium is arrived at only when no pertinent actor(s) prefers a different institutional set-up. Conversely, changes occur when those actors do prefer a different system. These changes often take the form of rule modification or a breakdown over dissenting opinions – but in either case, they originate with the actors that make up

34 the institution. The changes are generally more gradual, a series of smaller changes leading gradually towards an equilibrium outcome.

Structure-induced equilibrium theories, however, struggle to explain sudden, sharp, and dramatic institutional changes. Punctuated equilibrium theories arose in part to address this issue. The theory, drawn from the natural sciences, essentially posits that institutions remain at some sort of equilibrium state until a major event – a critical juncture – occurs suddenly, dramatically altering the shape of the institution. The institution then finds a new equilibrium, which may be maintained until a future critical juncture (True et al, 1999). Krasner (1984) offers a valuable take on the punctuated equilibrium perspective. He explains institutional evolution as a response to crises.

Quoting Skowronek (1982), he defines a crisis as “a sporadic, disruptive event that suddenly challenges a state’s capacity to maintain control and alters the boundaries defining the legitimate use of coercion” (Krasner 1984, p. 234, cf. Skowronek 1982 p.

10). Crises play a particularly complex role in Krasner’s view – while they may come from either internal (societal) or external (international system) sources, they themselves are exogenous to the institution (Krasner 234). The idea of exogenous change or exogenous shock is a hallmark of punctuated equilibrium theories; because an institution’s normal state is at equilibrium, such a dramatic change must come from sources outside the institution.

A variant on the punctuated equilibrium theory comes from Baumgartner et al

(2009), in the form of stick-slip dynamics. In a stick-slip scenario, drawn from studies of earthquakes,

“the distribution of the size of movements is leptokurtic: there are many tiny, imperceptible slides, few moderate ones, and a great number of extremely powerful ones – earthquakes. Note that the violent earthquake results from the friction and the associated buildup of pressure, not any momentary increase on the forces pushing to overcome the friction. At any given time, the response to the pressure is out of synch with the level of pressure applied.” (Baumgartner et al 2009, p. 607) The value of the stick-slip approach is its recognition of varying degrees of change contained within a single evolutionary moment. The shortcoming, however, is that it fails to provide sufficient conceptual clarity on how those degrees of change actually manifest differently from each other, making for a difficult empirical translation.

The theory might lend itself to a threshold model, but it would be difficult to determine consistent cutoffs for the medium category without that conceptual clarity. Nevertheless, the recognition of medium-sized evolution is valuable theoretically. It is also a departure from traditional punctuated equilibrium theories, as is the implied absence of an equilibrium state. Punctuated equilibrium theories assume, by definition, that the system is at equilibrium – stable – between critical junctures. Stick-slip theories assume instead that the system is always moving; that, as the authors above put it, large changes are due to the build-up of smaller ones. This approach offers a way to link endogenous changes with exogenous shocks. Critical junctures are still present, but may originate within the system as well as outside it.

2.2.3 Institutional Disequilibrium

The idea that change never actually stops – along with a pronounced disagreement about what equilibrium means – has led some scholars to argue for disequilibrium

36 theories of evolution (for instance, Bridges 2000). Non-equilibrium or disequilibrium approaches appear to originate with Riker (1980), who states that “Disequilibrium, or the potential that the status quo be upset, is the characteristic feature of politics” (Riker 1980,

443). This claim is not without argument – Ordeshook (1980) for one accuses Riker of not accurately understanding what equilibrium is (again reflecting the lack of consensus among scholars on a definition of equilibrium), and thus making faulty claims and implying that politics is not worth studying. Nevertheless, Riker’s argument reverberates in the work of later scholars such as Alexander (2001), who challenges the assumption of path dependency which underlies many theories of institutional equilibrium. Alexander argues that while some evolutionary processes may indeed be path dependent, institutional evolution is not a path dependent process. He further maintains that equilibrium does not exist in institutional evolutionary settings: “Much of what passes for institutional persistence… conceals substantial ‘under the radar’ change, as Revision

Parties substantially alter substantive content while maintaining nominal forms.”

(Alexander 2001, p. 252) Both Riker and Alexander’s claims – as well as Ordeshook’s response – underscore the lack of clarity in identifying and measuring equilibrium. This is further reinforced by Colomer (2001), who shows how the most common understandings of institutional equilibrium are routinely violated by the actual institutions, and by Beer (2003), who – specific to Mexico – argues that institutions change regularly.

Thelen (2000; 2004, p. 31) offers a potential way to unite path dependent and disequilibrium theories, arguing that an institution may be formed by a critical juncture

37 and then evolve through political bargaining, thus not getting locked in to a specific path.

Greif and Laitin (2004) have a similar approach, arguing for both exogenous and endogenous sources of institutional change. Their work helps to explain the kinds of counter-intuitive evolution that occur when an institution evolves to hurt the interests of its founders. I will build off of Thelen’s theoretical approach to argue that this process – critical juncture, then political bargaining – may be cyclical, repeated over the lifetime of an institution. That is, the first critical juncture occurs at a single time point, shifting the leverage relationships into a different configuration. By bargaining under the shifted relationships, the actors are able to cause the institution to evolve further down the same path, until a subsequent critical juncture forces another reorganization of bargaining relationships, and the pattern repeats. I incorporate Greif and Laitin in my discussion of external sources of dramatic change, versus internal sources of gradual change.

My view of institutional evolution is arguably non-equilibrium based: with

Alexander (2001), I argue that if the institution is constantly evolving, it cannot be viewed as at equilibrium at any point. This is a contentious claim, and grounded in the acknowledged lack of consensus as to what equilibrium means (Shepsle 1986, p. 76; see also Machlup 1958). Thelen herself does not argue for a non-equilibrium approach to evolution; nevertheless, her perspective is particularly useful in addressing the issue of costs of institutional change. One of the biggest challenges to institutional change is presumed to be its cost – equilibrium theories in particular assume that the high cost of changing an institution (both in terms of transaction costs and in terms of political costs) is generally sufficient to dissuade actors from trying. Disequilibrium approaches suggest

38 that since small changes are ongoing, they are less costly than dramatic changes in terms of the cost of altering the institution.10 My theory, building off of Thelen’s, unites these two approaches, essentially arguing that small changes are not individually particularly costly to the newly-weakened actor, while large changes – those occurring at critical junctures or critical juncture-like events – are very costly. However, as Colomer explains, “political actors may find it worthwhile to launch a process of institutional change if the likelihood that alternative institutional formulas will produce undesired effects and the costs of replacing the existing institutions are surpassed by the disadvantages of playing by the existing institutional rules.” (Colomer 2001, p. 238) In other words, minor changes occur frequently as actors engage in normal negotiations, major changes occur less frequently due to a shift in the relationships between groups, and seismic changes – those that in and of themselves cause the institution to evolve – occur when the regime responds to a legitimacy crisis, where the disadvantage (to use

Colomer’s term) is the possibility of regime delegitimization.11

One distinction between my work and Thelen’s is my assumption that these processes are repetitive, where she focuses more on a single critical juncture and its aftermath. Perhaps the most crucial distinction between my work and other works on institutional evolution, though, is my argument that the process involves agents and is not purely structural – actors’ goals and capabilities can alter evolution. This focus on actors

10 Disequilibrium approaches share some elements with dynamic equilibrium approaches in chemistry, in that both assume change is constantly occurring. However, dynamic equilibrium approaches assume that all change is equal and the institution is in stasis, whereas disequilibrium approaches assume evolution is ongoing. My approach is in line with disequilibrium theories but not dynamic equilibrium ones. 11 ‘Delegitimization’ is intended to imply a public repudiation of the regime’s right to rule, resulting in either a gradual regime decay – diminishing electoral victories – or a sudden challenge to the regime such as mass protests or actual electoral defeat. 39 is crucial to my theory. I propose that shifting relationships among each of the two sets of actors – branch axis actors and party axis actors – can explain patterns of institutional evolution. The party axis consists of the ruling party and the opposition party or parties.

The branch axis consists of the executive and the legislature; my next step is to outline how these relationships shift, in a discussion of my theory.

2.3 Theory

Recalling chapter 1, the question this dissertation is intended to answer is “What affects how institutions evolve under hegemonic party authoritarian regimes?” The answer, I will show, is shifts in two dimensions of power: the leverage relationship between the executive and the legislature, and between the ruling party and the opposition party/parties. As the balance of leverage capabilities tips toward one side or the other, the institution evolves to promote the interest of the newly-strengthened side.

This tipping, in turn, is brought about by legitimacy crises spurred on by exogenous shocks. Specific to legislative evolution, these four actors – executive, legislature, ruling party, and opposition party – represent the spectrum of possible agents of direct change.

Other actors – for instance the judiciary and the voters – may only cause change indirectly. Where voters’ preferences are manifested through elections, they may opt to remove unpopular legislators and replace them with new ones, but that still leaves the legislator – the party member –as the agent of change. It is up to the discretion of the legislator and the party whether and how to enact change. With respect to the judiciary, the Supreme Court in Mexico cannot make constitutional change – it can only decide

40 challenges to amendments. The only actors directly involved in legislative evolution are those I have identified.

On the branch axis, the executive – a unitary actor – is pitted against the legislature – a collective actor treated as unitary. The legislature may be treated as unitary because it can only take one action in any given situation. Even though various interests and preferences exist, the legislature is a majority-consensus organization with no ability for factions to break off and force a second outcome. This majority-rule set-up is precisely what makes it possible to distinguish legislative preferences from executive ones in dominant party systems: if the legislature is controlled by the executive’s party but acts in a way that damages executive interests or promotes legislative independence and capabilities, there must be dissent within the ruling party overall.

On the party power axis, the ruling party and opposition parties are both treated as unitary actors. The simplifying assumption is derived from the presumed preference of each group: the ruling party wants to maintain power, and the opposition parties want to take power. Since the preference for the opposition is simply “not ruling party,” differences between the parties are at this stage inconsequential. The secondary preference – “not ruling party and then my party” – does not affect decisions in my theory, because the ruling party remains in power for the duration of the study, so it is never necessary or possible to select among alternatives.

The actual process of exerting leverage – bargaining – takes place behind closed doors, so that only the outcome is visible (in the form of constitutional amendments).

The process involved representatives from each actor/group on the axis coming together

41 to bargain over their preferred outcome. The process typically took place after the amendment had been introduced but before the first reading – so, while it was under review in committee.

What makes these axes the correct ones to explain institutional evolution?

Drawing from Thelen (2004), I argue that institutional evolution occurs both due to

(institutionally) exogenous shocks, and to actors’ decisions. This follows Langston’s (65,

2002) point that “Elite ruptures were, without a doubt, the aggregate result of individual- level strategies; and both the exits and the regime's reaction to them caused evolutionary institutional change, which in turn brought about long-term political stability in the form of a one-party hegemonic state.” Often, however, what first appears to be an exogenous shock – for instance, the 1980s economic crisis – can actually be traced back at least in part to actors’ decisions, such as the failure to invest oil revenue in infrastructure development. More specifically, actors’ decisions in individual instances can create a cascade effect, where each decision, while individually small, forms part of a much larger whole which affects the likelihood of a different outcome to subsequent exogenous shocks. The dynamics of dominant party regimes are particularly important in understanding why these tensions define the regime. In a dominant party regime, as discussed earlier, while the ruling party retains unfair advantages in maintaining power, it is not the only legal party. Generally, some opposition party or parties will also be legal, probably to provide the appearance of legitimacy. In order to keep that opposition participating – and hence keep the regime appearing legitimate – it is necessary to make

42 some concessions to the opposition.12 Evolution occurs when the nature of the concessions changes; sudden and dramatic evolution – the kind caused by critical junctures – occurs when the magnitude of the concession changes, as described in chapter

3.13

The leverage relationship between the executive and the legislature – what I call the ‘branch power axis’ – refers to the executive’s ability to utilize legislative powers, without provoking criticisms of illegitimacy. In the majority of dominant party systems the executive is more powerful than the legislature. However, being more powerful does not necessarily imply the ability to act unilaterally at all times, simply that the chances for such action are skewed in the executive’s favor. Because of the executive’s strength, what I am interested in is not merely whether an executive-sponsored action (bill, constitutional change, or budget) succeeds – in a heavily executive-dominant system it generally will – but whether it is passed either unchanged or with only cosmetic changes.14 There are two possible outcomes along the branch power axis: (1) the leverage relationship favors the executive, in which case he is generally able to act without making concessions to the legislature in the form of legislative powers or capabilities; and (2) the leverage relationship favors the legislature, in which case it is

12 An in-depth discussion of legitimacy, including who must accept the regime as legitimate, follows in chapter 3. In brief, I am concerned with public legitimacy – the voters’ acceptance of the regime’s right to rule. 13 For a discussion of the measurement of evolution, see chapter 4. 14 My approach assumes branches have conflicting interests, an unusual assumption for an authoritarian regime. However, as Romero argues, as I have argued in my discussion of factionalization, and as I show in chapters 4 and 5, conflicting interests are not uncommon. 43 able to force the executive to accept concessions in most cases15. In both scenarios, a constitutional modification will occur – what varies is the content of that modification.

The leverage relationship between the ruling party and the opposition party has similar connotations. In a stable hegemonic regime, the ruling party is always more powerful than the opposition; when that balance shifts, the regime is headed for demise.

However, again, “more powerful” does not translate into “always able to act without attempting to ensure opposition support.” There are two possible outcomes along the ruling party-opposition party axis: (1) the leverage relationship favors the ruling party, so that in a given time period the ruling party is able to act on legislative issues without attempting to bargain for opposition support in the majority of cases; and (2) the leverage relationship favors the opposition party, so that in a given time period the ruling party is forced to make concessions to it in almost all instances16. Both axes are concerned with relative balances of leverage capabilities, suggesting that a side may be considered to have greater capabilities regardless of whether the leverage balance strongly favors that side such that it never even engages the opposition, or only weakly favors that side, so it engages in bargaining efforts but makes few or no actual concessions. This reflects the existence of leverage as a sliding scale, and allows for “winning” in leverage relationships to mean many things.

15 Because this theory pertains to authoritarian systems where the executive is usually the more powerful player, in a stable system we cannot expect the legislature to be able to act entirely without executive support. Rather, legislative dominance manifests in its increased bargaining capabilities – that is, its ability to force concessions. 16 As with the executive-legislative powers variable, in a stable dominant party system it is very unlikely that the opposition could act without making concessions to the ruling party, so opposition dominance is understood in terms of increased bargaining powers. 44

Institutional evolution is captured through the rate at which changes are made to the constitution.17 Institutional evolution, as I define it, is the process by which the institution comes to perform an entirely different role from the one it began with.

Because the rules of the institution – in this dissertation, the legislature – are enshrined in the constitution, any efforts to formally change its function must arise in the constitution as well. In authoritarian systems where the regime legitimates its rule through the constitution, that document becomes the battleground between competing power-seekers.

The initial design of the constitution at the point of regime inception is intended to favor the regime; that way, challenges can be set aside as unconstitutional, and continued rule can be institutionalized. The initial bias towards the regime implies that the regime and its supporters are content with the status quo; while constitutional change is likely to occur since the system is in disequilibrium, that change is going to be relatively infrequent. On the other hand, opposition groups are inherently the losers in a system designed to maintain the regime in power; in order to become competitive with the regime, they will need to push for significant constitutional changes to undo bias towards the regime.

The constitution’s importance as the central legitimating document of the regime leads to significant amounts of negotiation over its contents. Additionally, because it represents the primary way of viewing changes to legislative and executive powers, its amendments demonstrate broader trends among the state’s political actors. ‘Rate of

17 Rate of change is used as a proxy for institutional evolution in the theory broadly, and in chapter 4 when the theory is tested over all legislative articles in the constitution. In chapter 5, when the universe of cases is much smaller – only amendments to article 27 – institutional evolution is captured by looking at the quality of the amendment (whether it is a major or minor change). This is explained thoroughly, and the two mechanisms for capturing evolution are compared, in chapter 5. 45 change’ refers to how frequently the constitution is amended. Each of the individual changes is aggregated, allowing for a visual inspection that coincides with significant political events to suggest five periods of institutional evolution. The five periods were introduced in chapter 1; the methodology behind the rate of change calculation will be discussed in chapter 4.

The overarching argument for this dissertation can be summarized as: dominant party authoritarian legislative evolution is a function of changing leverage relationships between the executive and the legislature, and the ruling party and the opposition. Within that argument, however, more specific hypotheses can be identified.

First, in terms of the party power axis, the ruling party’s preference for the status quo leads me to predict that(1a) When the ruling party has leverage over the opposition party, institutional evolution will occur more slowly relative to other periods.

Conversely, the opposition party’s preference for change suggests that (1b) When the opposition party has leverage over the ruling party, institutional evolution will occur more rapidly relative to other periods.

It should be noted that these hypotheses are relative – they do not predict an absolute level of institutional evolution, simply that opposition leverage is associated with faster overall evolution while ruling party leverage is associated with slower overall evolution. As mentioned earlier, evolution is captured by the rate at which constitutional changes are made. The baseline is taken to be the average rate of change over the lifetime of the regime. More rapid evolution than the baseline implies a higher rate of change, while slower than average evolution implies a lower rate of change (in both

46 cases, relative to the average rate of change over the lifetime of the regime). The operationalization of leverage will be addressed in chapter 4. The logic here is essentially maintenance of the status quo vs. evolution. The ruling party in conjunction with the executive created the system, and in many cases the constitution; formal powers already benefit the ruling party. It is in that party’s interest to change as little as possible for as long as possible, since the existing system keeps the party in power – unless the facts of the situation have changed. This change occurs when the system experiences an exogenous shock. At that point, the regime is forced to recalibrate institutional rules in order to survive (this is discussed in greater detail in chapter 3). Outside those rare moments of extreme stress, however, the regime’s interest is in maintaining the status quo. It may be necessary to make changes, especially over a long time-period, but these changes should be relatively minor and aimed more at expanding existing powers than at creating greater oversight (for instance, changing areas over which the legislature can legislate to include new forms of energy as they are developed). Nevertheless, they are changes, indicating some dissatisfaction with the status quo, and are counted as such.

In terms of the branch power axis, the executive’s desire to maintain his own power suggests that (2a) When the executive has leverage over the legislature, changes are more likely to constrain legislative powers. However, because of the legislature’s presumed desire to maximize its own power (Downs 1951), (2b) When the legislature has leverage over the executive, changes are more likely to increase legislative powers.

The assumption that each branch has separate preferences arises from Romero’s work on the relationship between the executive and the ruling party, which in a dominant

47 party authoritarian regime can be expanded to address the relationship between the executive and the legislature. The executive is presumed to want to maximize his own power (or, for countries with term limit laws, his office’s power) because doing so allows him to maximize his influence and to keep the political system under his control. The legislature’s interest here is not in constraining the executive, necessarily – as Romero points out, a change that benefits the president may also benefit the legislature – but in increasing its own piece of the political pie. Increased powers can translate to increased discretionary funding, as well as (in a term-limited system) enhanced opportunities for a political career outside the legislature, or a non-political career. In Mexico, many former politicians enter academia – the more an individual legislator contributed to state funding for universities, for example, the more he may be able to expect an academic appointment upon leaving office.

The table below captures the possible variation among both sets of hypotheses:

Table 2.1. Variation in axes of institutional evolution

Ruling party leverage Opposition party leverage Executive leverage Lower rate of change Higher rate of change Constrain legislature Constrain legislature Legislature leverage Lower rate of change Higher rate of change Increase legislative powers Increase legislative powers

Whereas the party power axis hypotheses spoke to overall rate of change, the branch power axis hypotheses speak to type of change. I contend that these axes interact to create the patterns of legislative evolution that we see in dominant party authoritarian regimes, and in Mexico in particular. The party powers axis alone cannot explain how 48 and why two periods of high overall change vary; however, by considering the branch power axis, we can see how these two periods are qualitatively different from each other.

For instance, it would be possible to have two periods with higher evolutionary speed, suggesting identical patterns of behavior, whereas in one of those periods legislative powers were constrained while in the other they increased. Examining only one axis would lead us to assume that no variation existed between these two periods, whereas in reality the periods represented significantly different evolutionary dynamics that will push the institution in two different directions.

2.4.1 Executive-Legislative Relations

In most authoritarian systems the executive is more powerful than the legislature.

However, this does not mean that the legislature is powerless – rather, as detailed above, in order to buy participation in the legislature, the executive must cede at least some power to the institution. Furthermore, the issue of relative power is not always clear-cut.

Especially when the regime is long-lasting, executive-legislative relations can change over time. It is possible for one branch to exert increasing or decreasing degrees of leverage over the other; equally, it is possible for leverage dominance to alternate between branches.

What is leverage, in terms of executive-legislative relations? Leverage is one group or actor’s ability to exert pressure on another group or actor in order to force change in political institutions. That change follows the preferences of whichever actor is dominant in the leverage relationship at that time. In terms of executive-legislative

49 relations, when the leverage balance tips in favor of the executive, the president may be able to ensure his budget is passed unamended or with no significant amendment. On the other hand, when the legislature is able to veto the budget, this suggests the balance favors the legislature. Weldon (1997) uses this conception of leverage imbalance to describe Mexico as a system where the executive was generally dominant but “Congress also at times asserted its independence.” (Weldon 1997, p. 228) This suggests that the operationalization of the dominant leverage partner is based in trends over time rather than individual events. When more events favor one side than the other (here, ‘events’ means constitutional amendments) within a given time period, that side can be understood to be dominant in the leverage relationship. Efforts by the non-dominant side to act outside the bounds of the institution may be a reaction to being on the losing side of the leverage relationship. For instance, in the 1920s and early 1930s the Mexican

Chamber routinely vetoed the president’s budget. The president’s response to these vetoes was to begin using extraordinary powers (facultades extraordinarias) in order to make an end-run around the need for Congressional approval (Weldon 2002, p. 394). In this scenario, the legislature’s ability to veto the budget – a formal constitutional power that convention decreed was not to be used as it undermined executive authority – points to a leverage relationship in the legislature’s favor. The president’s retaliatory use of extra-constitutional powers suggests he was the weaker actor.

Leverage dominance is not a black and white concept so much as it is a sliding scale – it may be possible for the same branch to maintain dominance over time, but to become more or less dominant within that timeframe (Casar 2002).

My concept of leverage relations arises in large part from patterns of executive- legislative relations. Romero (2007) identifies four classes of executive-legislative relations, based off of equilibria from a two-player game. Romero’s model is intended to demonstrate the different ways in which the president can relate to his own party, but in a hegemonic party system, because of the size of the ruling party, it can be used to demonstrate executive-legislative relations more broadly. In his scenario, the executive is always stronger than the legislature. His four classes are (1) aligned-preference equilibrium, (2) no collaboration, (3), party as hostage, and (4) collaboration. In the first class are those cases where the party and the president share interests and both believe they can benefit from the same set of actions. In the second class, the groups’ interests are so divergent that no action is possible. When the party is hostage, the party is forced to go along with the president’s actions even though those actions are not in the party’s interest – essentially, the party loses by supporting the president but would lose more if it did not support him. The final class, collaboration, obtains when the party believes the president will reward it for its support. Romero’s approach offers some explanation for why parties may behave in ways that are against their own interest, as occurred in Mexico at various points. The explanation given for this behavior in terms of Mexico is often simply that the president was incredibly powerful while the party was incredibly weak;

Romero’s approach, however, suggests that presidential strength may be less important in this calculus than the party’s expectation of gains and losses. Romero’s work is unique in this regard, and highlights the importance of understanding that even in scenarios with a very strong executive, legislative independence is possible and even rational. This

51 further supports the argument for treating the executive and the rest of the ruling party as separate actors, which I develop into my concept of branch axis relations. Of the 71 years of my study, the PRI held both executive power and legislative majority for 68. If the executive had such an iron grip on the party as to consistently superimpose his preferences onto party preferences, there would be no observable variation for executive- legislative relations in those 68 years. However, as I demonstrate in chapters 4 and 5, we see significant variation in terms of variation in legislative powers – even when those powers are clearly contrary to executive interests, as when the legislature gained the ability to appoint members of the Federal District governing council without executive authority.

These kinds of executive-legislative exchanges rested (as with the Federal District example above) in constitutional powers. I turn next to a discussion of how constitutional powers are used in dominant party regimes.

2.4.2 Constitutional Powers Under Dominant Party Authoritarianism

Constitutional powers provide one way of making executive-legislative relations and ruling party-opposition party relations visible. The constitution is vital to capturing legislative evolution because it enshrines not only the formal powers of the legislature, but the formal powers of the executive relative to the legislature as well. Institutions are governed by rules; those rules are set forth in the constitution. When the rules change, the institution evolves. Constitutions play an important role in authoritarian regimes; they provide legitimacy for the regime both to a domestic audience and to an

52 international one (Breslin 2009, p. 6). The symbolic importance of the constitution may help explain, crucially, why the Mexican regime chose to amend it to accommodate the executive and the legislature, rather than to entirely ignore it. The challenge, however, lies in aligning the frequent constitutional amendments with the executive’s extra- constitutional capabilities. Casar (2002) argues that formal powers are not a good measure of executive strength specifically because the president was able to rule extra- constitutionally. However, her argument fails to take into account two points: one, that the president’s extra-constitutional powers came through loopholes rather than through straight constitutional violations, and two, that many (though not all) of those loopholes were closed over time, decreasing the president’s extra-constitutional abilities. The president rarely violated the constitution; rather, he would take advantage of powers and capabilities that were not explicitly limited within the document. One example of the gradual removal of extra-constitutional powers comes from the president’s constitutional ability to borrow on the credit of the state. For some time there was no limit to the amount that the president could borrow without oversight. The intention may have been for a collaborative process between the executive and the legislature, but what actually occurred was strictly an executive decision where the president would borrow as much as he wanted and spend without oversight. When the president began to systematically overspend, however, the constitution was amended to require legislative approval of executive borrowing.

Closing the loopholes generally consisted of explicitly granting some oversight capability to the legislature – that is, amending formal constitutional powers. On the

53 other hand, there are many instances when the constitution was amended to strengthen the executive at the expense of the legislature. For instance, the original 1917 constitution granted the legislature the right to name superior court judges; a 1928 amendment passed that right to the executive, and left the legislature only the ability to approve or disapprove the naming. The approval ability held no power at all, since the article also stated that if the Chamber twice failed to approve a judicial candidate, the president could simply appoint someone to the vacancy. This suggests that examining patterns of changes to formal legislative powers and how those powers increased and decreased over time is in fact a reasonable way to capture executive and legislative strength.

2.4.3 Bargaining Under Authoritarianism

As has been mentioned previously, my theory argues that shifts in branch power axis leverage relationships and in party power axis leverage relationships are correlated with institutional evolutionary shifts. The process by which those leverage relationships are transformed into evolutionary changes is bargaining.

The idea of formal powers as a bargaining tool between the executive and the legislature is well-grounded, even under authoritarianism. Lawson argues that the entire purpose of the Mexican political system under the PRI was to redistribute rents (Lawson,

2000, p. 269) – a behavior that Lust-Okar (2005) also identifies in her work on Jordan, where she argues that legislators exchange real political power for redistribution rights.

The table below, drawn from Eisenstadt (2006), offers several instances where it has been

54 possible to observe bargaining in the Mexican system. In the table, Eisenstadt identifies several elections where bargaining occurred. He identifies the benefit each side received from bargaining over these contested elections, and the institution which had jurisdiction over the bargain and which was subverted or utilized to make the bargain. These institutions, even when behaving in an illegal fashion (for instance, illegally ratifying an election) functioned as a commitment mechanism to ensure the president, PRI and PAN all honored their bargains. Both the Electoral Court and Electoral College are described in the constitution as legislative powers. The Electoral College was made up of senators and deputies, and the legislature had oversight over the electoral court.

Table 2.2. Deals behind Prominent Concertacesión Agreements18

City or state election What the PRI allegedly What the PAN Formal institution said got allegedly got to have been replaced by informal institutions Presidential election PAN national support in Pledges from Salinas for Electoral College’s 1988 certifying Salinas as electoral reform; certification of president predisposition to presidential elections recognize subnational subverted by side deals PAN victories Guanajuato state PAN support for Interim governor from Electoral Court; PAN governor 1991 constitutional PAN, Carlos Medina officials recognized they agricultural and did not have legal economic reforms grounds, although they filed cases to state electoral court Mérida, Yucatán mayor PAN 1994 presidential Sacrifice of PRI mayor- Electoral college of the 1993 candidate’s pledge to elect in favor of PAN Yucatán state keep running (after he candidate legislature, which threatened to withdraw) illegally granted victory to number 2 finisher to preserve social order.

18 From Eisenstadt, Todd. “Mexico’s Postelectoral Concertacesiones: The Rise and Demise of a Substitutive Informal Institution.” In Helmke and Levitsky, Informal Institutions and Democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2006. P. 236 55

Evidence of legislative bargaining is also highlighted in the work of Casar (2002), who argues that in the early 1920s, certain constitutional changes like an amendment shrinking the size of the legislature were part of a package of changes the executive pushed, following legislative attempts to challenge the budget (a constitutional right). In terms of interparty relations (a topic explored more in the theory section), there is also evidence of the legislature itself (as opposed to its powers) being used as a bargaining tool at the subnational level; Bruhn (1999) describes how the PRI decided to cede several municipal governments in Michoacán to the PRD following the 1988 election, in order to buy their continued participation in the national government.

Although we have evidence of bargaining in some cases, as demonstrated above, it is impossible to show that bargaining occurred around every individual amendment – many of the negotiations were presumably conducted in private and leave no written record. However, the examples given above help to fill in the blanks about what the bargainers hoped to receive. Theoretically, bargainers might hope to gain three things: support for bills or constitutional changes, political or bureaucratic appointments, and access to discretionary funds. My work focuses on explaining constitutional change, but there is evidence that at times the regime used appointments to induce opposition coordination as well. Appointments can take several forms – they may consist of appointments to cabinet positions, or to different elected positions when the election results can be overruled. Eisenstadt (2006) identifies this type of appointment as bargaining currency in the 1991 Guanajuato gubernatorial election. He argues that the

PRI had won the election, but in order to buy PAN support for a series of constitutional

56 reforms, the president insisted that the election results be overturned and the PAN candidate be pronounced the winner. Although there is no evidence that the regime traded discretionary funds, the theoretical possibility remains. In this dissertation, however, the ultimate goal of bargaining is taken to be constitutional amendments. The justification for this narrow view of bargaining is purely functional: in-depth records of the processes surrounding constitutional change are accessible to researchers, while records of the decision-making process for appointments and use of discretionary funds are not. As Eisenstadt’s work in Table 2.2 demonstrates, it is possible to find some evidence of those links – but not consistently, which given the temporal variation in my work is problematic.

The link between constitutional change and institutional evolution is that when leverage relationships shift, new bargains can be struck, which results in amendments.

Essentially, one side’s capacity to induce change is increased – not in terms of sheer number of votes, but in terms of the force that side’s approval or disapproval will have on the other side. For instance, when an evolutionary moment results in the legislature increasing its leverage over the executive, the legislature is in a stronger position to bargain for amendments that give it more powers or responsibilities. The fact that bargaining must still occur – that the outcome is not pre-ordained by the leverage shift, but that the legislature’s side is strengthened – helps to explain why within a given evolutionary period there can still be a minority of cases which go against the overall pattern. Simply put, leverage shifts increase the strengthened actor’s chances of winning bargaining attempts, but do not guarantee a victory – failure still occurs.

2.4.4 Leverage Relationships

There are three distinct actors in the leverage relationships I have outlined: the executive, the ruling party in the legislature (this excludes the executive), and the opposition party or parties in the legislature.19 The ruling party and opposition party can be lumped together to form a fourth actor, the legislature as a whole.

In the case of Mexico, most scholars are primarily concerned with the relationship between the executive and the opposition (for instance Casar 2002, Weldon 1997,

Peschard 1993, Woldenberg 1993). Formal legislative powers are seen as the outcome of power struggles between the PRI and the PAN (Middlebrook, 2001). For instance, the

1988/89 reforms – which substantially increased legislative powers – came about because the executive needed to buy continued PAN support following the fraudulent 1988 presidential elections. Furthermore, Lujambio (2001) makes an argument for the PAN’s behavior from the 1930s through the 1980s as consistent with opposing the PRI and bargaining for more power. These approaches are somewhat incomplete – by focusing on a period where the PAN had already emerged as a powerful force, they neglect those earlier periods in which bargaining occurred but the PAN was numerically inconsequential. They also offer no theoretical grounds for variation in the levels and outcomes of executive-opposition relations.

19 In terms of Mexico, “opposition” is most commonly understood to be the PAN. In earlier periods no other party actually opposed the PRI, and in later periods with the development of the PRD, the PRI largely refused to negotiate with the PRD, preferring to make bargains with the PAN. 58

The focus on executive-opposition relations arises partly from a misperception about internal PRI unity. The depiction of the PRI as a wholly uniform force appears to lead to a tendency within the literature to overlook the importance of president-ruling party negotiations. This bias towards a perception of PRI uniformity is due to a tendency to look only at outcomes: the PRI voted as a bloc on almost every bill for most of its reign, leading many scholars to ignore underlying processes. However, the PRI was deeply divided internally – factions split off throughout its history, notably in the 1940s,

1950s, and 1980s. Even when a split was not imminent, the different arms of the PRI often struggled to work together (Lindau 1992, p. 219). In fact, some PRIistas focused their entire political career away from the executive. One former legislator I interviewed described much of his political career as serving as a go-between from the president to various legislative factions, bargaining to attempt to obtain the president’s preferred outcome (Interview 9/11). The existence and strength of factions that did not back the president were so omnipresent that various legislators could make the go-between role a focus. In order to prevent factionalization, internal bargaining was necessary.

Both the approaches above identify the executive developing relations with one group and excluding the other. They are both forms of executive-legislative leverage relations. Because most scholarship focuses on one or the other, scholars tend to miss the overall picture of how executive-legislative relationships change over time. My theory corrects this by looking at both levels of interaction, the parties and the branches.

Examining the shifting relations between the ruling party and the opposition party highlights how changes occurred within both the PRI and the PAN, and how those

59 changes affected leverage relations between the parties. At the same time, the executive- legislature angle is important to seeing how dynamics that affected those parties manifested in the legislature as a whole, and how changes in executive needs and capabilities shifted as well, altering branch power leverage relations.

2.5 Causal Links: Legitimacy

My theory offers an explanation of shifts in institutional evolutionary processes, by way of changes in the balance of power between the executive and the legislature, and between the ruling party and the opposition party. I argue (though do not test) that the largest and most dramatic shifts are made possible by the regime response to legitimacy crises. Chapter 3 lays out the role of legitimacy crises as a causal mechanism in much greater detail; my intent here is just to introduce the topic.

Legitimacy is a key concern for many authoritarian regimes. Many scholars

(Brownlee 2007, Magaloni 2006, Magaloni and Lust-Okar 2010) argue that much of the reason authoritarian rulers create political institutions is to enhance legitimacy. The consequences for a regime that is perceived to be illegitimate may be wide-ranging: everything from increasing protests, to removal of foreign aid, to regime demise either through internal or external forces (Thompson and Kuntz 2006).

In the case of Mexico, legitimacy has two bases. The PRI claimed to be the legitimate government on the grounds that it won multiparty elections with an overwhelming majority, and on the grounds that its founders were active participants in

60 the revolution and designed the party to carry out the revolution’s promises.20 These claims to legitimacy manifested in the legislature (Gonzalez-Casanova 1970,

Prud’homme 2001, Craig and Cornelius 1995). Magaloni (2006) in particular details how the PRI’s recurring electoral supermajorities played two important roles in the regime: they served both to signal to the opposition that it could not win, and to demonstrate that the regime was the legitimate representation of the people’s will. This need for legitimacy in Mexico under the PRI was a key component of institutional relations. The ongoing desire to appear legitimate forced the PRI and the president to engage in regular negotiation – within the ruling party, with the opposition, and between the president and the legislature. At the same time, dramatic shifts in the legislature’s form were brought about by crises of legitimacy – these were the relatively rare moments of sudden institutional evolution, where the legislature emerged fundamentally different from its previous state. These major external changes were the drivers for legislative evolution: as was discussed in chapter 1, the five periods of legislative evolution demonstrated by the Mexican Chamber of Deputies are each bracketed by a dramatic external event. That event drove institutional behavior for the duration of the period.

Stepan provides an explanation for how challenges to legitimacy, if not adequately dealt with, can threaten regime survival. In his analysis, unaddressed challenges can cause a shift in allegiance when it appears that the regime can no longer support itself:

20Different authoritarian regimes claim different bases of legitimacy. These claims are discussed more in chapter 3; in this section I only discuss legitimacy as manifested in dominant party regimes and specifically in Mexico. 61

“With the fear that holds the regime together subsiding, the core group of regime supporters will start to fragment as doubts arise concerning the wisdom and expediency of authoritarian policies. Some core supporters will decide that the perpetuation of authoritarianism is not in their interest, and will go over to passive---or sometimes even active--opposition.” (Stepan, 1990, p. 43) Because my theory is concerned not with the actual effects of legitimacy but with the regime’s response to threatened legitimacy, I do not offer a way to determine whether legitimacy has in fact been lost. Rather, I focus on explaining how certain major events clearly challenged legitimacy, and demonstrating the regime’s response. Chapter 3 will discuss how each major event is a legitimacy crisis; this section serves only to introduce the theoretical underpinnings of legitimacy as a causal mechanism.

2.6 Conclusion

This chapter has laid out the bodies of literature which underpin the development of a theory of legislative evolution. It also developed the theory in greater detail and offered a brief introduction to the variables. The next chapter will examine the variables in the context of my periodization of evolution in much greater detail as I lay out the causal mechanism underlying institutional evolution: regime response to legitimacy crises.

Chapter 3: Responses to Legitimacy Crises as The Causal Mechanism

3.1 Introduction

This dissertation aims to explain how legislatures evolve in dominant party authoritarian systems. As laid out in the previous chapter, I argue that institutional evolution in a dominant party system is a function of the struggle for leverage victories between the ruling party and the primary opposition party or parties, and the struggle for leverage victories between the legislature as a whole and the executive. Shifts in the leverage relationships between these branches – from ruling party to opposition party, for instance, or from executive to legislature – are caused by crises challenging the regime’s legitimacy.

3.2 Theory Review

Chapter 2 introduced the theory and discussed it at length; this section will serve as a brief refresher. This theory connects dynamics between the executive and legislative branches and between the ruling party and the opposition party to the process of institutional evolution as captured through the number and content of amendments to constitutional powers governing the legislature.

In a dominant party system, institutions are initially (at the point of regime founding) designed to benefit those in power – the executive, since the executive is at the head of the power structure, and the ruling party. Those in power are satisfied with the status quo; it is those out of power who, if given the opportunity, will push for substantial change to the institutional structure. Thus, significant changes are more likely to come from victorious efforts by the two habitual losers in the power struggles listed above: the legislature, which is always secondary to the executive, and the opposition, which is always secondary to the ruling party.21 Because the ruling party benefits from the system as designed, it will prefer to maintain that system, so that (1a)When the ruling party has leverage over the opposition party, institutional evolution will occur more slowly relative to other periods. However, the opposition party is in a weaker position under the system as initially designed; given the opportunity, the opposition will prefer to shift the system to its benefit, so that (1b) When the opposition party has leverage over the ruling party, institutional evolution will occur more rapidly relative to other periods.

Where the relationship between the ruling party and the opposition party drives the pace of evolution, the relationship between the executive and the legislature drives the content of evolution. In an authoritarian regime, the executive is the most powerful player. In order to remain that way, he must remain unconstrained. Legislative powers, however, can threaten executive independence when they give the legislature oversight.

That need to prevent legislative oversight implies that (2a) When the executive has

21 In chapter 2, I offer a definition of victory that reflects each actor’s ability to gain some concessions, even from a position of weakness. Victory in this context does not mean winning elections; it means gaining the ability to exert leverage. For a more thorough discussion of the term, see chapter 2; for a longer overview, see chapter 5, section 1. 64 leverage over the legislature, changes are more likely to constrain legislative powers.

By the same token, though, the legislature’s drive to increase its own power means that

(2b) When the legislature has leverage over the executive, changes are more likely to increase legislative powers.

Using an inductive approach laid out in chapter 4, I have posited five periods of institutional evolution, divided by events that significantly altered the Mexican political system. I then argued that each of these periods demonstrated a different rate of constitutional change to those around it, which led me to use rate of change as a proxy for institutional evolution.

Building on Thelen (2004) and Greif (2006), I argue that institutional evolution can occur either as a sudden dramatic change or as a series of smaller more gradual changes.22 The institution is never at perfect equilibrium – it is always evolving, to a greater or lesser extent. However, my theory argues that major evolutionary moments occur when those with less power overall make gains, whereas minor evolutionary moments (which still may, over time, build to large evolutionary changes) occur as a result of the changing needs of those already in power. In the case of Mexico, institutional evolution breaks down into five periods. Those periods – 1929-1945, 1946-

1976, 1977-1986, 1987-1993, and 1994-2000 – represent varying stages of evolution.

The variation is in terms of how many changes occur as the institution evolves in each period, as well as whether those changes increase legislative powers, making the

22 A complete discussion of evolution – what it is, and theories and arguments surrounding institutional evolution – can be found in Chapter 2, section 2. In brief, evolution is understood as the process by which the institution comes to fill a different role in political life – for instance, progressing from preserving authoritarianism to promoting democracy, or from constraining the executive’s powers to freeing him from constraint. Evolution is a process which may occur gradually or suddenly. 65 legislature a more independent entity, or constrain them, keeping the legislature under the executive’s strong control. These periods vary along two axes, branch power and party power:

Table 3.1. Explaining Variation in Institutional Evolutionary Patterns

Party power leverage axis Branch power Ruling party leverage Opposition party leverage axis victories leverage victories Executive leverage Fewer changes More changes23 victories Constraining legislature Constraining legislature 1929-1945, 1946-1976 1977-1986, 1987-1993 Legislature leverage Fewer changes24 More changes victories Increase legislative Increase legislative power power 1994-2000 In testing my theory in chapters 4 and 5, I look for support not only for the hypotheses laid out above, but for the dynamics within each period as identified in the table.

Underlying these dynamics, however, is the question of why such shifts occurred. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the cause of those shifts; I argue they are brought about by the regime’s response to legitimacy crises.

23 While it may appear contradictory to identify an outcome where there are more constitutional changes but also more constraints on the legislature, the two can and do coexist. It is entirely possible – and occurred – that many changes constrain legislative power, primarily by removing or limiting powers previously granted to the legislature. 24 With respect to Mexico, there are no outcomes in this box. Relative to a theory of institutional evolution under hegemonic regimes, however, the possibility (however slim) of this outcome remains. In theory, there might be a dominant party authoritarian regime ruled entirely by committee; in practice, however, the legislature is secondary to the executive. 66

3.3 The Causal Mechanism

As introduced in chapter 2, the causal mechanism underlying institutional evolution is the regime response to a legitimacy crisis. The legitimacy crisis itself is an exogenous shock, forcing an adjustment in the system to cope with the threat to regime legitimacy. The path the regime selects to address the challenge serves as the causal mechanism, forcing a recalculation of leverage relationships. Those recalculated leverage relationships then allow the actors who benefitted from the change to pursue their own agendas, and the promotion of those agendas in the form of constitutional change results in institutional evolution.

Legitimacy is a particularly important – though not uncontested - aspect of rule, playing a role in regime stability and durability . Although Przeworski (1986, 52) notably maintains that transitions can occur without a loss of legitimacy, transition appears more likely when legitimacy is lost than when it is not. The loss of legitimacy may not result in immediate regime defeat, but it makes continued rule over time more costly to maintain. Perhaps the clearest example of the costs associated with maintaining power following a loss of legitimacy came from Mexico’s 1988 elections, discussed in detail in section 3.4. In brief, when the PRI’s legitimacy was challenged by an apparently fraudulent electoral outcome, the cost of maintaining rule in the instant was to accept constitutional changes that set the stage for future defeat. Although the election itself was the crisis that precipitated events, the period leading up to that election demonstrated the erosion of legitimacy in the split of the Corriente Democrático faction from the rest of the PRI. Booth and Seligson (2009, 7) among others contend that the erosion of

67 legitimacy increases the likelihood that citizens will look for a different regime type; and

I argue that the regime’s concern towards legitimacy erosion underpins institutional evolution. As will be demonstrated shortly, regimes cannot rely on coercive or clientelistic forces alone to maintain power and establish legitimacy in times of crisis.

Violence and vote-buying might resolve the immediate problem, but they cannot shore up the regime’s damaged legitimacy in the eyes of citizens. To do that, the regime must institutionalize a solution to the crisis, leading to institutional evolution.

Institutional evolution as a resolution to legitimacy crises is grounded in the regime’s basis for claiming legitimate rule. For instance, in protectionist regimes the military claims it has a responsibility to protect the people from government actions against the interests of the state, and so must step in to protect the nation until it is safe to return to civilian rule. The legitimacy of the regime then rests on the military’s role as protector. We see this too in competitive authoritarian regimes, where the regime claims victory in unfair elections as a justification for its continuation in power – the regime is legitimate because the “majority” voted for it. Some regimes claim legitimacy as well on a security basis, claiming legitimate rule on the grounds of protecting the state from violence. Finally, we see this in regimes that came to power through revolution – “we fought for the revolution, therefore we are the legitimate rulers of the state.” Legitimacy is a valuable asset because it decreases the costs (both financial and reputational) of maintaining power. Too, a government that can claim legitimacy can also deny the opposition the chance to participate. While this is not an exhaustive list of sources of

68 legitimacy, it does serve to illustrate some of the ways in which authoritarian regimes justify their hold on power.

Legitimacy is an important characteristic of any government system.25 In the case of democracies, the source of legitimacy is in the regime type – majority-rule free and fair elections imply that most citizens have opted into the system.26 Autocracies, however, must look further afield for their sources of legitimacy – and because of that, their hold onto claims of legitimacy may be more tenuous. When a regime’s legitimacy is challenged, regime survival is placed in jeopardy (Burnell 2006). The regime will face difficult choices: does it send the military into the streets? Does it pave the way for regime change? In order to maintain itself in power, the regime must reaffirm its legitimate right to rule.

Given the importance of convincing citizens who are not active party members of the regime’s legitimacy, the basis of legitimacy matters. The grounds on which the regime claim the right to rule must be protected from threat; when a challenge arises in society that affects the regime’s claimed role relative to the bases of legitimacy, it must be dealt with or risk destabilizing the regime. As the regime evolves, its primary grounds for legitimacy may evolve as well (Burnell, 2006, p. 549). 27 Easton (1965) identified two component pieces of legitimacy: diffuse support and specific support. Diffuse

25 For an excellent review of the literature on legitimacy (primarily democratic, though with some attention to authoritarian legitimacy as well) see Booth and Seligson 2009, pp. 1-24. 26This is not to say democratic legitimacy – or autocratic legitimacy – cannot be lost. Indeed, my argument focuses on the government’s need to maintain that legitimacy in the face of challenges. While I focus on autocracies, democracies must also address legitimacy crises; they simply use different mechanisms, such as the vote of no confidence. 27 Kaufman (1985, 483) discusses growing legitimacy through economic development as a further mechanism; however, he is concerned with the gradual increase of regime legitimacy, rather than attempting to re-establish legitimacy following a crisis. 69 support consists of “attitudes toward the political community and toward the regime” while specific support is “oriented toward the performance of political authorities.”

(Booth and Seligson 2009, 9). These more abstract aspects of legitimacy can be seen concretely in the regime’s bases of legitimacy. The PRIista regime in Mexico claimed two different bases of legitimacy – electoral legitimacy and revolutionary legitimacy.

Revolutionary legitimacy may be seen as an expression of diffuse support, while electoral legitimacy reflects specific support. Electoral legitimacy, as Magaloni (2006) describes, arose from repeated victory in elections at all levels of the state. Revolutionary legitimacy was derived from the PRI’s participation in the 1913-1914 revolution – a form of identification present even in the name of the party, the Institutional Revolutionary

Party. The PRI itself did not exist at the time of the revolution – as discussed in chapter 2 it formed gradually over the period 1917-1929 as the main parties were folded into one umbrella party. However, the early leaders of the parties that became the PRI, as well as of the PRI itself, were heroes of the revolution, and it was their legacy that allowed the party to claim revolutionary legitimacy. The PRI’s overwhelming victories at the ballot box reinforced the notion that the party was chosen by the people to rule, and thus could claim a basis for legitimacy almost on par with democracy.28 The PRI enshrined its right to rule in these two elements, and they were incredibly important to the party mythos. In fact, in the 1970s when members of the PAN began to complain about the unfairness of the system, the response from the PRI was that the PAN could set the political rules when

28 This is not to say that Mexico in this period was at all democratic; rather, my point is that the PRI used the same basis for legitimacy that democratic regimes do, and with near equal effect – in fact, the electoral victories were such resounding legitimization tools that some scholars classified Mexico under the PRI as a democratic regime. 70 it had its own revolution (Interview with former legislator, 9/11) – a clear claim of legitimacy based on participation in the revolution.

Of course, claiming certain areas as representing the regime’s legitimacy means that crises affecting those areas are particularly problematic. Legitimacy crises, left unaddressed, diminish the regime’s authority in the eyes of the population and can lead to regime demise (Remmer, 1990, p. 64). A legitimacy crisis occurs when the basis on which the regime claims its legitimacy is publicly challenged (so, in a fashion in which more people than just the ruling elites are aware of the challenge). The public aspect is important because the point of claiming legitimacy is to convince the ruled to accede to the regime without relying entirely on the threat of force; essentially, this is an issue of public perception. Issues that are entirely internal to the regime – pressures between ruling party factions that don’t reach public notice – don’t result in a legitimacy crisis.

When the pressure between factions builds to the point that it becomes public, however, as when a group splits from the main party, a legitimacy crisis can ensue. One crucial point here is that the actors involved are aware that they are experiencing a legitimacy crisis. A true legitimacy crisis is apparent as it is occurring, not just after the fact. This does not guarantee that the regime will respond, or will respond appropriately, to the crisis – but regime actors are aware of the crisis as a challenge to regime legitimacy. A legitimacy crisis is a crisis facing the regime. Because in a dominant party system the ruling party is the regime, a crisis for the party is a crisis for the regime.

In dominant party regimes, there are three basic options for responding to legitimacy crises: enhancing the rule of law, clientelism, and violence. As I will

71 demonstrate in section 3.3, in the case of Mexico all responses to legitimacy crises had to involve the rule of law, in the form of constitutional amendments. This was not the only mechanism used – at various times the regime also used violence and clientelism – but it was a necessary, and sometimes sufficient, condition of the response to crises.

Violence alone was never a sufficient response, due to both the public nature of the legitimacy crisis and to regime ideology. As Knight (1999, 117-118) explains,

“Mexico’s official ideology was relatively progressive, enlightened, inclusionary and reformist. This ideology, of course, is conveyed in the country’s official ‘public transcript,’ tirelessly enunciated in speeches, the press, and the electronic media… the gap between public transcript and public policy cannot be allowed to yawn too wide for too long or the former will lose all legitimacy, as it did, for example, in Eastern Europe.” Knight argues that the public use of violence was not in line with the regime’s self-image, “and, since it is at odds with the public transcript, it is not shouted from the political rooftops, but officially denied, decried, evaded or overlooked.” (118). After the

PRI had consolidated control, using violence in response to a non-violent crisis did nothing to enhance damaged legitimacy; on the contrary, it made the regime appear unstable. The crucial aspect to that appearance is, again, the public nature of the crisis.

Legitimacy was only challenged when there was widespread knowledge of the crisis.

The regime often used violence secretly, but to maintain power, not to shore up legitimacy. When faced with a situation where using violence was important to maintaining control in the instant but being caught using violence would damage legitimacy – specifically violence in response to non-violent acts – the regime kept its use of violence secret to the greatest extent possible. This was the case with the 1968 student massacres at Tlatelolco, when students gathered to march and non-violently protest

72 regime actions. However, soldiers disguised as civilians infiltrated the protest, surrounded the protesters, and shot them. The government immediately moved to conceal its use of violence, censoring news stories of the massacre and destroying all photographs (Doyle 2003, 67). Additionally, by dressing the soldiers in civilian clothes the regime distanced itself from military action. These approaches helped keep events secret; while there were rumors of what had happened, the protest and aftermath were not made public across Mexico, and cannot be considered an electoral or revolutionary legitimacy crisis.

Violence, then, is a rarely-used tool of relegitimization, and must (in a dominant party regime) be used publicly in order to respond to crises. A second common approach to legitimacy crises, particularly electoral ones, is clientelism. In this case, clientelism refers specifically to authoritarian clientelism, “where imbalanced bargaining relations require the enduring political subordination of clients and are reinforced by the threat of coercion.” (Fox 1994, 154) Like violence, though, clientelism is not a sufficient response

– and also like violence, it is sometimes not even an option.

Clientelism can be used to ensure electoral victories, whether narrow or supermajority, by providing financial incentives to voters. The PRI practiced both positive clientelism – vote buying – and what Stokes (2005) calls perverse accountability, or punishing voters that went against the regime (Magaloni et al 2001). According to

Greene (2001, 3) clientelistic exchanges “may take place through face-to-face relationships as in traditional clientelism, or through institutionalized relationships between constituency groups and party organizations, bureaucratic units, or congressional

73 delegates.” They are a way of connecting voters to politicians, for electoral returns.29

However, while clientelism can often effectively guard against electoral defeat, it cannot alone serve as a response to a legitimacy crisis. This is because legitimacy crises under a durable dominant party are generally (with the exception of 1994 in Mexico) not situations where the regime is facing electoral defeat. Rather, they are situations where the regime’s image as the sole legitimate representative of the people is challenged, often by splits within the party. When factions of the ruling party publicly split with the regime and form a new party, their background as previous party members – particularly as potential presidential candidates – threaten the image of the designated candidate as the only legitimate future ruler. In these situations, clientelism can be used to buy off voters to the extent that splitting looks unprofitable to party members – but that does nothing to repair the regime’s publicly tarnished image to voters. In the face of electoral legitimacy challenges, clientelism can decentivize future splits, but it cannot rebuild legitimacy.

Clientelism also cannot usually repair challenges to revolutionary legitimacy.

When what is challenged is the regime’s claim to its role in the revolution, vote-buying is useless. With respect to Mexico, the only exception is if the challenge is to the regime’s

29 Greene distinguishes clientelism under authoritarian systems from its democratic cousin, distributive politics, as follows: “Whereas classic distributive politics includes pork-barreling in favor of geographically or sectorally defined constituencies, benefits are given to all members of the targeted constituency, regardless of their support for the sponsoring politician. Clientelist modes of exchange include distribution to specific constituencies, but with the added constraint that material advantages are directed to supporters or would-be supporters exclusively, and with the explicit expectation of political support in return” (Greene 2001, 5). In short, the basic distinction between democratic redistribution and autocratic clientelism is that even when the exchange utilizes politicians, the target audience varies – benefits to all as opposed to benefits solely to supporters. 74 promise to redistribute land.30 In that case, clientelism in the form of land grants can be used to respond to revolutionary legitimacy crises.

Both violence and clientelism may be part of the regime’s response to a legitimacy crisis, but neither is sufficient to actually rebuild legitimacy. In order to do that – to publicly demonstrate its legitimacy – the regime must use the rule of law. As I show in 3.3, in the case of Mexico every legitimacy crisis was met with constitutional amendments – sometimes in conjunction with violence or clientelism, but sometimes not.

I argue that what moves an event from simply a major crisis to a legitimacy crisis is the public aspect – that is, a public challenge to the bases of legitimacy. That public aspect implies that any measure of regime legitimacy must be a measure of the public perception of legitimacy. The best method for determining this is an opinion poll.

Actually conducting a public opinion poll to test legitimacy is a) well beyond the scope of this dissertation, and b) impossible due to the long-term nature of the project. I cannot show public opinion data of a legitimacy crisis in most cases; however, von Sauer (1992) uses opinion polls to demonstrate the presence of a legitimacy crisis in the lead-up to the

1988 election. Von Sauer’s interpretation of the data relies on a high percentage of respondents identifying the PRI as corrupt, or elections as fraudulent. While I cannot test public opinion, I can demonstrate allegations of corruption and fraud around the legitimacy crises I have identified.

The 1940 election which preceded Almazán’s rebellion was also noticeable plagued by perceptions of fraud and corruption. The rebellion (the first legitimacy crisis

30 In non-Mexico cases, clientelism can only repair challenges to revolutionary legitimacy when the challenge affects an area of life that can be purchased. 75 of the PRI’s reign) occurred when Almazán was passed over for the presidential nomination. That decision resulted in what Zolov calls a “tainted election… which should have gone to Almazán” (Zolov, 2001, p. 166). The legitimacy crisis was again signaled by allegations of widespread fraud (Hernández, 1989, pág. 58), as von Sauer’s data suggest should be the case.

The 1976 presidential election became a legitimacy crisis when López Portillo was elected in an uncontested election – uncontested because the PAN could not agree on a candidate. The reason the PAN could not agree was because there was a division between the faction that wanted to focus on local elections and the faction that wanted to focus on national elections. The core of this local versus national argument was a widespread perception that the elections were fraudulent – that PAN members were winning seats but being denied their victories (Lujambio 2001, p. 71). These concerns of fraud were, surprisingly, relatively new and growing – in the 1960s the PAN actually had a cordial relationship with the PRI, and while not all victories were recognized, many were (Lujambio 2001, p. 69).

The 1988 legitimacy crisis was well-documented by von Sauer and others;

McCann and Dominguez (1998) claim that immediately prior to the 1994 legitimacy crisis almost half the population anticipated electoral fraud. This is a decrease from the

1988 and 1991 levels, but the level of perceived corruption had actually risen from 1991 to 1994.31 McCann and Dominguez also identify widespread fraud in the 1994 Chiapas

31 There does not appear to be data on corruption for 1988. 76 gubernatorial election, which they posit further increased voters’ perceptions of illegitimate behavior (ibid. 490).

If we accept von Sauer’s measurement of a legitimacy crisis through claims of corruption and fraud, each of the events I have identified can be seen to be legitimacy crises. This is not to say that allegations of corruption and fraud did not occur at other points, but that these points represent particular spikes in the public perception of corruption and fraud. With the 1976 and 1994 crises, we have evidence – anecdotal in the former, data-based in the latter – that perceptions of corruption and fraud were higher at those points than in surrounding years. There is no comparative data for 1988, but

McCann and Dominguez put the level of voters lacking faith in the government at 45% - an impressively high level given that the likely fraudulent election had not yet been held.

I maintain that widespread reports of corruption and fraud are signs of a legitimacy crisis, and that 1940, 1976, 1988, and 1994 all represented legitimacy crises.

Legitimacy crises play a distinct role in institutional evolution. Institutional evolution has two phases, that of major shifts and that of minor changes, which occur within periods of seismic shifts. The minor changes generally flow in the same basic direction – towards a more open state, for instance, or a more closed one. The majority of the small changes will move in the same direction, while a few may deviate from the pattern. We can determine that the small change is part of the larger pattern primarily by identifying defining events – the events which give rise to my periodization, discussed below – and then examining each small change that occurs within the period between two

77 defining events. The majority of the changes will proceed towards some similar end – greater executive powers, for instance.

While small changes generally (though as mentioned above, not exclusively) follow the set path, the major shifts can cut a new path: an institution that had been gradually progressing to greater political openness might go through a series of sudden changes that produce a much more closed state, for instance. The value of my theory is that it explains both major and minor shifts, something most institutional evolutionary literature does not do (with the exception of Greif and Thelen).

While minor changes can be seen as the natural progression of a non-stagnant institution – small changes that move mostly consistently in a given direction – major shifts, which fundamentally alter the shape and function of the institution, are the result of recalibrated power balances following legitimacy challenges. Each set of minor and major events occurs within an evolutionary period. These periods are caused by seismic shifts – huge, dramatic regime responses to severe legitimacy crises. The seismic shift – the actions the regime takes when threatened by a legitimacy crisis – recalibrates the balance between powers, sometimes significantly strengthening the existing winner and sometimes making the erstwhile loser the new winner in the power relationships.

Seismic shifts are essentially responses to critical junctures. In the case of seismic shifts,

I argue that contrary to much of the institutional evolution literature options are very rarely so circumscribed as to lead to charges of path dependency, though it does occasionally occur, as I will discuss when I analyze the 1994 shift. The remainder of this chapter is concerned with discussing and explaining seismic shifts.

The chart below recaps the differences between minor shifts, major shifts, and seismic shifts.

Chart 3.1. Categories of evolutionary shifts

Minor shifts Occur in response to winners’ changing needs Within a given period, generally progress in the same direction Frequent events Major shifts Occur in response to recalibration of winners and losers Within a given period generally progress in the same direction Relatively rare events Seismic shifts Occur as a result of legitimacy crises; in themselves recalibrate winners and losers Define periods Extremely rare events

The range of possible responses to a legitimacy crisis is defined by the nature of the crisis. At the most basic level, the regime’s options are to respond to the crisis or not to respond. As my dissertation demonstrates, there are times when the regime opts not to respond or is unable to respond. While it is difficult to determine what precisely caused internal regime decisions to be taken in a particular way, there are several possible explanations for a no-response outcome. One is simple miscalculation; decision makers recognize the legitimacy crisis but not the response that will resolve it in the regime’s favor. Another possible explanation is that the decision makers are aware they are facing a legitimacy crisis, but each of the possible responses appears to have greater drawbacks than a lack of response. Fortunately, the motivation for choosing a non-response is far less important than the fact of the non-response. 79

When choosing a positive (rather than no) response to a legitimacy crisis, decision makers’ options are rather more open. Political reality will shape the options available to the actors, but I contend that those options are not so firmly circumscribed as most path- dependent theories assume, and that it is possible to reverse actions that earlier appeared path dependent. This is because, as argued in chapter 2, decisions taken after critical junctures are not impossible to reverse, merely very costly. However, when the risk of non-reversal carries an even steeper cost – specifically regime demise – it is possible for an evolutionary movement to reverse the institution’s path.

3.4 Legitimacy Crises in Mexican History

In the case of Mexico, we can see certain behaviors institutionalized in order to stave off a legitimacy crisis. One of these preventive measures was the dedazo, or touch, the process by which the sitting president named his successor. The dedazo was designed to keep the presidential nomination process private and thereby avoid creating rifts within the ruling party. Essentially, between 12 and 24 months before the end of a president’s term he would name three people from the upper echelons of the party as possible successors. Those three would then be subject to intense scrutiny by the president and his closest advisers – but the potential candidates would not speak publicly about the presidency, the nomination, or anything related. In fact, publicly commenting on any of these areas was grounds for disqualification from the dedazo. By keeping the selection process secret and making any public discussion of it taboo, the PRI elite prevented party factionalization from becoming public fodder, and thus from elevating a party crisis (as

80 different factions backed different potential candidates) to a legitimacy crisis. When the

Corriente Democrático – a reformist faction of the PRI – publicly advocated for a democratization of the nomination procedures in the lead-up to the 1988 elections, it was seen as a violation of the rules of the dedazo. The ensuing shift from private party deliberations to public-sector arguments over who was the legitimate representative of the state elevated what might have otherwise been a clash between internal party factions into a legitimacy crisis. When the candidate favored by the Corriente Democrático,

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, was not chosen for the presidency, rather than maintaining its silence, the Corriente Democrático split off from the PRI to create its own party

(Langston, 2002, p. 77). This further exacerbated the PRI’s issues regarding legitimacy, as Cárdenas himself – son of the great revolutionary hero and former president Lázaro

Cárdenas – could claim revolutionary legitimacy and proceed to seek electoral legitimacy in the 1988 election.

The 1988 presidential election was one of four legitimacy crises that the regime experienced between 1929 and 2000, separating the 71 years into five periods of evolution. In chapter 1 I offered a brief overview of the political dynamics of each period, and in chapter 4 I go into greater detail about how each period stands up to my theory. The discussion of periodization in this chapter will focus on explaining the legitimacy crises themselves.

The five periods of institutional evolution were 1929-1945, 1946-1976, 1977-

1986, 1987-1993, and 1994-2000. Each of these periods was brought about by the regime’s response (or lack thereof) to a legitimacy crisis. In most cases, the legitimacy

81 crisis which occasioned the shifts challenged both revolutionary and electoral legitimacy.32

My dissertation begins with 1929, the date when the party that eventually called itself the PRI33 formed and took power. The first period, 1929-1946, was a time of consolidation – the leaders of the new ruling party were working on co-opting other parties under their umbrella, removing all opposition to the party’s rule. Predictably, this cooptation met with some resistance. Smaller parties that were co-opted lost much of their influence, and because the PNR/PRI was focused on absorbing as many groups as possible rather than on strict ideological homogeny, disparate viewpoints from the co- opted parties led to factionalization within the dominant party. The major vocalization of that disparity came in the form of an armed rebellion. In 1940, party factionalization led to a split in the nomination for the next president. The outgoing president, Lázaro

Cárdenas, nominated Manuel Avila Camacho as his successor in the dedazo. However, a significant wing of the party backed retired general Juan Almazán as the next president.

When Avila Camacho was nominated instead, Almazán’s supporters split from the party and began an armed rebellion against the regime. The rebellion was quickly put down, but its evidently public nature moved the discord over the presidency from the realm of private party business to a very public legitimacy crisis, as Almazán’s own role in the party to that point and his rejection of the party challenged the party’s revolutionary legitimacy (Meyer, 1972, p. 125).

32 1929 and 2000 are excluded from this conversation because they are not transition points so much as start and end dates. 33 From 1929 until about 1939, the party was called the Partido Nacional Revolucionario. In 1939 it became the Partido Revolucionario Mexicano, and in 1946 it changed its name to the PRI. However, it was the same party at all points. 82

The regime’s response to Almazán’s rebellion and the attendant revolutionary legitimacy crisis triggered the legislature’s evolution. Essentially, regime actors concluded that the incentive for Almazán’s split was his ability to form a new party; had he been unable to form a party that could compete at the national level, the fissure would have remained internal to the party and the legitimacy crisis would not have emerged. As a result, in 1946 the legislature amended the constitution to significantly curtail party development and increased the cost of exiting from the party (Langston, 2002, p. 66). It introduced a requirement of a minimum of 30,000 party members necessary for a party to compete, and required that parties register at least a year in advance of the election, preventing factions from splitting right before the election. The regime response helped to shore up legitimacy by essentially removing legitimate sources of opposition. By raising electoral barriers, the regime ensured a very limited pool of legitimate opponents, reducing the claimants to the presidency to the PRI and the PAN, as the other two legal parties did not run presidential candidates. Without legal opposition – and with barriers to ruling party defection so high – the PRI’s legitimacy was enhanced as the only possible electoral choice.

The difficulty of registering so many members essentially disallowed most parties without actually making opposition to the regime illegal. This minimum threshold fundamentally altered the legislature, moving it and the country more towards authoritarianism. By deliberately setting a threshold that was difficult for any but a large wealthy party to reach, the regime ensured that competition was strictly limited, decreasing the potential sources of opposition. The high barrier to entry resulted in a

83 system where only four parties were legal – the ruling party, the primary opposition party

PAN which was allowed to compete but frequently, according to party sources, denied its victories (see for instance Beer 2003) and two smaller pseudo-opposition parties, the PPS and the PARM, which were in reality supported by and working with the regime. This effectively struck true opposition from the system for many years.

The regime’s response to the crisis had two pieces: an immediate stage, where the violent rebellion was put down, and a longer-term stage, where legitimacy was restored.

The regime responded to the rebellion itself with use of force, then turned to the constitution to shore up its damaged legitimacy. While violence was utilized as a response to the crisis, it was insufficient to address the regime’s legitimacy; putting down the Almazán supporters’ rebellion did not guarantee that the regime was the only legitimate representative of revolutionary promises. In order to bring that about, it was necessary to change the institutional rules so that the regime could credibly assure voters and party members that future challenges of this nature were unlikely to arise.

The largest factor in shifting Almazán’s rebellion from a political problem to a legitimacy crisis was the fact that prior to his rebellion he had in fact been under consideration for the presidential nomination (Hernández 1989, p. 56). He traveled

Mexico making stump speeches to various groups, from businessmen to campesinos.

However, Almazán himself was a wealthy landowner supported by other wealthy businessmen, and opposed the land grants that were so important to Cárdenas. Although the promise of land grants dated to 1917, they were only narrowly executed prior to

Cárdenas’ presidency. Cárdenas came to power with the support of the campesinos, and

84 it was important to him to leave the regime in the hands of someone who would continue that work (Langston 2002, p. 67). In short, he had increased the visibility of the regime’s commitments laid out in Article 27, a fundamental piece of revolutionary legitimacy.

Almazán’s potential candidacy challenged that heightened importance, and his apparent willingness to use violence against the regime (Hernández 57) in a public fashion challenged electoral legitimacy.34 The very public nature of the rebellion, combined with the rebellion being spurred on after Almazán had publicly competed for the presidential nomination, created a situation that Mexico had not previously experienced under the

PRI: a legitimacy crisis.

The 1976/1977 transition point in many ways reversed the 1945/1946 actions, as it opened the field up to greater electoral competition. This transition also arose out of a presidential contest, though not within the party. In the lead-up to the 1976 election, the

PAN was suffering a significant identity crisis as the party’s two main factions tried to set its future direction. The PAN had participated in local and national elections since the

1950s, and while they’d had some local level success their national-level success was more limited, and they had no success whatsoever with presidential elections. Adding to this difficulty was the fact that victories claimed by the PAN were often not honored by the regime. For the most part the party had more success getting local-level elections – municipal councils, for instance, and to some extent mayoralties – recognized by the regime (Eisenstadt 2004, Beer 2003). As a result, one significant branch of the party believed that the PAN should focus solely on local-level elections with only minimal

34 Interestingly, Almazán espoused violence before his supporters’ rebellion, but distanced himself from the actual rebellion. 85 competition at the national level. The other branch believed the primary focus should remain on national elections like the presidency and the Chamber of Deputies. When it came time to nominate a PAN candidate for the 1976 election, these two competing missions came to a head. The resulting clash over the future of the party meant that the

PAN missed the registration deadline to announce its presidential candidate – no candidate was named. The effect of the 1946 amendment was such that neither of the two other legal parties ran its own presidential candidate – both parties simply supported the PRI candidate. Without a PAN candidate, there was no opposition to ‘challenge’ the

PRI, and its candidate, José López Portillo, won an uncontested election.

This uncontested election called into question the PRI’s electoral legitimacy

(Eisenstadt 2004, Doyle 2003). Winning an uncontested election did not make the party appear to be the legitimate ruler of Mexico – rather, it made the PRI look authoritarian, and as though the party only won because no alternative existed. The fact that everyone in Mexico knew the PRI was not winning elections fairly did nothing to alleviate the crisis; for the sake of the regime’s legitimacy, it was necessary to have some formal opposition.

The unique event that made 1976 a legitimacy crisis was the total absence of opposition to the PRI in a national-level election. The 1976 crisis was spurred on by PAN factionalism. This was not the first time factionalism had caused the PAN to abandon electoral gains – in 1956 a rift between two factions caused PANistas to refuse to take their seats in the Chamber of Deputies. But in that scenario, opposition was to some degree still present, in the form of PPS and PRM delegates. Since neither the PPS nor the

PRM ran presidential candidates, however, the absence of a PAN candidate let to the first ever unopposed presidential election, and a legitimacy crisis (Lujambio 2001).

The regime’s response to this legitimacy crisis was to ensure that in the future there would always be opposition to the PRI candidate. The minimum threshold for electoral participation was removed; all parties could now compete at the national level and field candidates for the presidency. Further, the major electoral system reforms passed in 1977, switching from a pure majoritarian system to a mixed majoritarian/proportional representation system, dramatically impacted legitimacy.

Introducing partial proportional representation helped to increase opposition presence in government, as well as facilitating the introduction of primarily local-level parties to national-level politics. At the same time, maintaining a number of seats through first- past-the-post elections ensured continued PRI dominance. In essence, between the reforms to party participation laws and the reforms to the electoral system, the regime improved its legitimacy by allowing opposition participation but doing so in a way that maintained the ruling party supermajority and the attendant electoral legitimacy. This response caused an evolutionary shift towards an at least slightly more democratic system

Although no research has been done on internal party dynamics that would account for this reversal from the 1946 amendment, it is possible that regime elites felt comfortable removing the barrier to entry out of a belief that party discipline was so high that splits would not occur. The 1946 barriers were put in place in order to prevent splits; but the party in 1946 was also relatively newly-consolidated, whereas the party in 1977 was still in what is known as the golden age of the PRI, when party discipline was extremely high.

Given that level of party discipline, combined with the PRI’s almost total control over resources, decision makers may have believed that even allowing small parties to form would not encourage splitting (and its inherent legitimacy crises). And indeed, it was almost a decade before any faction did split off from the party – but when that occurred, in 1986, the PRI’s grasp on power began significantly fading.

In this case, neither violence nor clientelism was a viable tool. The PAN had not committed a violent act; the public legitimacy crisis was entirely non-violent, so the PRI could not rely on violence to address the crisis even had it wanted to. Further, the crisis was not about the PRI lacking votes, but about the PRI lacking opposition – so clientelism was not a viable tool. Facing the 1976/77 legitimacy crisis, the regime’s only recourse was to change the laws to rebuild legitimacy.

The legitimacy crisis that engendered the 1987/1988 institutional evolutionary process stemmed from a challenge to both electoral and revolutionary legitimacy in the lead-up to the 1988 election. The history here was described above, in the development of the Corriente Democrático and its subsequent split from the PRI. In this instance, a revolutionary legitimacy crisis paved the way for an electoral legitimacy crisis – while there were two separate events, they were part of the same larger legitimacy crisis, and the regime response was unitary. The impending revolutionary crisis was compounded by the regime’s response to the 1982 foreign debt crisis, when it largely abandoned its revolutionary ideals (Langston, 2002, p. 74). The crisis further challenged the regime’s revolutionary legitimacy because of who precisely was splitting off from the PRI –

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of the legendary president Lázaro Cárdenas.

The elder Cárdenas’ revolutionary legitimacy was primarily a function of the actions he took as president. One of the core revolutionary principles revolved around land ownership, which will be discussed in much greater detail in chapter 5. Briefly, the then-new regime promised to redistribute land to the peasants, a core group of revolutionary supporters. Lázaro Cárdenas came to power backed by agricultural unions, and was the first president to make land redistribution an absolute priority. He was also responsible for redistributing more hectares of land than any other president. In many ways, he embodied the revolutionary ideals – and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas was seen as his father’s political heir. For the younger Cárdenas to so publicly break from the ruling party, and form his own, was a very direct challenge to the regime’s revolutionary legitimacy. This split was followed by the group (which eventually became the PRD) forming a coalition party and putting forth Cuauhtémoc as their candidate in the 1988 presidential election – something that was possible because of the 1977 laws relaxing the barriers to participation. The party that would become the PRD backed Cárdenas in

1988, and he may have actually won the presidential election – accounts are muddled, as there were significant electoral anomalies including a power outage affecting electronic tallying, and the eventual destruction of all paper ballots. Cárdenas’ possible victory provoked a massive electoral legitimacy crisis for the regime, and its response was problematic. In order to maintain itself in power, the PRI made a deal with the primary opposition party, the PAN, that the PAN would not challenge the electoral outcome.

Without the PAN’s backing, the PRD did not have enough weight to actually unseat the regime. In exchange for recognizing the PRI victory, the PAN demanded constitutional

89 amendments which created an independent electoral oversight body, thus diminishing the regime’s future influence (Eisenstadt 2006).

The 1988 legitimacy crisis, then, came in two parts: first, a challenge to revolutionary legitimacy in the form of Cárdenas’ departure from the party, and second, a challenge to electoral legitimacy when the PRI was forced to steal the presidential election to maintain power. These events occurred two years apart; why did the first alone not provoke a regime response – and thus legislative evolution? Why was the second event necessary to bring about evolution? Part of the answer is that by this point, several generations removed from the revolution itself, revolutionary legitimacy was less important to the party (and likely to the people) than it had been years ago.35 This is visible from the dramatically declining importance of land reform, as well as the reduced role of unions in political life. Given the diminished importance of revolutionary legitimacy, the event that truly put the regime in crisis was the 1988 presidential election.

The prior event, the revolutionary legitimacy crisis, was necessary to provoke the electoral legitimacy crisis and the regime response, but was not a sufficient condition to provoke a regime response in and of itself. The regime response pushed the legislature and the Mexican system as a whole towards much greater democracy, and essentially made reversing that course into a firmly authoritarian state impossible.

While clientelism could buy votes, the regime’s ability to vote-buy was diminished in the aftermath of the foreign debt crisis (Magaloni et al 2000, p. 5).

Additionally, clientelism through vote-buying is completed in advance of an election; the

35 For more on the decreasing importance of the revolution over time, see Langston 2002. 90 regime’s legitimacy crisis culminated after the election, when the party was forced to steal the presidency to remain in power. The only method available to make that electoral theft appear legitimate was through buying off the opposition, using constitutional amendments.36

The final legitimacy crisis the PRI faced was an electoral legitimacy crisis that came to a head with the 1994 elections. In the 1994 elections, the PRI retained the presidency but lost its supermajority in the Chamber of Deputies. The loss of the supermajority for the first time since the PRI came to power was a massive blow to the regime.37 The party had maintained itself in power through a long series of constitutional amendments that allowed it to manipulate the political situation to its needs; losing the supermajority meant the regime was no longer able to practice that constitutional manipulation. The crisis itself, then, was the electoral defeat – for a regime that legitimized its rule in part by maximizing its vote margin each election, to win by a much smaller margin than ever before – and in fact, to lose a substantial number of seats – suggested a popular rejection of the regime, and therefore of its legitimacy. As demonstrated in the 1988 election, the party’s historical approach to such an event was fraud. In this instance, however, previous events – specifically the PAN-negotiated amendments following the 1988 election – prevented the regime from in any way

36 Dresser (1992, 12) includes one further mechanism for resolving the legitimacy crisis: “the incorporation of social reformers into the ranks of the bureaucracy.” However, she herself admits this was one among several strategies. Furthermore, the appointment of reformers actually goes hand in hand with the constitutional changes, as a sign of liberalization and an effort to reform clunky, corrupt bureaucracies – an aspect of the PAN’s platform. 37 For a discussion of the impact of the loss of the supermajority on the rate of institutional evolution, see chapter 4. In essence, the PAN and the PRD were in strengthened bargaining positions. That, combined with a further breakdown in party discipline as individual PRI legislators acted in their own interest and sided with the opposition, resulted in a level of constitutional change that was high but not as high as the previous period. 91 manipulating the electoral outcome. The nonresponse to the crisis further advanced the state towards democracy. The regime was unable to respond to the crisis, further diminishing its legitimacy.

In the 1993/94 legitimacy crisis, again the only tool available to the regime was rule of law. Public violence would not have been ideologically supported, and clientelism was not viable because of earlier constitutional changes promoting electoral transparency, and because the peso crisis left the regime financially unable to make sufficient payoffs (Magaloni et al 2000, 28). The PRI had no way to counter the rising power of the PAN and the PRD; its inability to adequately redress claims of illegitimacy led to its 1997 congressional defeat and its 2000 presidential defeat.

The 1994 crisis was unique from the other legitimacy crises in several ways.

First, each of the other crises were true exogenous shocks – that is, they occurred with only a little build-up and were not predictable. The 1994 crisis, however, was foreseeable. The regime’s vote share had been declining for some time; in 1991 the PRI held just 64% of Congressional seats (Lujambio 2001, p. 57). And the compromises forced on the regime by the PAN in exchange for ratifying the contested 1988 election – the creation of a truly independent elections tribunal – made it clear that the ruling party would not be able to cheat its way to victory again. So, unlike Almazán’s rebellion, the

PAN’s failure to nominate a candidate, and the CD’s split from the ruling party, the regime’s loss of the supermajority was a predictable legitimacy crisis. The other unique aspect of the crisis was that there was no possible corrective action for the regime to take.

In 1940 and 1988 the regime attempted to mitigate the effects of the crisis through fraud

– but thanks to the 1988 reforms, that was no longer an option. The inability to relegitimize following the 1994 crisis may even be linked to the regime’s demise in 2000; the inability to utilize historic methods like clientelism and fraud, coupled with the increasing system-wide democratization, made the electoral arena a much fairer playing field, which contributed to opposition success.

What all the legitimacy crises have in common is that they were previously unprecedented events. While there were splits prior to Almazán, none had resulted in an armed rebellion. While the PAN had suffered factionalism before, that factionalism had never resulted in a failure to nominate a candidate. No split prior to the Corriente

Democrático had actually resulted in a group that threatened PRI hegemony; and up until

1994 the PRI had never yet lost the Congressional majority (though it came too close for comfort in 1991). Each crisis was a unique, previously unexperienced event. There was no built-in protocol for regime response, and so in each case the regime had to design a response appropriate to the crisis; when no response was possible, regime demise was on the horizon.

3.5 Conclusion

To sum up (see Table 3.2), the major shifts in institutional evolution experienced by the PRI regime can each be traced to the regime’s response to a legitimacy crisis.

More generally, my theory predicts that all major evolutionary shifts in dominant party regimes are due to regime responses to legitimacy crises. The nature of the crisis will

93 vary based on the regime’s claims to legitimacy – in the case of Mexico, this was electoral and revolutionary legitimacy.

Table 3.2. Summary of Legitimacy Crises

Year of crisis Legitimacy challenged 1946 Revolutionary 1977 Electoral 1987/8 Revolutionary and Electoral 1994 Electoral

Legitimacy’s role as the causal mechanism in the theory is linked to the regime’s need to maintain power by means other than use of force; by claiming to be a legitimate government the regime was able to decrease the costs associated with ruling as well as justify any actions taken to prolong its time in office. In responding to legitimacy crises, the regime caused major institutional evolutionary shifts to occur. However, legitimacy only underlies the evolutionary shifts – it does not explain in which direction institutions will evolve, or what causes evolutionary shifts on a more micro level within each period.

The following chapter tests the theory presented in chapter 2 in order to demonstrate those micro causes of institutional evolution.

Chapter 4: Testing the Theory: The Evolution of Legislative Powers

4.1 Introduction

The PRI ruled Mexico for 71 years. During that time, there were periods of stability when the political system remained fairly stagnant, as in the 1940s and 1950s, and periods of change where power switched from faction to faction rapidly and challenges often arose both from within and without the regime, as in the late 1960s and

1970s. Why did the system evolve so differently at different times? I have argued that the answer to that question - the source of variation in institutional evolution - is changing relationships between different actors within the system.38 Using the legislature as an example, I now turn to testing that argument, examining legislative evolution over the lifetime of the regime. My analysis will show that both the mid-century stagnation and the later rapid change, reflected in legislative evolution, arose due to changes in the power relationships between two sets of actors: the executive versus the legislature, and the ruling party versus the opposition party.

In chapter 2 I laid out the logic behind the theory and explained how shifts in the rate of institutional evolution are a function of changing party power leverage relationships, while shifts in the content of institutional evolution are a function of

38 I use ‘system’ to mean the entire political system, not just the regime. I am focused on the dynamics within the regime – between the executive and legislature – and beyond it – between the ruling party and the opposition party. 95 changing branch leverage relationships. In chapter 3 I argued that the mechanism behind these shifts was the regime’s response to a legitimacy crisis. In this chapter, I test the link between leverage relationships and institutional evolution and find strong support for my hypotheses regarding evolutionary speed. My initial tests of the hypotheses regarding evolutionary content are equivocal, but a reconceptualization of the independent variable demonstrates strong support for the theory.

I will begin in section 4.2 with a brief history of Mexico prior to 1929, in order to explain how aspects of this dissertation such as the PRI’s use of revolutionary participation as a legitimation technique developed. In section 4.3 I will offer a more in- depth explanation of the periodization schema introduced in chapter 2, as well as an overview of the historical dynamics of each period. From there I discuss my data sources in section 4.4 before moving into an analysis of theory testing and results in section 4.5. I conclude with the overall implications of the findings for my theory.

4.2 Mexican history: From the Revolution to 1929

While this dissertation is only concerned with institutional development from

1929 on, in order to understand the shape of the regime and the role of the institutions and actors within the regime it is useful to begin by looking at where the PRI came from prior to 1929. Many factors that profoundly affected the regime and evolution throughout the lifetime of the PRI – the struggles over Article 27’s land ownership provisions (the subject of the next chapter), the internal factionalism, and even the genesis of the opposition parties – have their roots in the Mexican revolution of 1913-14

96 and its immediate aftermath. The role of peasants and workers under the regime, as well as their right to own land, stems from their role in the revolution (a role that was a direct response to the treatment of the poor and working classes under Porfirio Diaz’s dictatorship, discussed below). The factionalism within the PRI has its roots in the party’s early catch-all nature, and in the efforts to unify parties and revolutionaries with two distinct personal bases: the faction under Álvaro Obregón, and that under Plutarco

Calles. The primary opposition party, PAN, arose in 1939 in large part because its founders (former PRIistas) were frustrated with the regime’s focus on redistribution of land over private property. In order to place the period of 1929-2000 in proper context – including the details laid out above – some basic knowledge of pre-revolutionary and revolutionary Mexico is necessary.

Mexico prior to the revolution was ruled by Porfirio Diaz. Diaz served as dictator from 1876 to 1910, and elements of his rule directly contributed to the revolution itself.

Chief among these was the role of the lower classes – peasants and workers – under Diaz.

Like many states, Porfiriato Mexico concentrated power in the hands of a relative few. In the case of Mexico, these few were often large landowners; peasants in particular had few rights. By the turn of the century, the economic disparity, combined with a sense that

Diaz was “no longer the right and lawful ruler of Mexico” in part because of his refusal to allow public input on his vice presidential candidate, (Anderson 112) led to large-scale peasant support for a revolution. When Francisco Madero announced the revolution in

1910, the revolutionary leaders – Madero himself, as well as men like Emilio Zapata and

Pancho Villa – were able to bargain with the peasants, essentially promising them

97 extended rights and much greater access to land in exchange for service in the revolutionary armies (Hart 2010, 413). Facing a revolution, Diaz stepped down, but almost immediately upon his forfeiture of power, the revolution began to devolve into a series of internal wars between leaders in various parts of the country. While Diaz was forced from power in 1910, infighting among the revolutionaries did not begin to resolve until 1915, when the Sonoran rebel faction led by Alvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elias

Calles emerged triumphant (Hart 2010, 423). This eventually led to the constitutional congress of 1916-1917, which enacted the Constitution of 1917 that is still in force today.

The dynamics of the revolution, particularly in terms of which groups supported it and which were opposed (often because of their association with the Porfiriato), had important repercussions throughout the life of the PRI regime. The Porifiato was backed by wealthy landowners and by the church; many of the most significant post- revolutionary changes targeted those two groups. The revolutionaries institutionalized their promise to the peasantry through Article 27 of the constitution, which reorganized land rights, although following through on the promise of Article 27 was not a regime priority until the 1930s (Knight 1985, 23; for more detail, see my chapter 5). Likewise, the 1917 constitution punished the Church, which had supported Diaz, by forbidding religious organizations from owning property and allowing states to set draconian restrictions on the priesthood.

One of the effects of the prohibitions on religion was the Cristero War. The

Cristero War, fought from 1926 to 1929, pitted the state against ardent Catholic guerrillas. The war was enormously divisive; although religion was severely

98 circumscribed by the 1917 constitution, Mexico’s population was primarily Catholic, and a substantial portion of the population was torn between supporting the state and supporting the Church. It resolved, eventually, with the state definitively routing the

Catholic opposition and punishing the Church by dramatically tightening the reins and enforcing legislation on religious activities (Wilkie 1966, 230). These prohibitions on religion and religious personnel would remain in force for most of the life of the regime.

They were also partly responsible for the formation of the PAN – although not a confessional party, it was a party supported by many Catholics, and its founders were opposed to such regime actions as the banning of Church-sponsored schools.

In the time between the implementation of the revolutionary constitution of 1915 and the emergence of the PNR-cum-PRI in 1929, party politics in Mexico was in turmoil.

Under Porfirio Diaz, parties were virtual non-entities – actual power was concentrated in the hands of the dictator, with some capabilities granted to the military so long as the military leaders were cohorts of Diaz, and their power did not threaten his own.

Following the revolution, many small parties sprang up. These parties, however, were highly personalistic and mostly represented niche groups; they broke apart quite frequently, and no one group was able to form a really durable institution. That instability was reflected in the tenure of the Mexican presidents; despite a constitutionally mandated four year term (later amended to six years), many presidents served only months or a year or two. They rarely left office of their own volition, and sometimes did not survive the experience – Francisco Madero, the head of the revolution and the first revolutionary president, was assassinated partway through his term. Many other

99 prominent political figures – Emilio Zapata and Pancho Villa among them – were also assassinated. The highly personalistic nature of politics threatened the existence of post- revolutionary Mexico (Knight 1985, 15). It was in the shadow of these events, then, that

General Obregón began to consolidate various smaller parties into one larger party where he was the leader but not the sole embodiment of the party. Obregón’s efforts, which had the dual effect of stabilizing the political climate and concentrating power in his hands, led to the formation of the PNR in 1929.

Obregón himself was highly charismatic. A decorated war hero (he lost his arm in the revolution) he had been a supporter of Venustiano Carranza, the leader of the revolution. When the two had a falling out prior to the 1920 presidential election,

Obregón ran for president by cobbling together a party out of various existing factions.

He led his new party to victory in 1920 and served as the first full-term Mexican president. The party that Obregón founded in 1920 was not the PNR (which did not yet exist); however, his party became one of the most powerful forces in early Mexican politics. When he left office in 1924, the constitution forbade reelection to the presidency. Obregón, however, was such a popular and powerful figure that his supporters in the legislature amended the constitution to prevent direct reelection but permit reelection after a term out of office, thus opening the door for his successful 1928 bid for the presidency. He never served that term; he was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic in the midst of the Cristero war. His death allowed Plutarco Calles, who had succeeded him as president in 1924, to consolidate his control over the party that

Obregón had built, combining it with several smaller groups to create the PNR and

100 shifting the party into a more personalistic vehicle. Calles had been Obregón’s primary challenger, representing a smaller faction of the party than that controlled by Obregón.

Following Obregón’s death, Calles wielded significant power over the Mexican presidents39 until the election of Lázaro Cárdenas in 1934. This period of Calles’ control came to be called the maximato, for his role as the jefe maximo or supreme chief.40

The commanding dynamics of the Mexican political scene prior to 1929, then, were dissension and fragmentation, “its authority challenged by caudillo and Catholic

Church” (Knight 1985, 12). The revolution elevated the lower classes at the expense of the upper classes, leading to increased class tension and fundamentally altering land rights until the 1990s. The Cristero War, a response to the curtailed power of the Church, led to major schisms between religious practitioners and priests on the one hand, and the state on the other. This too remained an important dynamic of Mexican politics and society until the 1990s. Finally, the existence of many small poorly institutionalized parties was associated with political chaos, and efforts to end that chaos led to the rise of the PRI which was the commanding dynamic of Mexican political life until 2000.

While all of these interests exerted pressure on the regime, the level of pressure and the driving force behind it (peasants, Catholics, niche parties, etc.) varied over the lifetime of the regime. As discussed in the previous chapter, major legitimacy crises turned into opportunities for the opposition or the regime to exploit. These crises drove

39 At this time, presidential terms were four years long. Obregón’s assassination resulted in the appointment of Emilio Portes Gil, who served from 1928-1930. He was succeeded by Pascual Ortiz Rubio, elected in 1930 but resigned in 1932. Ortiz Rubio’s term was completed by Abelardo Rodriguez, who served from 1932 until the instatement of Lázaro Cárdenas in 1934. 40 For more on the PRI’s early history, see Garrido’s El Partido de la Revolución Institucionalizada (medio siglo de poder político en México). 101 the development of periods of institutional evolution. Those periods, in turn, contain variation along both axes, and the variation characterizes the evolutionary shape of the period. The following section discusses the dynamics of the periods as they pertain to my theory.

4.3 Legislative Evolution: A Periodization

My theory deals with the interaction of branch-power leverage relationships

(executive versus legislature) and party-power leverage relationships (ruling party versus opposition), leading to variation in periods of institutional evolution. This section is intended to explore those variables in each period, explaining the historical dynamics of each leverage relationship over time. I rely on the argument that there were five periods of institutional evolution between 1929 and 2000, and that those five periods are demarcated by seismic shifts that originated outside the legislature. Each period is bracketed by a seismic shift, and demonstrates noticeably different evolutionary patterns from the period around it. I derived the periods from the legitimacy crises, as laid out in chapter 3. I argue that each time a legitimacy crisis occurred, the regime’s response caused a shift in relationships along each axis. Because the legitimacy crisis threatened regime survival (not necessarily in terms of votes, but in terms of public perception of the regime’s right to rule), the regime had to respond strongly in order to both mitigate the crisis and rebuild legitimacy. Often the only way to successfully address the challenge was to strengthen the role of one side of each axis, increasing that side’s ability to exert leverage over its counterpart, resulting in a shift in leverage relationships. After I derived

102 the periods exogenously by identifying the legitimacy crises, I tested the argument that they each represented distinct periods of institutional evolution by calculating the rate of evolution in the form of rate of constitutional changes for each period. The results are five demonstrably different periods of institutional evolution, which vary both in terms of evolutionary speed and in terms of content of evolution. In this section, I will discuss the rate of constitutional change and what it tells us about each period, as well as providing an overview of historical events in each period.

The rate of change (that is, the number of constitutional changes per period divided by the number of years in the period) was calculated both over all constitutional amendments to the legislative articles (the uncorrected rate), and over only those amendments which were relevant to ruling party-opposition party relations as reflected in the hypotheses (the corrected rate; see following section).41 Table 1 presents both of these rates of changes. The two rates of change appear to be related – that is, the pattern of constitutional change remains intact under either calculation. This suggests that the excluded changes are non-random. Given that they are excluded solely because they deal with other, non-legislative pieces of business, the non-random distribution is not a problem – it simply indicates that the same patterns of legislative behavior exist across all constitutional changes as across only those changes involving legislative powers. In short, the high degree of correlation between the uncorrected and corrected rates of changes actually confirms my argument for the existence of five distinct legislative periods.

41 For more detail on using rate of change to proxy speed of evolution, see chapter 2. 103

While both the uncorrected and corrected rates are presented below to demonstrate that excluding the irrelevant cases does not materially affect the theory, all further discussion and analysis will utilize the corrected rate.

Table 4.1. Rate of Constitutional Change Over Time

Period Rate of Change Rate of Change Uncorrected Corrected 1929-1945 1.63 .94 1946-1976 .9 .5 1977-1986 3.67 2.6 1987-1993 3.83 2.8 1994-2000 2.83 1.5 Average 1.77 1.1

Excluding the irrelevant changes produces a significant decrease in the rate of change, but does not affect the overall pattern of changes – the second period consistently has the fewest changes, the fourth period consistently exhibits the highest rate of change, and the overall pattern demonstrates beginning in a period where the rate of change for that period approaches the average over the lifetime of the institution (average uncorrected rate of change: 1.77; average corrected rate of change: 1.1), to a period of very few changes, to a period of much greater change, peaking in the following period, and then decreasing again in the final period.

There are several noteworthy points in Table 4.1. First, the second period demonstrates an extremely low rate of change, less than half the average. One explanation for this finding is that the second period, at 30 years, is by far the longest of the five periods, and such a long time horizon is likely to drive down the rate of change.

104

However, the long duration with few changes reflects the political behavior of the time – that is, the 30 years between 1946 and 1976 experienced very few changes because very little political or opposition activity was concentrated in the legislature during this time.

Indeed, for the legislative articles there were no changes at all from 1951 until 1960, and of the 126 amendments in my sample, only nine occurred in the 16 year period between

1950 and 1966. For comparison, in the nine years between 1977 and 1986 – the majority of the subsequent period – there were 34 changes. Even between 1929 and 1938 – a nine year segment of the period demonstrating the next-lowest rate of change – there were 14 changes. It is clear that, longer period of evolution aside, the dynamics underpinning constitutional change in the second period were markedly different from either the first or third periods. And indeed, the very low rate of change here reflects the state of Mexican politics at the time – the executive had almost entirely consolidated his control over the political system, and there was no significant opposition challenge to the ruling party’s authority.

Another point has to do with the rate of change peaking in period 4 and decreasing in the final period. If constitutional changes represent a process of liberalization, it seems logical that the rate of change would get progressively higher over time. As Mexico moved decisively toward democracy in the mid- to late-1990s, this line of thought contends, the constitution should change more and more rapidly, away from its authoritarian roots. However, I argue – and will demonstrate in the following section

– that in fact the real work of liberalization occurred in the fourth period. The fifth period represented more a consolidation of the gains of the previous decade; while the

105 constitution still had to be modified to become a (more) democratic document, many of the most important changes had already been made, leading to a somewhat lower rate of change. The changes that took place in the fifth period were arguably about building on the democratic foundations of the fourth period, rather than striking out in a totally distinct direction. It was still appreciably different from the fourth period – as I demonstrate below, the legislature did not become able to consistently exert leverage over the executive until the fifth period, despite the gains of the fourth period – but the changes that occurred spoke to an effort to deepen and consolidate an emerging democracy. For instance, in the fourth period an amendment was passed to cap any given party’s legislative seats at 350 of 500, regardless of the vote percentage won. This was an effort to make a single party supermajority impossible. In the fifth period, that cap was dropped to 300, making even an overwhelming majority impossible and thereby forcing coalitions to form to amend the constitution. The cap was eventually dropped in favor of mandating that seats taken perfectly correspond to vote percentage, following democratic practices.

I contend that the high rates of change demonstrated in periods 3 and 4 reflect the tumultuous state of Mexican politics in those years. The regime and opposition parties were struggling for power; the institution had become unbalanced by the major crises I outlined in chapter 3, and the result of that imbalance was quite a few constitutional amendments as the actors sought to find a new equilibrium.

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Although Table 4.1 provides a useful overview to how the rate of change varied over time, it does little to actually explain how institutional evolution varied by period.

To explain that, I turn to a discussion of each individual period.

Period 1. 1929-1945. Leverage relationship predicted winners: executive, ruling party42

The first period can best be understood as a time of consolidation, as the regime emerged and solidified its hold over political life. 1929 is the year in which the Partido

Nacional Revolucionario (PNR), which eventually became the Partido Revolucionario

Institucional (PRI), was formed, ushering in modern Mexican politics and marking the start for this study. The ruling party in this period was not yet fully united; rather, competing factions vied for power. In the 1920s, the struggle for within-party power centered on the factions headed by Obregón and Calles, as discussed earlier in the chapter. Following Obregón’s assassination, Calles seized control but factionalization continued, as evidenced by the several splits from the party – the last of which was the armed rebellion by General Almazán’s supporters.

Part of the party’s process of consolidation involved co-opting the opposition.

This had two effects: first, bringing the opposition into the PRI contributed to the internal party struggles described above. Second, because of the PRI’s umbrella approach to cooptation – its willingness to incorporate any opposition party regardless of platform – for much of the first period there was very little external opposition. The PAN, the PRI’s primary opposition for most of its history, did not form until 1939. In terms of leverage

42 This refers to which actor along each axis my theory predicts will have the advantage in the leverage relationship; see chapter 3 table 1 for a summary. 107 relationships, the strategy of co-optation plus the lack of external opposition tilted the balance towards the ruling party.

The leverage relationship between the executive and the legislature was also complicated by the process of consolidation. Through the later life of the regime, the head of state was the functional (though not titular) head of the ruling party. In the first period, however, the executive and the party chief had competing power loci; because of this, Calles was able to leave office but maintain control over the regime as head of the party. That kind of dominance did not end until 1935, under President Lázaro Cárdenas, who exiled Calles and brought together the various PRI factions (Nacif 1997). The clash between executive and party chief manifested in more independent action by the legislature, as well as more instances of legislative punishment by the executive.

Period 1 was primarily a period of consolidation, one where the focus was on bringing the PRI to dominance rather than on maintaining an existing dominance.

Because of that focus, although there was little in the way of formal opposition parties, nor was there an effort to prevent the opposition from participating. The emphasis was on using the sheer size and catch-all nature of the ruling party to co-opt parties wherever possible. Until 1945, there was virtually no barrier to parties’ full participation43 in national-level politics; although the PNR/PRI was emerging as the dominant party, the field was wide open to opposition (Nacif 1997; Prud’homme 2001). As noted in chapter

3, the first period was brought to an end by the regime’s response to the 1941 armed insurrection, which caused a legitimacy crisis.

43 By ‘full participation’ I mean that the parties were legally allowed the same freedoms as parties in a democracy. 108

Period 2. 1946-1976. Leverage relationship predicted winners: executive, ruling party

In 1946, the regime responded to the previously mentioned legitimacy crisis (an exogenous shock, in the form of an armed rebellion in 1940) by passing a constitutional amendment which significantly raised the barriers to national-level participation, so that only four parties were able to compete: the PRI, the Partido Popular Socialista (PPS), the

Partido Autentico Revolucionario Mexicano (PARM), and the relatively new Partido

Accion Nacional (PAN). Notably, of these four parties, only the PAN functioned as a true opposition – both the PPS and the PARM were technically formal opposition but in practice supported PRI candidates for president and generally supported PRI-introduced bills (Nacif 1997). The PAN alone actively opposed the PRI, running its own candidates for president each election and winning some minor victories at the local level

(Middlebrook 2001).

The minimal amount of opposition – the PAN had formed only seven years earlier and was not yet a major force – contributed to a very powerful party and president, during what is usually called the Golden Age of the PRI. The president’s near-perfect control of the country and the party in this period meant he did not generally need to bargain with the legislature; this is reflected in an extremely low overall rate of change.

In this period, the party had complete control over the country, and the president had complete control over the party. The barriers to political entry at the national level were sufficient to generally convince dissatisfied priistas not to split off – the requirements for opposition participation were so high that they could assume they would have greater

109 electoral success within the party than outside it.44 Concomitantly, the PRI’s ability to manipulate elections – both through outright fraud and intimidation, in this period, as well as through vote buying – kept the party solidly in control of political outcomes. The predicted outcomes of the leverage relationships have the same winners in period 2 as in period 1, but different orders of magnitude. The executive had leverage over the legislature and the ruling party had leverage over the opposition party – but where these leverage victories were weak in period 1, they were quite strong in period 2.

Period 3. 1977-1986. Leverage relationship predicted winners: executive, opposition party

In 1976, internal dissent among members of the PAN led to the party failing to nominate a candidate for president (Lujambio 2001). The PRI candidate, José López

Portillo, won unopposed, but the ensuing challenge to PRI legitimacy45 led to a major overhaul of electoral law in 1977 – the beginning of the third period – that reopened the electoral playing field to a number of opposition parties. Additionally, fractures were emerging in the president’s control of the PRI. The early-to-mid-80s saw the growth of significant internal opposition in the development of a contingent of the PRI called the

Corriente Democrático (CD). The new accessibility of national-level elections led the

CD to break off in 1986 and form its own party with several other small leftist parties,

44 The last of Mexico’s four legal parties in this period, the Partido Popular (later Partido Popular Socialista) was formed by former union leader Vicente Toledano in 1948. Toledano had previously been the founder and leader of the Confederacion de Trabajadores Mexicanos (CTM), the powerful labor union. Toledano was legally a member of the PRI, as were all union members, but he was not a PRI legislator, and in fact disagreed with the party’s post-Cárdenas direction, which resulted in him being removed from the CTM and starting his own party. 45 The legitimacy crisis is detailed in chapter 3. In essence, the lack of opposition made the PRI appear not to be the party of majority choice, but of default, which threatened its electoral legitimacy. 110 initially called the Frente Democrático Nacional (FDN) but later transformed into the

Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD). The presence of both internal and external opposition meant bargaining once again began to be necessary to the regime, as visible in the higher overall rate of change. The presence of opposition, however, did not lead to the specter of electoral defeat; rather, as laid out in chapter 3, crises had undermined the party’s legitimacy, forcing a reorganization in the leverage relationships such that the opposition party was able to consistently exert leverage over the ruling party. Without opposition support, the regime did not appear to legitimately represent the people, which as laid out in the previous chapter was an important aspect of its strategy for maintaining power.

The specific crisis that caused legitimacy problems to arise was the unopposed election of José López Portillo. The crisis provoked by that election was a function of two long-simmering divisions, one among factions in the ruling party and one in factions in the opposition party. Within the PRI, the dwindling focus on the promises of the revolution caused the emergence of significant opposition to the ruling clique. When that sentiment was not addressed through the internal party mechanism of the presidential nomination process, the result at the end of this period was a serious split, with a ruling party faction breaking off to form an independent party.

While the division was growing within the PRI, the PAN was suffering its own internal crisis. Within the PAN, the division between the local-focus faction and the national-focus faction erupted at the end of the prior period with the failure to nominate a presidential candidate. After the 1976 election the contingent that advocated

111 participation in national-level elections emerged victorious. This, combined with the entrance of new groups to the party in the third period, helped alter public perceptions of the PAN from merely a protest vote party to an actual alternative to the PRI

(Middelbrook 2001, 37). During this period the PAN was beginning to register local- level victories, which gave it governing experience – something the PRI had insisted for many years that the ruling party alone had. The governing experience caused a shift in public perception which strengthened the PAN’s electoral and bargaining position, particularly in light of the institutional shift that occurred from the regime’s response to the 1976 legitimacy crisis. As a viable alternative to the PRI at the local level, the PAN was able to pick up votes at the national level – not to the point of threatening PRI hegemony, but to the point of focing the regime to acknowledge and negotiate with the

PAN in order to prevent PAN walkouts. Although the PAN could not defeat the PRI in a national election, it could prevent the PRI from appearing to be democratic. Meanwhile, the regime’s response to the electoral crisis – opening the system to more competition – created incentives for disenchanted party members to break off, and with the formation of

Corriente Democrático and its split from the PRI, the party’s position as the only legitimate representative of the revolution was challenged (for more detail, see chapter 3).

The third period was a time of extreme political turmoil in Mexico. Opening the electoral field back up to opposition parties changed the composition of the legislature, while the uncontested election of López Portillo further eroded the public perception of

PRI legitimacy. In the midst of this period Mexico’s oil production skyrocketed, followed shortly by a severe recession (driven, at least according to Greene 2007 p. 91,

112 by spending from the oil boom that focused on non-infrastructure sources). The recession, in turn, caused the president to nationalize the banks – and threw the banks’ former owners, traditionally PRI supporters, into the arms of the PAN. All of these factors, combined in particular with the major PRI schism in 1986, yielded a period where the PRI was forced to negotiate with the PAN on relatively equal footing, particularly in the latter half of the period. The PAN was in its strongest position to that point, far more able to exert leverage over the PRI. At the same time, the perceived illegitimacy of López Portillo’s election and the economic crisis began to challenge the executive’s control over the legislature. Although the executive was still able to win the leverage relationship, he was not as powerful as he had been during the second period, and as the third period wore on the executive continued to weaken vis-à-vis the legislature.

Period 4. 1987-1993. Leverage relationship predicted winners: executive, opposition party

The fourth period started in 1987, with a burgeoning legitimacy crisis driven by the CD’s departure from the PRI. In 1988, the FDN’s presidential candidate,

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, allegedly won the election but was kept out of power by PRI fraud. In order to maintain power the president was forced to negotiate heavily with the

PAN, exchanging constitutional amendments increasing electoral oversight for the PAN’s agreement not to contest the PRI presidential victory (Eisenstadt 2006).46 This led to the loss of the PRI super-majority and a record high level of constitutional changes, visible in

46 Eisenstadt (2006) supports this claim through a letter he uncovered laying out the deal. See also Lawson (2000, p. 272-3), Lujambio (2001, 78-9). 113 the overall rate of change. Among the concessions made to the PAN was the creation of the independent electoral oversight organization, the IFE. The presence of IFE removed electoral oversight from the Chamber of Deputies, which had previously been responsible for determining electoral victories, and put that determination into the hands of an unbiased group. In terms of the balance between the branches, the executive was generally able to exert leverage over the legislature, but the legislature for the first time was sometimes able to push back, and the executive occasionally had to make concessions. At the same time, within the legislature the PAN was able to exert leverage over the PRI, meaning that many more of the constitutional changes that occurred were in the opposition’s interest. The executive’s new need for the legislature, coupled with the

PAN’s ability to force concessions, served to liberalize the still fairly authoritarian legislature. The PAN espoused democracy, not least because democratization was the only avenue for the opposition party to gain power; because of this, the amendments it bargained for were largely aimed at decreasing PRI dominance and increasing opportunities for democracy.

Period 5. 1994-2000. Leverage relationship predicted winners: legislature, opposition party

The final period began in 1994, when the PRI almost lost the majority in the

Chamber of Deputies, again challenging the party’s legitimate right to rule. The party became the congressional minority in 1997, and in 2000 lost the presidency to the PAN candidate, Vicente Fox. The division between executive and legislative powers is especially visible in the overall rate of change, which, though lower than the previous

114 period, is still high, reflecting the need for bargaining. The PAN and the legislature are the winners of their respective leverage relationships.47 By the 1994 presidential election, the PRI was so weakened that it could hardly oppose the PAN, which had a sizeable minority in the lower house. At the same time, the president was so curtailed that he could not amend the constitution without legislative support – but the cost of that support was substantial reductions to the regime’s ability to act unilaterally. Underlying both of these power losses – the PRI’s and the executive’s – were the constitutional changes from the previous period that made electoral manipulation significantly more difficult for the hegemonic party. Period 4 had introduced and enforced those changes for the first time; period 5 was to an extent a time of clean-up deepening the gains of the previous period.

Table 4.2 summarizes my theory’s predictions for leverage relationships victories in each period. The following section addresses how these predictions will be tested.

Table 4.2. Summary: Predicted leverage relationship winners by period

Period Branch Power Predicted Party Power Predicted Winner Winner 1929-1945 Executive Ruling Party 1946-1976 Executive Ruling Party 1977-1986 Executive Opposition Party 1987-1993 Executive Opposition Party 1994-2000 Legislature Opposition Party

47 One possibility here is that, with defeat on the horizon, the PRI deliberately attempted to weaken the presidency in the final period. If so, this would significantly alter the implications of the evidence I rely on. However, I contend this was not the PRI strategy, primarily because the PRI did not accept defeat until after the election. Throughout Zedillo’s term, he made changes aimed at democratizing the PRI in order to keep power, such as holding presidential primaries rather than utilizing the dedazo. Zedillo also surprised many by recognizing Fox’s victory quickly (Falken 2005; Lawson 2000). This suggests that the party hierarchy did not anticipate electoral defeat far enough in advance of the election to alter the legislative strategy (though a democratic victory may have been anticipated). 115

4.4 Data Sources and Coding Decisions

As laid out in chapter 2, my theory leads to two sets of hypotheses: one set concerning the speed of evolution, and another set concerning its content. I argue that the rate of evolution is linked to the victorious group on the party power leverage axis, so that (1a) When the ruling party has leverage over the opposition party, institutional evolution will occur more slowly relative to other periods and (1b) When the opposition party has leverage over the ruling party, institutional evolution will occur more rapidly relative to other periods. The content of evolution is associated with victory along the branch power axis: (2a) When the executive has leverage over the legislature, changes are more likely to constrain legislative powers and (2b) When the legislature has leverage over the executive, changes are more likely to increase legislative powers. In this section I will begin by discussing the location and type of data, and then move to a discussion of coding decisions.

Testing the hypotheses involves identifying four variables: institutional evolution rate and ruling party vs. opposition party dominance (Hypotheses 1a and 1b), and executive vs. legislative dominance and legislative power increases vs. constraints

(Hypotheses 2a and 2b). All of these variables were drawn from the same data source, the legislative record as manifested in the Diario Oficial. The Diario Oficial is the

Chamber of Deputies’ official record of all legislative proceedings, stemming back to

1857. This record includes a transcription of all Chamber meetings, as well as the text of

116 almost all proposed Constitutional amendments.48 When an amendment is proposed to the Chamber, it is introduced with a formal petition from the proposer – either the president or a legislator – laying out the reasoning behind the proposed amendment, along with proposed language for the resolution.49 The proposal is then turned over to the relevant Congressional committee. During the period under analysis, this committee was initially Puntos Constitucionales y Gobernación (Constitutional Points and Governance), and then later simply Puntos Constitucionales.

The committee considers the proposal, initially determining whether amending the article at all is necessary. If the amendment is deemed necessary, discussion in the committee moves to the specific language of the change. The committee has the authority to alter the language of the initial proposal. The committee produces a proposed amendment, which is then returned to the full Chamber for debate and voting.

Once the amendment returns to the Chamber, it goes through two readings and then a final reading and a vote. Until the mid-1990s, the vote was taken simply with a show of hands indicating a yes or no vote – that is, no record was made of which specific legislators voted for or against an amendment.

For the most part, the data in my dissertation are drawn from the initial presentation of the amendment and the final version as read prior to the vote (I elaborate on this below, in the discussion of individual variables). For some variables, the specific

48 In theory, it contains the text of all amendments. In practice, some initial readings – especially from the 1930s – are missing, although the final passed version is usually available. 49 According to article 71 of the Constitution, bills or laws (including constitutional amendments) can be introduced by the president, members of the national legislature, or state legislatures. Most successful amendments, particularly in the Golden Age, were proposed either by the president or by deputies from the PRI. 117 language of the amendment is the subject of analysis; for others, I am more concerned with interpreting the amendment as a whole.

I have identified two axes of interest affecting institutional evolution. I argue that the branch axis affects the content of evolution, while the party power axis affects the rate of evolution.

The branch axis captures the leverage relationship between two branches of government: the executive and the legislature. I am interested in two things: whether, for each individual constitutional change, the executive is more able to exert leverage on the legislature (that is, push the legislature to accept a modification that benefits the president more) or vice versa; and whether, for all the cases in a given period, more cases demonstrate executive or legislative leverage victories.

Branch axis leverage relationship (executive vs. legislature): In terms of determining leverage relationships between branches, the analysis rests on the exact language of the amendment and specifically whether that language changed between the initial proposal and the final passage. The branch axis leverage variable captures which branch was more able to exert pressure on the other. It is determined through identifying whether or not a substantive (that is, not cosmetic) change was made to the amendment between the initial proposal and the final version. This coding decision is based off of the assumption that in dominant party regimes, since the system as set up favors the executive, the executive’s interest is in maintaining the status quo. The legislature, on the other hand, is weaker than the executive and is assumed to want to increase its power,

118 thus it favors change. The executive’s preference for protecting the status quo,50 coupled with the fact that constitutional changes in this period almost always originated with the president or with a legislator acting on his behalf, suggest that an appropriate way of capturing the executive’s leverage is through identifying cases where no change is made to the proposed amendment. On the other hand, since the legislature rarely benefitted from the initially proposed amendments, instances of substantive change to the amendment between initial proposal and final passage serve as a reasonable measure of legislative leverage. When the executive dominates the leverage relationship he is able to protect the passage of legislation without making concessions to the legislature; when the legislature dominates the leverage relationship, it is able to force concessions from the executive in return for supporting an amendment.51 The fact that legislative dominance is conditional on the executive – forcing a response from the executive, rather than acting independently – is a reflection of the political dynamics of a dominant party system. In a dominant party system, as in any authoritarian system, the executive is the most powerful player52 and the entirety of the legislature’s power can be seen in whether the executive needs its cooperation or not. A similar logic leads to the binary treatment of the variable

– since victory is defined in terms of presence or absence of bargaining, there can be no

50 One might also reasonably assume that the executive wants to increase his own power, rather than maintain the status quo. This may be the case, but does not affect my analysis here in part because the articles under consideration – 50 through 79 – govern legislative power, not executive power. Nevertheless, spillover might be possible. I looked for any instance where differences in the final wording strengthened executive power without also strengthening the legislature; none of my cases met this criterion. 51 The assumption that all initial legislation favors the executive means that all change is viewed as a concession. To verify this claim, I examined each change in wording, looking for evidence that any actor other than the legislature benefitted. All changes between initial and final draft appeared to benefit the legislature in some way. 52 A partial exception to this statement is the instance in which the federal executive is more of a placeholder for the real power: for instance, the maximato in Mexico or, more broadly, Putin’s tenure as prime minister in Russia. These occasions are rare in dominant party regimes. 119

“balanced” category. However, while the variable is treated as binary quantitatively, it exists on a continuum qualitatively – there may be times when more or fewer concessions are made, or when a concession creates a major change or a minor one.

Because most modifications to the constitution throughout this period were sponsored by the president, a law where the executive exerts greater leverage will have no or only cosmetic changes between drafts. If no initial draft is available, as is sometimes the case, the evidence is anecdotal and based on political patterns of the time

(so for example, the historical record demonstrates that Cárdenas was a very strong president who likely dominated more than he conceded; his predecessor, Rodriguez, was the opposite).

Coding here is straightforward: amendments where changes were other than grammatical or evidently aimed at linguistic clarification are coded as a change, and therefore as demonstrating legislative leverage. No or cosmetic changes, on the other hand, are coded as executive leverage. These individual cases of executive and legislative leverage aggregate over the period to determine an executive leverage victory

(when the majority of cases are coded as demonstrating executive leverage) or a legislative leverage victory (when the majority of cases are coded as demonstrating legislative leverage).

Party power axis leverage (ruling party vs. opposition party): Where the branch axis is hypothesized to affect the content of institutionalization, the party power axis is hypothesized to affect the rate of institutionalization. There are two actors on the party power axis: the ruling party and the opposition party. As discussed in chapter 2, the

120 opposition parties can all be treated as a single unit here because their primary goal is the same: to unseat the ruling party. This analysis is not concerned with the secondary goal of choosing a successor once the ruling party has been defeated. I am interested in whether the ruling party is more able to exert leverage over the opposition party (by promoting its agenda) in a given case53, or vice versa. I am also interested in the number of cases of ruling party vs. opposition party leverage in a given period. When the ruling party exerts greater leverage, it is able to act on legislative issues without opposition support; when the opposition party exerts greater leverage it can force concessions from the ruling party.

The party power axis leverage relationship can be seen by examining the language of the approved modification for support of each party’s platform; that is, determining whether the amendment reflects aspects of the ruling party’s platform or the opposition party’s platform. Coding for this variable is based off of applying knowledge of the platform to the language of the amendment – an amendment that reflects elements of the ruling party’s platform is coded as ruling party dominant, while an amendment that reflects elements of the opposition party’s platform is coded as opposition party dominant. While many details of each party’s platform changed over time, certain overarching sentiments stayed the same: for instance, the PRI maintained an interest in secular education and the PAN maintained interest in establishing private property rights

(Middlebrook 2001, 28; Principios de Doctrina 1985). This information is readily available through secondary sources for a variety of topics; for those subjects which are

53 A case is a constitutional change. The relevant section of the constitution was amended 123 times between 1929 and 2000, leaving me with 123 cases. 121 not apparent in secondary sources (such as environmental regulation, the topic of one amendment) predicted stances can be drawn from a broader knowledge of party principles. If the amendment or pieces of it support the opposition platform and interests, the leverage relationship for that case favors the opposition party. If not, or if only a very minor piece of the modification supports the opposition, the leverage relationship for that case favors the ruling party.

Finally, it should be noted that assessments of the party platform were generally made from secondary sources rather than physical copies of the platforms. During my fieldwork I was only able to find intermittent records of the actual platforms. This was partly due to disorganized national and party archives, and partly due to the fact that party congresses were not held regularly. However, many authors (for instance, Middlebrook,

Lujambio, and others) described party interests and goals, and I was able to make coding decisions with that information.

One very important point relative to my dissertation is that I limit my formal analysis to dynamics between the PRI and the PAN; I exclude all other opposition parties. There are two primary reasons for this. First, throughout most of the period of analysis there was no true opposition beyond the PAN – as was discussed briefly in the previous chapter and in the history section here, from 1946 to 1977 the barrier to participation was so high that only four parties were legal, and of those, two of them (the

PPS and the PARM) were essentially nothing more than PRI partners. Second, after

1977 no non-PAN opposition party was able to gain much traction until 1986 when the

Corriente Democrático became the PRD – but as mentioned earlier the PRI was explicitly

122 unwilling to negotiate or interact with the PRD (interview with former PPS delegate,

9/2011). For these reasons, in the Mexican case party dynamics can be limited to an analysis of interactions between the PRI and the PAN.54

Because of the qualitative nature of party power axis leverage relationships, coding is somewhat complicated. It was not possible to simply create a list of key words that triggered coding of ruling party leverage dominance, for instance. Rather, coding decisions were made by comparing the language and intent (where possible to determine)55 of the amendment to knowledge of party concerns. So for instance, the

1934 amendment to article 73, which gave the legislature the ability to create schools and determine the content of public education, was coded as an instance of ruling party leverage because of the power it gave in terms of indoctrination – something the PRI had espoused at an adult level through its control of the unions (for instance, see Walker

1981). On the other hand, the 1977 amendment of article 73 instating referendums in the

Distrito Federal was coded as increasing opposition party leverage. In the 1970s the PRI was still in control of the legislature; prior to 1977 all decisions regarding the DF were made by federal legislative appointment. The introduction of referendums weakened regime control of the DF, something very much in line with PAN interests.

Rate of Change: Beyond the two axes of leverage, this dissertation is also concerned with institutional evolution, as captured by rates of constitutional change. The

54 Prior to the 1988 election, the PRI did not perceive the PRD as a threat. After the election, the PRI refused to negotiate with the PRD (Eisenstadt 2006), centering all negotiations on the PAN. The PAN’s bargaining power, as the only source able to convey legitimacy on the regime, allowed it to force the regime into previously unthinkable compromises. 55 If no determination of intent could be made, the amendment was coded as unknown and the statistics were included in the tables. If the amendment was determined not to reflect either party’s platform, it was excluded from analysis. 123 rate of constitutional change is defined as the average number of constitutional changes per year in a given period. As discussed in section 4.3 above, I divide the overall analysis into five periods based on major events that provoked institutional shifts. Within each of those periods I calculate the rate of change.

Legislative constraints vs. increases: The final variable examined here is legislative constraint versus legislative increases. This variable captures whether the amendment increases or decreases legislative powers, independent of effects on executive powers (amendments that do not produce a directional change in legislative powers are excluded from analysis). In order to avoid autocorrelation concerns with the branch axis measure, an executive increase in power was not counted as a legislative decrease unless the power in question had previously been explicitly granted to the legislature. These concerns actually arose infrequently, and as the analysis will show, there is no evidence of autocorrelation. The variable is captured by examining the final wording of the amendment compared with the previous version of the article, and determining its effect on legislative powers. For instance, an amendment adding textiles to the list of industries over which Congress has the exclusive ability to legislate increases legislative powers.

Not all changes are equivalent in terms of their effect on legislative power – the amendment giving the legislature the ability to set taxes for a wide variety of commodities (a very real power) has a far greater effect on legislative power than the amendment which grants Congress the ability to accept the president’s resignation (a more theoretical capability). This distinction – major vs. minor increases and decreases to legislative powers (distinct from the major/minor changes to the institution overall, as

124 mentioned above) – is made based on my knowledge of the legislature, and explained in greater detail in section 4.5 when it becomes relevant.

4.5 Research Design and Findings

My intent in this chapter is to determine whether my hypotheses are adequately supported by the data. I examine cases of institutional evolution under Mexico’s authoritarian regime.56 In order to test the links between rate of institutional evolution and party power axis, and between content of institutional evolution and branch axis leverage relationships, I utilize the comparative method, the appropriate method because of the intermediate number of cases and the temporal variation (Lijphart, 1971). The comparative method allows me to statistically analyze an intermediate number of cases, as I have too many cases for a case study, but not enough for a full statistical analysis.

Using the comparative method, I assume that many potential variables are in fact extraneous to the analysis and can be ignored: for instance, I assume that despite variation in leaders of the PRI, the PRI itself can be treated as a consistent actor throughout the lifetime of the regime. Following Kaarbo and Beasley (1999), I decrease variation on the independent variable by limiting cases to a specific country (Mexico) and

56 An alternate research design would be a comparison between instances of evolution and the absence of evolution. However, this approach is not suitable here for two reasons. First, from a theoretical perspective, I argue that evolution is ongoing – this is what makes it a disequilibrium process, as laid out in chapter 2. The constitutional change, which I use to proxy evolution, is the ultimate output of the evolutionary process, but the underlying system changes (large and small) occur constantly, not merely at the point at which a constitutional change is registered. Second, from a functional perspective, using constitutional changes as a proxy for evolution means it is not possible to capture the absence of evolution: the Mexicans did not systematically record failed constitutional proposals. I cannot show any link between the independent variables and a failure to evolve, but I can show a link between the variables and variation in the details of evolution – its speed and its content. 125 within that country a specific regime (the PRI). Within those constraints, however, significant variation in the dependent variable is still possible: my approach varies over time, resulting in 123 cases over 71 years.

This utilization of the comparative method borrows from Mill’s method of difference but does not precisely follow Mill’s method as described by Lijphart (1971), in that I do not compare the presence of an event to the absence of said event. However,

Mill’s method as understood by others (King, Keohane and Verba 1994, for instance) is more broadly applicable and refers not merely to presence or absence of the dependent variable, but variation on the dependent variable. My theory allows for variation on the dependent variable – institutional evolution – in two forms: the speed with which evolution occurs, and the content of evolutionary processes. My dissertation is designed not to ask when evolution will occur as opposed to when it will not, but rather to ask how evolution will vary when it does occur.

In terms of mechanics, I demonstrate correlation through testing with cross- tabulation. I first search for correlation between rate of evolution and party power leverage, and then examine the connection between content of evolution and branch leverage.

My theory informs on two dimensions of institutional evolution: the rate of evolution (faster or slower), and the direction of evolution (towards a more powerful legislature, or towards a more constrained legislature). My tests reveal support for the hypotheses speaking to rate of evolution, and the need for further research for the hypotheses speaking to direction of evolution. I use the same basic approach for both

126 sets of hypotheses – simple correlations, using binary variables – but while this is valid for the first set of hypotheses, the results for the second set of hypotheses indicate that a binary approach is not the most accurate or effective. I recode the variable to be multinomial, and between the multinomial analysis and a qualitative analysis of the cases,

I am able to find stronger support for the argument.

The first set of hypotheses spoke to the rate of institutional evolution. To recap, hypothesis 1a linked a ruling party leverage victory with lower than average rates of evolution, while 1b argued that an opposition party leverage victory will be associated with higher than average rates of evolution. I argued in chapter 2 that because the system as initially designed favored the ruling party, when the ruling party was the victor in the leverage relationship the period would display slower evolution – essentially, as beneficiaries of the status quo, the ruling party would not seek change. On the other hand, because the opposition party was in a poorer position in the initial system design, the party would prefer change, so that when the opposition party was the victor in the leverage relationship the institution would evolve more rapidly. The table below displays the results for testing these two hypotheses.

Table 4.3. Party Power and Rate of Evolution By Period

Period (rate of Ruling party Opposition Unknown cases Total change) favored cases favored cases 1929-1945 (.94) 9 1 5 15 1946-1976 (.5) 7 3 2 12 1977-1986 (2.6) 5 13 5 23 1987-1993 (2.8) 4 10 3 17 1994-2000 (1.5) 0 7 2 9

127

Table 4.3 displays, for each period, the number of cases in which the final form of the amendment supports the ruling party’s platform, the number of cases in which the final amendment supports the opposition party’s platform, and the number of cases in which the amendment’s relevance to either platform is unknown or unclear. While the unknown cases are included for the sake of transparency, it should be noted that even if they were entirely coded, they would not affect the ultimate outcome in any of the cases.

There are too few for them to swing the balance within a period from a ruling party leverage victory to an opposition party leverage victory, or vice versa.

The table shows that in periods 1 and 2, the ruling party had many more leverage victories than did the opposition party – that is, in those periods the constitutional changes more often favored the ruling party than the opposition party. In periods 3, 4, and 5, however, the opposition party had more leverage victories than did the ruling party. The findings are thus well-aligned with the theory, which predicts ruling party victories in the first two periods followed by a tumultuous third period which eventually leads to opposition party leverage victories from that point forward. An examination of some of the cases further illustrates the point.

Period 1 displays the most ruling party leverage victories of any period; in fact, ruling party victories decrease over the remainder of the periods. Periods 1 and 2 each have approximately 60% ruling party victories; periods 3 and 4 have approximately 20%, and period 5 has no ruling party victories. The decline that occurs with period 3 is precipitous – not only does the PRI lose its status as the leverage victor, but it falls to only benefiting in 1/5 of the cases. This decline is a function of the dynamics of the

128 period: in period 2, the Golden Age of the PRI, the ruling party faced little to no serious opposition. The PPS and the PARM, the two smallest opposition parties, did not function as actual opposition – on all major issues, from presidential campaigns to constitutional changes, the two parties sided with the PRI. This left the PAN as the voice of the opposition, but because the PAN refused to accept federal funds, its resources were limited, and its efforts to capture municipal victories cut into the resources available to it at the federal level (Middlebrook 2001). However, with the introduction of proportional representation in 1977, along with the elimination of the electoral participation threshold, it became possible for more parties to form and participate and the PAN began to shift its focus to national elections. The ruling party had introduced the 1977 reforms in order to address the legitimacy crisis precipitated by the 1976 single candidate presidential election; in order to actually appear legitimate, it had to engage with the opposition parties so that opposition candidates could be assured for future elections.

Constitutional change was a convenient bargaining chip for the new level of ruling party-opposition party engagement. For instance, the PAN had been advocating for the introduction of proportional representation for some time – at least since the 1950s.

The creation of the party deputies in 1966 was a movement towards partial PR, but did not meet the party’s goals (Middlebrook 2001, 32). However, the opposition’s newly strengthened bargaining position in 1977 due to the PRI’s need to keep the opposition participating facilitated the introduction of true PR, in the form of a mixed majoritarian/proportional representation system. Opposition goals that had floundered in earlier periods were thus resuscitated.

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At the same time, the ruling party was able to achieve some of its own ends – for instance, by capping those proportional representation seats in such a way that the supermajority could not be threatened. In the Senate during the third period, the ruling party pushed through an amendment to article 73 which changed Senate representation from two senators per state to four, with three elected by PR and one appointed to the largest minority vote-getter. Because of the distribution of Senate districts, the PRI was able to hold all the elected Senate seats until the 1990s (that is, three out of four in each district), but by including the fourth seat for the minority party, it was also able to make a show of bringing in the opposition. These kinds of dual purpose amendments – benefitting the opposition, but without threatening the regime’s dominance – were characteristic of the third period. The opposition leverage victories did not mean that the opposition had supplanted the regime in terms of political power, but that it was in a markedly stronger bargaining position than the ruling party.

Period 3 is the most interesting for the first hypothesis, as it is the point of transition from primarily ruling party leverage victories to primarily opposition party leverage victories. The examples above illustrate the dynamics of that period. The remaining four periods are very straightforward: periods 1 and 2, with the formation of the PRI followed by its total dominance over political life, both display far more ruling party victories than opposition party victories. Periods 4 and 5, where the instability stemming from the 1976 election and the 1982 financial crisis become much more pronounced with the 1988 election and the 1994 loss of the supermajority, both display

130 far more opposition victories than ruling party victories – and indeed, in period 5 the total dismantling of the PRI system is reflected in the absence of any ruling party victories.

What Table 4.3 displays is a full confirmation of the link between the party power leverage axis and the rate of institutional evolution. In periods 3, 4 and 5 the rate of evolution is noticeably higher than the overall average, 1.1, and the opposition is the leverage victor. In periods 1 and 2, however, when the ruling party is the leverage victor, the rate of evolution is lower than average. This confirms that the party power axis leverage victories are linked to rate of institutional evolution.

My theory also offers predictions regarding the content of those evolutionary cases, but the testing there reveals a more complex picture. I hypothesize that in periods when the executive is the branch axis leverage victor, constitutional changes will be more likely to constrain legislative powers. In periods when the legislature is the branch axis leverage victor, however, constitutional change should increase legislative powers. I initially treated the legislative powers victory as binary – either the change increased powers or constrained them. However, as my analysis below will demonstrate, a binary coding is a significant oversimplification of the dynamics at play in the legislature, and a multinomial coding scheme where changes are coded as either a major or minor increase or constraint is far more useful for theory testing.

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Table 4.4. Branch Dominance and Legislative Power by Period

Branch Power Effect on Legislative Power

Increase Constrain 1929-1945 Executive-leverage cases 7 5 Legislature-leverage cases 4 3 1946-1976 Executive-leverage cases 7 2 Legislature-leverage cases 3 1 1977-1986 Executive-leverage cases 12 6 Legislature-leverage cases 3 0 1987-1993 Executive-leverage cases 4 3 Legislature-leverage cases 4 4 1994-2007 Executive-leverage cases 4 0 Legislature-leverage cases 5 3

Table 4.4 above presents the initial findings on these hypotheses. My theory predicts that the largest number of cases for the first four periods should be in the executive-leverage/constraining legislature cells, and for the fifth period the largest number of cases should be in the legislature-leverage/increasing legislature cell. While this is precisely the finding for the fifth period, for periods 1-4 the prediction does not reflect the findings. In periods 1-3, the largest number of cases can be found in the executive-leverage/increasing legislature box, and in period 4 all boxes other than the predicted outcome are equal. Each period – including period 5, which follows the predicted pattern – displays more instances of increases to legislative powers than of constraints. In periods 2 and 3, more than half the total cases fall into the executive- leverage/increasing legislature box (in period 1 it is 37%, and in period 4, 27%). I argue, though, that the hypotheses are not wrong – rather, the measurement of the variables is

132 wrong. Coding legislative power changes as binary assumes that all changes are of equal magnitude – but this is clearly not the case. Some increases to legislative powers, such as the amendment of article 73 from 1940 which determined that Congress had the right to determine taxes over a number of areas, were far more significant changes than others, such as the amendment of article 73 from 1971, which gave Congress the right to legislate over environmental pollution. Treating these two increases to legislative powers equally conflates the underlying theory. I have argued that the reason legislative powers increase when the legislature exerts leverage is because the legislature is trying to increase its own role as an institution and as a political force. I have also argued that the executive may actually attempt to utilize the legislature not as a check on power but as a bureaucratic apparatus, tasked with addressing the details of rule so that the president is free to make bigger decisions. At the same time, the president wants to preserve his own power by ensuring that the legislature does not become a threat. When the legislature is the leverage victor, then, we may expect to see more changes overall – but when the executive is the leverage victor, we may expect to see minor increases outpace major ones, while major constraints outpace minor ones.

Table 4.5 below displays the results when the legislative powers variable is recoded from a binary to a multinomial variable. The recoding was based on the text of the amendment. Amendments that simply added a single area to the legislative purview – for instance, the amendment that allowed the legislature to legislate over electricity and nuclear power, as opposed to the previous ability to legislate only over electricity – were coded as a minor increase. Amendments that made larger changes to the function and

133 abilities of the legislature – for instance, the amendments that altered the electoral system, or introduced party deputies57 on top of popularly elected deputies – were coded as major increases.58

A similar approach was used in coding constraints. If the legislature lost a minor ability – for instance, a shift from legislating the use of foreign currency to advising on foreign currency, which created very little real-world change – it was coded as a minor constraint. On the other hand, when the legislature lost the ability to control something truly significant – such as when the power to legislate over education was removed from the Chamber of Deputies – the case was coded as a major constraint.

57 The party deputies amendment stated that for much of the popular vote, the minority parties would be granted an additional (non-elected) deputy chosen from the electoral lists. The minority parties would each receive additional deputies for every 2.5% (then 2%, then 1.5%) of the national vote, up to 20 (then 25) deputies. This was instituted by the regime, intended to appease the opposition without actually threatening the ruling party – the system was designed so that as the minority parties began to receive more votes, they would lose the party deputies, thereby actually decreasing their overall representation. 58 It should be noted that, as with the party deputies explained above, it is possible for a change to majorly increase legislative powers without also increasing opposition powers relative to the ruling party. 134

Table 4.5. Branch Power and Modified Legislative Power by Period

Branch Power Effect on Legislative Power Major Minor Major Minor Increase Increase Constraint Constraint 1929- Executive- 1 6 3 2 1945 leverage cases Legislature- 2 1 3 1 leverage cases 1946- Executive- 1 6 0 2 1976 leverage cases Legislature- 0 3 0 1 leverage cases 1977- Executive- 6 6 4 1 1986 leverage cases Legislature- 1 1 0 0 leverage cases 1987- Executive- 1 3 2 1 1993 leverage cases Legislature- 1 3 3 1 leverage cases 1994- Executive- 1 3 0 1 2000 leverage cases Legislature- 1 4 1 2 leverage cases

With the recoding, the underlying dynamics in the theory are more visible. The legislature is still the leverage victor in period 5, although of its five increases, only one is a major increase. In periods 1-4, the executive is the leverage victor, and for each of those cases there are more minor increases than major ones. In periods 1, 3 and 4, major constraints outpace minor constraints; in period 2, minor constraints outpace major ones.

The theory explained constitutional changes as the outcome of bargaining efforts between the legislature and the executive; I theorized that the executive might use constitutional

135 changes to either punish or reward the legislature or to shift its function, while the legislature would attempt to use those changes primarily to increase its own power. The executive’s use of major constraints demonstrates that punishment function; they are more frequent in periods where the legislature has some independence from the executive, as with efforts to overturn the president’s budget in period 1. At the same time, the presence of minor increases can be attributed to the president clarifying the role of the legislature, building on its use as a bureaucratic apparatus.

One interesting finding here is that in period 5, despite the legislative victory, there are still more minor increases than major ones (though there are also more minor constraints than major ones). I contend that this finding actually substantiates the theory’s argument that the legislature is interested in increasing its power in any way possible, whereas the executive is only interested in ceding certain powers to the legislature. As I have argued in chapter 2, minor changes can be valuable to the weaker players because they create the opportunity to accumulate up to more significant changes.

Alone, the legislature’s newfound ability to legislate over mineral rights is insignificant; in combination with subsequent powers to legislate over electricity and nuclear energy, the abilities combine to grant the legislature authority over all natural resources – a potentially valuable power. This has less immediate utility than, for instance, the ability to control water rights, which allows the legislature to dole out good versus poor farmland, but still may enhance the role of the legislature. So in period 5, for instance, the legislature gained the ability to coordinate between all of the other powers on matters of public security and to carry out laws affecting the regulation of the Auditor General.

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These are both indirect powers, serving as a point of communication for security concerns rather than actually acting on public security concerns, and setting laws affecting the Auditor General rather than appointing the Auditor General. However, when taken with other similar powers they essentially serve to make the legislature the conduit for important rules and information – a power that is on par with agenda-setting, in that it allows the legislature to set the national discourse for important events.

There is one caveat to these findings: with so many cells and relatively few cases, the number of cases in any given cell is often quite small. This suggests that looking at absolute differences alone has limited utility – the difference between two cases in cell A and one in cell B is not helpful without additional information regarding the content of those cases. To that end, I will provide specific examples of the cases in question to help illustrate the theory’s predictions.

In periods 1-4, I predict that the executive is the leverage relationship winner and that the majority of cases will fall between minor increases and major constraints.

Overall in the first period there are seven minor increases – six under executive-leverage moments – and six major constraints – three under executive-leverage moments. All of the major constraints fall towards the beginning of the period; the latest one occurred in

1934. This is not a coincidence. As I have demonstrated, the first period was a time of consolidation. After the emergence of the PNR-cum-PRI in 1929, the executive worked to grow his control over both party and legislature. The existence of so many major constraints in the first part of the period indicates the president’s attempts to stamp down on legislative independence. For instance, the revision to article 59 presented in 1932

137 removed the ability of senators and deputies to be immediately reelected. Prior to this point, legislators could be directly reelected.59 Without direct reelection, legislators had to depend on the executive-controlled party to be brought back into politics: they could not build independent support bases. The amendment was sponsored by PNR deputies at presidential behest; by guaranteeing legislators could not grow their own support, the president strengthened the role of the party apparatus, with himself at the top.

By contrast, the minor increases are distributed throughout the period. Some occur in 1929 or the early 1930s, while others occur in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

These changes are primarily aimed at streamlining the functioning of government – the

1929 amendment of article 73, for instance, set the boundaries between the states and the federal government regarding labor law regulation. By setting certain areas of labor laws

(railroads, and other resources granted by federal concession) under the jurisdiction of the federal legislature, the government ensured that issues which had federal impact would have consistent treatment across the nation. This was a response to a bureaucratic need, rather than a major change in the role of the legislature, and as a bureaucratic need it could occur at any point during the period.

Two of the three major increases in the first period also occurred early on, and appear to be part of the presidential carrot-and-stick approach to consolidating power.

59 The no direct reelection clause has gone through several permutations. In the original 1917 constitution, the president could not be reelected at all, but deputies and senators could be immediately reelected. In the mid-1920s legislative supporters of former President Obregón had the constitution amended to provide for indirect presidential reelection, after a term out of office. Obregón was reelected thanks to the new amendment, but was assassinated before he could begin his term. His successor, Plutarco Calles, had the amendment removed and the no reelection rule reinstated. This had the effect of allowing Calles to remain the power behind the throne once he left office – no other president could build up a significant apparatus with only one term. However, Lázaro Cárdenas was able to come to power with the support of powerful agrarian unions and send Calles into exile. 138

The third major increase, however, is an anomaly. It occurred in 1940 – so, late in the period – and made a very important change to legislative powers: among other modifications, it granted the legislature the right to determine taxes over a range of products, including but not limited to gasoline and alcohol. The timing coincides roughly with the 1940 presidential election which spurred Almazán’s defection. The timing and the nature of the change – formally conceding important taxation rights to the legislature

– suggest that this change was a reward to the legislators who had stayed loyal following the Almazán issue. Those who had defected were punished; at best, their political careers were over, but at worst they died as enemy soldiers. Those who had not defected, however, were granted significant powers in the form of those tax rights.

Period 3 also follows the predicted pattern in terms of constraints – there are four major constraints, against one minor one. However, minor increases do not outpace major increases; rather, there are precisely as many minor as major increases. Again, there is a temporal pattern in the outcomes: most of the major changes (four increases and three constraints) occurred at the beginning of the period, as part of the 1977 reform package. The minor increases are distributed throughout the period, with the first in 1977 and the last in 1986.

There are two important dynamics at play in this period: first, the even division between major increases and minor ones, and second, the way all the major changes – increases and constraints – are clustered around one point. These two dynamics highlight the complexity of period 3. Period 3 was a time of back-and-forth between the legislature and the executive. The response to the legitimacy crisis that started the period, with the

139 change to opposition participation caused by the unopposed 1976 presidential election, resulted in a legislature that was stronger than it had been: in order to ensure opposition, the regime had to guarantee that opposition participation remained a possibility, which inherently gave the opposition a stronger role. At the same time, that opposition participation and the associated legislative power had to be managed in order not to threaten the regime. One of the most prominent manifestations of this was the 1977 amendment of article 52, which introduced a mixed electoral system, with 300 majoritarian seats and 100 proportional representation seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

The PR system meant that states with stronger levels of opposition support were likely to have opposition representation, which increased the level of opposition participation in the legislature, and in so doing ensured that the legislature functioned more like an institution of checks and balances and less like a rubber stamp for the executive. The introduction of the PR system itself accounted for three of the major increases as the rules of PR were laid out across different articles (52, 53 and 54). However, at the same time as the legislature was gaining significantly from PR, it was losing substantial amounts of self-regulation, and losing important areas of legislation. Article 73 had previously turned government of the Distrito Federal over to the legislature; the legislature had the ability to appoint a municipal tribunal and had appointment authority over the judges, magistrates, and other political professionals of the capital. In 1977, however, legislative authority was replaced by direct referendum, allowing the citizens to vote on their government – a significant blow to the federal legislature. Similarly, the legislature found its scope of self-government narrowed. The legislature previously decided all

140 challenges to its members’ elections, including allegations of fraud. The amendment of article 60 in 1977, however, maintained that the Chamber and the Senate had the right to hear arguments, but challenges to those decisions – rather than remaining solely in the hands of the houses – would be decided by the Supreme Court, which was appointed by the president. Where article 52 increased the opportunities for opposition participation, article 60 ensured that that participation could in no way threaten regime and executive dominance by turning threats over to an executive-controlled entity. The changes that occurred in period 3 fall into this broad pattern of increasing legislative powers in one area while simultaneously constraining them in others, in order to bring in the opposition but keep the regime strong.

Period 4 also displays the expected pattern, with minor increases outpacing major ones (6 minor increases to 2 major) and major constraints outpacing minor ones (5 major constraints to 2 minor). The majority of the minor increases occurred in 1993, but two occurred earlier. The lack of pattern here is particularly interesting - based on the legitimacy crisis stemming from the 1988 election, we would expect changes to cluster around 1988/1989, but instead, the modifications that served to eventually dismantle PRI authority were set in place in 1993.The fact that the changes occurred at the end of the contested Salinas presidency rather than the beginning is striking, and points to the longer bargaining horizon between the two main parties. In order to maintain the PRI in power, the PAN agreed not to contest the 1988 election results, but it kept some insurance: the actual ballots, which would have revealed if fraud took place, were not destroyed until

1991. And the changes – the guarantee that Eisenstadt (2004) among others identified as

141 currency for the PAN’s 1988 support – went into effect even later, in 1993. This suggests that Salinas essentially refused to sponsor the reforms until the PAN had clearly upheld its end of the bargain throughout a presidential term.

The most interesting category for the analysis of period 4 is the major changes, because the same changes that increased the opportunities for fair elections decreased legislative power and independence. Among these, the amendment of article 60 in 1993 removed all congressional control of contestation over elections, a major constraint on legislative powers since the legislature no longer had any role in determining election outcomes, but also a major step towards democracy since the electoral evaluation role was now filled by an independent entity. This points towards another important dynamic of period 4: for the first time the constraints associated with cases of legislative leverage victories outpace those associated with executive leverage victories. This is not a coincidence: as the modification to article 60 highlights, the very changes that weakened the legislature strengthen the opposition, and for the first time the legislature was becoming a true battleground between the ruling party and the opposition party. The ruling party’s margin of victory was narrowing; in fact, the PRI almost lost the 1991 legislative elections. The increasing power of the PAN meant that changes that were in the PAN’s favor were sometimes against the legislature’s preferences, but in order to unseat the PRI the PAN was promoting changes that constrained the legislature. The other two major constraints that occurred when the legislature was the leverage winner had the same dual role. The 1989 amendment to article 54 stated that no party could hold more than 350 (out of 500) seats – the first ever cap on a party. This constrained

142 legislative powers by creating an external and artificial cap on a purely internal matter, but it also served PAN interests as the first step to eliminating the supermajority.

Likewise, the 1993 amendment of article 54 dismantled the Senate’s oversight of its own elections, again hurting legislative powers but also promoting democracy and opposition interests by dismantling the opportunities for PRI fraud. The major constraints occurring under executive leverage, on the other hand, constrain the legislature but do not advance the interests of either party. The 1986 amendment of article 74 removes the legislature’s ability to decide criminal cases against its members, while the amendment of article 73 in the same year removes any legislative influence on governance of the Distrito Federal and instead cedes that governance to the president. The overarching pattern in period 4, then, was a progressively more constrained legislature where many of the constraints were really about setting the stage for the dismantling of the regime.

Periods 1, 3, 4, and 5 all follow the expected patterns, then. Period 2, however, is somewhat different. While minor increases still outpace major increases, minor constraints also outpace major ones – in fact, there are no major constraints in this period.

This period is an outlier, but it supports the general argument. The second period is the golden age of the PRI, when the president was at his strongest. After the consolidating efforts of the first period, the executive had control over the party and over the legislature. This accounts for the nine cases of minor increase – the president was enhancing the legislature’s bureaucratic function, utilizing it to legislate over games of chance (article 73, 1947), the production and purchase of beer (article 73, 1948), seizures of enemy vessels during war (article 73, 1965) and so forth. These were very minor

143 changes, aimed primarily at refining the legislature’s role. The minor constraints were truly minor: the 1974 amendment of article 74 changed the legislature’s ability to approve judges named by the president in the Distrito Federal and the territories to only the Distrito Federal, and the 1962 amendment of article 63 punished parties if their delegates failed to take their elected seats. There were no major constraints in this period, for the simple reason that they were not necessary – the executive’s control was such that the legislature never tried to rebel. As the other four periods demonstrated, major constraints serve a purpose. In periods 1 and 3 they were aimed at bringing the legislature under the executive’s control; in periods 4 and 5 they helped to dismantle the regime. In period 2, however, the legislature was firmly under the executive’s control, and the regime was so strong that there was no opposition effort to challenge it. In short, minor constraints in this period outpaced major constraints because there was no role for major constraints to play.

Over all, Table 4.5 appears to challenge the predicted outcomes for the branch axis hypotheses. And yet, once additional information is considered, the theoretical links are in fact upheld.

4.6 Conclusion

This chapter tested the hypotheses introduced in chapter 2. The hypotheses were designed to test two key concepts: first, that institutional evolution occurred at times more rapidly and more slowly based on interactions between the parties, and second, that the evolutionary process experienced periods of greater and lesser liberalization (in the

144 form of legislative powers) due to interactions between the branches. The statistical evidence alone was sufficient to substantiate the claims about the speed of evolution, but not those regarding the content of evolution. However, recoding the legislative powers variable to capture degree of change and analyzing the historical record support the argument that the different periods of institutional evolution demonstrate different types of power changes. There is one important challenge to the theory that remains unaddressed, though: are the changes I have captured a function of shifting leverage relationships, or could they be attributed to the fact that there are some issues of importance to one party about which the other party simply does not care? If that is that case, the observed behavior may be less about fluctuating leverage relationships and more about the parties deciding not to fight over certain insignificant issues. To address that concern, in the next chapter I look exclusively at the amendments to Article 27 governing land rights – an article that was amended only 16 times, and that was of extreme importance to both parties.

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Chapter 5: Case Study: Tracking Legislative Evolution Through Land Reform

5.1. Introduction

When the PAN was formed in 1939, one of its core tenets was the importance of private property – and one of its first acts was a proposal to overturn Mexico’s communal land law, the ejido system (Ard 2003, 135). That proposal was resoundingly defeated.

The ejido system was an integral part of PRI legitimacy, upholding the promise of the revolution – removing it was unthinkable.

Fifty three years later, President Salinas of the PRI proposed a complete overhaul of the ejido system, making it possible for the first time for ejido holders to freely and legally sell their land if they obtained the title. Salinas’ plan completely overturned the land reform issue that had once been so central to the PRI’s party identification and legitimation of rule. What happened between the PAN’s first land reform proposal and the PRI’s final one to so utterly change the outcome? In this chapter, I demonstrate that the evolution of Article 27 governing land ownership, like the constitutional section covered in chapter 4, is a function of shifting leverage relationships between the executive and the legislature, and the ruling party and opposition party, respectively.

The previous chapter tested my theory of institutional evolution against changes to amendments governing legislative powers, using a sample size of 123. That chapter

146 found strong support for the link between party power axis and speed of institutional evolution, but weaker support for the link between the branch power axis and type of evolutionary change. Although the testing results were mixed, the theory was substantiated through a closer look at some of the cases. However, the number of cases was too great to go in-depth on the dynamics of each individual amendment. In this chapter, I address that gap by focusing on a small number of cases and examining each one in the context of the political life of its time. I also demonstrate that the dynamics of legislative evolution put forth in the theory are evident regardless of the area of the constitution examined – that is, we see the same patterns even when we aren’t looking at the section that designates legislative powers. This chapter tests the theory as it applies to modifications to Article 27, the article governing land ownership under the 1917 constitution.

Article 27 makes two important methodological contributions to theory testing.

The first contribution speaks to legislative relations. The sample tested in chapter 4 – articles 50-79 – are specifically those articles addressing legislative powers. They are the easy case for testing the evolution of the legislature, in that since they delineate explicitly what that role is, legislative changes will be particularly common. Article 27 is not an explicit discussion of legislative powers, however; the effect of amendments on the legislature is filtered through alterations to land ownership. This is the hard case: if the relationship between actors along each axis is linked to variation in patterns of evolution even when the ultimate outcome of amendments is not to the legislature but to land reform, it suggests that those varying relationships affect every aspect of institutional life.

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The second methodological contribution of this chapter is that by focusing on only one article, I control for an additional source of variation. The range of topics covered in articles 50-79 present the opportunity for variation in actor preferences which could confound the link between theory and testing outcome. A topic that is central to the ruling party might be a topic that is unimportant to the opposition party, in which case the opposition’s inaction may be less a function of an underlying leverage imbalance (as my theory predicts), than a display of indifference. The same may be true of the legislature-executive relationship. Across a range of topics, leverage struggles may be conflated with ambivalence. By limiting my testing to one topic, particularly one – land reform – that is known to be of central importance to all the political actors, I am able to state that the patterns I have identified in institutional evolution are distinctly the function of shifts in leverage relationships.

The chapter is laid out as follows: first, I briefly restate the theory. I then discuss

Article 27 in the context of institutional evolution – what makes it a good test case, why it is important, and the adaptations necessary in testing a small sample. I then move to the research design, laying out the methodology as well as the data sources, before discussing the theory-testing and my findings. I conclude with a brief discussion of what the findings in this chapter mean for my discussion of institutional evolution as a whole.

5.2. Brief restatement of the theory

As laid out in greater detail in chapter 2, my theory predicts that when the ruling party is able to regularly exert leverage over the opposition party, institutional evolution

148 will occur more slowly. The underlying idea is that the ruling party, having designed the system, is the primary power beneficiary, and so prefers to maintain the status quo for the most part. This is not to say there will be no change; rather, the changes ought to occur relatively infrequently. It will still be necessary for the ruling party to permit institutional evolution, but since the system already benefits the regime, those changes should not be intended to benefit a different group or to change the overall function of the institution – instead, they should be aimed at updating institutional capabilities to match modern needs, for instance updating the government’s regulatory powers to match new technology.

Because the system as designed benefits the ruling party, generally at the expense of the opposition party, when the opposition is able to promote change it should push for more alterations to institutional function, in order to maximize its gains and become competitive with the ruling party as rapidly as possible. Thus when the opposition party exerts leverage over the ruling party, institutional evolution should occur more rapidly.

The opposition will seek to maximize its opportunities for institutional growth so that it achieves as much benefit from the institution as possible. This is because the regime’s use of institutions to maintain itself in power decreases the opposition’s opportunities to defeat it. In order to replace the ruling party, the opposition must alter the institution to its own benefit.

Where the party power axis predicts relative rate of evolution, the branch power axis predicts the content of evolutionary change: whether legislative powers are increased or constrained. This derives from the nature of the power struggle between the executive

149 and the legislature. In an authoritarian setting, the system privileges the executive. The intent of the system is to maintain the regime – and the regime is directed by the executive. But the constitution also provides for legislative powers, and those powers sometimes infringe on executive independence. Furthermore, the regime’s overall control of political life in no way mitigates other party members’ desire to increase their power. Legislative powers as enshrined in the constitution become a battleground for regime power struggles. When the executive exerts leverage over the legislature, changes are more likely to constrain legislative powers, in order to preserve executive privilege and prevent the legislature from functioning as a check on the executive. When the legislature exerts leverage over the executive, though, changes are more likely to increase legislative powers.

5.3. Article 27 in the context of institutional evolution

As discussed in chapter 2, because this theory addresses legislative evolution by examining changes to the constitution, the theory should be equally applicable regardless of which piece of the constitution is examined, so long as the dynamics between the legislature and the executive can be teased out. The particular value of Article 27 for this study is that it was modified a number of times, and given the importance of the article itself to the regime as discussed below, the evidence demonstrates that the modifications were given due consideration and for the most part were not merely corrections to language.

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In order to use Article 27 as a sample of institutional evolution, two points must be made regarding the theory and testing. First, because the last modification to Article

27 occurred in 1992, the fifth period of my theory – 1994-2000 – is inherently excluded.

This is the period my theory predicts will have a legislative leverage victory. Theory testing on Article 27 necessarily excludes legislative victory, then. However, it is still possible to observe variation on the branch power axis. As I argued in Chapter 4,

“executive victory” does not carry the same meaning across all periods. In some periods

– notably 1946-1976 – the executive has almost total control in the leverage relationship, and the legislative powers are extremely constrained as a result. In others, the executive’s leverage victory is not so complete, and the type of changes to legislative powers fluctuates as a result. Although by dropping period 5 we do not expect to see a period where changes to legislative powers are primarily major increases, we do still expect to see variation in those powers.

The second point is that the smaller number of modifications overall (16), which allows me to discuss the dynamics of each change, also precludes a discussion of institutional evolution by rate of change and period. Instead, I examine major and minor changes to the institutional structure, positing that they follow the same basic logic as the argument for higher or lower rates of change.

Article 27, which delineated the rules for land ownership, played a particularly important role in the PRI regime, as it formed much of the basis for legitimizing the party’s extended rule (Freebairn 1987, p. 399). In fact, hardly any other article was as important or as controversial, making Article 27 a particularly useful case to examine.

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Article 27 laid out the ejido system, by which peasants could receive land from the government. The system was unusual: although the applicant would be granted the ability to farm the land, he could not own it outright. The land still belonged to the state, which could repossess it if the farmer or his immediate family was not working the land.

A secondary system existed to grant actual ownership, so that the farmer could not be dispossessed, but this was granted infrequently and only under certain circumstances which were not addressed in Article 27. However, the article did list significant restrictions on land grants: neither large corporations nor religious institutions or those officially associated with them (ministers, etc.) were permitted to own land.

Additionally, fairly stringent restrictions on granted land were laid out – the government controlled all buried natural resources, as well as any waterway that passed through adjoining ejidos, and so forth. Taken all together, the provisions of Article 27 created a system officially designed to benefit the poor, but with so many loopholes and bureaucratic pitfalls that the system could actually be used to the detriment of the peasantry.

Article 27 was purported to guarantee land to the peasants, but the actual use was far more complex. The constitution included loopholes that the regime exploited to its own benefit, to control agrarian reform. Where the regime could grant lands (or potential lands) to peasants to buy their support, it could also remove those lands – either to punish wayward citizens or to reallocate property to important supporters. This was done through a process known as alienation.

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Alienation could take three forms: expropriation, exchange, and the creation of an ejido urban zone. Expropriation was the forced sale of ejido lands, while exchange involved trading ejido land for private land. Creating an urban zone, meanwhile, involved turning part of an existing ejido into housing for the ejidatarios. Expropriation and exchange were favored by businesses and the wealthy because they conveyed immediate ownership and were largely used against existing ejidatarios. The urban zone, however, took at least four years and was primarily utilized by the poor as a way to change the designated function of the area. Theoretically all ejido lands were subject to all three approaches, and the government would deal with all efforts of alienation equally.

Functionally, however, the wealthy and corporations were much more able to take advantage of the system, and the state was far more likely to ignore illegal actions undertaken by important PRI supporters than by average farmers and workers (Varley,

1985). In short, the poor – those Article 27 was designed to benefit – were most vulnerable to land seizure.

In terms of the political importance of Article 27, the legitimacy of the state, laid out in chapter 3, rested on two claims: resounding electoral victories and the party’s participation in the 1913-1914 revolution (Ard 2003; Benjamin 2010, 568). Much of the justification for the revolution itself centered on the injustice of the majority of the land being held by the wealthy few. In the aftermath of the revolution, the new regime committed itself to preventing such an injustice from reoccurring, and institutionalized that promise primarily through Article 27. A significant base of support for the regime during the revolution came from the peasants; Article 27 was both their reward for

153 supporting the regime, and a way to keep them under control and prevent them from functioning as a threat to the new government (Walsh Sanderson, 1984, p. 45). But while the promise of land ownership – and the existence of Article 27 – was a crucial piece of

PRI propaganda, actually granting land was another issue entirely. Over time, particularly after the 1940s, the PRI transitioned from actually supporting land redistribution to working to maintain the principle while abandoning the practice:

“Each new administration continued to repeat the rhetoric of the past, asserting the government’s commitment to land reform as a ‘major goal’ of the Mexican Revolution. At the same time, each of these administrations pursued specific policies which, logically enough, reflected the interests of the dominant bourgeoisie. Taken as a whole, these policies undercut peasant gains… and slowed the process of land reform until the trend culminated in the 1980s… with a virtual abandonment of the agrarista commitment” (Thiesenhausen 1996, p. 38, quoting Hellman 1983). Ejidos and other communal properties made up a non-trivial amount of the available land in Mexico, which helps explain why – despite the regime’s constitutional promise – amending Article 27 was such a contested issue. Regime efforts to promote business interests clashed with redistribution efforts, sparking heated debates over the amendment. The table below, from Randall (1996, p. 6), lays out the breakdown of proportion of land held communally and privately by type, as of 1988.

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Table 5.1. Land Use and Tenure by General Type, 1988

General Type Percentage Livestock grazing 57.6 Private Property (32.6) Ejidos (25.0) Agriculture 12.6 Private (3.2) Ejidos (9.4) Forestry 12.3 Private (4.7) Ejidos (7.6) Federal government 6.2 Urban real estate 2.2 Other uses 9.4 Ejidos made up approximately 45% of available land in Mexico. Walsh Sanderson

(1984, 139) addresses how much of the land granted to ejidos was eventually expropriated; this ranges from ½ of 1% through much of the country, up to 32.1% around

Mexico City. Both land grants and expropriation noticeably affected land distribution and politics throughout Mexico.

The importance of Article 27 to state legitimacy was twofold. First, as described above, Article 27 itself was an important element in legitimizing the PRI’s reign.

Additionally, however, and as will be shown in the discussion of specific amendments in section 5.6, major changes in particular were the result of challenges to the state’s legitimacy (Walsh Sanderson 1984, 71-2). When the legislature’s role relative to land reform experienced major shifts in terms of how the legislature related to the sectors represented in Article 27, particularly the agrarian sector, it was because of challenges to state legitimacy. The resolution of those challenges altered the underlying political

155 power relationships, which in turn affected the ability of different actors – and the sectors and groups that supported each faction – to attempt reforms to Article 27.

That collision between regime ideology and leaders’ actual preferences, as well as between regime and opposition ideology – the PAN was firmly opposed to Article 27

(Middlebrook 2001, 8) – is crucial to understanding how and why Article 27 was modified but not removed throughout the lifetime of the PRI.

5.4 A brief history of Article 27

Article 27 played a vital ideological role in the PRI regime. Since the colonial period, power in Mexico generally followed land ownership – and land ownership was biased towards a relatively small elite. Originating with the encomienda system during the colonial period, the Mexican system of land ownership guaranteed that most of the land would be in the hands of a few wealthy owners. This meant that the majority of the population essentially worked as hired labor, either working on the land owners’ plantations or renting a small patch of land from the owner. During the revolution of

1913/1914, these poor farmers and hired labor formed an important source of support for the revolutionaries, and part of the motivation for the revolution was to redress the inequitable land distribution (Katz, 1996). When the new constitution was designed in

1915, Article 27 was intended to fulfill the revolutionaries’ promise to the laborers, by making land ownership more accessible (Freebairn 1987, 399). Since the PRI cast itself as the party of the revolution, preserving at least the appearance of accessible land ownership was vital to forming the regime’s ideology, allowing it to legitimize itself as

156 the authentic representatives of the Mexican people. This was done primarily through the creation of the ejido system, essentially a series of communal land grants for which members were each granted a small parcel of the land to farm, the rest of the land – forests, mountains, and rivers, for instance – held in common among all the members of the ejido (Assies 2008, 42). The ejido system was first laid out in Article 27, although the in-depth explication of its details was the responsibility of an entirely new bureaucracy.60 That bureaucracy was responsible for determining who had the right to be granted an ejido, who would lose their ejido, how long both processes would take, and what happened to the land that was already in someone else’s possession.

The system was fairly complex; land held as an ejido could not be disposed of as private property, despite being owned by an individual or family for generations. Article

27 gave the central government the ability to grant ejidos to individuals, as well as the ability to strip that ownership. Ejido owners could not individually sell their land – rather, if one ejido member wished to sell his land to another, he had to go to the ejido’s governing council where the sale could be voted on by all members. In addition to restrictions on sales, there were significant restrictions on the size of private property. An individual or family could only possess the title to so many hectares of land (the exact amount varied based on terrain and the purpose for which the land was granted); if the member somehow ended up with more than the constitutionally-mandated amount of

60 Article 27 also provided for land tenure in the form of agrarian communities and small private property holdings. These land types were governed by the same rules in general, but due to the complexity in setting they up, they were used much less frequently than ejidos (Nuitjen, 2003). Because of the subsequent focus in Article 27 on ejidos, I limit my discussion to land tenure as it pertains to ejidos. Ejidos are also not to be confused with tierras comunales, the communal lands held by indigenous groups and dating from the conquista. The rules governing tierras comunales vary from those governing ejidos, and the lands are not covered by Article 27. 157 land, the remainder was subject to seizure and auction. The land could also only be used for certain purposes – farming or animal husbandry, primarily.61

The original language of Article 27 also stripped most large landowners of their land, making void all earlier sales, so that the land could be broken up into smaller parcels for the ejidos. Creating an ejido, however, was no easy task. The potential members had to apply for membership and then wait for a committee that originated at the state level and traveled up the bureaucratic ladder to the federal executive to approve them for membership and grant them land. In some cases, this process took more than ten years. The incredibly slow bureaucratic process was one way in which the ruling party maintained control over both land distribution and rural inhabitants (Castillo 2004,

35). By promising to distribute land at no cost, the PRI bought rural support for the party for many years; however, by delaying the actual granting of that land, the PRI maintained its monopoly on distribution and in many cases eased the burden on the large land owners, as well as providing itself with the votes of peasants waiting to recieve land

(Kelly 1994, 555).

The manipulation of Article 27 varied to an extent with individual presidents.

The constitution went into effect in 1917, but for almost 20 years very little land was actually granted (Assies 2008, p. 41). This changed dramatically in 1934 with Lázaro

Cárdenas, who came to power with the support of the rural sectors of the party and made land distribution a central facet of his time in office. (Thiesenhausen, 1996, p. 36)

Cárdenas’ regime was the high water mark for land grants to the ejidos; no other

61 All discussion of the specific contents of constitutional articles and amendments is taken from my translation of the Mexican Constitution. 158 presidency would compare to the number of land grants he made (Castillo 2004, 35).

The post-Cárdenas presidents maintained the promise of land grants – and indeed the land grants themselves – but emphasized the ejido process less, at least internally. This was partly because the PRI was attempting to attract more business interests; setting up larger farms under the federal aegis was more profitable than attempting to create federal institutions to manage many smaller farms. Additionally, starting in about the 1940s the party hierarchy began to incorporate more and more technocrats, who were more focused on the development of industry than on the growth of small farms (Benjamin 2010, 439).

The technocrats, in fact, were partially responsible for the push towards larger farms that began in the 1960s and 1970s. While the levels of land grants never again approached that under Cárdenas, the party did not begin to actively turn away from the promise of land ownership and reform until the 1980s. Spurred on in part by the economic crisis, the PRI and its presidents began to see the ejido system as too costly to the nation as a whole, particularly when it became apparent that large farms could produce cheaper agricultural products for export more efficiently than could small farms

(Assies 2008, 59). In 1992, this turn away from reform was completed with an almost total rewrite of Article 27 that generally dismantled the ejido system62 and facilitated a more traditional private property system throughout Mexico.63

62 The reform did not abolish ejidos, but the government ceased granting new ones and the reform made it possible for ejidatarios to sell their land for the first time. 63 The regime’s efforts to not actually distribute land do not appear to be a deliberate effort to increase the number of workers available for industry (see for instance Barrington Moore on enclosure); rather, it was an attempt to make more land available for industrial use – the increasing availability of workers was a side effect, rather than a cause. 159

5.5 Accommodating the theory to the facts: the challenge of a small n

In order to test my theory of institutional evolution on Article 27, one modification to the hypotheses is necessary, primarily because of the relatively small number of cases. Recalling chapter 2, the theory draws from arguments like Thelen

(2004) and Greif (2006) that institutional evolution can occur both gradually and suddenly – that many small changes may be made over time, while fewer large changes will occur at critical junctures. In my application of these theories to my hypotheses, I translate that concept to hypothesize that there will be fewer changes when the regime is the leverage victor and more changes when the opposition is the leverage victor. I tested this by examining the rate of change over time; however, the concept of measuring rate of change does not translate to a setting with at best 16 cases, and in practice fewer once the irrelevant cases are excluded.

My prediction differs somewhat from Thelen in particular, in that while we both predict there will be periods of major and minor change, I expect that in periods of minor change we will see fewer changes per year, while in periods of major change we will see more changes per year. This is less a direct contradiction and more a focus on a different aspect – where she examines change over the entire lifetime of the institution, I look at change within proscribed periods. Overall, my theory agrees with hers – there should be more minor changes than major ones. On a micro level, however, my predictions differ.

This is largely because of my decision to treat a package of amendments as multiple amendments, rather than as just one. Each article that changes in the constitution was counted as one, but major changes in particular often amend multiple articles, explicitly

160 because they are changing major parts of the institution – something that may be impacted by various articles. So one major change may contain five or more actual amendments, each of which I code as one change, which increases the overall number of major changes.

The major/minor distinction captures the same spirit as the rate of change argument. Both are drawn from the theory’s argument that the ruling party’s interest is primarily in preserving the status quo, while the opposition party prefers change. In chapter 4 I demonstrated the ruling party’s maintenance of the status quo through lower rates of constitutional change, essentially preserving the system. I showed that when the opposition had the opportunity to exert leverage, there were relatively more changes. In the same vein, when the ruling party is the leverage winner, I expect it to oppose evolution by primarily espousing minor constitutional changes – essentially dramatically limiting new institutional directions. The opposition, however, should promote evolution by pushing for major constitutional changes so that the institution’s function is more likely to be altered.

This major/minor distinction still speaks to the rate at which institutions evolve, but rather than focusing on how fast amendments occur, it looks at how dramatically each amendment alters institutional function. This is a more appropriate methodological approach for a small-n sample where the number of cases for each period is so low as to prohibit drawing any conclusions. This shift in the hypotheses necessitates a corresponding shift in the methodology for testing, calling for a more qualitative

161 approach. I discuss this and other coding decisions broadly in section 5.7 and, specific to each case, in section 5.8.

The second set of hypotheses, regarding the nature of the changes, remains unaltered, positing that When the executive has leverage over the legislature, changes are more likely to constrain legislative powers, and When the legislature has leverage over the executive, changes are more likely to increase legislative powers. A smaller number of cases in no way impacts what types of changes are made, only evaluations of their frequency.

Chapter 4 argued that a binary coding of effect on legislative powers masked the effects the theory predicted, and so a multinomial coding scheme was necessary. This chapter, however, relies on a binary rather than multinomial coding. The validity of this coding decision rests in my point, stated earlier, that such a small number of cases invalidates the discussion of periods. The multinomial coding relied on relative gains – predicting more minor constraints than major ones in an executive leverage victory period, for instance. In this sample, though, the largest number of cases in a period is eight. Six of those are relevant to the hypothesis; three are constraints and three are increases. One constraint is major; the other two are minor, as are all three increases.

And this period is overrepresented; others have only two cases, with no variation in the degree of constraint. With so few cases, the multinomial coding does not add any information. Rather, we can look at the overall increases and decreases which when paired with the more detailed information available for a small, high-profile sample of cases (laid out in section 5.6) is sufficient to test the hypothesis.

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5.6 The amendments in the historical context: 1933-1992

In order to understand manifestations of evolution, it is helpful to begin with a glimpse of political life in general. This section will explain every amendment to Article

27, discussing the changes by period.64 After explaining what each amendment changed,

I offer a brief overview on party dynamics and branch dynamics per period. Explicit discussion of how each amendment affected branch axis leverage relationships and party power axis leverage relationships is reserved for section 5.8, rather than being located here – this section is intended only to provide a historical overview.

Between the first amendment to Article 27 in 1933 and the last one in 1992, the article was modified 16 times. While the modification count is substantially lower than some of the articles governing legislative powers – for instance, Article 73 was modified more than 40 times in almost the same period – the average rate of modification for

Article 27 is still approximately one amendment every four years, and only a few of those amendments were purely cosmetic.

The first period, 1929-1945, contained four reforms to Article 27. The first amendment, from 1933, represents a major overhaul of the articles as written in the 1917 constitution. Interestingly, although this overhaul introduced several significant changes into the article, and although it coincided with Lázaro Cárdenas’ rise as the candidate for president of Mexico (the amendment was introduced in 1933 and passed in 1934, shortly

64 Although I cannot test the hypotheses by period due to the small sample size, I maintain discussion of periods for the case study in order to best reflect the theory and maximize comparability with the previous chapter. 163 before he took office) there is no record that the extent of these changes was at executive request; in fact, the observations in the Diario Oficial note that “In the executive’s

Initiative the reform of the article is not contemplated.” Given the rules governing the introduction of constitutional amendments, the lack of executive sponsorship implies that the impetus for the reform was located in the legislature. The idea that the legislature might challenge executive preferences is unusual in a dominant party system, and hints at the complexities of the branch axis leverage relationships. Benjamin (2010, 461) argues that the reform arose not out of executive desire but out of pressure from a growing faction of the PNR which had aligned itself behind Cárdenas. This was a significant break from previous administrations. The executive’s preference in this instance, as embodied by the orders of the Jefe Máximo Calles,65 were to terminate the ejido system, not expand it. While it would have been impossible to amend the constitution without the president’s support, the fact that he was pressured into the action highlights his inability to completely control the leverage relationship in this period.

Among other things, this first modification extended the government’s control over resource allocation. Mineral rights, which had not previously been discussed in the constitution, were given to the regime. Further, where the original version refused the government the ability to allocate forests and rivers, this amendment removed that refusal, tacitly granting the regime those rights. It also allowed the government to punish ejido members who did not maintain their land – the government was able to lower the

65 Plutarco Elias Calles was the president of Mexico between 1924 and 1928. Both prior to and after his presidency he was also the president of the PNR, the official party. His iron grip over the party and subsequent Mexican presidents led to his being called the Jefe Máximo, essentially supreme leader. He maintained this control until Cardenas exiled him to the United States in 1936. 164 land’s value if it was auctioned off (previously the constitution only allowed the government to increase the land’s value based on improvements made by the owner).

This modification also removed all previous rulings on land grants and land distribution that occurred between 1856 and 1915, essentially allowing the regime to cut all ties to the prior dictatorships. In conjunction with removing previous governments’ decisions on land ownership, it diminished private farmers’ ability to control their own land, declaring null any decisions between two land holders in which there was any dispute and giving the government the authority to re-issue those decisions.

The remaining three first-period amendments were of far less consequence than that initial amendment. The second amendment also represented a significant change, though not on the scope of the first – it expanded the executive’s authority to include settling disputes between land holders, essentially giving the executive total authority over the ejido assignment process. The third amendment represented an increase in governmental powers, as it was granted increased rights over minerals and gasses. The fourth amendment aimed to clarify various aspects of state possession of water sources.

The dynamics of the first period between the executive and the legislature, as captured through the amendments, show a struggle to achieve leverage victories. One of the most important changes in the first amendment is that it formally granted ultimate control over the entire land redistribution process to the executive. The process moves from the state level to a committee, then on to the executive – the legislature had no authority in making these decisions. However, the presidential powers may be balanced by certain other powers granted to the legislature. While the federal legislature had no

165 sway over the granting of new ejido lands, it did play an important role in breaking up existing ejidos and auctioning off any land the tenant held in excess of the constitutional allotment. By giving substantial powers both to the president and to the legislature, this amendment is an excellent example of the type of legislative-executive negotiations which characterized the period: the president was more powerful, but because he was still consolidating his control over the legislature, he was forced to make some concessions to it as well.

The first period was a complex one from the perspective of party history. The

PNR (later PRI) was still consolidating; it was not until the Cárdenas presidency (1934-

40) that the president became more powerful than the party leader. That power struggle, along with a fundamental disagreement over the future of the party between supporting the rural sector and supporting industrialization (Benjamin 2010, 448), was reflected in internal factionalization. However, the ruling party faced little organized opposition in this period – the existing opposition parties were small and weak, and many were incorporated into the catch-all ruling party.

The party that would come to truly oppose the regime, the PAN, was not present for most of the first period – it was not founded until 1939. The PAN was founded particularly as a reaction to the PNR’s more socialist tenets (Middlebrook 2001, 12), especially its land reform efforts. The party’s ideology with respect to these fundamental

166 issues was fairly consistent throughout the reign of the PNR/PRI,66 and heavily drawn from its founder, Manuel Gomez Morin (Ard 2003).

The second period, 1946-1976, saw nine reforms. Interestingly, the distribution of number of reforms of Article 27 in this period does not follow the distribution of reforms in the constitution as a whole. The rate of change in period 2, as laid out in chapter 4, was actually the lowest rate in the lifetime of the regime. By contrast, period 2 holds the most changes of any period to Article 27. However, as will be explained below, these changes were generally linked less to large-scale institutional evolution and more to the aims of the Golden Age of the PRI: strengthening the president’s position vis-à-vis party and legislature.

The fifth reform, from 1946, increased land owners’ rights relative to the central government. It set a minimum area for small property, expanded and redefined the maximum limits of the same, and granted land owners who have or may get the title to their land the right of legal defense against alienation – something earlier versions of the articles had explicitly denied them. The amendment was an anomaly for the period, the only one that weakened the central government. Other than the legal defense clause, though, the amendment offered only small increases in the rights of farmers. Even that improvement was minor – it guaranteed representation, not the quality or quantity of that representation and not any promise that having representation would improve the farmer’s change of keeping his land.

66 This consistency extended to party ideology on economic and social matters, but importantly, not to practical aspects like electoral participation. In fact, whether or not to participate in elections was a major issue within the party and caused a substantial schism in the 1970s that resulted in the PAN’s failure to nominate a presidential candidate for the 1976 election. 167

The next amendment, from 1947, followed the basic pattern for the period identified in the previous chapter by strengthening the executive’s leverage over the legislature. The amendment gave the Secretary of Relations the ability to approve sales of land to foreign governments for embassies (the previous version had not allowed any foreign entity to own land in Mexico; presumably, embassies were permitted at the tolerance of the Mexican government, although no explicit mention is made in the constitution). The Secretary of Relations was a cabinet member; as such, he was appointed by – and served at the discretion of – the president. This essentially became another way for the president to maintain control over land rights. The seventh reform, from 1959, also enabled a stronger executive – it increased his control over natural resources, granting him the sole ability to make concessions on minerals, gases, and hydro carbides, as well as expanding the territory in which these resources could be sought. This ability to distribute resource concessions was an important tool for the president, as it gave him ultimate control over a very powerful set of favors he could grant to corporations and supporters.

While almost all of these changes, both in number and in scope, strengthened the executive at the expense of the legislature, a few offered minor reforms that increased legislative powers. Reform #8, from 1960, granted the state the exclusive right to legislate on electricity and electric concessions – a power also present in Article 73. (The ninth reform is purely technical and has no impact.) The tenth reform addressed

Mexico’s entrance into the nuclear age, granting the state the sole right to use and regulate nuclear power. Like reform #8, this modification – which in the language of

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Article 27 only addressed the state, not a particular branch of government – had a counterpart in Article 73, where the regulatory power was granted to the legislature.

These three reforms reflect my argument from the previous chapter that in this period constitutional amendments were primarily an effort by the executive to make the legislature a more effective bureaucracy. Reform #11, proposed in 1975 and published in

1976, was more specific to Article 27, increasing the state’s control over the populace and reflecting an impression that the government knew what its people needed better than the people themselves did. The state was granted authority not just over rural development and territorial distribution, but even “to order human needs” – to tell others what they needed. The final reform in this period, reform #12, reflected the government’s growing concern with economic development, particularly in light of the

1973 recession and the failure of Mexican agriculture to produce sufficient goods. This reform extended the state’s coastal jurisdiction to 200 nautical miles, in which area an exclusive economic zone was to be created and regulated by the state.

The second period in particular saw the rise of the technocrats within the PRI, and a marked shift away from pro-ejido policies (Benjamin 2008, 470). The PRI presidents in this period had some of the lowest land grant rates in party history, despite the absence of a corresponding drop in requests for land (Assies 2008, 45). This shift was caused in part by the failure of Mexican farms to produce sufficiently, leading the state to import much of its food from the U.S. (Kelly 1994, 554). However, because of the importance of land reform within regime mythology, the party continued to support the word – though not the spirit – of Article 27.

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The PAN, meanwhile, was emerging as an important opposition voice, pushing for large-scale change (Ard 2003, 84) and forcing the PRI to recognize the PAN as an incipient threat, not to electoral victory but to the PRI’s total dominance of politics. This was particularly the case in the 1960s under PAN president Adolfo Christlieb, who used his strong working and personal relationship with Mexican president Diaz Ordaz to get the president to pressure local PRIistas into acknowledging many of the PAN’s local- level victories, something local ruling party leaders tried to avoid (Ard 2003). However, the PAN’s ability to achieve these sorts of gains diminished significantly after Diaz

Ordaz left office, though its efforts to do so did not.

The third period, 1977-1986, contains just two reforms. Reform 13 added two fragments to the article. The first increased the rights of ejidatarios by improving their access to the justice system, though the state maintained control of deciding the form of that justice. The second fragment laid out in greater detail the kinds of assistance the state was responsible for providing to the ejidos, in the name of increasing development.

The fourteenth reform was substantially less ambitious, putting ecological concerns under the powers and responsibilities of the state.

Both the PRI and the PAN experienced a shift to the right in this period. As described in Chapter 3, the 1982 economic crisis caused many PRI supporters in the business sector to shift their support to the PAN; in response, the PRI became more pronounced in its technocratic approaches. The party was losing interest in its once-vital rural base, as its attention shifted to dealing with economic and political crises like the growth of the Corriente Democrático. Meanwhile, the PAN shifted from an ideology

170 oriented towards social justice to one oriented towards neoliberalism (Middlebrook 2001,

16) and also began to redevelop its Catholic roots (Ard 2003, 136-137). The party had never been either confessional or formally Christian Democratic – in fact, the Christian

Democratic contingent had been ejected from the party in the prior period – but its founders and many of its supporters were Catholic, and that Catholicism became more prominent during this period.

The fourth period, 1987-1993, also contained two changes. These changes were of extreme importance and also mark the final modifications to Article 27 – no modifications were made in the fifth period. Both reforms stem from 1991 (published in

1992, and therefore generally referred to as the 1992 reforms), and represented a complete overhaul of Article 27. Among other details, they removed restrictions on religious and charitable organizations owning land, dissolved much of the ejido bureaucracy, gave ejido members the ability to make sales without outside authority, and created a state-run system for the ejidos to facilitate their transition to true private property should the ejidatarios desire it.67 Additionally, and crucially, they granted corporations the right to own land – something these organizations had been denied since the revolution. In short, the final two amendments completely altered both the form and function of the article. These changes marked the end of the regime’s use of Article 27 as a means to control the peasants. Land grants had been one of the tools available to ensure that peasants supported the regime, but creating a bureaucratic circus where applications for ejidos could be left undecided for years allowed the regime to go through the motions

67 It is worth noting that while the amendments set up the titling procedure, the actual process of titling lands to allow private sale has generally been extremely slow, due to the usual level of Mexican bureaucratic red tape. 171 of rewarding supporters without actually ceding any land. The ability to sell land signified a shift from small farms as properties loaned by the state, to true private property. It also formally allowed the formation of large farms – suddenly, wealthy individuals or companies could buy multiple ejidos and combine them into one large farm. These amendments created a land ownerships system that was almost diametrically opposed to the one originally designed.

This period marked the PRI’s formal abandonment of land reform as a tool to justify its regime. In fact, President Salinas actually set out to alter the party’s ideology:

“Salinas, therefore, sought to abandon the official ‘revolutionary nationalism’ ideology by creating a new ideology for the party, called ‘social liberalism.’ This new ideology was to bring market capitalism and social welfare together and to distinguish Salinas’ approach from the much-maligned neoliberalism. The new paradigm would justify his abandonment of revolutionary icons like the anticlerical articles of the Constitution, economic protectionism, and the preservation of communal land in Article 27.” (Ard 2003, 133) This period saw significant factionalization within the ruling party, particularly with regards to the Article 27 reforms. The party essentially divided internally into campesinistas and “modernizing technocrats,” (Cornelius and Myhre 1998, 4-5) with the technocrats eventually emerging on top and helping to shape the future of the party.

Meanwhile, the PRI-PAN relationship was evolving. The PAN had always been firmly opposed to Article 27 and was ideologically in favor of the modifications. The changes within the PRI allowed the PRI and the PAN to actually work together regarding the reforms (Ard 2003, 135). The PAN was in a stronger bargaining position at this point due to the heavily contested 1988 elections and the PRI’s need for PAN support to ratify the ruling party’s victory.

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5.7 Research Design

The research design employed in this chapter echoes the research design from chapter 4, though altered to fit the small sample size. I use Article 27 as a plausibility probe for my theory; the extremely high importance the regime placed on land reform implies that changes should be seriously considered by all actors, rather than casually made. The connection between Article 27 and revolutionary legitimacy also means modifications had to be screened for any potential impact on regime legitimacy, furthering the level of debate regarding amendments. I test the hypotheses by looking for a simple correlation between the X values (executive-legislative leverage in hypotheses

2a and 2b; ruling party-opposition party leverage in hypotheses 1a and 1b) and the Y values (constraints vs. increases in legislative power for hypotheses 2a and 2b; major vs. minor institutional shifts in hypotheses 1a and 1b). Because of the small sample size, however, the correlations alone may present insufficient evidence to demonstrate the theory’s accuracy. Therefore for each hypothesis I include a commentary on why these changes were made; the case information in conjunction with the predicted correlations is viewed as sufficient to support the hypotheses.

Because of the small number of cases, and the fairly complex coding decisions, my analysis of the findings includes an in-depth discussion of the coding for each decision. The following section offers broad strokes for coding decisions, and the section after that discusses individual decisions in greater depth.

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5.7.1 Coding decisions and data sources

The hypotheses yield four variables for which coding decisions must be made: executive-legislative leverage victories, increasing/constraining legislative powers, ruling party-opposition party leverage victories, and major/minor institutional changes. These variables were explained in detail in chapter 4; the discussion below offers only a brief restatement.

Executive leverage victory means the executive is strong enough to act on legislation without compensating the legislature in any way. This can be seen by examining the wording of an amendment between initial and final draft. Because most modifications throughout the constitution are sponsored by the president – and in the case of Article 27, all of them are - an executive-dominant law will have no or only cosmetic changes between drafts. Unlike the amendments in chapter 4, every amendment to

Article 27 was available in both initial and final forms.

Legislative leverage victories are visible when the executive must buy off the legislature/ the legislature is able to insert its own preferences and requests into the law- making process. This can be seen by again comparing initial and final drafts; if actual changes occur, the legislature is able to exert leverage.

One additional piece of data is used to proxy strong executive leverage capabilities: the length of time between the amendment’s presentation and its publication in the Diario Oficial. Every amendment in this sample was introduced by the executive,68

68 This may lead to concerns about a lack of variation. However, executive-introduced legislation was the overwhelming standard throughout the PRI’s reign (Casar 2002). This is in keeping with the political 174 which I interpret to mean that the initial version of every amendment had executive support. Additionally, the executive was responsible for authorizing the publication of successful amendments in the Diario Oficial. The middle phase – debate and passage of the amendment – was dependent on Congress. When the entire process happened in just a few months, it suggests that Congress was essentially just signing off on what the executive proposed – a sign of strong executive leverage. However, when the process was much slower, there is reason to suspect that other dynamics, likely including legislative-executive bargaining, were in play – a sign of weaker executive leverage. In order to capture this dynamic conservatively and avoid Type I errors, I code “slower process” as those cases that ran a year or more from start to finish. One year is used because it incorporates both the annual meetings of Congress, suggesting significant foot- dragging by the legislature when a law is not addressed in that time. This measure is only used to differentiate between instances of strong and weak leverage (that is, overwhelming executive leverage capabilities as opposed to cases where concessions might be expected from the executive), not to determine whether the executive or the legislature is the leverage victor.

When the ruling party is the leverage victor, it is able to act on legislative issues without opposition support; when the opposition party exerts leverage it is able to force concessions from the ruling party. This can be seen by examining the language of the approved modification for support of the opposition platform. Coding for this variable is based off of applying knowledge of each party’s platform to the language of the

dynamics of a dominant party regime. For this reason, my analysis ignores the introduction of the bill or law and explores variation only after that point – variation which clearly exists, as this chapter will show. 175 amendment – an amendment that reflects elements of the ruling party’s platform is coded as demonstrating ruling party leverage, while an amendment that reflects elements of the opposition party’s platform is coded as demonstrating opposition party leverage.

Since in the context of a small-n sample, rate of constitutional change is not a valid indicator of institutional evolution, institutional evolution here will be captured by major versus minor changes. Major changes are those that significantly reshape the institution; minor changes do not. Following Kaufman Purcell (1973), it is argued that major changes are more likely to be proposed close to the end of the year (the legislative session ends in December) in order to minimize debate. Minor changes will generally occur earlier in the year. This variable will also be substantiated with anecdotal evidence about the significance and magnitude of the change.69

Increases to and constraints on legislative powers refer to whether the amendment represents an expansion or contraction of legislative powers, compared to the previous iteration. This variable is best observed by examining the final language of the modification as compared to the language of the preceding version.

The primary data source for all coding decisions is the Diario Oficial, and its record of amendments to the constitution. I draw from both the amendment as originally proposed to the legislature and the version that was eventually passed by the legislature.

I do not include amendments that were proposed and rejected; from a theoretical perspective, the failure to create a change in the constitution does not cause institutional

69 In the discussion of coding decisions, I primarily offer the historical evidence for coding an amendment major or minor. Kaufman Purcell’s argument is substantiated, however – five of the six major changes were introduced in December, compared with only three of the ten minor changes. 176 evolution since the institution then just maintains its previous state. From a practical perspective, the large time span of the theory as well as the Mexican record-keeping system (which generally excluded records of unsuccessful amendments from the Diario

Oficial) make compiling that data very difficult.

5.8 Findings

In this section, I will summarize the statistical findings and discuss coding decisions in-depth. The table below provides an overview of coding and hypothesis outcomes for each case.

[Table 5.2 here]

Because of the small sample size and the qualitative coding decisions, it is worth discussing each case in detail. The preliminary data analysis strongly supports three of the four hypotheses advanced earlier in the chapter and weakly supports the fourth one regarding executive leverage victories.

Given the extremely small sample size (n=16), the data were tested using a simple cross-tabs approach. The statistical findings cannot stand alone, however; in addition to the small sample size overall, many of the cases that initially appear to be outliers can be explained with historical evidence, necessitating an in-depth discussion of all findings as seen in the previous section. Furthermore, some of the cases to test each set of hypotheses were not actually relevant to the hypothesis, and thus were excluded from analysis. For the first two hypotheses there were three irrelevant cases, for an n of 13.

For the second two hypotheses there were four irrelevant cases, for an n of 12. 177

The first two hypotheses, (1a) and (1b) regarding party power axis leverage relationships, were strongly supported by the data. In ten cases the ruling party was dominant. Of those, seven (70%) were associated with minor constitutional changes and three (30%) were associated with major changes. In an additional three relevant cases the opposition exerted leverage over the ruling party. All of those cases were correctly predicted to occur with major changes. The table below offers an overview of the findings.

Table 5.3. Party power axis leverage findings Major vs. minor changes Party power leverage Major change Minor change victor Ruling party 3 7 Opposition party 3 0

In these hypotheses, directionality matters – that is, I expect opposition leverage to lead to major changes, but not necessarily the other way around. Directionality matters particularly because of the mechanism for the institutional shift: a legitimacy crisis. The regime’s efforts to change Article 27 were consistently reactionary (Walsh Sanderson

1984, 71-72) rather than preemptive. When a legitimacy crisis occurred, the regime examined the interests of those who threatened its legitimacy and then reacted by making a change. Major changes sometimes occurred without opposition leverage because the threat to the regime’s legitimacy was not connected to the external opposition – it originated from within the party. However, the dominant party nature of the system – the fact that the regime was de facto in a position of power – suggests that any incidence of

178 opposition leverage occurred because of a legitimacy crisis, so that any time the opposition exerted leverage, that leverage was associated with a major institutional shift.

Table 5.4. Coding decisions for Hypotheses 1a and 1b

Amendment Date Party power Major/minor change leverage winner 1 1933/1934 Ruling party Major 2 1936/1937 Ruling party Major 3 1938/1940 Ruling party Minor 4 1943/1945 Ruling party Minor 5 1946/1947 Ruling party Major 7 1959/1960 Ruling party Minor 8 1960/1960 Ruling party Minor 10 1974/1975 Ruling party Minor 11 1975/1976 Ruling party Minor 12 1975/1976 Ruling party Minor 13 1982/1983 Opposition party Major 15 1991/1992 Opposition party Major 16 1991/1992 Opposition party Major Table 5.4 above lays out all coding decisions for hypotheses (1a) and (1b). For these hypotheses, concerning the relationship between the party power axis and major or minor constitutional changes, three cases were excluded from analysis as unrelated to the hypotheses being tested: amendment #6 (1947/1948),70 amendment #9 (1974/1975), and amendment #14 (1987). Amendment #6 granted the federal executive the ability to grant land to foreign nations for embassies; amendment #9 dropped the word “territories” from all areas of the article that previously referred to “states and territories”; and amendment

#14 put under the government’s purview the ability to make decisions to protect the environment. These cases were excluded because nothing in their content suggested any

70 The dates given are of initial presentation to the legislature, when the amendment was first suggested, and publication in the Diario Oficial, when it passed into law. 179 sort of variation between the ruling party and the opposition party. In the three cases given above, neither party’s platform was reflected in the amendment.

Six of the remaining 13 cases were coded as major institutional changes – that is, amendments that significantly altered/reshaped the institution. Amendments 1

(1933/1934), 2 (1936/1937), 5 (1946/1947), 13 (1982/1983), 15 (1991/1992) and 16

(1991/1992) were all major institutional shifts. These six modifications are the major changes made to article 27, reflecting major shifts in the legislature itself. The remaining modifications are all coded as minor in that, while they may mark significant changes to the article, the constitution and the legislature, they do not change the shape of the overall institution. The historical evidence for coding major shifts will be addressed below, as I discuss the coding decisions for the party power axis. As a robustness check, it is worth noting that all but one of the cases coded as major shifts followed Kaufman Purcell’s

(1973) intuition of being introduced late in the legislative session – here, December. The one case that was not introduced in December was introduced in November.

Beginning with hypothesis 1b, Amendments 13, 15 and 16 were all coded as opposition party leverage victories. Amendment 13 increased the legal controls around ejido formation and made economic development a tenet of the role of the state. In doing so, it reflected the PAN’s platform, especially in terms of encouraging economic development in the rural areas. The PAN of this time was characterized by neopanismo:

“The neopanismo movement was characterized by a return to pro-business considerations, more forceful government criticism, and more aggressive political activism. But as a rule the neopanistas were not antagonistic to the party’s traditions or fundamental doctrine. Neopanistas, even those closely associated with the Monterrey business community, backed the

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PAN’s traditional doctrine of state supervisions of the economy to provide shelter against the ravages of ‘savage’ capitalism.” (Ard 2003, 100) Traditionally, rural lands had been protected by the PRI, and the economic growth of the countryside was supported less through actual development and more through state-sponsored subsidies. These subsidies worked against the PAN’s interest in a more open market and in developing the area. By shifting the focus from subsidies to actual development, as the modification did, the amendment was more reflective of the PAN’s public goals than of those of the PRI. Amendment 13 also represents a major shift, in a similar direction to amendment 5 but still changing the shape of the institution. Where amendment 5 granted farmers some legal rights, amendment 13 shifted the focus of the state from protecting its own rights and administering land decisions to actively protecting the interests of farmers. This included such provisions as decreeing the state responsible for improving agricultural infrastructure (something previously dependent on ejidatarios). Amendment 13 occurred during the economic crisis, when the regime’s legitimacy was challenged as a result of its inability to avoid the crisis. The timing is not coincidental; Castillo (2004, 66-67) describes the amendment explicitly as a response to the crisis.

Amendments 15 and 16 also directly reflect the PAN platform. Amendment 15

(1991/1992) represented the single greatest change in the history of Article 27. This amendment completely changed ownership of the ejidos. Rather than the ejidos being essentially property of the state granted to ejidatarios to farm, and theirs so long as they maintained the land, this amendment gave ejidatarios the ability to buy and sell land independently, and allowed ejido ownership to be treated more like typical property

181 ownership once the ejido titling process was completed. It also, crucially, granted businesses and commercial industries the ability to buy land – something that had been explicitly denied them since 1917. The amendment represented a massive shift from the promise of the revolution, moving from forbidding larger-scale land ownership to tacitly encouraging it (while still formally banning latifundios) by granting more land to private industry – something for which the PAN had advocated for quite some time, as it created more space for private industry. In terms of major institutional evolutionary shifts, this amendment showcased the end of the revolutionary regime – a definite shift away from the PRI’s justification of its power as the party of the revolution and towards a more

“business as usual” approach to politics. In the spirit of that transition, amendment 16

(1991/1992 also) marked a final, vital transition away from revolutionary ideals by granting religious institutions the right to own land. The final reform is also a direct reflection on the PAN’s Catholic heritage and represented the culmination of reforms the party had been pursuing at least since 1987 (Ard 2003, 136-137). I contend that these almost-concurrent changes were, again, a response to a legitimacy crisis: in this case, the crisis arising out of the 1988 presidential election and the regime’s near-loss of the legislature in 1991. Faced with the possibility of regime demise, the PRI scrabbled to maintain control, attempting to satisfy key groups of supporters that were threatening to depart (Appendini 1998, 29).

The remaining ten relevant cases all demonstrate ruling-party leverage. Of these, three are major changes and seven are minor changes, generally reflecting what the theory predicts. Amendments 5 (1946/1947) and 7 (1959/1960) both demonstrate a

182 strengthening of landholders’ rights that reflects the PRI’s platform as the party of the revolution and the party of the poor, against the wealthy. Amendment 5 is also a major institutional shift in terms of the rights of ejidatarios. Previously, the legislature had generally been set up to lay out the powers of the branches of government; although there was a section on rights of citizens, it contained mostly generic lofty ideals rather than enforcement capabilities (for instance, “All Mexicans by birth are entitled to citizenship”). Amendment 5 marked an important change in the approach to rights, by granting ejidatarios the right of amparo, or the ability to challenge the government’s decisions (in this case, the decision to expropriate land) as unconstitutional71. Prior to this amendment, ejidatarios had no legal recourse should the state decide to expropriate their land (Walsh Sanderson 1984, 46). Thus, granting them the ability to challenge the decision – and to do so by having it declared unconstitutional – marks a significant shift in how the legislature related to voters. This change can again be traced to a legitimacy crisis, in this case overcoming the Almazán rebellion. The regime struggled to maintain its public image as the party of the revolution while simultaneously cutting or decreasing many of the peasants’ gains from the Cárdenas era without inviting further opposition

(Walsh Sanderson 1984, 57). In this case as well as for the two remaining major changes, the attempt to cut responsibilities to farmers arose from struggles within the party regarding the balance between economic development and peasant support (Grindle

1986). Amendment 7 is a minor change, as it does not alter the direction of the institution.

71 For a discussion of amparo, see Lutz (1996). 183

Amendments 3 (1938/1940), 4 (1943/1945), 8 (1960), 10 (1974/1975) and 12

(1975/1976) all deal with relatively small expansions to the state’s powers. Amendment

3 allows the state to legislate over petroleum in all its forms. Amendment 4 grants the state the ability to distribute water rights, while 8 is concerned with legislating electricity and 10 with legislating nuclear power. These all reflect the PRI’s platform in terms of granting more powers to the state – in the case of these modifications, at the expense of private industry. Amendment 12, meanwhile, establishes an exclusive economic zone under the state’s purview – and in doing so, further increases the area under state control, reflecting PRI goals. They are also all minor changes.

The changes made in amendments 1 (1933/1934) and 2 (1936/1937) also display ruling party leverage. The first amendment substantially rewrote Article 27, eliminating all references to the prior regime as well as removing most of the earlier rules governing sales and alienation of communal land. It also added ten new fragments to the article, revising the rules of sale and expropriation and setting up the legal system as it related to land ownership. The 1917 version of the article was largely aspirational; it was, as has been previously mentioned, a significant part of the regime’s justification for its rule.

The 1933/1934 amendment moved the article – and the legislature for which it was a vehicle – from an aspirational approach to a more practical, concrete one. This was an important indicator of the legislature’s ability to govern as a representative body.

Amendment 2 represents a major institutional shift in terms of how it grants large amounts of power to the executive that had previously been unassigned – which essentially meant that the legislature could no longer utilize those powers. The

184 amendment rewrites fragment VII in such a way as to essentially grant the federal executive sole power over the assignment of communal land. This reflects the trend within Mexican politics at the time towards greater consolidation of power in the executive at the expense of the legislature. 1936/1937 was the height of the Cárdenas sexenio, the period in which he successfully exiled former party boss Calles and unified the disparate factions of the PRI into the rough shape of the party it remained for the next

60+ years. Despite the absence of a sole unified opposition party and a weakened legislature in this period, both changes represent a strengthening of core PRI values, including the attribution of greater powers to the state.

Finally, amendment 11 (1975/1976) represents a very paternalistic view of the state-society relationship. It essentially allows the state to make decisions about citizens’ needs, without consulting the citizens themselves. This paternalism is very reflective of the PRI’s platform, basically conferring on the party the ability to legislate every measure of public life – a tendency reflected in the PRI’s involuntary incorporation of workers into the party. Workers in the industries represented by the major party branches were required to become union members, and then automatically enrolled as party members

(Goldin 1989).

The testing confirms the association between the dependent and independent variables for the first pair of hypotheses, and the explanation above explains the coding decisions and details the content of each amendment. But why did these changes happen? What is the overarching link between the individual amendments and the patterns of institutional evolution? In the case of the first two hypotheses, the changes

185 happened because of a struggle to determine the relationship between the ruling party and the state. When the ruling party exerted leverage, constitutional changes were primarily minor because they were aimed at clarifying the role of the legislature and fixing the party and the state as functionally indistinguishable. When the opposition party exerted leverage, however, the changes were exclusively major because they were aimed at a major political overhaul: extricating the ruling party from the state.

For the hypothesized link between ruling party leverage and minor constitutional changes, there are three cases that challenge the hypothesis. The three major changes that occur under ruling party leverage contrary to prediction are about setting ejidatarios’ rights. As laid out above, the first two changes, from 1933 and 1936, significantly circumscribe those rights. The intent appears to be to facilitate regime consolidation. In the first 20 years of the constitution (from about 1915 to 1935), very few land grants were actually made, and until Cárdenas’ presidency, party leaders were more interested in using Article 27 to maintain the appearance of concession to peasants than in actually making concessions. I have detailed 1929-1945 as a period of consolidation, where the party was consolidating its control over the people and the executive was consolidating his control over the party. Both the first two changes are about consolidating control of the ejido properties in the hands of the central government, and reflect the general theme of consolidation throughout the period. The third change, from 1946, falls very slightly outside of the period of consolidation – it is the very beginning of the second period - but is still demonstrating consolidation. It very slightly increases ejidatarios’ rights, but ensures that that increase (access to the judicial system) is still overseen by the state.

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These three changes, which seem to challenge the hypothesis, are actually reflective of the ruling party using its monolithic presence in the legislature to promote the consolidation of the state. The nature of that consolidation is such that it binds rank-and- file voters to the party: in order to win and retain ejidos in a system so dominated by the party and the party’s bureaucracy, prospective ejidatarios were forced to maintain a positive relationship with the party.

The outliers, then, are about consolidating the role of the party with respect to the state. The confirming cases are less about establishing the regime’s control than about clarifying the role of the legislature, and through it, further linking the party and the state.

The cases are almost entirely located in the second period (the exceptions are two cases in the latter half of the first period). The second period was when the party was at its absolute strongest; the changes in this period pertained to using a party-dominated legislature to intertwine the party and the state. Increasing governmental control over a variety of resources when the party controlled the legislature meant that any businesses interested in a variety of lucrative areas – oil drilling, mining, etc. – would have to build and sustain a positive relationship with the party. At the same time, the increasing restrictions on what land was held by ejidatarios (for instance, no mineral rights, limited water rights, etc.) tied into the party’s central role in assigning and administering ejidos and meant that ejidatarios were also increasingly beholden to the party. Both the confirming cases and the outliers were caused by efforts to inextricably link the ruling party and the state.

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For the hypothesized link between opposition party leverage and major constitutional changes, there are three cases. They are all in the fourth period (1982,

1991, and 1991), when the opposition had emerged as a vital force in politics. The emergence of the opposition had a great deal to do with why these changes occurred. As the PAN was becoming more prominent, winning more seats at both the local and national levels of government, there was a shift in political values that favored the opposition’s goals. As explained earlier, the 1982 economic crisis caused a shift to the right both for the PAN and for the PRI. That shift to the right meant, among other things, the recognition that the ejidos were not generally profitable and that profitability was more important than the promise of the revolution. This too fit with the continuing prominence of the technocrats in the PRI. The ejidos were largely unprofitable, and in many cases a dramatic workforce shortage caused by emigration to the U.S. meant that the land was actually going unworked (Stephen, 1993). These factors means that from a fiscal perspective, cutting government expenditures on the ejidos and allowing the formation of more profitable large farms (which had the benefit of generating revenue for the state) was a logical solution. This also fit well with something that had been one of the PAN’s central tenets from formation: that private property should be encouraged, not restricted (Principios de Doctrina 1985, 18). The 1991/92 reforms were aimed at facilitating an increase in private property. Not coincidentally, making these reforms – particularly increasing opportunities to turn ejidos into private property – involved transforming the state’s approach to the economy from total control into somewhat more hands-off, which also reduced the regime’s influence.

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Hypotheses 2a and 2b address the connection between the branch power axis and the effect on legislative powers. Specifically, I hypothesize that (2a) When the executive exerts leverage over the legislature, changes are more likely to constrain legislative powers and (2b) When the legislature exerts leverage over the executive, changes are more likely to increase legislative powers.

Table 5.5 presents the findings for these hypotheses.

Table 5.5. Branch axis leverage findings Effect on legislative power Branch leverage Increases legislative Constrains legislative victor powers powers Executive 4 5 Legislature 2 1 Overall, both hypotheses find support. (2a) is supported by the data (though as detailed below, the cases which do not follow the predicted pattern suggest that the hypothesis is only weakly supported): of the nine cases in which the executive exerted leverage, five of them (55%) constrained the legislature and four (45%) increased legislative powers. (2b) is also supported, in that two (67%) of the three relevant cases of legislative leverage were associated with increases in legislative power. The one (33%) case that does not support the hypothesis, however, merits further discussion.

Legislative leverage is coded simply as whether there are substantive changes between the proposed amendment and the final amendment. The justification for this coding for the dissertation as a whole is the assumption that the executive sponsors the vast majority of proposed amendments72 and so begins the amendment process with the

72 As previously mentioned, the executive sponsored the majority of amendments to all areas of the constitution (n~500). Specific to Article 27, he sponsored all of them (n=16). 189 field already tilted in his favor; thus, any substantive changes made are expected to be to the detriment of the executive and the benefit of the legislature. In two of the three cases of legislative dominance, this pattern holds true. However, in the seventh amendment to

Article 27 (1959/1960), while the structural conditions for coding the amendment as one of legislative leverage are met – substantive changes are made – the content does not support the coding. As laid out below, the changes made between the preliminary amendment draft and the final amendment draft uniformly strengthen the executive, at the expense of the legislature. For instance, an addition to the text between drafts grants the president the ability to grant concessions on natural resources and to determine what the nation’s needs are in terms of resource reserves, as well as to surpass those needs.

Legislative leverage was defined as the legislature’s ability to insert its own preferences into an amendment, essentially forcing the executive to buy it off. The changes made in this amendment work against that process. If this case were coded to accurately reflect the amendment, it would be counted as an additional case of executive leverage where the legislature is constrained, bringing the total number of cases there to six (60%) out of ten and presenting further evidence for hypothesis (2a), as reflected in the table below.

Table 5.6. Recoded branch axis leverage findings Effect on legislative power Branch leverage Increases legislative Constrains legislative victor powers powers Executive 4 6 Legislature 2 0

The period which the theory predicts as a legislative leverage relationship victory is not represented in this sample, because no changes were made after 1992 and that final 190 period does not begin until 1994. However, the findings support the theory that 1929-45 and 1988-93 represented executive leverage victories, but not uncomplicated ones: both periods displayed enough legislative gains to suggest a power struggle between the branches. The long time horizon for movement from presentation to declaration in the early years suggests a behind-the-scenes process between the executive and the legislature, while the fact that several modifications from the later period show substantial changes between the draft and the final product supports the argument that the legislature was gaining power and was able to force concessions to a much greater extent than had historically been the case.

Of the 16 cases in these hypotheses, four – amendments 3 (1938/1940), 5

(1946/1947), 9 (1974), and 16 (1991/1992) - were excluded from analysis as irrelevant to the hypotheses. All four cases were excluded as irrelevant to the question of whether legislative powers are increased or constrained. It should be noted that this does not mean the modifications themselves were irrelevant; on the contrary, amendments 5 and

16 both represented major institutional shifts as discussed above. However, these shifts did not affect legislative powers, and so are excluded. The table below delineates all coding decisions for the second set of hypotheses, in order to encapsulate the findings.

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Table 5.7. Coding decisions for hypotheses 2a and 2b

Amendment Date Branch leverage Increase/constrain victor legislative power 1 1933/1934 Executive Constrain 2 1936/1937 Executive Constrain 4 1943/1945 Executive Constrain 6 1947/1947 Executive Constrain 7 1959/1960 Legislature Constrain 8 1960/1960 Executive Increase 10 1974/1975 Executive Increase 11 1975/1976 Executive Constrain 12 1975/1976 Executive Increase 13 1982/1983 Legislature Increase 14 1991/1992 Executive Increase 15 1991/1992 Legislature Increase Of the remaining 12 cases, nine were coded executive leverage victories and three were coded legislature leverage victories. Five of the executive-leverage cases constrained legislative powers, while the remaining four increased legislative powers.

Although those five cases represent support for hypothesis 2a, the four cases that do not follow the predicted pattern merit special attention. Amendments 8 (1960), 10

(1974/1975), 12 (1975/1976) and 14 (1987) are all executive-leverage victories and legislative-power increasing, opposite to the theory’s prediction. Amendments 8 and 10 are somewhat unusual relative to the other cases, in that they do not explicitly mention the legislature at any point; rather, as discussed above, amendment 8 grants the state the exclusive right to legislate on electricity and amendment 10 grants the state the exclusive right to legislate on nuclear power. Neither discusses the role of the legislature specifically; however, amendments to Article 73 pass that ability to legislate exclusively to the legislature, which results in the amendments to Article 27 being coded as an increase to legislative powers. It should be noted, however, that these are particularly minor increases; they may be less about increasing the overall power of the legislature at 192 the expense of the executive than about the executive delegating some level of authority.

Additionally, the quick turnaround from presentation to decree for both amendments suggests a strong executive in terms of the leverage relationship, which indicates that there is no hidden bargaining, nor do the amendments appear to be contested by the legislature. If the passage of these amendments were contested and required legislative- executive bargaining, we would expect a drawn-out process from presentation to decree; however, both amendments went through the process in two to three months, including the Christmas recess. Amendment 14 falls under a similar explanation, in that no mention of the legislature itself is made in the amendment (which decrees that the state will attempt to protect the environment); however, changes to other areas of the

Constitution grant that power to the legislature (Varela Olivas unpublished, fn 5). This is the case for amendment 12 as well.

While the 55% of cases correctly predicted in terms of executive leverage- constrained legislature linkages does somewhat support hypothesis 2a, the support is weak at best. One possible explanation for the weak support is a coding issue – for instance, the amendments that do not directly mention the legislature might arguably need to be excluded from analysis.73 However, a more likely explanation is that the legislature serves multiple purposes. In chapter 2 I discussed arguments within the literature on authoritarian legislatures that explain the legislature both as an administrative unit, helping the executive to distribute governing responsibilities, and as a

73 While I accept this as a possible explanation, I do not agree with it – I contend that even an indirect impact on legislative powers is sufficient to merit inclusion. 193 way to co-opt and institutionalize the opposition. These four cases appear to be examples of the legislature functioning primarily as a bureaucracy.

Of the amendments that support hypothesis 2a (amendments 1, 2, 4, 6, and 11), amendments 2, 4, and 6 merit special discussion. All follow the coding rule – no or only cosmetic changes between the initial proposal and the final decree – but they demonstrate a second dynamic indicative of a more complex relationship between the executive and the legislature, in the form of the amount of time necessary to move from proposal to decree. All three had relatively long time horizons (about a year or more) to complete the legislative process. One of the key dynamics many scholars identify when discussing legislative-executive relations in Mexico is the executive’s ability to force bills through the legislature (Weldon 2002; Casar 2002). And it is true that these three amendments passed, and passed in the language that the original presenter – the executive – preferred.

However, when the legislature is simply a vehicle for the executive, as opposed to any sort of check on his power, we would expect that amendments would be approved fairly quickly – as was in fact the case with amendments 1 and 11, which moved through the entire process in one and three months respectively. A failure to move through the process quickly suggests deliberate foot-dragging on the part of the legislature. One of the legislature’s principal capabilities – one of the few areas over which the executive has no direct influence – is in how long it takes to process a piece of legislation. The fairly long time horizons exhibited by amendments 2, 4 and 6 suggest some sort of protracted negotiations between the legislature and the executive. Since there is no evidence of negotiation in the language of these amendments themselves, it is plausible that the

194 executive was forced to make concessions to the legislature in some other area. For instance, amendment 4 coincided with the timeframe in which the modifications to parties’ participation would have been discussed (this is the 1946 law creating thresholds for parties to participate in national politics); while no direct evidence of an exchange exists, it is plausible that the legislature delayed amending Article 27 in exchange for some sort of concessions to the 1946 law. This evidence of a power struggle between the executive and the legislature reflects my periodization premise from chapter 2, in which I argued that during the first period – 1929-1945 – the executive was still working to consolidate his control over the legislature and the party. Amendments 2 and 4 fall within the first period, and amendment 6 is at the very beginning of the second period,

1947.

Hypothesis 2b is supported by amendments 13 and 15; amendment 7, which is coded as legislature-leverage, demonstrates a constraint on legislative powers.

Amendment 7 appears to be the outlier here, but arguably this is simply a question of more qualitative evidence being needed to support the coding measures. While amendment 7 does demonstrate real and significant changes between the proposal and the decree, those changes are uniformly ones that strengthen the role of the executive. As such, this suggests not a demonstration of legislative leverage but in fact continued executive leverage – which is in line with the finding that the modification constrains legislative powers. Amendments 13 and 15 both represent increases in legislative powers

– both explicitly or implicitly grant powers to the legislature, and amendment 15 also removes powers from the executive.

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Where the changes in the first set of hypotheses spoke to the struggle to determine the relationship of the ruling party to the state, the changes affecting this second set of hypotheses can be attributed to the struggle to determine the appropriate role of the legislature.

When the executive exerted leverage, increases occurred because he used the legislature as a bureaucracy and needed to update that bureaucracy. Constraints, however, were about containing power in his hands. When the legislature exerted leverage, the sole constraint was again due to the legislature’s role as a bureaucracy: rather than acting as a power-maximizer, it was facilitating law-making. When increases occurred, however, they were efforts to alter the role of the legislature, and to help improve Mexico’s economic status.

In terms of the relationship between the executive and constraints to legislative powers, all four outliers are really a function of the executive using the legislature as a bureaucracy, as identified in chapter 4. The outliers involve the legislature gaining the ability to legislate over electricity, nuclear power, and environmental issues, and setting up an exclusive economic zone. These broadly fit with the picture of the executive using the legislature as a bureaucracy, increasing its sphere of influence in order to decrease his workload on specific but generally trivial areas. The first three amendments were raised in 1960, 1974 and 1975. In this period, the legislature was quite weak and confronted with an immensely powerful executive, as laid out in chapters 2 and 4. The amendments from this period are not significant changes in existing legislative capabilities; rather, they represent slight modifications in keeping with technology and political trends.

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Of the five cases that confirm the hypothesis, most stem from the first period, which reflects the executive’s need to bring the legislature under his control in this timeframe.

However, the later amendments – the 1947 amendment allowing the executive’s minister to sell land to foreign powers in particular – point to the executive constraining the legislature in order to add important powers to his own parcel. The legislature previously had the final say over foreign land sales; with this amendment, that authority passed to the executive. In making his appointee the only one able to sell land to foreigners

(primarily for embassies and other governmental buildings), the executive situated himself as the ultimate arbiter of land rights in Mexico. Throughout much of the first period, the changes enacted under the ruling party were aimed at bringing the people under the party’s control; the executive’s role after that, particularly evident in the 1947 reform, was to bring the party under his control. This is reflected in other amendments to article 27 which reorganize the ejido-assignment structure, flipping from a system where a federal legislative committee was the ultimate authority to one where a committee out of the president’s office was the ultimate land distribution authority.

In terms of the link between legislative leverage victories and increasing legislative powers, one case is an outlier and two cases support the hypothesis. The challenging case here, where the legislature constrains itself, stems from 1959 and gives the executive authority over natural resources. This outlier, however, is less a challenge to the theory than evidence of executive authority – this was the middle of the second period, when the legislature was essentially a bureaucratic arm for the president. The change here increases presidential powers, which fits that approach. The president had

197 an incentive to keep control of natural resources in his own hands, rather than ceding such an important area to the legislature: resource rights can be extremely lucrative. By maintaining executive control, the president was able to limit legislative abilities to raise funds, which would have increased the ability of legislators to act independently. In this way, the disconfirming case actually confirms the theory, as laid out in chapter 4 and reiterated above: the only instance in which the legislature behaved unexpectedly is one in which it was essentially controlled by the executive.

Both the confirming cases represent important changes to article 27, and both grant further powers to the legislature while simultaneously diminishing the regime’s powers. These cases were a reflection of the opposition’s increasing role in the state.

Amendment 15 in particular gave oversight capabilities back to the legislature, building a group that would help to facilitate ejido titling in order to permit sales when the ejidatarios wanted them. Again, the efforts to modernize ejidos and ejido laws were due to the need to help rebuild Mexico’s waning economy as laid out above.

5.9. Conclusion

My theory speaks particularly to how and why institutional evolution varies. This chapter offered a glimpse of institutional evolution using an in-depth analysis of amendments to one specific article, demonstrating both that the theory explains an actual changing pattern of behavior between actors rather than simply ambivalence, and that putting the modifications in the historical context plays an important role in supporting the theory.

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Institutional evolution, as Thelen and Greif both argue, may occur in sudden, sharp changes or in smaller, gradual ones. Article 27 demonstrates how those sudden changes – what I term major institutional shifts – are a reaction to changing political dynamics brought about by regime responses to legitimacy crises, while the minor shifts are more reflective of the slowly shifting dynamics of political relations over time.

This chapter also highlighted the potentially complicated relationship between branch axis leverage and legislative power. Together with chapter 4, this chapter highlights the importance of an in-depth understanding of the cases. Chapter 5 has built on the previous chapter’s foundations to offer more compelling support for the branch axis-legislative power relationship laid out in the second set of hypotheses.

Overall, the modifications to Article 27 provide valuable confirmation both of the hypotheses derived from the theory, and of the theory itself. With that testing confirmation, I turn to some concluding remarks.

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Table 5.2. Coding and Hypothesis Findings by Case

Ame Prese P Executive Increases vs. Ruling party Major Hypoth Hyp Hypoth Hyp nd- ntati er vs. constrains vs. Opposition vs. esis 1a othe esis 2a othe men on io legislative legislative party minor finding sis finding sis t # date d dominance power dominance change s 1b s 2b findi ngs 1 12/13 1 Executive Constrains Ruling party Major Disconfirms 1a Confirms 2a /1933 2 12/23 1 Executive Constrains Ruling party Major Disconfirms 1a Confirms 2a /1936 3 12/22 1 Executive N/A Ruling party Minor Confirms 1a N/A N/A /1938 4 9/29/ 1 Executive Constrains Ruling party Minor Confirms 1a Confirms 2a 1943 5 12/5/ 2 Executive N/A Ruling party Major Disconfirms 1a N/A N/A 1946 6 12/17 2 Executive Constrains N/A Minor N/A N/A Confirms 2a /1947 7 10/6/ 2 Legislative Constrains Ruling party Minor Confirms 1a Disc 1959 onfir ms 2b 8 11/1/ 2 Executive Increases Ruling party Minor Confirms 1a Disconfirms 2a 1960 9 9/3/1 2 Executive N/A N/A Minor N/A N/A N/A N/A 974 10 12/5/ 2 Executive Increases Ruling party Minor Confirms 1a Disconfirms 2a 1974 11 11/14 2 Executive Constrains Ruling party Minor Confirms 1a Confirms 2a /1975 12 11/19 2 Executive Increases Ruling party Minor Confirms 1a Disconfirms 2a /1975 13 12/7/ 3 Legislative Increases Opposition Major Confirms 1b Conf 1982 party irms 2b 14 4/22/ 3 Executive Increases N/A Minor N/A N/A Disconfirms 2a 1987 15 11/7/ 4 Legislative Increases Opposition Major Confirms 1b Conf 1991 party irms 2b 16 12/10 4 Executive N/A Opposition Major Conf N/A N/A /1991 party irms 1b

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Chapter 6: Conclusion

6.1 Existing arguments revisited

My dissertation is intended to answer the question, “how and why do legislatures evolve under dominant party authoritarian regimes?” Although no work has focused specifically on legislative evolution in dominant party systems, the topic of institutional evolution is well-represented in the literature. There are two common approaches to the question of how institutions evolve, or what the process looks like: the gradual approach and the sudden, or critical junctures, approach.

The gradual approach put forth by scholars like Shepsle (1986; 1989) maintains that institutional evolution is entirely or almost entirely a gradual process, occurring in small changes over an extended time period. This approach, however, is unable to account for moments of sudden dramatic change, when the system shifts materially in a very short time. In the case of Mexico, the massive shift in the form and function of the legislature that occurred with the 1977 electoral system reform cannot be explained solely by looking at incremental changes. While many small changes occurred in the lead-up to the election law modification, those changes – to areas like the government’s control over waterways – could neither explain nor predict the sudden massive institutional shift that occurred in 1977. That shift makes sense, however, as a reaction to the extraordinary event of the uncontested 1976 presidential election. 201

Theorists such as Krasner (1984) and Mahoney (2001) who support the sudden model challenge the gradual approach by arguing that institutional evolution occurs in large bursts when the institution hits a critical juncture, and that between critical junctures the institution is essentially at equilibrium. The problem with this approach is that it fails to account for the many small changes that occur between critical junctures. Those small changes can contribute to the change of circumstance that leads to the critical juncture – without acknowledging their role, we are left to wonder at how the paths available to move beyond the critical juncture emerge. For instance, in Mexico small changes could aggregate to affect the possibilities available at the next critical juncture. The Chamber of Deputies controlled taxation over a range of commodities; increasing the list of commodities led to increased revenue as well as increased areas of political responsibility. That, in turn, along with an array of other small evolutionary steps, contributed to the ability of legislative party members to increase their powers and capabilities and sometimes emerge to challenge the executive.

In short, neither the gradual nor the critical junctures argument sufficiently explains the entirety of the evolutionary process. Each leaves some important aspect of the evolutionary process unclear. I address this failing by offering a hybrid approach, in line with the mixed approach (combining gradual and sudden change) espoused by

Thelen (2004) and by Greif and Laitin (2004), but with an added element addressing the causal mechanism of institutional evolution. My theory argues that legislative evolution can occur both suddenly and gradually, where sudden changes represent larger leaps forward in the evolutionary process and gradual changes are more incremental, of little

202 importance individually but eventually piling up to make significant evolutionary progress. I argued that the mechanism by which these changes are able to occur is the regime’s response to a legitimacy crisis, which alters the underlying leverage balance between the branch axis actors and between the party power axis actors.

In an authoritarian context in particular, the study of institutional and specifically legislative evolution has been fairly uncommon, except as it pertains to regime transition.

And yet, understanding the process before any sort of transition is under way is also valuable. By focusing only on transition, we risk missing those evolutionary processes that don’t appear to lead to democracy, as when a regime reinforces its authoritarianism rather than liberalizing. We also run the risk of understanding evolution solely as the process of becoming democratic, as the older generation of transition and consolidation theorists like O’Donnell (1986) did. I resolve this challenge by removing the assumption that evolution is a linear process. I take the view that evolution is not the process of becoming democratic but simply the process of becoming something different – of an institution filling a distinct role from its previous incarnation. This approach reduces the risk of assuming that only movements toward democratization are representative of evolution. By focusing on that shift in function, rather than on approaching democracy, my theory highlights the changing relationships that underscore institutional power and capabilities. Focusing on those relationships, in turn, helps me to shed light on the two different forms of institutional evolution: sudden change and gradual change. Contrary to many theorists, but in keeping with Thelen (2004) and with Greif and Laitin (2004), I

203 show that both occur, and that both play a role in responding to – as well as shaping – the process of institutional change.

6.2 Summary of the findings

My theory of institutional evolution argues that evolutionary movements, both large and small, are the function of changing leverage relationships and are caused by the regime response to a legitimacy crisis. When a legitimacy crisis occurs, the regime response suddenly and dramatically alters the power alignments within the institution.

Major changes follow these new power alignments and allow actors to use newly- strengthened bargaining positions to enact constitutional amendments that fundamentally alter the institution. Minor changes follow the new power alignments and the evolved institution, building on prior changes but not in themselves causing fundamental institutional shifts.

Within this framework, my theory identified two axes of actors: the branch power axis, and the party power axis. When each of those axes experiences a shift in the overall power balance, the actors in the axis must reconfigure their relationship. For the branch power axis, these actors are the executive and the legislature; for the party power axis, they are the ruling party and the opposition party. The power balance for each axis – what I call the leverage relationship – exists along a continuum. In terms of branch power, this means that in an individual case either the executive exerts leverage over the legislature, or the legislature exerts leverage over the executive. Over a given period of time these cases of leverage aggregate, to determine whether in that period the executive

204 or the legislature (or, for the party power axis, the ruling party or the opposition party) more often exerts leverage.

The two actor axes affect different aspects of the evolutionary process. I argue that the shifting leverage relationship between the parties affects how rapidly moments of institutional evolution occur, while that between the branches affects the directionality of those evolutionary moments – specifically whether they constrain or increase legislative capabilities.

My theory argues that over the lifetime of Mexico’s dominant party regime –

1929-2000 – the regime response to legitimacy crises caused shifts in both axes’ leverage relationships, leading to increased bargaining capabilities for the historically weaker group on each axis. However, the weaker group’s shift to a stronger position did not occur in tandem along the two axes. Through an inductive process of careful study, I identified four legitimacy crises the regime experienced, dividing the time of dominant party rule into five periods. Each period had a winner and loser along each axis, but the former loser on the party power axis became more powerful well before the former loser on the branch power axis did so.

I have stated that the leverage relationships on each axis affected different aspects of the evolutionary process. That led me to two sets of hypotheses. Building on the logic that dominant party regimes generally design institutions to their own benefit, I hypothesize that (1a) When the ruling party has leverage over the opposition party, institutional evolution will occur more slowly relative to other periods. Since the system as designed benefits the ruling party, however, the opposition party prefers change,

205 leading to the hypothesis that (1b) When the opposition party has leverage over the ruling party, institutional evolution will occur more rapidly relative to other periods. At the same time, the fact that authoritarian systems favor the executive and generally attempt to limit checks on his power leads me to hypothesize that (2a) When the executive has leverage over the legislature, changes are more likely to constrain legislative powers.

The legislature’s presumed desire to improve its own standing leads to the hypothesis that

(2b) When the legislature has leverage over the executive, changes are more likely to increase legislative powers.

I tested these hypotheses against two data sets: first, the set of all changes to the legislative powers (articles 50-79) and second, the set of all changes to Article 27. By employing the comparative method to the larger sample, I was able to demonstrate that a link between my independent and dependent variables did in fact exist. Through the test on the smaller sample, which involved a much more indepth analysis of each individual change on a small sample size, I showed that the constitutional changes which represented evolution were clearly the result of shifting leverage relationships, as opposed to a spurious correlation based off of one actor valuing the amendment and the other actor having no opinion on the issue.

I thoroughly confirmed the link between the party power axis and speed and degree of evolution, my hypotheses 1a and 1b. Chapter 4 showed that rate of constitutional change – my proxy for institutional evolution – was higher in those periods where the opposition party was victorious in its leverage relationship, and lower when the ruling party was victorious. This finding was thoroughly confirmed in chapter 5, where

206 the small n precluded capturing change by period, and institutional evolution was instead captured by major and minor changes to the constitution. In that scenario, major changes were correlated with instances of opposition leverage victory, and minor changes with instances of ruling party leverage victory.

The link between the branch power axis and the type of evolutionary movement proved more complex. When analyzed in a large-n setting, hypotheses 2a and 2b were not initially confirmed. The data showed that increases to legislative powers always outpaced decreases, essentially suggesting that the legislature was the leverage winner throughout the life of the regime – an illogical finding for an authoritarian system controlled by the executive. However, I argued that this was less a theoretical failure and more a coding issue. By recoding the legislative powers to reflect degrees of change

(major increase, minor increase, major constraint, minor constraint) I was able to show that the theoretical link between an increasingly powerful legislature and evolutionary moments materially strengthening that legislature was valid. In legislative-victory periods the legislative powers experienced more major increases than in executive- victory periods, implying that when the legislature was able to exert pressure on the executive, it did so in such a fashion as to challenge overall executive power and materially strengthen its own position. When the executive was the leverage-victor, however, there were more minor increases in legislative powers. This suggested that those changes were primarily a function of the executive attempting to use the legislature as a bureaucratic tool to manage work, rather than as an organization for manifesting political power and providing checks on government.

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The one challenge to these conclusions is that, while Article 27 proves the link overall, it cannot do so by period. The number of cases is so small that a period-by- period analysis is not possible. In fact, there are no cases from period 5, making total verification of the hypotheses impossible. However, the strong correlations demonstrated between branch axis leverage victory and degree of change to legislative powers does support the argument that over all, there is a link between the branch with the ability to exert leverage and the type of change that branch pursues. Coupled with the unanimous support for hypotheses 1a and 1b, I conclude that Mexico under the PRI experienced five distinct periods of institutional evolution which varied in terms of the ability of different branches to exert leverage, and in terms of the ability of the parties to exert leverage. In periods when the ruling party was more able to exert leverage, the legislature evolved at a slower rate. When this was coupled with an executive able to exert leverage over the legislature, the general trend of institutional evolution was essentially to increase the legislature’s ability to expedite the executive’s orders. When ruling party leverage was coupled with legislative leverage, we would expect to see a legislature that gradually became more independent of the president; however, this scenario never actually occurred.

In periods where the opposition party was more able to exert leverage, the legislature evolved at a more rapid rate. Coupled with executive leverage, this resulted in a legislature which quickly picked up a number of minor capabilities but was not particularly able to function as a check on the executive or expand its significant powers.

Coupled with legislative leverage, however, the result was a period where the legislature

208 emerged forcefully as a powerful institution capable of constraining the executive and putting in place laws to prevent the reemergence of an authoritarian regime in Mexico.

Taken all together, my theory paints a picture of a state that began with a moderate rate of evolution, where the types of changes suggest an effort partly to determine the function of the institution but more to expand it to fit governing needs.

This transitions into a period with a very low rate of evolution, where the changes are almost entirely aimed at expanding legislative responsibilities to fit the executive’s governing needs. Next is a period with a high rate of evolution, where there is a struggle between groups – an effort on one part to alter the function of the legislature and on the other part to control the legislature. This leads into a period of record high rate of evolution, coupled with a continuing struggle over the future of the legislature and the regime as a whole. Finally, evolution slows down some, and the legislature’s role is entirely revamped. Essentially, the path of institutional evolution traces Mexico’s move from an emerging authoritarian state, to a thoroughly authoritarian one, to a struggling autocracy with emerging democratic elements, to a strengthening of those democratic elements, into a democracy.

6.3 Unanswered questions

This dissertation serves as a first step towards tracing the process of legislative evolution in dominant party authoritarian regimes, and demonstrating the connection between evolutionary periods and regime legitimacy crises. However, there are several questions that should be answered in future work.

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First, the nature of branch power’s effect on legislative capabilities remains uncertain. From a testing perspective, the putative link between shifting branch axis leverage relationships and the type of change to legislative powers must be explored in greater detail. One obvious step is to look for more detail on every relevant constitutional amendment – something that was possible with regards to Article 27 but not to the rest of the sample. When I was in Mexico, I was able to find more information on some of the amendments by examining party newspapers in the PAN’s national archives. Due to time constraints I was not able to do a complete archive search; greater access to the PAN archives would likely improve the hypotheses’ testability. The PRI archives were not accessible to the public, but the Hemeroteca Nacional – the newspapers archives – would have all the major Mexican archives for the period in question. A systematic search of these sources might shed light on whether the issue facing my hypotheses was, as I have argued, a simple information/coding failure or whether the theory and hypotheses are simply wrong.

A second question is whether the pattern I have identified in legislative evolution also pertains to other institutions, in which case it represents a potentially valuable addition to the field, or whether it speaks only to the legislature – making it, while interesting, far less broadly useful. I have argued that the theory advanced here of shifting leverage relationships is representative of institutions as a whole, but that the application of that theory – the identification of the two axes of actors – is specific to legislatures. This claim needs to be tested. The high-stakes nature of sanctioned opposition involvement in dominant party politics (the potential specter of electoral

210 defeat) suggests another high stakes institution would be the most valuable arena to test the theory. Accordingly, a future iteration of this project might involve testing the theory on elections. As repeated events with formal opposition involvement, they represent a highly critical political institution. The challenge here would be identifying bargaining behavior. In theory, electoral outcomes cannot be bargained over between actors. In practice, as Mexico demonstrated, this may not be the case – the regime can decide to hand over disputed elections (as it did at the local level for many years) to buy continued opposition participation. But this is not how the system is supposed to work; in fact, it is blatant fraud, and as such records of bargains will not be accessible.

There are also some types of institutions that the theory inherently excludes. For instance, a theory of institutional evolution that is heavily dependent on opposition contestation will not be able to explain judicial evolution – because those positions are appointed rather than elected, there is no potential threat to electoral victory, and the opposition lacks a way to capitalize on legitimacy crises.

The most important unanswered question, though, is whether Mexico is unique or whether the theory applies to a broader universe of dominant party authoritarian regimes.

If my argument is correct, other regimes should follow the basic pattern I have identified

– legitimacy crisis, shifting power relationships, large and small evolutionary moments, legitimacy crisis. Therefore, further research must test the theory on non-Mexican cases.

One possibility is pre-1995 South Africa. If one accepts South Africa at that point as an authoritarian regime rather than an extremely limited democracy, it shares many

211 dynamics with Mexico. Both cases had regular executive turnover and an active legislature. Both also had a primary opposition party, and both were long-lasting.

A second possible comparative case is modern Singapore. With a dominant party system that stretches back to the 1960s, Singapore offers a particularly interesting case in that the regime is still in control today. It does not have much executive turnover – there have been three prime ministers since independence – but it does have an active legislature with growing opposition representation, and the constitution appears to play an important role in political life. Singapore also offers a chance to develop the predictive aspect of the theory. If researchers could determine the bases of regime legitimacy, it would be possible to identify past legitimacy crises and the government’s response, and possibly build an understanding of domestic politics that would allow for the identification of future legitimacy crises when they emerged. This would give the opportunity for on the ground theory testing. One challenge to expanding to include either of these cases is that they are in entirely different regions, with very different histories. Latin America has a long history of dictators and elected autocrats; the expectation that political institutions may be used to maintain power is typical. South

Africa in particular lacks that history of dictators. Singapore’s political history more closely reflects Mexico’s, but it is of much more limited duration – where Mexico achieved independence in 1821, and proceeded to experience various dictatorships and monarchies until the civil war and the rise of the PRI in 1929. Singapore, however, has only been an independent nation since 1959, and the same party has been in power since then. It lacks the political turmoil of Mexico, and as such may utilize institutions

212 differently. However, both the cases identified above would be valuable to test, as much because of their differences from Mexico as in spite of them. If the same pattern of evolution exists in regimes with significantly different histories from the Mexican story, it suggests that the underlying leverage dynamics and legitimacy crises are actually pieces of a broader pattern that may explain a variety of cases.

6.4 Conclusions

When the PRI lost control of the presidency in 2000, the Mexican legislature did not stop evolving. On the contrary, it simply continued in a different vein. The changes that have occurred since then – the massive judicial overhauls, the creation of further internal checks and balances – all speak to the ongoing process of legislative evolution in

Mexico. And yet, none of those changes could have occurred – the PRI could not have lost power and then won it again, in a democratic setting – without the evolutionary paths carved by both the regime and the institution in earlier periods. This dissertation has shown that institutional evolution occurs even in the least likely places – dominant party regimes where the ruling party’s electoral control has not been challenged. While significant questions remain to be answered, I have begun to explore the link between the executive and the legislature, and between ruling parties and opposition parties, in a way that sheds light on evolution and on how those relationships can shift even while the surface elected majority remains stable. If future research demonstrates the theory is viable across a broader universe of cases, so much the better; but even if the applicable

213 universe is limited to Mexico, we have an improved understanding of the power dynamics that underlie the regime, and the legitimacy crises that drove them.

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Appendix

Appendix A: Executive-Legislative Bargaining in Democracies

The idea of laws and constitutions as the outcome of a bargaining process between the legislature and the executive is well-represented within democratic literature.

At the sub-national level, Buckley (2005) demonstrates how various versions of the New

York state constitution were used to move the state from a strong legislative system to a strong executive system, particularly with respect to powers over the budget. Cameron and McCarty (2004) develop several models of veto bargaining centering on the president vetoing legislative actions. Brown (2000) also highlights the use of constitutional powers as a bargaining tool in transitioning Russia. Cox and Morgenstern’s (2002) piece on legislative-executive bargaining in democratic Latin America provides a look at how even strong executives may be driven to bargaining relationships. Helmke (2010) pursues a related line of questioning covering democratic Latin American regimes from

1985-2008. Her analysis focuses on the nexus of inter-branch crises; she identifies what she terms ‘crisis bargaining’ between the branches, dependent on a branch’s ability to threaten another branch’s survival.

The democratic literature is useful in providing an initial introduction to bargaining between the executive and the legislature. However, this literature is

222 fundamentally different from the authoritarian literature in that it assumes that the executive and the legislature are roughly equal players. One actor may have slightly greater power than the other, particularly on certain issues like the budget – but the idea of blocking the other actor is legitimate for both branches. In authoritarian systems, the executive is generally far more powerful, and given that the legislature’s role is generally constrained, it is less acceptable for the legislature to veto. While these sources are important to the study of executive-legislative bargaining, they have limited applicability in an authoritarian setting.

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