Origins and Use of Presidential Polling in Mexico, Presidential Approval in Mexico, Government Spending and Public Opinion in Mexico
type: CreativeWork
description: This three-paper dissertation aims to contribute to the study of the Mexican presidency, in particular, to the understanding of the origins and use of presidential polling, its role in the policy activity of the president, and the dynamics of presidential approval between 1989 and 2011. The dissertation draws upon the presidential polling, opinion-policy and approval research done in the United States. The first paper explores a topic that has not received much attention in Mexico, the origins and use of the presidential polling unit (PPU). The second paper focuses on presidential approval in Mexico, and the third analyzes, yet another understudied topic, the relationship between government spending (used as proxy for policy) and public opinion (collected by the PPU). The first paper relies on crosstabulations, text analysis, wordclouds and cluster analysis. Additionally, to offer an insider's view, I conducted a series of interviews to seven presidential staffers during the administrations of Presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari (Dec/1988-Nov/1994), Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (Dec/1994-Nov/2000), and Vicente Fox Quezada (Dec/2000-Nov/2006). The second and third papers made use of vector autoregression models to account for feedback effects among the spending and opinion variables, controlling, at the same time, for a possible `backwards' process in the opinion variables. The main assumption is that the variables are connected: all variables depend and/or explain each other.The first paper entitled "Origins and Use of Presidential Polling in Mexico" addresses the questions of what caused the creation of a government office dedicated to gauge public opinion, what poll information the presidents collected, and how it was used. I will argue that the institutionalization of public opinion within the presidency responded to the dynamics of the political system, in particular, to the changes in the electoral system and the outcome of the presidential election of 1988. …
abstract: This three-paper dissertation aims to contribute to the study of the Mexican presidency, in particular, to the understanding of the origins and use of presidential polling, its role in the policy activity of the president, and the dynamics of presidential approval between 1989 and 2011. The dissertation draws upon the presidential polling, opinion-policy and approval research done in the United States. The first paper explores a topic that has not received much attention in Mexico, the origins and use of the presidential polling unit (PPU). The second paper focuses on presidential approval in Mexico, and the third analyzes, yet another understudied topic, the relationship between government spending (used as proxy for policy) and public opinion (collected by the PPU). The first paper relies on crosstabulations, text analysis, wordclouds and cluster analysis. Additionally, to offer an insider's view, I conducted a series of interviews to seven presidential staffers during the administrations of Presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari (Dec/1988-Nov/1994), Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (Dec/1994-Nov/2000), and Vicente Fox Quezada (Dec/2000-Nov/2006). The second and third papers made use of vector autoregression models to account for feedback effects among the spending and opinion variables, controlling, at the same time, for a possible `backwards' process in the opinion variables. The main assumption is that the variables are connected: all variables depend and/or explain each other.The first paper entitled "Origins and Use of Presidential Polling in Mexico" addresses the questions of what caused the creation of a government office dedicated to gauge public opinion, what poll information the presidents collected, and how it was used. I will argue that the institutionalization of public opinion within the presidency responded to the dynamics of the political system, in particular, to the changes in the electoral system and the outcome of the presidential election of 1988. …
author: Torres-Reyna, Oscar
language: English
keywords: Presidents--Public opinion, Public opinion polls, Political science, Public policy (Law), Salinas de Gortari, Carlos, Zedillo Ponce de León, Ernesto, Fox Quesada, Vicente
date published: 2013
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:44:36Z
provider: Columbia University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Columbia University

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.7916/D8B282N6