Related Research Articles
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office.
The Politics of Mexico take place in a framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic whose government is based on a congressional system, whereby the President of Mexico is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. The federal government represents the United Mexican States and is divided into three branches: executive, legislative and judicial, as established by the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, published in 1917. The constituent states of the federation must also have a republican form of government based on a congressional system as established by their respective constitutions.
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of state in which one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties are either outlawed or allowed to take only a limited and controlled participation in elections. Sometimes the term de facto one-party state is used to describe a dominant-party system that, unlike the one-party state, allows democratic multiparty elections, but the existing practices or balance of political power effectively prevent the opposition from winning the elections.
A military junta is a government led committee of military leaders. The term junta means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808. The term is now used to refer to an authoritarian form of government characterized by oligarchic military dictatorship, as distinguished from other categories of authoritarian rule, specifically strongman ; machine ; and bossism.
Democratization is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be the transition from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy, a transition from an authoritarian political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a semi-authoritarian political system to a democratic political system.
An illiberal democracy, also called a partial democracy, flawed democracy, low intensity democracy, empty democracy or guided democracy, is a governing system in which although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it is not an "open society". There are many countries "that are categorized as neither 'free' nor 'not free', but as 'probably free', falling somewhere between democratic and nondemocratic regimes". This may be because a constitution limiting government powers exists, but those in power ignore its liberties, or because an adequate legal constitutional framework of liberties does not exist.
The National Democratic Party, often simply called in Arabic: الحزب الوطني Al-Ḥizb al-Waṭaniy – the "National Party", was a centrist political party in Egypt. It was founded by President Anwar El Sadat in 1978.
Particracy is a form of government in which the political parties are the primary basis of rule, rather than citizens and/or individual politicians. As argued by Italian political scientist Mauro Calise in 1994, the term is often derogatory, implying that parties have too much power—in a similar vein, in premodern times it was often argued that democracy was merely rule by the demos, or a poorly educated and easily misled mob. Efforts to turn "particracy" into a more precise scholarly concept so far merely appear partly successful.
The Spanish transition to democracy, known in Spain as the Transition or the Spanish transition, is a period of modern Spanish history that started on 20 November 1975, the date of death of Francisco Franco, who had established a dictatorship after the victory of the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. However, historians disagree on the exact date the transition was completed: some say it ended after the 1977 general election, while others place it later, when the 1978 Constitution was approved. Others suggest it ended with the failure of the 1981 attempted coup d'état. At its latest, the Transition is said to have ended with the first peaceful transfer of executive power, after the victory of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the 1982 general election.
The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century is a 1991 book by Samuel P. Huntington which outlines the significance of a third wave of democratization to describe the global trend that has seen more than 60 countries throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa undergo some form of democratic transitions since Portugal's "Carnation Revolution" in 1974.
Democratic consolidation is the process by which a new democracy matures, in a way that it becomes unlikely to revert to authoritarianism without an external shock, and is regarded as the only available system of government within a country. This is the case when; no significant political group seriously attempts to overthrow the democratic regime, the democratic system is regarded as the most appropriate way to govern by the vast majority of the public, and all political actors are accustomed to the fact that conflicts are resolved through established political and constitutional rules. The notion of democratic consolidation is contested because it is not clear that there is anything substantive that happens to new democracies that secures their continuation, beyond those factors that simply make it 'more likely' that they continue as democracies. Many scholars have attempted to explain the factors that are responsible for democracies consolidating, which has led to the emergence of different ‘consolidation theories’ in the academic literature. Unconsolidated democracies often suffer from formalized but intermittent elections and clientelism.
The Democracy Index is an index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a UK-based company. It intends to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries, of which 166 are sovereign states and 164 are UN member states.
Democracy promotion, which can also be referred to as democracy assistance, democracy support, or democracy building, is a strand of foreign policy adopted by governments and international organizations that seek to support the spread of democracy as a political system around the world. Among the reasons for supporting democracy include the belief that countries with a democratic system of governance are less likely to go to war, are likely to be economically better off and socially more harmonious.
Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic in nature, and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.
American democracy promotion aims to encourage governmental and non-governmental actors to pursue political reforms that will lead ultimately to democratic governance.
Anocracy is a form of government that is loosely defined as part democracy and part dictatorship, or as a "regime that mixes democratic with autocratic features." Another definition classifies anocracy as "a regime that permits some means of participation through opposition group behavior but that has incomplete development of mechanisms to redress grievances." Scholars have also distinguished anocracies from autocracies and democracies in their capability to maintain authority, political dynamics, and policy agendas. Similarly, the regimes have democratic institutions that allow for nominal amounts of competition.
A hybrid regime is a mixed type of political regime that is often created as a result of an incomplete transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. Hybrid regimes combine autocratic features with democratic ones, they can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections. The term “hybrid regime” arises from a polymorphic view of political regimes that opposes the dichotomy of autocracy or democracy. Hybrid regimes are characteristic of resource countries (petro-states). Such regimes are stable and tenacious.
In political science, democratic backsliding, also known as democratic erosion or de-democratization, is a gradual decline in the quality of democracy. This decline is caused by the state-led weakening of political institutions that sustain the democratic system. These essential components of democracy can be threatened in different ways. Thus, the concept of democratic backsliding can take various forms.
In political science, delegative democracy is a mode of governance close to Caesarism, Bonapartism or caudillismo with a strong leader in a newly-created otherwise democratic government. The concept arose from Argentinian political scientist Guillermo O'Donnell, who notes that representative democracy as it exists is usually linked solely to highly developed capitalist countries. However, newly installed democracies do not seem to be on a path of becoming fully representative democracies. O'Donnell calls the former delegative democracies, for they are not fully consolidated democracies but may be enduring.
The history of democracy in Mexico dates to the establishment of the federal republic of Mexico in 1824. Colonial Mexico was part of the Spanish Empire (1521-1821), ruled by the Spanish king. As an absolute monarchy, there were no long standing democratic institutions or traditions to draw at independence. The liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 was created in Cádiz, Spain after the French invasion of Spain in 1808 and the forced abdication of the Spanish king. The constitution mandated new institutions of rule, the indirect election of representatives by the citizenry, which included male American-born Spaniards and Indians, but excluded anyone of African ancestry. In 1814, legitimate Spanish monarchy was restored under Ferdinand VII, who rejected the constitution and returned to absolutist rule, and sought to undo everything the Cortes of Cádiz had mandated. In response royalist military officer Agustín de Iturbide promulgated the Plan of Iguala, which declared Mexico's independence and articulated a vision for the sovereign state. It sought equality regardless of race or place of birth, Roman Catholicism as the sole religion, and a limited monarchy as the form of government. The short-lived Mexican monarchy was overthrown by a military coup and the creation of a federal republic under the Constitution of 1824. Political parties as such did not exist in the early republic, but there were political coalitions. Conservatives sought a strong central government, continuation of privileges for the Catholic Church and the military. Liberals sought equality under the law, eliminating traditional privileges, especially that of the Catholic Church. Conservatives held political power for most of the early republic. In 1855, liberals overthrew the dictatorship of military strong-man and conservative politician Antonio López de Santa Anna, initiating twenty-two year conflict, including two wars, between liberals and conservatives. Liberals drafted and ratified the Constitution of 1857, which enshrined human rights, including universal male suffrage, and elimination of Church and army privileges. Conservatives saw the hope for Mexico as inviting a European monarch to rule Mexico, an idea envisioned at independence. The Second Mexican Empire collapsed in 1867 and with it organized conservative opposition, leaving the liberals in a position to implement their vision of Mexico. From 1867 to 1910, there were regular elections in Mexico, but there was not a politically engaged electorate. The Mexican Revolution broke out as liberal army General Porfirio Díaz, continuously in power since 1884, reneged on his promise to step down from the presidency. A major outcome of the bloody civil war was the Constitution of 1917, which with amendments remains the nation's governing document. The northern revolutionary generals of winning faction of the civil war, the Constitutionalists, dominated politics in Mexico until 1940, followed by their successors chosen from within their political faction. Regular elections were held, often with the results manipulated. Only men were eligible to vote until the law empowered women to vote in 1953. No reelection of the incumbent president was established as a principle. The precursor of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was established in 1929 and became the mechanism to control elections, effectively creating a one-party state until 1988. There was a split in the party with its left wing breaking off, creating a new opposition party. In 2000 the conservative opposition National Action Party won the presidential election. The PRI returned to power 2012-18, they endured a lanslide defeat to Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the new National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) coalition.
References
- ↑ Rose, Richard & Munro, Neil: Elections Without Order Cambridge University Press, 2002 (p. 42)
Giliomee, Herman and Charles Simkins (eds). (1999). The Awkward Embrace: One-Party Domination and Democracy. Overseas Publisher Association.
 | This political science article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |