The Political Economy of Factionalism in the PRI in Mexico

Professor Estevez conducted Ph.D. work at UCLA where he earned two master's degrees in Political Science and Latin American Studies. He received his B.A. from Stanford. He specializes in parties, elections, and public opinion in Mexico, and distributive politics.

In this talk, he will discuss the recent evolution of events in the presidential race in Mexico and analyze the following question: After suffering severe erosion from electoral competition and internal splits, do formerly hegemonic parties shrink into cohesive groups tied to still loyal supporters or do they manifest the cleavages that hegemony always managed to dampen? Estevez's study of Mexico's PRI, in its openly competitive era, reveals a rift in its still potent electoral base between state-driven and market-driven developmental strategies.