Abstract

VAZQUEZ FERREL, Carlos. The legislative influence of the opposition in the initiatives of the minority governments in Mexico, 1997-2012. Perf. latinoam. [online]. 2019, vol.27, n.54, 00006. ISSN 0188-7653.  https://doi.org/10.18504/pl2754-006-2019.

Studies about the dynamics of minority governments in presidential systems are limited, even though it is a frequent reality in Latin America. This work focuses on the legislative influence of the opposition -which is understood as the amendments exerted by these groups-, in the initiatives of the presidents of the Mexican minority governments (1997-2012). It is argued that one of the mechanisms that enabled the approval of pieces of the presidents’ legislative agenda was, precisely, the active participation of the opposition legislators in the final content of these initiatives. An original database -that captures the magnitude of change of each amendment- reveals the intense and variant legislative influence of the opposition at the parliament. Two analytic models are put into play to identify the factors that increase the probability for this legislative influence to vary, which is shaped by the changes in the political parties system and the political contextual dynamics.

Keywords : opposition; Congress; president; minority government; amendments; presidential systems.