Victoria E. Rodriguez received her B.A. from the Tecnol?gico de Monterrey (ITESM); Masters from UTEP, and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Her post doc experience included a President's Fellowship at the University of California, and visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge. Prior to her appointment to the LBJ School in 1991 she taught political science at UTEP. Her current work includes a path-breaking research project on women in contemporary Mexican politics, which includes Women's Participation in Mexican Political Life (Westview Press, 1998) and a forthcoming volume on Women in Contemporary Mexican Politics. Since joining UT Austin she has co-directed with Peter M. Ward a major National Science Foundation research project on opposition governments and politics in Mexico, on which she is co-author of three books and a number of articles. Their latest study is of State Government and New Federalism in Mexico (published by the LBJ School in 1999). Among her other principal works are Decentralization in Mexico: From Reforma Municipal to Solidaridad to Nuevo Federalismo (Westview Press, 1997), the revised edition of which Descentralizacion en Mexico was published by the Fondo de Cultura Economica in 2000, In 1993-94 she served as a consultant for the World Bank on a project on decentralization and regional development in Mexico.