The most comprehensive explanation to date of Mexico's gradual transition to democracy, written from a novel perspective which pits opposition activists' post-electoral conflicts against their usage of regime-constructed electoral courts at the center of the democratization process. It addresses the puzzle of why, during key moments of Mexico's 27-year democratic transition, opposition parties failed to use autonomous electoral courts established to mitigate the country's often violent post-electoral disputes, despite formal guarantees of court independence from the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI), Mexico's ruling party for 71 years (preceeding the watershed 2000 presidential elections). Drawing on hundreds of author interviews throughout Mexico over a three-year period and extensive original archival research, the author explores choices by the rightist National Action Party (PAN) and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) between post-electoral conflict resolution via electoral courts and via traditional routes - mobilization and bargaining with the PRI-state.