What the Democratization of Mexico Means for All the World

Larry Diamond - Vicente Fox's presidential election victory in Mexico on July 2 was more than a shattering defeat for the world's longest-ruling governing party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI); it was also a hugely significant victory for democracy. In Mexico, it puts a long-overdue end to seven decades of rotten, cynical control by a single party over a swollen and abused state. In Latin America, it ends the biggest exception to the two-decade-long regional swing toward genuine electoral competition.