Participatory and representative democracy in Mexico: is the popular consultation the response to the crisis of representation that face the country? Democracia participativa y representativa en México: ¿la consulta popular es la respuesta a la crisis de representación que enfrenta este país?

Abstract

The present work constitutes a research that uses the deductive and inductive method, for this reason it is based on three fundamental concepts: democracy, representative democracy and participatory democracy, whose main objective is to analyze if these two forms of democracy can be exercised in Mexico, starting from the consideration that in this country there is a crisis of representation whose existence is evident, as well as that of various obstacles including poverty. When analyzing the specific case of Mexico, a particular review is made of the popular consultation, since in 2012 it was implemented constitutionally as a mechanism, in which citizens have the right to participate, but to date they have not carried out a democratic exercise of this kind. In this order of ideas, the legal and political issues that revolve around popular consultation are also studied. Based on the foregoing, in the last part of this text a series of conclusions is issued, which in general terms, maintain that it is a danger that, through a mechanism of semi-direct democracy, an uninformed society, with little education, in a situation of poverty and consequently with hunger, take a decision on matters of national importance.