Articulation of formal and informal institutions to resolve electoral protests in Pinotepa de Don Luis, Oaxaca

Abstract

The municipal elections in Pinotepa de Don Luis, Oaxaca in 2010, showed the functioning of Mexican institutions to lead social protests. The objective of this article is to show how formal and informal institutions are articulated with social actors that define and redefine relationships with government authorities. To this end, mixed methods were used, which began with a follow-up of local press records on post-election protests, in addition to the analysis of sentences of electoral tribunals and decrees of the state Congress. In-depth interviews were conducted with informants to complement and validate, through Social Network Analysis, the attributes of the actors and the institutional channels they followed to obtain responses to their demands. The centrality of the actors shows that those who had low centrality, closeness and intermediation were decisive in resolving the protests and that an informal rule was decisive in reaching an agreement between contenders, thus avoiding ungovernability in the municipality under study.