Arenas of democratization: Local government and political transition in Mexico

This research develops the Issue Arenas framework (IAF) to address the question of why democratic reforms progress unevenly in a regime undergoing democratic transition. An issue arena is defined as the set of institutions and actors in society who have influence over the decisions concerning a particular issue. The IAF posits that there are three primary characteristics of an issue arena that shape the progress or outcome of a reform in a particular issue arena. These are (1) the degree of centralization vs. fragmentation of the decisionmaking process, (2) who controls the effective points of decision in an issue arena, and (3) the degree of permeability vs. insulation of the decisionmaking process.;To test the IAF, the research examines progress in four areas of democratic reform in the state of Yucatan, Mexico: elections, electoral reform, municipal reform, and federalism. The findings suggest that reforms are better able to advance in fragmented and permeable issue arenas, because these settings provide points of access that allow the opposition to influence the reform process. This is illustrated in the issue arena of elections. In contrast, it was found that a centralized and insulated issue arena gives greater autonomy to those who control it. When issue arenas with these characteristics are controlled by actors opposed to democratization, reforms are more easily obstructed, and progress lags. In the case study these conditions characterize issue arenas in the areas of electoral reform, municipal reform, and federal reform.;The research suggests the importance of viewing democratization as a process of constructing the procedural criteria of democracy within different institutional settings and along multiple "tracks". Unfolding in this way, democratic reforms advance unevenly, with different reforms progressing at varying rates across the same subunit of a political system, and a single reform advancing at varying rates across different subunits of a political system. These findings highlight the need to take into account subnational processes of democratization when assessing the progress of democratic reforms in a country.