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34 Comp. Pol. Stud. 3 (2001)

handle is hein.journals/compls34 and id is 1 raw text is: This article builds on previous work examining the incentives facing authoritarian elites to use central bank reform to constrain the economic policy choices of future governments. It suggests that because creating an autonomous agency is costly, authoritarian elites will only cede policy- making powers to an independent body commensurate with the degree of democratic threat that they face. When a transition is looming, insulation should be complete so as to tie the hands of successor governments to the greatest extent possible. But when this risk of replacement is milder, incumbent elites will be careful to design rules that continue to afford them some margin of maneuver as long as they remain in office. The Mexican central bank reform of 1993 is used as an illustration of the partial insulation strategy at work. DEMOCRATIZATION AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE IN MEXICO The Logic of Partial Insulation DELIA M. BOYLAN University of Chicago T he past decade has witnessed a surge in the number of developing countries undertaking reforms to increase the autonomy of their central banks. In Latin America alone, five countries altered their constitutions between 1989 and 1993 to increase the central bank's control over monetary policy. As this trend continues to sweep the continents of Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, there has been renewed attention toward understanding the causes and consequences of central bank independence in less-developed countnes. AUTHOR'S NOTE: I thank Jorge Buendfa, Jorge Dominguez, Sven Feldmann, Rob Franzese, Geoffrey Garrett, Lloyd Gruber Jeanne Kinney-Giraldo, and Carlos Perez-Verdua as well as seminar participants at the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Champagne- Urbana, and the University of Michigan for helpful comments. I am grateful to the Social Sci- ence Research Council, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, and the Stanford University Institutefor International Studies for generous financial support. Cesar Veldzquez provided able research assistance. COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES, Vol. 34 No. 1, February 2001 3-29 D 2001 Sage Publications, Inc. 3

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