Party Politics and Abortion Policy: Electoral Competition and Non-Programmatic Party Strategies in Subnational Mexico

Scholars have long argued for the importance of left parties in liberalizing restrictive abortion policies in Latin America and beyond. Conversely, center-right parties with conservative stances inspired by Catholic ideology have been considered obstacles to progressive policy change. While the focus on programmatic parties on opposing sides of the political spectrum is well warranted, few studies focus on the role of non-programmatic parties in shaping abortion policy despite their prominence in the region at large. Parties that do not rely on clientelistic or other forms of voter linkages have played a significant role in policy change by providing their programmatic counterparts with the votes needed to pass reform and have in some cases single-handedly attempted to alter existing legislation. But what determines the politics of parties that lack programmatic linkage mechanisms in relation to controversial policies such as abortion? This paper examines this question through a focus on Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), known for its centrist, catch-all features. During the wave of “right-to-life” amendments 2008-2015 in which seventeen states passed restrictive reforms to counteract Mexico City’s abortion decriminalization, the formerly hegemonic party dominated the subnational arena. Despite the absence of an official party position on abortion, the PRI introduced and supported the adoption of restrictive amendments in a majority of states. But it also competed with the left-wing Democratic Revolution party (PRD) to introduce a bill that decriminalized abortion in the national capital. What explains the PRI's puzzling behavior in relation to abortion policy? Drawing on extensive field research in subnational Mexico, the paper argues that electoral competition is one of the main factors that shape non-programmatic party positions on contentious social policies such as abortion. In the case of the Mexico's PRI, competition between the party and its main rival in a given state explains why representatives took varying positions on the issue across federation. This argument contributes to scholarship on moral or doctrinal gender policies focusing on the understudied party-political aspect of legislative reforms as well as to studies of the politics of non-programmatic parties.