Democracy in Mexico dates to the establishment of the federal republic of Mexico in 1824. After a long history under the Spanish Empire (1521–1821), Mexico gained its independence in 1821 and became the First Mexican Empire led by royalist military officer Agustín de Iturbide. Three years later, a federal republic was created under the Constitution of 1824. However, the republic was truncated by a series of military coups, most notably that of politician-general Antonio López de Santa Anna. Santa Anna held immense sway over the fledgling Mexican democracy until 1855, when he was ousted by liberal politicians.
The liberals drafted and ratified the Constitution of 1857, which enshrined rights such as universal male suffrage and eliminated Church and military privileges. The overthrow of Santa Anna, however, led to widespread dissatisfaction among conservative Mexicans and led to a twenty-two-year conflict and two wars between conservatives and liberals. In 1862, on the invitation of Mexican conservatives, Maximilian Habsburg was crowned Emperor of Mexico after a successful French invasion of the country.
From 1876 to 1911, regular elections were held, but the electorate remained politically unengaged. This era was known as the Porfiriato – the presidency of Porfirio Díaz, who ascended to power via military coup in 1876 and held power directly and indirectly until 1910. As resentment towards Díaz increased, the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910 and caused a civil war, which ended with the creation of the new Constitution after its ratification on 5 February 1917.
Mexican politics was then dominated by the secular Constitutionalists, who had won the ensuing civil war. Regular elections were held, but results were often manipulated. Though the "anti-re-electionist principle" still stood, mandating that incumbent presidents could not be re-elected, presidents often nominated their successors. The result was that the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) held near-complete control over the electoral mechanism, essentially turning Mexico into a one-party state until 1988, when its left-wing factions broke off. Women's suffrage was introduced in 1953.
Mexican politics saw change in 2000 when the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN) candidate Vicente Fox won the presidential election. He was succeeded by the next candidate of the PAN, Felipe Calderón, in 2006. The PRI returned to power in 2012, after Enrique Peña Nieto won the presidency, but was defeated by Andrés Manuel López Obrador's new National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) coalition in 2018.
Mexico was ranked 11th least electoral democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean according to V-Dem Democracy indices in 2023 with a score of 0.598 out of one.Democracy Report 2023, Table 3, V-Dem Institute, 2023
Colonial government: 1521–1808
As an overseas territory of the Spanish Empire, colonial Mexico was a component of Spain's absolute monarchy and was overseen by the Council of the Indies. Its officials were appointed royal officials with broad legal powers. They could draft laws ordinances and decrees, exercise judicial review, act as the Supreme Court for colony-initiated cases, supervise indigenous people, censor printed reports, oversee the colonial treasury, and organize local government inspections. The council also approved all of the colonies' civil, military and religious appointees, leaving a small number of positions to be selected by the colonists themselves.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain was the jurisdiction for crown rule in what is now Mexico. The viceroy was the highest crown official selected by the Spanish king to be the "king's living image" and personal representative. He functioned as the chief executive, supervised the military, and acted as the president of the administrative court of the colony. The viceroy also nominated minor officials and distributed land and titles, all subject to the approval of the Council of the Indies and, ultimately, the Spanish monarch.
The Real Audiencia, the high court located in Spain, administered royal justice. During the early era of colonization, governors overseeing the smaller jurisdictions of the audiencia were appointed by the viceroy, but the crown incrementally took over the appointment of these designations. Governors were not re-appointed consecutively to oversee the same district. Indigenous villages were overseen by a corregidor, while alcalde mayors oversaw European settlements. Each town included a surrounding district of settled area, governed by a council (cabildo) of five to fifteen men, typically wealthy criollos. The council annually elected a chief magistrate and selected the constable, standard-bearer, inspector of weights and measures, and the collector of fines. Spaniards, both European- and American-born, held the dominant bureaucratic and social positions.
Everyone was deemed a subject of the crown but not necessarily a citizen of the empire. The crown held authority, but there was no equality before the law. Different races and statuses conferred particular rights or obligations. Indigenous persons were members of the Republic of Indians (República de Indios), while all others—Spaniards, mixed-race castas, and Afro-Mexicans—were members of the Republic of Spaniards (República de Españoles). There were separate courts under the jurisdiction of the Catholic church for the members of the clergy and the Inquisition to ensure religious orthodoxy and practice. The military, established in the late eighteenth century, held special privileges (fuero militar), which was extended to non-white members. The crown gave privileges to elite corporate groups of silver mine owners and high-level merchants, creating consulados. There was a separate General Indian Court with jurisdiction over disputes of individuals and indigenous communities. Indians were also excluded from Catholic courts and from military service as they were deemed legal minors.
With the eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms in New Spain, which created 12 intendancies and weakened the power of the viceroy, the ayuntamientos (municipal councils) "became the institution representing the interests of the local and regional oligarchical groups then setting deep roots into their territories".Guedea, Virginia. "The Old Colonialism Ends, the New Colonialism Begins" in The Oxford History of Mexico, Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley, eds. New York: Oxford University Press 2000, p. 282. These municipal councils were to become extremely important in the independence era following the 1808 French invasion of Spain.
Indigenous political participation in the colonial era was found at the local level in indigenous communities. The crown's designation of indigenous communities as "republics" was a practical one at conquest, allowing indigenous communities to maintain their existing political processes and social hierarchies, which were used to incorporate the indigenous peaceably into the empire. Indigenous elites (principales) in their communities were the interface with the Spanish colonial government. Indigenous city-states (Nahuatl: altepetl;Gibson, Charles, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1964, pp. 166-193.Lockhart, James. The Nahuas After the Conquest. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1992, pp. 14-59 Mayan: Cah; Mixtec: ÑnuTerraciano, Kevin. "The Colonial Mixtec Community". Hispanic American Historical Review 80:1, 2000, 1-42) became pueblos and their ruling structures outwardly conformed to Spanish models of municipal government, the cabildo or ayuntamiento (municipal council). These municipal councils became the bulwark of indigenous communities' defense of their interests, petitioning the crown over grievances and litigating in court. The cabildo also became the instrument of Spanish colonial rule in their communities, collecting taxes and mobilizing labor.Altman, Ida, Sarah Cline, and Javier Pescador. The Early History of Greater Mexico, Prentice Hall 1993, pp. 146-47. The seat of the cabildo was in the head town (cabecera) with jurisdiction over subject communities (sujetos). Subject communities increasingly sought autonomy from the head towns to manage their own affairs. Even where only indigenous elites participated in elections to the town council, "elections depended on forging of a local consensus if indigenous councils were to rule with legitimacy".Reina, Leticia. "Local Elections and Regime Crises: The Political Culture of Indigenous Peoples." in Cycles of Conflict, Centuries of Change: Crisis, Reform, and Revolution in Mexico, Elisa Servín, Leticia Reina, and John Tutino, eds. Durham: Duke University Press 2007, p. 92. Historian Antonio Annino argues that these autonomous pueblos were key in the history of liberal citizenship in Mexico.Annino, Antonio. "The Two-Faced Janus: The Pueblos and the Origins of Mexican Liberalism" in Cycles of Conflict, Centuries of Change: Crisis, Reform, and Revolution in Mexico, Elisa Servín, Leticia Reina, and John Tutino, eds. Durham: Duke University Press 2007, pp. 60-90.
When communities petitioned royal or ecclesiastical officials for the redress of wrongs through peaceful means, those feeling wronged could and sometimes did resort to violence. Local rebellions in Indian communities were a feature of the colonial period, which were usually short-lived and did not spread to neighboring communities.Taylor, William B. Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1979 There were two major riots in Mexico City during the colonial era. The riot of 1624 saw the American-born elites mobilizing the urban poor to riot against the new, reformist viceroy, Marqués de Gelves, who sought to bring an end to corrupt practices of royal officials, as well as targeting freedoms enjoyed by the mixed-race population. A riot broke out in the main square of Mexico City, the Zócalo, where the palace of the viceroy was located. The rioters shouted slogans that affirmed their allegiance to the king and denounced the new viceroy. The rioters and their elite white supporters succeeded in ousting the viceroy and the crown did not attempt to impose reforms for another century.Israel, Jonathan I. Race, Class, and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 1610-1670. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1975.Altman, et al. The Early History of Greater Mexico, pp. 246-48. Another large-scale urban riot occurred in 1692, in which rioters partially destroyed the palace of the viceroy and looted upscale shops.Cope, R. Douglas. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660-1720. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1994. The viceroy sought to restore order and reaffirm royal authority, which the rioters had challenged. He considered the riot evidence of class warfare with Spanish authority at risk.Altman, et al. The Early History of Greater Mexico, p. 249.
Independence era, 1808-1821 Rule of Spain and its overseas territories by an absolute monarch was disrupted when Spain was invaded by Napoleon's armies in 1808, touching off sweeping political changes in New Spain. With the French invasion, the Spanish monarch Charles IV of Spain was forced to abdicate and Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte was made monarch. For Spain and its overseas territories, this presented a situation that challenged the legitimacy of the monarchy. Juntas arose in Spain and its overseas territories to claim sovereignty in the name of the legitimate Spanish monarch.