The authors of the books reviewed here share a common interest in the process of democratization in Mexico. All three seek to explain how political actors—party leaders, civic groups, or outgoing authoritarians—confronted an uncertain environment characterized by major political changes with potentially high costs and benefits. The books differ in their research designs, but all three employ a qualitative approach characterized mainly by in-depth narratives.

Savage Democracy focuses on the organizational dilemmas confronting the two main opposition parties, the National Action Party (PAN) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), as the authoritarian regime began to retreat. Steven Whus is particularly interested in examining how the leadership of these opposition parties adapted to a changing political environment that made their parties serious challengers to the historically dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Both the PRD and the PAN strongly condemned the PRI's corporatist system and were committed not only to bringing about democratization but also to being internally democratic parties. These twin objectives, according to Whus, impacted how the parties confronted the new demands of electoral competition. Leaders intent on transforming their parties into efficient vote-getting organizations were constrained by norms that stressed internal participatory democracy. Whus examines reforms to candidate selection mechanisms, initiatives for developing professional party bureaucracies, and efforts to build links with civil organizations. These reforms, he argues, raised serious concerns among influential groups inside the PAN and the PRD, which saw them as incompatible with the democratic imperative characteristic of their parties. According to the author, even party leaders, primarily motivated by electoral goals, were concerned about the impact that professionalization and bureaucratization may have for the rank and file and for the potential loss of party mystique. In the end, however, parties adapted to the new environment and embraced electoralist modes of political organization. For Whus, the PAN and the PRD turned away from their members even before the end of PRI rule, and in doing so they weakened Mexico's new democracy.

Savage Democracy addresses an important yet understudied area of research and is a welcome contribution to the literature on political parties in Mexico. It presents a rich account of how party leaders dealt simultaneously with the need to keep party factions together and the goal of maximizing electoral benefits. The chapter on the building of central party offices is particularly informative on the process of bureaucratic development, and the chapter on candidate selection mechanisms complements a growing literature on candidate selection mechanisms in Mexico. Whus's description of the efforts made by the PAN and the PRD to link with civic society raises some interesting questions about the ability of opposition parties to forge ties with social actors in a nonclientelistic, noncorporatist manner.

It is unfortunate, however, that some of the main arguments about institutional change are not discussed until the concluding chapter and are presented in a rather succinct way. For instance, the author identifies at least seven different paths of institutional reform and inductively concludes that two main factors, institutional specificity (i.e., requiring formal processes to reform or not) and strength of opposition, determine the path of institutional reform. While the argument about institutional specificity is particularly interesting, it does not seem to be sufficiently developed as a sound theoretical proposition. While the normative predilection for internally democratic procedures is highlighted throughout the book, it is not clear when and how we should expect the “democratic imperative” to constrain leadership choices. As a result, some readers may be left wondering whether those PAN and PRD factions that opposed reform were actually motivated by a commitment to democratic norms, rather than by a desire to avoid losing political influence inside the party. These criticisms notwithstanding, Savage Democracy succeeds in conveying the importance of party politics. It shows how heightened competition impacted the internal organization of opposition parties, and presents an enlightening account of the internal development paths followed by opposition parties during the Mexican transition process.

Jon Shefner's The Illusion of Civil Society focuses on the evolution of a civic organization formed in a poor urban community during the transition to democracy and market-oriented economic policies. The book offers a rich portrayal of both the difficulties associated with challenging long-standing clientelistic practices in low-income urban communities and the organizational and collective-action dilemmas faced by grassroots movements. The engaging narrative, based on extensive fieldwork, centers on the struggles of the Union of Independent Settlers (UCI) of Cerro del Cuarto (a settlement on the urban periphery of Guadalajara) for achieving local services and national democratization. Shefner's approach is ethnographic; he relies primarily on his personal contacts with community members and organizers to gain an insider perspective and provide meaning to the evolution of the group.

For Shefner, Mexico's adoption of neoliberalism led not only to economic policies that were costly to the poor but also to budgetary constraints that limited resources available for clientelistic purposes. While political machines with a long history of dispensing patronage to loyal followers are difficult to challenge, the economic difficulties of the 1980s and the corresponding process of political opening created some opportunities for actors seeking alternative forms of civic engagement. According to Shefner, the inability of the clientelistic system in place to provide infrastructure to the new settlement, which PRI activists had fomented in the first place, coupled with the arrival of a Jesuit organization dedicated to promoting social change, contributed greatly to the political mobilization of the residents of Cerro del Cuarto. The Jesuit organization Educational Services of the West (SEDOC) was the prime mover behind the formation of the UCI, providing funding, offices, paid workers, access to relevant state actors, and other resources, in addition to the legitimacy associated with religious groups. The strategy promoted by SEDOC to achieve social change was heavily influenced by a combination of Gramscian perspectives on political leadership, liberation theology, and Paolo Freire's views on popular education, and it clashed with the clientelistic practices undertaken by established PRI-related organizations. Shefner describes in detail how the SEDOC and UCI engaged in a variety of local initiatives to provide such things as electricity, water, and land titles to members of the community, and how they maneuvered around local power holders. According to the author, it was when the SEDOC began to shift strategies to prioritize the national struggle for democratization (e.g., running candidates in PRD lists) over the local struggles to improve the living conditions of the settlement that the group began to lose support. Electoral losses and the subsequent dissolution of the SEDOC provided a serious blow to the UCI, which began to lose strength until it dissolved in late 2003.

Illusion of Civil Society is a work of political sociology that should be of particular interest to students of urban and local politics. Others interested in collective action should also find Shefner's account particularly revealing of the challenges faced in organizing for the provision of public goods. The story of the UCI also contributes to the literature on political clientelism in Latin America, since the main obstacle facing this civic organization was the clientelistic system built around government programs, PRI patrons, and brokers. The strength of Shefner's analysis lies in identifying and describing relevant processes in the formation and decay of this civic group. His insider account, a product of years of fieldwork and personal involvement, reveals the complexities behind the mobilization of the area residents and the difficulties faced by civic groups seeking basic local services in the poor urban settings of Latin America. His emphasis on what he sees as the devastating impact of hegemonic neoliberalism (portrayed as a globalized hegemonic class project), however, may appear as an anachronism in today's Latin America, where leftists control around half of the governments of the region. Some readers would probably find that the dilemmas faced by civic organizations in poor settlements like Cerro del Cuarto, as well as the constraints imposed by established systems of patronage to the emergence of new civic groups like the UCI, are common to other political and economic contexts and not necessarily the result of governments adopting market-oriented reforms. Political scientists seeking generalizable explanations or evidence of representativeness may be uncomfortable with Shefner's ethnographic approach and personal engagement with the organization studied, but above all, readers will find that his book offers an insightful account of political mobilization in a poor Mexican community.

Dual Transitions from Authoritarian Rule examines the economic and regime changes experienced by Mexico and Chile during the last 30 years of the twentieth century. According to Francisco González, Mexico and Chile differ from other Latin American countries in that the authoritarian regimes in place survived the economic crisis of the early 1980s and, for the most part, controlled the time, pace, and extent of the transitions to a market-oriented economy and a democratic regime. In both instances, the economic transition preceded the transition to democracy, but according to González, it was not the authoritarian nature of these regimes that allowed the departing actors to successfully manage economic and political liberalization. Instead, he argues, the key difference between Mexico and Chile, on the one hand, and the other Latin American countries that attempted such transitions, on the other hand, is that the former were institutionalized authoritarian regimes. The authoritarian regimes of Chile and Mexico are classified as institutionalized because they provided a constitutional framework, strong executive, strong parties, and an established electoral calendar. Institutionalization structured contestation in a positive-sum way in both the economic and political transitions: It established the bases for predictable competition and intertemporal allocation of costs and benefits that would result from the transitions, which channeled participation in a way that contained violence and moderated social and political conflict.

This book follows the most-different-systems design: Both cases are countries that exhibit the outcome of interest (i.e., authoritarian control over dual transitions) and both share the main explanatory variable (i.e., an institutionalized authoritarian regime) while differing on a variety of other relevant characteristics (i.e., democratic experience, party system, military involvement, economic performance). The historical narrative centers on the political and economic trajectories of these two countries, highlighting how the crucial independent variables influenced dual transitions.

The González book contributes to the rich literature on dual transitions that began close to 20 years ago. The author presents a plausible explanation for the manner in which Mexico and Chile moved from authoritarianism and state-led economic policies to market-led democracies, and delivers an informative account of these countries' political and economic transformations. The book is divided into three sections—the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s—each composed of two chapters, one focused on Chile and the other on Mexico. The focused two-country comparison is well executed, providing a detailed account of the adoption of free-market policies and the institutional constraints influencing the authoritarian withdrawal. While Gonzalez persuasively argues that in Mexico and Chile the four components of institutionalization tended to strengthen the control of outgoing authoritarian actors over dual transitions, the generalizability of this explanation remains to be tested with a larger sample of cases. Similarly, the claim that effective control of dual transitions by outgoing authoritarian regimes leads to greater political and economic stability following these transitions is questionable. While Chile seems to fit the picture well, it is not so clear whether Mexico, with a recent trajectory that includes both economic upheavals and political instability, is an exemplary case. But overall, González succeeds in presenting a well-researched narrative of policy and regime change, together with qualitative evidence that suggests the important role played by authoritarian institutionalization.

To sum up, the three books reviewed here are valuable contributions to the study of Latin American politics. They examine complex aspects of the period of democratic transition, provide insightful accounts, and present interesting hypotheses about the complex relations between authoritarian regimes, political actors, and transitional outcomes.