institutions and caudillos: relations between the deputies of the twenty-eighth legislature and president venustiano carranza

Abstract

This article reviews the behavior of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, from September, 1918 to December 1920 (XXVIII Legislature), and its relationship with the head of the executive branch, Venustiano Carranza. Challenging the traditional historiography of the period, Ignacio Marvan concludes that the dynamics of the executive-legislative relationship depended less on politician's leadership or absence of modern political parties than on institutional factors, such as the constitutional framework, the electoral system, the no reelection rule for the executive, and the presidential political cycle.