Abstract

MORALES OYARVIDE, César. The dispute over democracy: a mairean reading of mexican politics under AMLO. Polis [online]. 2022, vol.18, n.2, pp.69-96.  Epub Apr 10, 2023. ISSN 2594-0686.  https://doi.org/10.24275/uam/izt/dcsh/polis/2022v18n2/morales.

This article uses the late work of Peter Mair as a guide to reconstruct contemporary Mexican politics through three phenomena: the cartelization of the party system, the hollowing of democracy and the populist challenge posed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018. The thesis of this paper is that both López Obrador and his critics appeal to different ways of understanding democracy: one that emphasizes its «popular» component and another that prioritizes its «constitutional» component. The article characterizes these two conflicting conceptions of democracy through recent political events such as the controversy around autonomous agencies. The paper concludes that framing the current political moment as a dispute between two variants of the same regime, which remains the normative horizon of all political players, can help prevent the deepening of conflict.

Keywords : Mexico; democracy; political parties; populism.