Regime-Hybridity in Mexico

The author utilizes the concept of hybrid regimes to analyze post-authoritarian, non-democratic political regimes. Clientelism, according to her research, is a central element of hybrid regimes and is dependent on rent and marginality. In order to explain stagnant processes of transition, she examines the processes and consequences of reforms within certain domains that attempted to promote democracy: decentralization, social politics and private economy. While decentralization and social policy were supposed to strengthen the poor and their ability to participate, privatization and liberalization were assumed to overcome corruption and inefficient economic policies. At the centre of this investigation is the Mexican political regime, which is categorized in literature on regime transition and the resource curse as a deviant case. It experienced two processes of transition – at the beginning and the end of the 20th century – without the full implementation of democracy. How can this phenomenon be explained? The author uses approaches that not only focus on the governmental level to analyze political regimes, but also include societal structures.