The 1988 presidential election in Mexico was the beginning of a new era in Mexican history. In this volume, scholars and political practitioners explore the implications of the election for the Mexican political system and for Mexico's international relationships, especially with the United States. In particular, the contributors examine the reasons for the explosive changes in the electoral system and discuss the political inheritance of President Salinas de Gortari.
A study of the relationship between the presidential power in Mexico and of key societal groups. This text examines how this has developed since the 1960s. Other titles in this series include "Gender, Culture and Empire", "Black Writers From South Africa" and "Kabuki in Modern Japan".
Presidential term limits restrict the maximum length of time that presidents can serve in office. They stipulate the length of term the presidents can serve between elections and the number of terms that presidents are permitted to serve. While comparative scholarship has long studied important institutions such presidentialism vs. parliamentarism and the effects of different electoral systems, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the role and effects of presidential term limits. Yet presidential term limits and term lengths are one of the most fundamental institutions of democracy. By ensuring compulsory rotation in office, they are at the heart of a democratic dilemma. What is the appropriate trade-off between allowing the unrestricted selection of candidates at presidential elections vs. restricting selection procedures to prevent the possibility of dictatorial takeover by presidents who are unwilling to step down? In the context of a long and on-going history of changes to presidential term limits and the many and varied ways in which term limits have been both applied and avoided, this book explains the factors behind the introduction, stability, abolition, and avoidance of presidential term limits, as well as the consequences of changes to presidential term limits, and it does so in the context of non-democracies, third-wave countries, and consolidated democracies. It includes comparative, theoretical, and practitioner-oriented chapters, as well as detailed country case studies of presidential term limits across the world and over time.
El Encanto, al igual que otros poblados del estado de Veracruz, se caracteriza por lo aberrante de su gente. Por un lado, quienes glorifican en público a Epifanio Martínez, en privado lo maldicen. Muchos quieren ser como él, pero aborrecen que su estirpe haya mantenido en perpetua desgracia al poblado. Nadie sabe con exactitud cuándo fue el día en que los pueblerinos quedaron a merced de tanta humillación. Lo perverso de su verdugo, confunde a la gente con la idea de que éste todo lo puede con el poder de su dinero, hasta que en el horizonte aparecen Gabino Domínguez y Gervasio García, provocando que el cacique viva sus peores días. Sin querer, el par de campesinos sufren con una experiencia que los horroriza de pies a cabeza en la derruida ex hacienda de El Encanto. A partir de ese momento, la vida en El Encanto ya no será la misma. Muchos, al igual que Gabino y Gervasio, creen que Epifanio tiene pactos con el demonio. Y el par de campesinos tienen razones de sobra para pensar así. Sin embargo, ambos se dan cuenta que el cacique no es el mito que todos creían. Así, poco a poco, Gabino y su inseparable amigo con la ayuda de la familia Ruvalcaba, descorren el velo que mantuvo por tanto tiempo postrado al poblado.
This reference incorporates information from the 1990 Mexican census and combines a wealth of historical data with revised graphs and improved maps showing social and economic change over the past century, particularly over the past decade.
The history of a dictatorship’s demise—and the many power struggles that followed on the rocky road to democracy in early twentieth-century Mexico. The Mexican Revolution is one of the most important and ambitious sociopolitical experiments in modern times. This history by Charles C. Cumberland addresses the early years of this period, as the long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz was finally overthrown and he was driven into exile due to the efforts of revolutionary reformer Francisco Madero, with the assistance of the famed Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata among others. Madero would become president—but would not last long in this role. This is the story of the events that would lead to years of bloody battles on the road to an eventual constitutional republic. “Not only a solid contribution to Mexicana...but proof that political history can be organized logically around a leading personality...Provocative, readable, and interpretative.” —The Americas
Based on extensive fieldwork and a wide variety of US and Mexican academic, government and journalistic sources, this book analyzes the critical institutions and policy issues that will determine whether and how the Mexican government can modernize the economy and retain political legitimacy.
La Constitución política de Costa Rica de 1949 se aprobó el 7 de noviembre de dicho año. Este texto constitucional tenía los siguientes antecedentes: El 8 de mayo de 1948 la Junta Fundadora de la Segunda República de Costa Rica presidida por José Figueres Ferrer asumió el poder. Luego restableció la vigencia de los capítulos de garantías nacionales, individuales y sociales de la Constitución de 1871. El 3 de septiembre de 1948, la Junta convocó a elecciones para una Asamblea Constituyente. Esta entró en funciones el 15 de enero de 1949, reconoció como presidente a Otilio Ulate y dispuso que éste ejerciera la primera magistratura de 1949 a 1953. Durante 1949, la Junta Fundadora de la Segunda República nombró una comisión de juristas para preparar un proyecto de Constitución. Tras estos pasos, el 7 de noviembre de 1949, la Asamblea aprobó esta Constitución política de Costa Rica de 1949, que es la actualmente vigente.
The Story of Mexico's political rebirth, by two pulitzer prize-winning reporters Opening Mexico is a narrative history of the citizens' movement which dismantled the kleptocratic one-party state that dominated Mexico in the twentieth century, and replaced it with a lively democracy. Told through the stories of Mexicans who helped make the transformation, the book gives new and gripping behind-the-scenes accounts of major episodes in Mexico's recent politics. Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, led by presidents who ruled like Mesoamerican monarchs, came to be called "the perfect dictatorship." But a 1968 massacre of student protesters by government snipers ignited the desire for democratic change in a generation of Mexicans. Opening Mexico recounts the democratic revolution that unfolded over the following three decades. It portrays clean-vote crusaders, labor organizers, human rights monitors, investigative journalists, Indian guerrillas, and dissident political leaders, such as President Ernesto Zedillo-Mexico's Gorbachev. It traces the rise of Vicente Fox, who toppled the authoritarian system in a peaceful election in July 2000. Opening Mexico dramatizes how Mexican politics works in smoke-filled rooms, and profiles many leaders of the country's elite. It is the best book to date about the modern history of the United States' southern neighbor-and is a tale rich in implications for the spread of democracy worldwide.
Peter Smith has written a comprehensive and in-depth study of the structure and more important of the transformation of the national political elite in twentieth-century Mexico. In doing so, he analyzes the long-run impact of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 on the composition of the country's ruling elite. Included in his focus are such issues as the social basis of politics, the recruitments process, political career patterns, the amount of periodic turnover, and the relationships between the political and economic elites. The author explores these issues through an empirical, computer-assisted investigation of biographical information on more than 6,000 individuals who held national political office in Mexico at any time between 1900 and 1976. He then employs various comparative and statistical techniques, along with a use of archival data, questionnaires, and interviews, to determine precisely how Mexico’s political system actually works. Professor Smith finds that the Revolution of 1910 did not fundamentally alter the class composition of the national elite, although it did redistribute power within it. He further observes that the Mexican Revolution did bring about a separation of political and economic elites, and that the route to political success is much more varied and less predictable now than before the revolutionary period. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
