The judicialization of electoral processes in Mexico

Abstract

Organizations increase their resources as a reward for gaining legitimacy, which in turn guarantees their survival. The purpose of this paper is to explain that one way in which political parties try to legitimize themselves in the eyes of their supporters and the public, is to prosecute electoral processes in order to gain access to a greater amount of public funding. It is argued that the concepts, ideas, and assumptions of neo-institutional theory can explain the causes of this phenomenon. A case study of interest for this paper is presented, regarding the extraordinary elections of the Municipality of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, in 2018. Among the findings of this paper, the consequences of judicialization for citizen confidence and for the allocation of the public budget to address an increasing number of challenges are highlighted. Likewise, a paradox was identified: in their eagerness to judicialize electoral processes, political parties provoke a decrease in the trust that citizens have in authorities and electoral institutions; however, at the same time, this distrust leads to an increase in the legitimacy of these same parties that promote litigation, which in the end results in more votes and greater probabilities of survival. In this regard, the conclusions of this paper imply that when electoral processes are judicialized, as a means of gaining legitimacy, only a few win and democracy, as a whole, loses.