%0 Article %A Patrón Sánchez, Fernando %I Centro de Estudios Sociales y de Opinión Pública, CESOP %D 2012 %T Aproximaciones para la medición del poder efectivo de los congresos estatales en México a través de la producción legislativa: Una revisión de ocho entidades federativas %U http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/oaiart?codigo=4169361 %X Since the 1990´s decade State Congresses have grown in plurality of representation across the country. Despite the political competition, state´s legislatures have been scarcely analyzed. Even more, the extent and role of legislatures in the policymaking process has not been studied from the perspective of the effective power of the legislatures to participate in the policymaking process and its relation with the executive branch. This article presents a fi rst examination of the role of state congresses in the legislative activity and their relation with state´s executives. We consider eight cases that combine divided and unifi ed governments, and we analyze the initiatives production in the last two legislatures of each case. The main fi ndings, so far, do not provide a clear tendency that allows us to demonstrate that there are real and contrasting changes between divided and unifi ed governments in legislative activity.