Introduction.
The relation between states and
regions suffers a lot of problems because many reasons. One of them (the more
obvious) is the complications that emerge when states with different types of
government system want to strengthen their relationships, and the differences
can be clearer in the local government level. Differences like the capability
of the governments, the resources at their disposition, the legitimacy of the rulers,
the ideology of the party in office, and of course the distinct political
culture that every nation has, makes the cooperation between governments a very
complex effort.
Mexico has a presidential type of
government, inspired by the system that the Founding Fathers of the United
States create when they triumph in the war for the independency of the thirteen
colonies over the United Kingdom. Also, the Aztec nation reproduces the same
type of state that the US has, a federal type, with national sub entities
united by a federal pact: the Constitution.
Many could think that with these
similarities, the communication between governments in all the levels will be
easy, but that’s not true, because these two nations adopted this figures (the
federal state and the presidential government) for different reasons: while de
US become a federal state to promote the centralization of the national
government, creating an authority with the power to maintain by the force the
unity of the nation (the Presidency), Mexico adopted the federal system because
the regional leaders, commonly named as “caciques” want to preserve their
shares of power, and the President became “a national referee”. It is useful to
remember that when Mexico became an independent nation, his first type of
government was the Centralized Empire, so the federal system wasn't the
original project for organizing the new nation.
Additionally, the political culture
in the US, individualist and liberal, supports the existence of a limited
government, with a few functions, with intervention over the economy only as a
regulator. These principles are shared by the two main parties, the Republican
and the Democrat, producing a two-party system with centripetal competition,
according to the political parties’ theory of Sartori. In Mexico, the huge
differences that exist in his own citizenships, like the culture, the income,
education and many more, has produced a distinct political culture that has
been expressed, in the federal level, in a three-party unique system that in
some cases has a centripetal or centrifugal competition.
Political
similarities and administrative differences at local level.
As we can see, the political
differences between these two nations are wide and varied despite they have the
same type of government and form of state, but as we say in Mexico, “the devil
is in the details”. However, in the local level of government, we can find
another kind of similarities and of course, another kind of differences. The
political situation in some Mexican states is somehow similar to the American
states, and we can see an example between California and Baja California.
Both states have a two-party
system with a centripetal competition, and the political culture is very
similar. Although in the two last presidential elections the leftist
presidential candidate ended in second place (the same place as national
level), the local elections in Baja California have been maintained as a
competence between only two political parties: the National Action Party (in
government since 1989) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party, who returned
to power in the 2012 presidential election. Hence, if the political situation
is in some ways similar in these two states, the difficulty to cooperate can be
found where? The difficulty is in the particularities of theirs governments at
the local levels. Mexico has only three levels of government: federal, state
and municipal level, but the US, specifically California, has more levels:
federal, state, county, city and many types of “districts” (school, transit,
municipal utility, etc).
California has a lot of charges
that are elected directly by the universal vote, like the Governor, the Lieutenant
Governor, the Attorney General, the Controller, Secretary of State, Treasurer,
Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Insurance Commissioner. In the
counties the situation is the same: in San Diego, the county government is
composed of the elected five-member Board of Supervisors, several other elected
offices and officers including the Sheriff, the District Attorney,
Assessor/Recorder/County Clerk, and Treasurer/Tax Collector, and numerous
county departments and entities under the supervision of the Chief
Administrative Officer. The American citizens are proud of their democracy, but
in the local level, the fact that many charges are elected perhaps it is good
for the democracy, but not for the operation of the public administration. If
the cooperation between these local authorities is difficult, it is logic that
the cooperation with public functionaries of other country will be more
complicated.
In Baja California, the Governor
of the State designates all the positions of his cabinet with freedom, except
the Attorney General, that needs to be approved by the Chamber of Deputies. The
state government is more centralized, so the governor can take decisions in a
way much easier than the California governor, but the centralization of the
public administration makes that the risk to fall in phenomena like corruption
becomes more present. The figure of “County” doesn’t exist in Mexico, so the
next level of government, the municipal, are govern by the figure of the
“Ayuntamientos”, that are more similar to the City Councils than the Counties.
And the differences doesn´t
finish here: in California the Legislative Power is divided in the Senate and
the House of Representatives and they are all elected directly, while in Baja
California the Chamber of Deputies has members elected directly and other that
came to the office thanks to the proportional electoral system. Also, the Judiciary in California has a lot
of Courts and the Judges are elected by the people, while in B.C. the judges
are not elected. These differences generate a complex situation for the
cooperation of the governments and public servers of our frontier, and the
incentives to do it are not very clear and recognized by them.
Conclusion.
The relationship between the
local authorities since 1989 has been institutional, but it looks that the
transfrontier cooperation it´s not a priority for any ruler on both sides of
the border. This situation has to change immediately, because in the interconnected
times that we live the kind of problems that can be solved only by the action
of one government has been reduced.
The local governments in the
United States have a lot of functions but they are more economic independent of
the federal government than the Mexican local governments, and for that reason
they can achieve their goals. At the same time, they promote more the citizen
participation in the public policy and in the decision making, using with
regularity the figures of direct democracy like the referendum and the
plebiscite.
For a better cooperation with the
American local governments, Mexico has to strengthen his local governments,
giving them more resources and promote the professionalization of his public
functionaries. The incorporation of the civil society as a supervisor of their
own government can be part of that process of professionalization. At the same
time, the local governments of both sides of the frontier need to communicate
more and create new public spaces of deliberation for a better cooperation.
Security, environmental issues, economic alliances, protection of human rights,
educational agreements and interchange of technology and knowledge are some of
the topics that local government can have in common despite their differences to
work together and give a better life to their citizens.
