Undoing a Violent Past: Explaining Electoral Homicide in Mexico's Democratization (1988-2000)

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

This project examines the cause of political and electoral violence in Mexico's democratization and the efficacy of the emergent strategies of legal control designed to diminish it. Over 600 opposition political party members have fallen as victims of political-electoral homicide between1988 and 2000. Many of these homicides occurred while an individual was engaged in legal activities, such as organizing political meetings, attending a post-election fraud protest, and conducting a "get out the vote" campaign. The project will test three hypotheses explaining the use of violence: 1) the "peasant-landlord conflict" thesis posits that violence against peasants is a manifestation of underlying agrarian struggles over land and wages; 2) the "violence as a political strategy" thesis asserts that political-electoral homicide is a response of the authorities to the violent tactics of a political party; and 3) the "lack of juridical uncertainty" thesis maintains that political-electoral homicide is the result of insufficient legal clarity surrounding election outcomes. The study will examine both qualitative data (biographical accounts of approximately 650 homicide victims) and quantitative data (survey data on the attitudes about political violence of 1,000 party members as well as prosecution rates for electoral crimes). The project's contributions include assessing the effectiveness of control over electoral crimes and linking violence with the study of the evolution of the rule of law and democratization.