ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the process of regime change in Mexico. Mexico represents a particular path of democratization-one that embarks from a one-party regime. Indeed, it is a case of the democratization of the world's longest-lived dominant-party regime. The second concerns the challenges and tensions faced by governing or majoritarian labor-based parties (LBPs), that is, parties with a core support base in the labor movement. In Mexico, the dominant party virtually monopolized political office for six decades after its founding in 1929. The populist LBP in Mexico institutionalized a support base in the labor movement that secured legitimacy for the one-party regime and provided a mechanism for achieving labor cooperation and industrial peace. The first project for political liberalization was adopted by the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN), the only major opposition party in Mexico at the time, and a newly politicized private sector.
