Latin American Research Review, Vol. 38, No. 3, October 2003 © 2003 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819 AN ELECTORATE ADRIFT? Public Opinion and the Quality of Democracy in Mexico* James A. McCann, Purdue University Chappell Lawson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Abstract: When citizens lack stable political attitudes, leaders cannot easily be held accountable for their record in office, party system consolidation becomes more difficult, and public opinion is unable to offer much substantive guidance about policy-making. Ultimately, democratic governance is likely to suffer. In this article, we analyze a recent four-wave panel survey to assess the stability of political attitudes in Mexico. We find that the degree of attitude stability in Mexico varies across different types of dispositions. Although citizens hold reasonably firm views about the country’s main political actors, preferences over issues are less consistent. These findings suggest both possibilities and constraints for demo- cratic governance. INTRODUCTION When citizens lack firm, enduring dispositions to guide their think- ing about politics, it is difficult for them to hold leaders accountable or to offer much guidance about policy. Assessments of incumbent office holders are a key ingredient in models of “retrospective voting,” in which officials in a democracy are held accountable for actions and decisions. If public attitudes towards the president and other central political fig- ures fluctuate widely from month to month, leaders will not be judged * We thank Jorge Domínguez, Alejandro Poiré, Holli Semetko, Peter Ward, and four anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. This article was completed while McCann was a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, Governance Studies Program, and Lawson was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. The data are drawn from the Mexico 2000 Panel Study; replication command files are available upon request. Orga- nizers of the Mexico 2000 Panel Study include Miguel Basáñez, Roderic Camp, Wayne Cornelius, Jorge Domínguez, Federico Estévez, Joseph Klesner, Chappell Lawson (Prin- cipal Investigator), Beatriz Magaloni, James McCann, Alejandro Moreno, Pablo Parás, and Alejandro Poiré. Support for the Mexico 2000 Panel Study was provided by the National Science Foundation (SES-9905703) and Reforma newspaper. The full data set, questionnaires, and sampling details are publicly available at: http://web.mit.edu/ polisci/faculty/C.Lawson.html.