Dynasties, Double-Dealings, and Delinquencies: Some Entangled Features of Subnational Politics in Mexico

Book Chapter

Authorship

BEHREND, JACQUELINE MARIELA ; Whitehead, Laurence

Date

2023

Publishing House and Editing Place

Routledge

Book

Latin America in Times of Turbulence: Presidentialism under stress (pp. 167-187)
Routledge

ISBN

9781003324249

Summary Information provided by the agent in SIGEVA

This chapter discusses Mexico’s subnational democratization process as an entangled process where formal institutions become entangled with informal rules, structures, and practices to produce diverse outcomes. It analyses three major domains where formal democratic institutions interact with locally embedded traditions and practices – political dynasties, double-dealing, and democratic delinquencies. The chapter makes two main contributions to the literature on subnational democrat... This chapter discusses Mexico’s subnational democratization process as an entangled process where formal institutions become entangled with informal rules, structures, and practices to produce diverse outcomes. It analyses three major domains where formal democratic institutions interact with locally embedded traditions and practices – political dynasties, double-dealing, and democratic delinquencies. The chapter makes two main contributions to the literature on subnational democratization and to the study of formal and informal institutions. First, it provides a conceptual framework to understand subnational democratization processes as complex and unstable processes that encompass both formal and informal institutions, and their entanglements with often illiberal local structures and practices. Second, it provides exemplary illustrations of such entanglements in a range of contemporary subnational Mexican settings, using evidence from the three domains just indicated.