Joy Langston

Gubernatorial Effects on the Voting Behavior of National Legislators

Are subnational political elites, such as governors, capable of affecting the voting behavior of national representatives even in the face of high legislative discipline? We address this question by estimating the exogenous causal effect of gubernatorial influence on the voting behavior of national legislators in Mexico, where constitutional provisions guarantee that the political survival times of governors and legislators are fixed and known ex ante and where we can thus know precisely which legislators will leave congress before their state governor’s term has expired. We posit that such legislators will be more willing to represent gubernatorial preferences because they expect the governor to find them employment upon finishing their stay in congress. We find that governors whose terms end after the term of the national assembly are able to systematically increase the voting cohesion of legislators from their own party and state and that these effects are substantively important.

Rising from the Ashes?: Reorganizing and Unifying the PRI's State Party Organizations after Electoral Defeat

This article attempts to explain why certain state Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) affiliates in Mexico are able to rebuild their organizations and why others are not. The author finds that severe problems of collective action impede the once hegemonic PRI from restructuring its state parties after the defeat of the state executive because the top-down impositions that once forced PRI politicians to cooperate no longer exist. These findings have serious implications for the national PRI now that it, too, has lost the presidency.

Campaigning in an Electoral Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Mexico

This article examines congressional campaigns run by Mexico’s Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) under hegemonic party rule to understand how electioneering helped one of the world’s longest lasting electoral authoritarian regimes (1929 to 1997) to survive. It finds that campaigning provides autocratic regimes information about their constituents and also generates linkages between local and national leaders that facilitate voter mobilization.

MÉXICO 2008: EL AÑO EN QUE SE VIVIÓ EN PELIGRO

El trabajo muestra los obstaculos que tendra que librar la administracion si acaso quiere seguir contando con el apoyo de los votantes, como el combate al narcotrafico y los efectos de la crisis financiera de EUA en la economia nacional. Tambien analiza el paquete de reformas con las que el Presidente Calderon pretende darle continuidad a sus politicas en el 2008: la judicial, que modernizaria el sistema de imparticion de justicia; la energetica, que modificaria el regimen de la empresa mas importante del Estado, y la educativa, que reduciria los rezagos educativos mediante maestros mejor capacitados. Tambien discute las caracteristicas del Congreso que las aprueba, entre ellas un PRD dividido, un PRI cada vez mas fuerte en los estados y unas elecciones intermedias cada vez mas cercanas.