Americas Perspective on Politics

This essay was originally presented as theRobert F. Kennedy Professorship Lecture at theDavid Rockefeller Center for Latin American StudiesHarvard UniversityOctober 17, 2005Background and Motivation1Most of my training and professional experience has been that of an academic studying electoralbehavior, political parties, and democratic representation. It was only two years ago, lured by theopportunity to help the ongoing strengthening of Mexico’s electoral democracy, that I accepted the invitation of the new Councilor President of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), Dr. Luis Carlos Ugalde, to becomethe agency’s executive, and thus in charge of the office which lies at the heart of the interaction betweenMexico’s political parties and the state. The experience was most challenging, and, equally, gratifying. Forthe opportunity and trust, I will remain thankful to Dr. Ugalde and all of the other Council members who backed my nomination.And yet, as I conducted the auditing of billions of pesos spent during 2003, prepared rulings fining political parties for amounts larger than ever before during IFE’s regular oversights, designed new norms and measures to strengthen monitoring of early spending by presidential hopefuls, led the implementation ofintricately complex judicial sentences that allegedly sought to force the Green Party (Partido VerdeEcologista de Mйxico, PVEM) to democratize, and directly monitored the formation of two new nationalpolitical parties under the most stringent legal conditions, I could not help but wonder whether I was actually doing the right thing for my country. In fact, I was often convinced that the better I did my job, the worsethe effects might be for democratic representation over the long run in Mexico.This paradox, of course, had a lot to do with the myriad inefficacies and tensions present in Mexico’shighly touted electoral law. But my unease went a bit beyond enforcing a law that I ultimately realized wasdeeply flawed. It had much more to do with the urgent need to think about its reform in a way in which almost nobody in Mexico, or, for that matter, in many Latin American countries, seemed to be thinking.So here I am, working on the following endeavor: to conduct a systematic analysis, from a rigorousscientific perspective and with strong concern for its immediate consequences, on the problem of money in electoral politics, seeking ways to address it that may help produce a more vibrant, authentic, representativedemocracy.The Normative Concern with Money in Electoral Politics1I am deeply honored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies’ invitation to join the illustrious group ofRobert F. Kennedy Professors. I am also grateful to Deans David Ellwood and Steve Walt at the Kennedy School of Governmentfor their hospitality and support, and very especially to Professors John Coatsworth and Merilee Grindle for offering me thisremarkable opportunity. I also want to express my endless gratitude to Professor Jorge Domнnguez and admiration for hisoutstanding academic entrepreneurship.

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3There is an inherent tension between democracy and representation. It is a tension that stems fromthe need to establish a trustworthy linkage between citizen preferences and the representative’s interests,coupled with the need to find a proper way to aggregate these citizen-representative linkages into coherentpublic policy.In contemporary democracies, great amounts of resources are necessary for electoral activities to takeplace, and this further complicates democratic representation. As Lawrence Whitehead has recently warned,“a liberal democracy is one that decides public policy (including the distribution of ‘social goods’) in accordance with citizen choices, not the decisions of the powerful or the wealthy. But to achieve such adistribution of social goods according to democratic principles, civic and political rights must be insulatedfrom the cash nexus, political power must not be for sale and bribery must be effectively sanctioned”(Whitehead 2005: 13).This passage correctly alludes to a second potential problem with the role of money in electoral politics,namely, that should moneyed interests effectively infiltrate the public apparatus, then the rule of law,understood as the ability of a strong, autonomous state to uphold citizen rights and at the same time beaccountable to them, is in serious jeopardy.Hannah Pitkin’s statement of concern that contemporary democracy has become “a new form ofoligarchy, with ordinary people excluded from public life” (Pitkin 2004: 335) is a straightforward reminderof how even an effective representative democracy could be subject to substantial shortcomings in terms ofsocial justice, should it produce a systematic bias against those who are less