| The research query of the dissertation is, how does economic liberalization contribute to the transition from an authoritarian dominant party system to one where political leaders are chosen by open, free, and competitive elections? The principal hypothesis, the greater the dispersion of economic activities from the public sector to the private sector, the greater will be the erosion of political support for the dominant party and the more numerous will be the challenges for the leadership from rival parties, is treated as a working assumption and the proposition to be tested is that the decision to open up the economy are reflected in a decline of dominant party's vote share.; By using panel designed cross section analysis, the statistical results show that institutional credibility and inequality of income distribution are negatively related to the dominant party's hegemony, while relative political capacity, government consumption and economic growth are positively related to it.; The use of Mexico as a case study to illustrate the transformation of dominant party regimes consists of three chapters, for Miguel de la Madrid, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and Enersto Zedillo Ponce de Le6n respectively. As economic activity has been dispersed from the public to private sectors, Mexico's governing party's hegemony also declines. The PRI lost its hegemony in the 1990s because economic liberalization in the 1980s created more interest groups competing for political power and the long-term political monopoly ossified the PRI's internal structure. Economic openness leads to political liberalization and thus also leads to the possible breakdown of the PRI and the irreversible democratization for Mexico as a whole.; Three conclusions can be drawn from the Mexican case. First, the more successful are liberalizing reforms, the harder it is for the dominant party to maintain its hegemony because it becomes more accountable to the population. Second, the more constituents depend on market rules rather than material rewards from their political patrons, the greater will be the erosion of political support for the dominant parties. Finally, under the dominant party regimes, economic liberalization leads to political liberalization rather than the other way around. |
