Political Institutions, Policymaking Processes, and Policy Outcomes in Mexico

Fabrice Lehoucq, Gabriel Negretto, Francisco Javier Aparicio, Benito Nacif and Allyson Lucinda Benton

No 3354, IDB Publications (Working Papers) from Inter-American Development Bank

Abstract: This paper uses a transaction-costs framework to link the policymaking process (PMP) and the outer features of public policies in Mexico. It shows how a highly secretive PMP, centralized around the presidency, fashioned nationalist policies that were stable, adaptable, coordinated and private-regarding for the urban-based corporatist pillars of the regime. When growth faltered in the late 1970s, however, this PMP was unable to adapt to economic volatility, although it remained dominant in an increasingly turbulent polity. The paper explains how unified government and corporatist control of the economy made a constitutionally weak president the envy of executives around the world, even at the cost of being unable to enact reforms with short-term costs for the corporatist pillars of the regime. The article also explains why democratization in the 1990s is giving rise to a less centralized and more open PMP that benefits larger shares of the population.

Keywords: decision making; mexico; politics & government; Latin American Research Network; policymaking; policy outcomes; political insitutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-09
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:idb:brikps:3354

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