ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on 'top-down' approaches of democratisation and addresses one side of what is usually understood as two contradictory views of how democracy evolves. It looks at the specific ways in which the processes of internationalisation in Mexico influenced the calculations of the elites. The chapter presents the elites in the narrower possible sense; high-ranking officials within the regime and the leadership of opposition parties. It deals with the role of international leverage on the elites during Mexico's transition. The chapter also presents an analysis based on a combination of an elite-level approach with institutional perspectives. It suggests that internationalization, first and foremost, shapes institutions by pushing towards convergence of the domestic to fit the international. The chapter shows that during the negotiation stages of North American Free Trade Agreement the Mexican elites were certainly more susceptible than they have ever been to political pressure from the United States; once the treaty was agreed, however, the leverage potential decreased greatly.
