Explaining Turnout in a New Democracy: The 2000 Presidential Election in Mexico

Abstract

Turnout in Mexico has two faces. On the one hand, citizens go to the polls for the samereasons as voters from established democracies do: individual resources and group attachmentsincrease their likelihood of voting. On the other, citizens are distrustful of voting asa result of many decades of fraudulent elections. Mexicans come to the polls with a set ofpolitical attitudes and behaviour learned under an authoritarian regime and this legacy influenceshow they evaluate and react to parties and elections. In this context, perceptionsof the political system have a larger than expected influence on turnout.Individuals who share the perception that parties and congressmen do not care aboutcitizens needs and who have negative evaluations about democracy and elections tend tovote less than those who have opposite views. Further, non-electoral modes of participationare negatively correlated with turnout, suggesting that abstention is a protest againsta traditionally ineffective political system such as the Mexican. One of the challenges ofMexicos democratic consolidation will be to modify these political attitudes which developedunder the ancien rgime, and that today play such an important role in leading peopleto the polls.