Larissa Adler-Lomnitz, Rodrigo Salazar-Elena and Ilya Adler, Symbolism and Ritual in a One-Party Regime: Unveiling Mexico's Political Culture

摘要

Symbolism and Ritual in a One-Party Regime provides an intimate look at a now vanished world: the presidential campaigns conducted by Mexico's long-ruling hegemonic party, the Partido Revolucionario Institutional (Revolutionary Institutional Party, PRI), in the days of its power. The authors begin with a puzzling question. Given that during PRI hegemony the election of the PRI candidate to the presidency was never in doubt, why did the party and the candidates invest so much energy, money and time in mounting an elaborate presidential campaign? The authors make a compelling argument that the intended audience of these campaigns was not the voters, but the political class itself.