The victory by Vicente Fox Quesada in Mexico's July 2000 presidential election was a watershed in the country's political history. His triumph convincingly marked the consolidation of electoral democracy and, by ending seven decades of uninterrupted national rule by the "official" Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), symbolized a clear break with the political regime established following the 1910-1920 revolution. Nevertheless, many legacies of postrevolutionary authoritarianism persist, and Mexico's democratization process remains incomplete. The seventeen contributors to this volume assess Mexico's political dynamics at the turn of the century and the many pending challenges in the construction of a more fully democratic political order.
They examine: (1) changes affecting the party system, electoral institutions, and voting behavior; (2) the evolving role of the armed forces, organized labor, big business, and rural producers; (3) the new importance of civil society, the mass media, and cross-border social coalitions; (4) and key issues of political representation and governance, including executive-legislative relations, judicial performance, federalism, the constitutional rights of indigenous peoples, and the political role of Mexicans resident in the United States.

As a consequence of market-oriented reforms and historic shifts in governmentpolicy toward labor, the Mexican organized labor movement has declined substantially in size, bargaining strength, and political influence since the 1980s. Democratization has expanded workers' choices at the ballot box, and some unions have bolstered their position by forging alliances with counterparts in Canada and the United States. By analyzing the changes, continuities, and contradictions characterizing labor politics in Mexico, this book contributes to a broader assessment of organized labor's role in contemporary Latin America. Democratization has had remarkably little impact on the state-labor relations regimeinstitutionalized following the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. This legal regimeboth underpins the position of unrepresentative union leaders and grants governmentofficials extensive controls over labor organizations. The combination of weakenedunions, unaccountable leaders, and strong government controls fundamentally constrainsworkers' capacity to defend their interests.
This state of affairs - especially the failure to enact progressive labor law reform since democratic regime change in 2000 - limits democracy and imposes heavy costs on society as a whole.