Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Grass- roots Associations and Local Political Participation in Mexico

这项博士论文研究考察了非政治性基层组织如何影响墨西哥贫困社区的政治参与模式。研究人员假设，这些协会的内部特征以及它们运作的地方背景与政治参与模式有直接联系。研究人员选择了墨西哥社区的匹配样本，并对不同的地方协会进行了编码，以确定它们鼓励公开决策的程度。决策的公开性和封闭性与投票率、政党参与和参与程度的档案信息相关。本研究假设非政治交往活动与政治参与之间存在因果关系，这对于理解农村地区的民主政治变化很重要。

This doctoral dissertation research examines how non-political grass-roots organizations affect patterns of political participation in poor communities in Mexico. The researcher hypothesizes that the internal characteristics of the associations, as well as the local context within which they operate, has a direct linkage to patterns of political participation. The researcher has selected a matched sample of communities in Mexico and has coded different local associations for the degree to which they encourage open decision making. The openness and closedness of decision making is correlated with voting turnout, political party involvement and archival information about levels of participation. This study posits a causal linkage between non-political associational activity and political involvement that is important for understanding democratic political change in rural settings.