Appropriate Institutions? Traditional Governance and Public Goods Provision in Oaxaca, Mexico

摘要

Since the mid-1980s, indigenous populations across the Americas have increasingly demanded and obtained greater autonomy over local affairs (Yashar 2005, Eisenstadt 2011). Indigenous groups in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, have played a prominent role in this movement. In 1995, the state's government reformed its municipal law to recognize the rights of indigenous groups to use traditional governance institutions in local government affairs through Usos y Costumbres (UyC) legislation (Anaya Munoz 2005). Since then, more than 400 of the state's 570 municipalities have become legally administered under this traditional municipal governance system. This paper examines what changes occurred in Oaxaca's municipalities after the passage of such potentially transformative reform. We combine the 1995 census of UyC electoral and administrative rules with quinquennial population census data of approximately 2,500 Oaxacan localities and annual school-level census data to examine changes in political representation and access to public goods between 1990 and 2005.