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University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States
The Revolution Is Dead. "Viva la revolucin!:" The Place of the Mexican Revolution in the Eraof GlobalizationAuthor(s): Vincent T. GawronskiSource: Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Summer, 2002), pp. 363-397Published by: University of California Presson behalf of the University of California Institute for Mexicoand the United Statesand the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico
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8/11/2019 Mexico Gawronski, Vincent[1]
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The Revolution
is
Dead.
iViva
la revoluciont:
The Place of the Mexican Revolution
in the
Era of Globalization
Vincent T.
Gawronski
Birmingham-Southern College
Mexicans have
long
cherished their
revolutionary
heritage,
but where does the
Mexican Revolution now reside in collective
memory,
and does the idea of the
Revolution still have
any
legitimating
power?
And what has
been
the
relationship
between the PRI's
long
sequence
of
legitimacy
crises and the Mexican
Revolu-
tion? Until
procedural democracy provides
significant
substantive and
psycho-
logical
benefits,
the recent
democratic turn will not
fully supplant
Mexico's tra-
ditional sources of
legitimacy.
While
Mexicans
generally
see the
regime
as
falling
short in
achieving
the basic
goals
of the Mexican
Revolution,
there are indica-
tions that the Revolution-understood as collective memory, myth, history, and
national
identity-still
holds
a
place
in
political
discourse and
rhetoric,
even if
such
understandings
make little
logical
sense in the era of
globalization.
Los mexicanos han tenido un
largo
carinio
por
su
herencia
revolucionaria,
pero
id6nde
reside ahora la Revoluci6n mexicana en
la
memoria
colectiva?,
etodavia
tiene
poder
legitimador
la idea de la Revoluci6n? eY cual ha sido
el vinculo
entre
la secuencia
larga
de
las crisis de
legitimidad
del PRI
y
la
Revoluci6n
Me-
xicana? Hasta
que
la democracia
procesal proporcione
ventajas
substantivas
y
psicologicas significativas, la vuelta reciente a la democracia no suplantara com-
pletamente
las fuentes tradicionales de
la
legitimidad
en
Mexico. Mientras
que
los mexicanos
generalmente
entienden
que
el
regimen
ha fallado en la
reali-
zacion de las metas basicas de
la Revoluci6n
mexicana,
hay
indicaciones
que
la
Revoluci6n-entendida
como
memoria
colectiva, mito,
historia
e
identidad
nacional-todavia tiene
lugar
en
el
discurso
y
retorica
politicos,
incluso
si
tales
conocimientos tienen
poco
sentido
l6gico
en la
epoca
de la
globalizaci6n.
This
essay
addresses the
overarching
question
of how a
political
system
that
emerged
from a true
social revolution
responds
to
global
forces
that
seem to
be
undermining
revolutionary
nationalism as
a source of
politi-
MexicanStudies/EstudiosMexicanos
Vol. no.
18(2),
Summer
2002,
pages
363-397.
ISSN
7429797
?2002
Regents
of
the
University
of
California.
All
rights
reserved. Send
requests
for
permission
to
reprint
to:
Rights
and
Permissions,
University
of
California
Press,
2000 Center
St.,
Berkeley,
CA
94704-1223
363
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Mexican
Studies/Estudios
Mexicanos
cal
legitimacy
and
regime
support.
The dominant
precepts
underlying
globalization-namely
neoliberalism-simply
negate
many
of the
prin-
ciples upon
which
revolutionary-nationalist
regimes
have been based.
The
specific
case
is
Mexico,
where the once
highly
statist,
nationalist,
and
at
least
rhetorically
socialist
regime
has embraced neoliberalism
and is in
the
throes
of
democratic transition. The more
general
ques-
tion
necessarily
provokes
several interrelated
questions
that focus
speci-
fically
on the
place
of the Mexican Revolution: Where
does the Mexican
Revolution-with
its
lofty
goals
(historically comprising
a
religion
of
the
patria )-reside
in the
Mexican
collective
memory, especially
since
Vicente Fox Quesada of the conservative Partido Acci6n Nacional (PAN)
has defeated the Partido Revolucionario Institucional
(PRI)?
Have
the
myths
and rituals of
revolutionary
nationalism lost their
appeal?
What
has been the
relationship
between the PRI's
long
sequence
of
legitimacy
crises
and
the
Mexican Revolution? Did
the
PRI so
empty
the Mexican
Revolution of
significance
as
to
make its
mythology
meaningless
and
thus
incapable
of
rendering
support
for both the
PRI and
perhaps
even for
the
entire
political
system?
Does the electoral defeat
of
the
PRI in the
era of
globalization
finally
signal
the Mexican Revolution's death knell?
Does
the idea of the revolution continue to have
any
legitimizing/
legitimating
power? Finally,
and
perhaps
most
important,
can
the
proce-
dural democratic
transition,
with the
high,
and often
unrealistic,
expec-
tations it has
generated,
supplant
traditional
revolutionary
nationalism
as the foundation of the Mexican
political system,
thus
constituting
a
new
Mexican Revolution? As
Benjamin
(2000:
13)
emphasized:
Mexi-
cans invested
a
lot
of
meaning
in
their Revolution with
a
capital
letter
during
this
century,
but
where does that
meaning
now
lay
in Mexican
collective memory, especially as so many forces-both local and global-
are
making
it
increasingly
difficult to
uphold
so
many classically
revolu-
tionary
goals
and
ideals?
Drawing
from several
public opinion surveys
conducted
by
the
Mexico office
of the
well-known
firm Market
Opinion
Research Inter-
national
(MORI
de
Mexico),
this
analysis
and
discussion focuses on two
1997-1998
surveys
that included commissioned items
exploring
the Rev-
olution's
progress
and
likely
demise and the
place
of the Mexican Rev-
olution in the
minds of the Mexican
people.
The first task was to assess
the
saliency
of the Mexican Revolution's basic
goals
and
ideals with
the
1.
Public
opinion polling
has
a
relatively
long
history
in
Mexico,
but
very
few
polls
of
any
significance
have
tapped
attitudes and
opinions
regarding
the relevance
and/or
ful-
fillment
of the basics
goals
and ideals
of the Mexican Revolution.
Nonetheless,
three of
the more
important
survey
research-based
studies are Basanez
(1990),
Camp
(1996),
and
Dominguez
and McCann
(1996).
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Gawronski:Mexican
Revolution
in the
Era
of
Globalization
365
following
question,
which was
asked on both
surveys:
Towhat
extent
are the
following
basic
principles
of
the Mexican Revolution
relevant
to
today's
(1997-1998)
society?
Drawing
from Frank
Brandenburg's
1964)
notion of a
revolutionary
creed,
the
question
was broken down to
the
most
commonly
understood
revolutionary
goals
and ideals:
(1)
The
Land
Belongs
to Those Who Work
It, (2)
Respect
for
Labor
Rights,
(3)
No
Reelection
of the President of the
Republic,
(4)
National Economic
Sovereignty,
5)
SocialJustice.
Asking
respondents
to use a
five-point
scale
(one,
very
relevant o
five,
not-at-all
elevant ),
he
question
was
intended to measure the extent to
which Mexicans
see the
primary
goals
and ideals of the Revolution as importantto today's(1997-1998) Mexico.
From
relevance,
he
survey
instrument moved to
fulfillment,
nd the
survey respondents
were
asked to
evaluate the
degree
to which
they
saw each of the five basic
principles
as
having
been
fulfilled,
once
again
according
to
a
five-point
scale
(one,
very
fulfilled
o
five,
not-at-allul-
filled ).
Towhat
extent has the
government
fulfilled
the
basic
princi-
ples
of the Mexican Revolution so far?
The first MORI
survey
(n
=
1225)
was conducted in Mexico
City
in
September
1997.
The
second,
national in
scope
(n
=
1105,
weighted
valid
n
=
1642),
was administered in late
December
1997
through
early
January
1998.2
The
survey
results and
analysis
empirically
validate much
of the
existing
literature
on
Mexico,
and two
very
strong
conclusions
stand out:
1. The
goal
of
No Reelection of the President
of the
Republic
con-
tinues
to
be
very
relevant to
Mexicans,
and to Mexico
generally,
and is the most fulfilled
basic
revolutionary principle.3
2. The Revolution-generatedgoal of SocialJustice s the least rele-
vant and least
fulfilled
goal.
2.
The
questions
that were
eventually
included in the December
1997-January
1998
national
survey
(n
=
1105,
weighted
valid n
=
1642)
went
through
several iterations. To en-
sure that the
questions
were
understandable,
a
self-administered
pre-test
was conducted
among
Mexican nationals
living
in the
Phoenix, Arizona,
area.
In
September
1997,
MORI
de
Mexico conducted a
pilot study
(n=1225)
in Mexico
City
to ensure that
the
questions
were
manageable
in the field. The
pilot
study produced
valuable
quantitative
and
qualita-
tive data and can be considered a stand-alonestudy of Mexico City.After some minor ad-
justments
and
rewordings,
MORI
appended
the final
survey
instrument
to the
1997
Mexico
Latinobar6metro,
which is a
comprehensive public
opinion survey
modeled after the Eu-
robarometer and
implemented
annually
n seventeen Latin
American countries and
Spain.
3.
While the
principle
of no
reelection also
applies
to
other elected
officials,
it is
most
strongly
associated with the
presidency
because of the
highly
presidentialist
nature of
the
postrevolutionary
regime
and the existence
of the
six-year perfect
dictatorships -the
sex-
enios.
Moreover,
t was also
much easier
to
tap opinions
regarding
he
presidency
because
it is has
been such
a
visible and
palpable
historical
component
of
Mexico's
political
system.
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MexicanStudies/EstudiosMexicanos
The Revolution as a
Source
of
Legitimacy
Exploring public
attitudes toward the Revolution is
admittedly
sensitive.
Whether
institutionalized,
permanent,
frozen,
or
programmatically
dead,
the Revolution has carried enormous
symbolic
value
and has
generated
a massive literature.4
Historically
t has
been
a
national
adhesive,
at least
rhetorically,
despite
never
being
uniformly
understood.
Now,
however,
the Mexican
political
system,
which
was
founded on
revolutionary
rhet-
oric and socialist ideals
(some
initially
competing),
is
facing
unique
chal-
lenges.
Indeed,
contrary
to its
founding
revolutionary ideology,
Mexico
is increasingly becoming a cog (or pivot ) n the global system (espe-
cially
with
its
unique
global
trade
relations),
and the official revolution-
ary party-the
PRI-is no
longer
revolutionary
or even
populist.
As
Thomas
Benjamin
(2000:
23)
astutely
observed:
The Mexican
political
system
during
most of the twentieth
century
has based
its
legitimacy argely
on la Revoluci6n.The state and the dominant
party,
ac-
cordingly,
re the culmination
nd continuation f the Mexican evolution.La
Revoluci6n
s identifiedwith the most sacred
values
andthe
highest
principles
of theRepublic, swellas thegreatestneeds andaspirationsf itspeople.The
revolutionary
rigins
of the
political ystem
and
the
system's
aithful dherence
to
la Revolucion
have
justified
he existence
of
the
system,
the
hegemony
of
the official
party,
and
the
authority
f the
successive
regimes
thattake
power
every
six
years.
This
pattern
or
support
s
changing,
however.The
system
has
deviated rom
ts
founding
principles
as Mexican ivil
society
has
changed
and
awakened.
Opponents
of the
government
aveembraceda Revolucion
andare
making
t
their
own.
Addressing
legitimacy
in
Mexico,
however,
is
always
fraught
with
prob-
lems because Mexicans
supported
the PRI-state
system
for decades de-
4. Within the vast Mexicanist mainstream
literature,
a
strong
current
has
empha-
sized
the Mexican Revolution and its
meaning
and
importance.
Still one of the most in-
sightful
works is The
Making
of
Modern Mexico
(1964),
where
Brandenburg
more con-
cretely
developed
the
idea of the
Revolutionary
Family
and the
closely
associated
Revolutionary
Creed.
Ross's
Is the Mexican Revolution
Dead?
(1966)
and Cumberland's
The
Meaning
of
the
Mexican Revolution
(1967)
continued
the focus. The Revolution
was
then revisited
in the
mid-1980s
with the
Cambridge
History of
Latin America series
(1984),
Knight's (1986) erudite two-volume history, and Hart's(1987) influential work. Later, n
their edited
volume,
Everyday
Forms
of
State
Formation,
Joseph
and
Nugent
(1994)
in-
sightfully
demonstrated the
continuing
role of the Mexican
Revolution in the
relationship
between
popular
cultures and state formation
at the local level
(see
also Becker
1995).
At
the
same
time,
however,
other scholars
began shifting
the theme to the Revolution's
pos-
sible
demise,
specifically Meyer
(1992),
Aguilar
Camin
and
Meyer
(1993),
and
Middlebrook
(1995).
Benjamin
(2000),
from
a
more historical
perspective,
examined how Mexicans
in-
terpreted
the Revolution
through
collective
memory, myths,
and
historiography
between
1910
and
1950.
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Gawronski:Mexican Revolution in the Era
of
Globalization
367
spite
injustices,
gross
inequalities,
and
classic semi-authoritarianism.5
Indeed one of the most
enigmatic
features of
Mexican
society
is
the de-
gree
to which Mexicans
have
historically
tolerated
so
much.
Support,
in such
cases,
for the
system
does not emanate as
much from belief
in
the
validity
of
legal
statute or rational
rules,
resting
more on
ideolog-
ical
foundations
and
culture than
on
modern
sources,
despite
Mexico's
remarkable and
thoroughly
modern
constitution.
But as
globalization
bears down
heavily
on
Mexico,
the traditional
ideological
and cultural
sources of
legitimacy
are
withering
just
as
democracy
seems to
be
tak-
ing
hold-that
is,
as
democratic
procedures
(free
and fair
elections)
and
high expectations of benefits (substantive and psychological) replace
revolutionary
nationalism. Thus the traditional
symbolic,
national ad-
hesive that has held the
postrevolutionary
regime together
for so
long
is
now
dissolving.
However,
the
apparent
democratic transition
will
mean
very
little if
the
average
Mexican's
quality
of
life does not soon
improve.
If the
regime
does
not meet
a
sufficient measure of social ex-
pectations,
democratic breakdown and civil unrest
may
result. As
well,
if
society
continues to hold
socialist and
revolutionary-nationalist
deals
or
if
it maintains
unrealisticallyhigh expectations,
the
regime
could
be
forced to deal
with
greater
levels of
opposition
and/or
political
violence.
Regime
performance
and effectiveness
become
more
salient when
crises
emerge
or
when
social
(value)
expectations
outrun
regime
(value)
capabilities.6
5.
Padgett's
(1976,
1966)
work laid out the fundamental
characteristics
(semi-
authoritarianism,
o-optation, corporatism)
of what Needler
(1995)
described as the
clas-
sic Mexican
political system.
6. Mexico
is indeed in
flux,
but
potentially
the
gravest problem
resides in the im-
plications
of a
stuck,
or at
least
a
severely
constrained,
policy
pendulum.
In
his
famous
J
curve
theory
of
revolution,
Davies
(1962)
posited
that when an
intolerable
gap
emerges
between
expected
values and
actual
values,
conditions become
ripe
for
revolution. The
contemporary
Mexico
case, however,
is not a
perfect
fit for Davies.
Punctuated with
so
many
crises,
Mexico has not
yet
experienced
a
long
period
of
rising
expectations
and
gratifications.
n
fact,
Mexico's most
successful
period
of economic
growth-the
so-called
Mexican Miracle-exacerbated
many inequalities.
Indeed,
only
recently
have the
mod-
ernization of Mexican
society
and the
apparent
democratic transition
significantly
raised
hopes
and
expectations-unfortunately
just
as
Mexican
policymakers
are
becoming
more
constrained.
Therefore,
Mexico's
predicament
more
closely
fits
Gurr's
1967)
model than
Davies's
or,
for that
matter,
Johnson's
(1966).
Gurr
(1967: 3)
argued
that:
[T]he
necessary
precondition
for violent civil conflict is relative
deprivation,
defined
as actors'
perceptions
of
discrepancy
between their value
expectations
and
their
en-
vironment's value
capabilities.
Value
expectations
are
the
goods
and conditions
of
life
to which
people
believe
they
are
justifiably
entitled. The
referents
of value
capabili-
ties
are
to be found
largely
in the social and
physical
environment:
they
are conditions
that determine
people's
chances for
getting
or
keeping
the values
they
legitimately
ex-
pect
to attain.
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Mexican
Studies/Estudios
Mexicanos
Undeniably,
he institutionalization f the MexicanRevolutionand the
creation of a
revolutionary iconography
with
its
associated
myths
were
unique
historical,
political,
and cultural
processes.
And a
specific pro-
grammatic
agenda
emerged
to
advance basic
revolutionaryprinciples
and
ideals,
but this created a tension
between
the
real and
the ideal.
The PRI
laid official claim to its
revolutionary
heritage,
in
essence,
by
upholding
a
nationalist-revolutionarymyth
(or
myths),
advancing
socialist
rhetoric,
and
implementing
certain ideals and
goals
but
freezing
others for later.
The
revolutionaries-the
RevolutionaryFamily -blessed
the PRIas the
official
party
of the
Revolution,
as Martin
Needler
(1995:
68-69)
noted:
In Mexico
egitimacy
has two sources,democratic nd
revolutionary,
eflecting
the fundamental
mbiguity
f Mexican
political
mythology.Legitimacy
omes
from
election
by
the
people;
t also comes from he
heritage
of the Revolution.
When
egitimacy
o
longer
comesfrom
above,
rom
royalty
uling
by
the
grace
of
God,
t mustcome from
below,
rom he will
of
the
people,
or from
he act
of the overthrow
of
the
illegitimate
uler tself.Untilthe
system
began
the
ex-
tendedcrisis
period
of the
1980s
and
'90s,
these two
sources
of
legitimacy
on-
verged
n the official
party,
he PRI.
The PRI-state ystem also reliedupon populism andspecific socialistpoli-
cies such
as
land
redistribution,
albeit
limited,
and economic national-
ism
(Import
Substitution
Industrialization)
o
foster a sense
of
Mexican-
ness
(mexicanidad),
which
garnered
support
for the
regime.
Indeed
support
for
the
postrevolutionary
regime
became
tightly
bundled
with
Mexican
nationalism and a sense of
identity,
especially
cultural
nation-
alism.
Also,
creating
a
sense
of
who
is
and who
is
not Mexican bound
the
nation and
the
postrevolutionary
state
(see
Knight
1994).
Thus,
the
vast
literature
on
political legitimacy
in Mexico has tended
to focus on how certain institutions,
practices,
social forms,
myths,
and
heroes
became
accepted
as
legitimate.
It has
generally emphasized
the
historical
process
whereby
the national state came
to exercise control
and domination after the Mexican
Revolution,
especially
how the state
institutionalized he Revolution.7 Vincent
L.
Padgett's
(1976: 59-60)
work
is
still
revelatory:
The
nationalist,
evolutionary
radition
omposed
of idealsand
heroes reaches
back
hrough
ime.The roots ie in
the
periods
of
Cardenas
nd
Zapata,
nd ur-
7.
Importantly,
Mexican
attitudes toward
education
are
very
significant
for
political
legitimacy
and
regime
support.
Education is an
agent
of
political
socialization,
and in
Mexico,
the
public
schools are
operated
by
the
national
government.
Needler
(1995:
69)
noted that
public
education
in
Mexico
has a
high
content
of civic indoctrination. This
factor,
as
Camp
also observed
(1993: 57),
could serve as a
positive,
indirect means
of
re-
inforcing
the state's
egitimacy-especially
because texts
in
elementary
schools are selected
by
the
government.
Therefore,
education is
important
for
passing
on the basic
principles
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ther,
in those of
Juarez,
Hidalgo,
and
Morelos,
and even
stretching
back
to
Cuauhtemoc
and the
days
of
Indian
greatness.
All of this has
been
shaped
into
an historical
synthesis
which focuses on the
identity
of the
people
and forms
the
basis
of
the
existing
national order.
Mexicanism
Mexicanidad)
is
used to
justify
the
present
and the future. The
Revolutionary
coalition
has found it
a
valu-
able
means of
subordinating
the
deep
schisms in Mexican
society
to the
imple-
mentation
of
policy
and the
stability
of
government.
This institutionalization
process,
Alan
Knight
(1994: 60)
later
added,
while
undeniably
a
state
project
of cultural
transformation,
was
complex
and
contradictory:
The
revolutionaries,
as I
have
said,
firmly
believed
in
notions of
hegemony,
even
false consciousness
(if
not in those
terms).
But how successful were
they?
First,
did
they
transform
popular
consciousness,
legitimizing
the
revolutionary
regime?
(And
if
so,
we
may
ask
again,
did
thereby
foster a new
mystification
or
false
consciousness ?
Or, rather,
did
they
successfully
combat
a
rival
legitimation-
for
example,
Catholic conservatism-and
thereby
demystify,
breaking
the fetters
of false
consciousness?)
Or was the
revolutionary project
a
failure,
a
gimcrack
facade behind
which the
common
people,
the
peasants especially,
grumbled
and
prayed
to old
gods,
untouched
by
the
new
legitimation?
Was it a case not
just
of idols behind altars but idols behind altars behind murals?
Needler
(1995:
69),
moreover,
highlighted
the role
of the
president
of
Mexico:
The
popular
mandate
and democratic
legitimacy
were of
course
personalized
in the role of the
president. By
a
sort
of
pseudo-apostolic
succession,
the
pres-
ident was
also the
direct heir of the
martyrs
of
the
Revolution,
having
received
the
presidential
sash from the hands of his
predecessor,
who had
received
his from
his,
in a line
which
goes
back at least to
Obreg6n.
The
party
and the
president
thus incarnated
legitimacy
in Mexico.
Benjamin
(2000:13),
focusing
on the
early
postrevolutionary period,
em-
phasized
the role the
voceros de la Revolucion had on
legitimating
the
regime.
The
voceros
were
those that had invented
and
constructed the
Revolution with
a
capital
letter in their
pamphlets,
broadsides,
procla-
mations, histories,
articles,
and
editiorials. He
(2000: 14)
explained:
Their
talking, singing,
drawing,
painting,
and
writing
invented
la Revoluci6n: a
name transformed into what appeared to be a natural and self-evident part of
reality
and
history.
This
talking
and
writing
was also
part
of an
older,
larger,
and
greater
project
offorjando
patria, forging
a
nation,
inventing
a
country,
imag-
ining
a
community
across
time and
space
called
Mexico.
and ideals of the
Mexican
Revolution,
which
Padgett
(1976:
9)
pointed
out
early
on:
Par-
ticularly
important
is the
interpretation
of
history
as
presented
to most
Mexican school
children
and
young
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The
Revolution,
consequently,
became
embedded in Mexican collec-
tive
memory
as
national
myth
and
history.
Virtually every
Mexicanist
therefore agrees that Mexico's postrevolutionary political system has,
at least
metaphorically,
rested on
a
socialist-nationalist
and
revolution-
ary
ideology,
but
Mexico's
biggest
paradox
has
been
the
dissonance be-
tween
revolutionary
rhetoric and the
reality
of
the Mexican
state,
which
became
readily
apparent
when Mexico's
post-World
War
II
period
of
economic
growth-the
Mexican Miracle -started
to
peter
out,
and
most
starkly
in
1968,
with the massacre at Tlatelolco.8
Starting
in
1968
and more or less
ending
with the
highly
contested
1988
presidential
elections
Mexico
experienced
a
long sequence
of
legitimacy
crises. The
definitive
end of the
sequence
of
legitimacy
crises came with the
pop-
ular election
of Mexico
City's
first true
mayor,
Cuauhtemoc
Cardenas,
in
1997,
and
of
course,
with
the electoral defeat of
the
PRI in
2000
by
Vicente Fox.
The
PRI's
Sequence
of
Legitimacy
Crises:
Moral,
Performance-Based,
and Political
Many less astute observers of Mexico have tended to explain the PRI's
loss of
support
by
focusing
on
perceptions
regarding
the PRI's
(in)at-
tentiveness to social
expectations
during
the
1980s
and
1990s;
however,
the
beginning
of
the
end
for the PRI must
be
pushed
back
to
1968,
a
point
made
by
Will
Pansters
(1999: 250)
and
many
others:
Although
the
agitated
summer of
1968
ended
in
brutal
repression,
its
longer-
term effects
are
argued
to
be
so
profound
that there
exists a line of
continuity
between
this
experience
(1968)
and the electoral
opening
which,
sinceJuly
1988,
8. The
Tlatelolco
rally
was
not
large
compared
to
the
protests
and demonstrations
that would be
organized
in the
1980s
and
1990s
in Mexico
City's
z6calo.
On October
2,
1968,
just days
before Mexico would host
the
Olympics,
thousands of
students,
women,
children,
and
spectators
gathered
in
the
Plaza. The demonstration was
peaceful.
The
speeches
were
emotional
but not
noteworthy.
Riding
(1985:
60)
summarized
what
hap-
pened
next:
At
around
5:30
P.M.
here
were
10,000
people
in the
plaza,
many
of them women and
children
sitting
on the
ground.
Two
helicopters
circled
above,
but
the crowd was ac-
customed
to
such
surveillance.
Even the
speeches
sounded familiar.Then
suddenly
one
helicopter
flew low over the crowd and
dropped
a flare.
Immediately,
hundreds
of
soldiers
hidden
among
the Aztec ruins of the
square opened
fire with automatic
weapons,
while
hundreds of secret
police
agents
drew
pistols
and
began making
ar-
rests.
For
thirty
minutes,
there was total confusion. Students
who fled into the
adja-
cent Church of San Francisco
were chased and beaten and some
were
murdered.
Jour-
nalists
were
allowed
to
escape,
but then
banned from
re-entering
the area when the
shooting
stopped.
That
night,
army
vehicles
carried
away
the
bodies,
while firetrucks
washed
away
the blood.
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seeks
to
put
an end to the
hegemony
of the official
party.
These effects
range
from
the modification of values and behavioural
practices,
through
a
reorgani-
zationof class alliances within the
ruling
elite
(favouring
the urbanmiddle classes
to the detriment
of
traditional
corporatist
sectors),
to the
emergence
of
public
opinion
as
a
political
factor. Others have
emphasized
that
it
was
the
violent
sup-
pression
of
the
1968
student movement and the
spreading
of
leadership
and
ideologies throughout
society.
With
the massacre of
students
and other
protesters
in the Plaza de
Tlatelolco-several
hundred
people
were killed but
the
government
only
conceded
32-the
PRI-state
system
was
widely
challenged,
for the first
time, on a value basis. The 1968 Olympic Games were held without ma-
jor
incident,
and Mexico's
image
abroad was saved. Less
immediately
vis-
ible but more
important
in
the
long
term,
the
moral
legitimacy
of
the
entire PRI-state
system
was undermined.
In
particular
the
regime
lost
the
support
of
many
of
Mexico's established and
upcoming
intelligentsia.
Many
of Mexico's
intellectuals
had shared with the
political system
an
ideological agenda
of
revolutionary
nationalism and the
widespread pro-
motion of education. Entwined in mutual
support,
the
intelligentsia
lent
legitimacy to the regime. In return the regime doled out favors and gov-
ernment
posts
to
their favorite sons
(and
a few
daughters).
However,
shocked
by
the
PRI-state's behavior
at
Tlatelolco,
such
world-renowned
writers as Carlos Fuentes and Octavio Paz
strongly
denounced
the
bru-
tal
actions
of
the
regime,
breaking
their official ties with the
government
and
calling
into
question, really
for the first
time,
the
legitimacy
of
the
whole
postrevolutionary
system.
Enrique
Krauze
(1997:
733)
noted the
historical
impact
of
1968
on
Mexican
politics
and
society
while
focusing
on the motivations and con-
sequences
of
people's
actions:
The Student Movement of
1968
opened
a crack
in
the
Mexican
political system
where it
was
least
expected:
among
its
greatest
beneficiaries,
the sons
of
the
middle class. On their
own account
they
rediscovered that man
does not
live
by
bread
alone. Their
protest
was not in behalf of
revolution,
it was for the
broader cause of
political
freedom. As had been the case
with
the
doctors,
the
government
did not know how
to
handle middle-class
dissidence
except
through
the
same violent
methods
(loaded
threats
or
loaded
guns)
that had
given
them
effective results with the workers and the peasants. Here, their action had the
opposite
effect.
But
despite
the revealed
contrast between the
regime's
professed
rev-
olutionary
values
and its
actions,
it
survived
through
co-optation,
clas-
sic
semi-authoritarianism,
and moderate
political
reforms. The
1977-
1978
reforms softened direct
challenges
to the
system
by
making
it
eas-
ier for
opposition
parties
to
officially
register
and
by
widening,
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slightly,
the arena for
political
mobilization
and
interest
representation.
The
political
reform
was
the
government's
and
the
ruling
party's
re-
sponse to a series of challenges that undermined the efficiency and le-
gitimacy
of the PRI
(Pansters
1999:
250). Indeed,
PRI
political
reform
efforts
have been more a result of PRI-elite survival
strategies
than ad-
herence to some
deep-seated
commitment
to
democracy
and revolu-
tionary
goals
and ideals. PRI elites
implemented
liberalizing
political
re-
forms in
response
to
perceived
threats,
not because
they
were
being
responsive
and attentive
to
the needs
and
wishes of the Mexican
people.
Todd
A.
Eisenstadt
(2000: 5-6) argued
that the PRI
liberalized
the
electoral
system
for four reasons:
First,
the PRI
could,
through
multiple
iterations
of
graduated
reforms,
acquire
precise
information about
in-
cumbent
and
opposition popularity
in
various
segments
of the
popula-
tion.
Second,
the PRI could divide and
conquer
the
opposition
through
such reforms.
Third,
the
channeling
of
opposition
into
the
electoral
arena
helped
the
PRI
to channel
protesters,
students,
and the
strongly
disillusioned out of the
unpredictable
realm of street demonstrations
and
picket
lines
and
into
the
highly
regulated
realm
of
campaigns
and
elections. This channeling also
helped
to restore credibility to the [PRI]
domestically
and
internationally. Finally, political
liberalization
helped
to
bind
the
hardliners
within
the
authoritarian
coalition. Eisenstadt
(2000:
6)
explained:
[T]he
party's
technocratic
leaders,
especially
in the
1990s,
increasingly
dis-
counted the old-time machine's
ability
to
get
out the
vote as a skill valued
by
the
party.
In
fact,
President Carlos Salinas
repeatedly
undermined the traditional
machine
bosses
by
negotiating
away
their
electoral victories
at
post-electoral
bar-
gaining tables with the PAN,known as concertasiones (Spanish slang combi-
nation of concession
and
agreement ).
Salinas
drove
a
wedge
into the
party
starting
in
1989
which ended
in electoral defeat
11
years
later
by placing
a much
higher
premium
on
getting
along
with the PAN n federal
parliamentary
cham-
bers
on economic
policy
votes than
on
getting along
with
his
own
party's
tra-
ditional vote
getting
activists.
He
has been
widely
blamed
for
weakening
the PRI
to
the
point
that
PRIistashave
proposed
his
expulsion
from the
party.
Ernesto
Zedillo,
Salinas's ess
politically
adroit and
equally
technocratic successor con-
tinued Salinas's
policy
(but
without
going
to
Salinas's
extreme
of
sacrificing
lo-
cal PRI victories for concession
agreements
with the
PAN),divorcing
himself
from
party
affairs in
the
controversial
safe
distance
policy.
While
it is true that the PRI
liberalized
itself into electoral
defeat,
the
story
needs more
contextualization and
explanation
because the dem-
ocratic transition
has
been
so
protracted.
Moreover,
while
Mexico has
made
significant
democratic strides with the PRI's
losses,
very
few
politi-
cians
and even fewer academics
are
declaring
the transition
complete.
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Essentially,
the PRI's
implosion
and
apparent
demise must
be
traced to
the
PRI-state
system's
long
sequence
of
legitimacy
crises,
political
re-
form efforts to deal
with
several
problems,
and a
general falling
out
of
touch with the Mexican
people
as
society
modernized,
all of
which
re-
sulted
in
the
withering
away
of the PRI's
traditional
revolutionary
sources
of
legitimacy
and
corporatist
and
populist
networks.
In
1982
Mexico
announced
that
it could no
longer
service its
ex-
ternal
debt,
banks
were
nationalized,
and an
economic debacle
ensued,
which initiated
Latin America's Lost Decade of
development. Chap-
pel
Lawson
(2000: 272)
noted that
[b]y
the
early
1980s,
fifty
years
of
corruption, cronyism, patronage, and pork barreling had sabotaged
Mexico's
economy.
Then,
in
1985,
Mexico
City
was struck
by
twin earth-
quakes
that
devastated
parts
of
the
city.
The PRI-state
system's
disaster
response
and
subsequent
management
of the
reconstruction
were
widely
criticized. The
regime's
performance
legitimacy
was
lost,
as
people
realized
just
how
few
resources the
PRI-state
system really
com-
manded,
how
corrupt
it
was,
and
how much
political space
actually
ex-
isted. The
confluence of these
factors made the
PRI
politically
vulnera-
ble in the
highly
tainted
1988
presidential
elections,
in
which the PRI
resorted
to
electoral
alchemy
to
prevent
a
Partido
de la
Revoluci6n
Democratica
(PRD)
victory.
In
1988,
then,
the
PRI lost
political
legiti-
macy.9
Lawson
(2000: 272)
emphasized
the
importance
of
1988:
Although
the
regime's
legitimacy
had been
eroding
steadily,
it now
collapsed.
Like
other
catalytic
events-such as the
Tlatelolco massacre of
1968,
the national
bankruptcy
of
1982
and the
devastating
Mexico
City
earthquake
of
1985-the
alleged
fraud of
1988
triggered
mass
protests
and
increasing
social
mobilization.
Since 1988, Knight (1999: 106-107) argued the PRI has fallen into an-
other
Darwinian
period,
having gone
through
three
(and
now
four)
stages
in its
evolution:
[F]irst
a
Darwinian
period
(1917-29)
of
internal
conflict,
punctuated
by
revolts
from within the ranks of the
revolutionary
army,
during
which,
with the
recur-
rent victories
of
the
central
government,
the ranks
of the dissidents
were thinned
and
the
penalties
of
insurgency
rammed
home.
Second,
a
long
transitional
pe-
riod
(1929-52)
when
revolts were few or feeble and
PNR/PRM/PRI
dissidents
mounted
significant
but
unsuccessful
electoral
challenges
to the
official candi-
date.
Third,
the
heyday
of the PRI
1952-87),
when the
party
machine,
possessed
of
enormous
powers
of
patronage,
maintained
party
cohesion,
avoided schisms
and
defeated the
genuine
opposition parties
with
relative ease. The PRI
split
of
9.
A
useful heuristic device for
clarifying
the
PRI-state
system's
sequence
of
legiti-
macy
crises is
Collier
and
Collier's
(1991)
critical
juncture
framework.
Application
of
the framework reveals
that
the
turn
to
political
liberalization
is
a direct
legacy
of
the
1968-1988
period
of
change
and
transformation
for the
entire
country.
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1987,
followed
by
the
highly
contentious
1988
election,
represented,
in some
ways,
a return to
the
second
phase,
although
in
very
different
socio-economic
circumstances.
Nevertheless,
by
the
1991
mid-erm
elections,
it
appeared
that
everything
had
returned
to normal.
The PRI
regained
its
strength,
primarily
because
the PRD
leftist
coalition could
not muster the
same
measure of
support
that it
had in
1988.
However,
despite
the
apparent
return to
normality,
political
liberalization
continued
apace
with further
electoral
reforms.
In
1989
the
Federal
Electoral
Institute,
Instituto
Federal
Electoral
(IFE)
was
created and
then
reconstituted in
1990
to
release it
further from
the
fetters of government control and to empower it to oversee and moni-
tor
the
voting
process.
A
1993
electoral reform
law
helped
to
make the
electoral
process
even fairerand
more
transparentby
giving
the
IFEmore
power
and
autonomy.
Eisenstadt
(2000: 11)
called
the IFE
[t]he
most
critical
autonomous
institution for
mediating
the
'levelness' of
the elec-
toral
playing
field.
In
large
part
due to
the
IFE,
he
1994
presidential
election
appeared
both fairand
clean,
despite
being
preceded by
a host
of traumatic
events,
especially the Zapatistauprising in Chiapasand then the assassinations
of
1994
PRI
presidential
candidate
Luis Donaldo
Colosio and
then Mario
Ruiz
Massieu,
the
PRI
party
chairman.
President
Ernesto
Zedillo who had
replaced
Colosio
as the
PRI'scan-
didate,
was in office
less than a
month
before Mexico
tumbled
into
yet
another
economic
crisis,
as a
consequence
of a
poorly
managed
peso
devaluation.
Millions
of
jobs
were lost as
the middle class
once
again
bore
the
brunt
of
Mexico's
wrongheaded
economic
management,
and
doubts
were raised
about Mexico's
future
stability,
especially
as
incidences of
high-level
narco-corruption
came to light. But
political
liberalizationand
democratic
aspirations
tempered
direct attacks
on the
regime-the
var-
ious
guerrilla
insurrections
in the South
were an
exception-and
miti-
gated
a
potentially
volatile
situation.
The
1997
mid-term
elections continued
the
liberalizing
trend.
One
important
result
was the election
of Mexico
City's
first
true
mayor,
the
PRD's
Cuauhtemoc
Cirdenas,
ratherthan
an
appointed
regent.
This
gave
the PRD
greater
political
recognition
and
prestige.
The second
result was
an opposition majority in the Chamber of Deputies (Mexico's lower
house),
again
for the first
time. But the
most historic
development
has
been
the
most
recent.
The
July
2000
presidential
elections resulted
in the
PRI's
irst defeat
ever,
when Vicente
Fox
Quesada
of the
center-right,
conservative Par-
tido Acci6n
Nacional
(PAN),
but in
coalition with the
Partido Verde
Ecologista
(PVE),
won the election.
Significantly,
Zedillo
publicly
rec-
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ognized
Fox as his
successor,
hailing
Mexico
as a
true
democracy.
0
And
in
Chiapas,
where the
Zapatista problem
has
been
festering
since
1994
and where the PRI has
traditionally
and
authoritatively
dominated
poli-
tics,
the PRI was defeated in the
August
2000
gubernatorial
race
by
a
former
priista,
Pablo
Salazar
Mendiguchia.
To
defeat
the
PRI,
Salazar was
supported by
a
broad coalition
of
eight
opposition parties.
Apparently,
the Mexican
people
had had
enough,
publicly
declar-
ing
that
they
would
vote PRI
but
then
secretly
voting
for the
opposition.
Judith
Adler Hellman
(2000: 6)
emphasized
that
it was
the
sum of mil-
lions of individual decisions
to
vote
strategically
and
non-ideologically
that made the difference. Democratic procedures do matter, and the Mex-
ican
people
voted for
change.
Indeed
they
now
feel
safer
voting
for
the
opposition,
and for the first
time,
it is
possible
to
contemplate
seriously
the consolidation
of
democracy
in
Mexico.
1
Through
this
sequence
of
legitimacy
crises,
the
PRI-state
system
gradually
moved further
away
from its
revolutionary
heritage,
but
the
Revolution still resided
firmly
in the collective
memory
of the Mexican
people.
In
fact,
through
the
sequence
of
legitimacy
crises,
PRI
elites were
10.
Zedillo,
whose sexenio was not
especially
remarkable,
nonetheless found him-
self in an
interesting
situation. Hellman
(2000:
9)
explained:
At
worst,
history
will
note its financial
scandals,
not to mention its
failure
to resolve
the crisis in
Chiapas, improve
the
poor
human
rights
record of
Mexico,
or make a dent
in the
growing
power
of the
drug
lords. Yet
the
outgoing
president
found himself
in
a
win/win
situation. Either the
PRI
would
prevail,
in which case
Zedillo
could claim
that the
good government
and
leadership
he
provided
paved
the
way
for
victory.
Or,
as
transpired,
Labastidawould lose to
Fox,
and Zedillo could
play
a
historic role in the
great transition, calling for respect for the democratic process, the will of the people
and the rule of law.
11.
However,
there
remain
significant challenges
to democratic consolidation. A
wealthy
and
powerful
economic class continues to
reap
the benefits from
neoliberal,
free-
trade
policies,
and economic benefits have not been
trickling
down,
despite
Mexico's cur-
rent macroeconomic
stability
and
growth
rate. No one eatsthe
GDP,
nd
approximately
half
of
all Mexicans live at or below the
poverty
line,
with
the
income of the
poor
lower
in real terms that it
was
before the
1994
crisis. General crime
is
rampant
in some
areas,
especially
in Mexico
City
and
along
several
lesser-traveled,
rural
roads,
and human
rights
abuses are not
infrequent. Arbitrary
detention, torture,
and assassinations with
impunity
continue, and the
judicial system
is too weak (and often too
corrupt)
to
investigate
and
prosecute.
The
illegal drug
trade feeds
billions
into the
political economy,
which con-
tributes
heavily
to
corruption.
Also,
environmental
degradation
and
pollution
on
a
grand
scale are
prevalent, especially
in Mexico
City
and
along
the
U.S.-Mexican
border. Chronic
low-intensity
military
conflict continues in a number
of
states,
and
finally,
democratiza-
tion has not
proceeded
at
the same
pace
across all
regions
or
spheres
of
government.
As
a
result,
Mexico's new
political
order
comprises
a
series
of
authoritarianenclaves in which
the old rules of
the
game
still
operate
(Lawson
2000:
267-268).
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assailed for
betraying
the
principles
of the
Mexican Revolution.
This
be-
trayal
would become more
evident,
and even
necessary,
as
Mexico
be-
came
more
deeply
integrated
into the
global
economy
and
more vul-
nerable to its
vicissitudes
and
as the
government's
policy pendulum
stuck
to the
center-right,
with
policymakers
forced to
abandon
outright
the
revolutionary programmatic
agenda.12
As
Needler
(1995: 30)
pointed
out:
Under other
circumstances,
the
change
in economic
policy
would
have been
an
extremely
risky
policy
for
Salinas,
putting
in
doubt
his
legitimacy
as heir
of the
Revolutionary
tradition at the
same time as his other source
of
legitimacy,
as
winner
of democratic
election,
was
also under
question.
There
is, however,
a
legitimacy
that derives from
performance
as well as a
legitimacy
that attaches
to
origins,
and
Salinas's
position
was
revalidated
n the
eyes
of the
public by
the
success of his economic
policies.
This was missed
by
Cuauhtemoc
Cardenas,
who continued to focus
his
attacks on the
questionable
election of
1988
and
failed
to devise a
coherent
critique
of
the Salinaseconomic
policies
and a
plau-
sible
alternative economic
strategy.
The
regime
and the
PRI
especially
are
no
longer
as
flexible
as
they
once
were because neoliberalism
demands that Mexican
policymakers
dis-
avow rhetorical and symbolic commitments to the Revolution. AsJoseph
Klesner
(1997: 198)
argued:
Revolutionary
nationalism does
not
pro-
vide
legitimacy
for the current
rulers
because
Zedillo,
Salinas before
him,
and de la Madrid
even
earlier have
actively
sought
to tear down the
poli-
cies that
buttress
revolutionary
nationalism.
Now Mexican
policymak-
ers face the dilemma of
reconciling
the
revolutionary
past
with the ne-
oliberal
present just
as Mexico
becomes
more
deeply
embedded
in
the
global
capitalist
system,
and with
the
victory
of the
center-right,
conser-
vative
PAN,
it seems
unlikely
that the Mexican Revolution will be
called
upon
in
political
discourse and rhetoric for
garnering regime
support.
The
Revolution Revisited:
Another Mexican
Revolution?
As
Brandenburg
noted,
the
Revolutionary
Family
advanced
a kind of
loose
ideology,
the
Revolutionary
Creed,
which he
(1964:
8-18)
broke
12.
Needler
(1982, 1990, 1995)
had
argued
that the
PRI
had set
up
a
presidentialist
political system characterizedby a corporatistumbrella structurewith a wide arrayof po-
tentially
conflicting
groups.
These
groups-labor, peasantry,
business,
the middle
class,
the
military-were
not
all
formally
contained within the
PRI,
but all
their
political
activ-
ity
was. The
key
to
Mexican
political
stability
then became a
strategy
(accidental
or
con-
scious)
whereby
successive Mexican
presidents emphasized
the interests of certain social
sectors more than others. The
emphasis,
however,
changed
with
each
president.
Thus the
emphasis
or favoritism
pendulum
would rest
temporarily
on one
group
but
then
move to
a different
group
with the next
president.
In that
way,
no
group
ever felt
permanently
dis-
affected,
and
all
believed
that it
might
be their
turn
next time.
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down
to fourteen
points:
(1)
Mexicanism,
(2)
Constitutionalism,
(3)
So-
cial
justice,
(4)
Political
liberalism,
(5)
Racial
tolerance, (6)
Religious
tol-
erance, (7)
Intellectual
freedom
and
public
education, (8)
Economic
growth,
(9)
Economic
integration,
(10)
Public
and
private
ownership
initiatives,
(11)
Defense
of
labor
rights,
(12)
Financial
stability,
(13)
A
share in world
leadership,
and
(14)
International
prestige.
This
creed,
which
still
pervades
Mexican
political
culture,
provided
the
ideological
and
symbolic
adhesive
for
consolidating
state
power,
garnering
popular
support,
legitimating
the
rule of the
PRI,
and
cobbling together
the
ever-
troublesome
and
disparate
Many
Mexicos. 13
Traditionally, he PRI'spurpose has been to articulate and channel
interests,
organize
power
and
authority-through
corporatist
networks-
and
advance
(purportedly)
the
basic
principles
and nationalist-socialist
ideals of
the Mexican
Revolution.
But
the world has
changed
consider-
ably
since the
founding
of
the
PRI,
and
Mexico is
subject
to new
glob-
alizing
forces
(internal
and
external).
As David
Barkin,
Irene
Ortiz,
and
Fred
Rosen
(1997:
27)
succinctly explained:
Mexico is
transforming
t-
self
through
the conflictive
interaction
of two
powerful
forces-the
glob-
alizing project imposed
from
above,
and
the resistance
to that
project,
welling
up
from below.
This interaction
inevitably
creates
opportuni-
ties and
constraints
while
challenging
many
principles
and ideals
borne
of the Mexican
Revolution;
it
also undermines
the
regime's
traditional
revolutionary
sources
of
legitimacy
and
exacerbates
many
state-society
conflicts.
To
justify
often
very
different state
policies,
the
Revolution
has his-
torically
been
made
quite
flexible,
and
its
basic
principles
have
been
un-
derstood
and
reinterpreted
over
the
years
in
many ways by
the
average
Mexican and political elites. PRIelites even reinterpreted the Revolu-
tion
to
justify
such
antirevolutionary
acts as
revoking
Article
27,
thereby
ending
the
ejido
system,
a cornerstone
of
revolutionary
nationalism.
En-
gaged
in
policies
of economic
liberalization,
the PRI elites
argued
that
the
Revolution
had
been
so successful
that Mexico
is set to
pass
on to
the
next
revolutionary
stage
despite
whole
regions
of Mexico
having
never
experienced
the
prior
stages,
most
notably Chiapas.14
Glossed over
is the
fact that
the new
happens
to
be
substantively
antithetical
to the
old
revolutionary goals
and
ideals.
Inevitably,
then,
the
issue of
political
stability
and
the
potential
for
13.
See
the classic
work
by Simpson
(1966)
and
Knight's
(1994)
discussion
of how
the Mexican
Revolution
created
a sense of nationhood.
14.
Interestingly,
as the
first
post-Cold
War and
postmodern
insurrectionary
move-
ment,
the
Ejercito
Zapatista
de
Liberacion
Nacional
(EZLN)
has been
careful to avoid
Marx-
ist/socialist
discourse
(see
Bruhn
1999).
For more
comprehensive
works on the
indige-
nous
uprising
in
Chiapas
see
Harvey
(1998),
La Botz
(1995),
and Ross
(2000).
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political
violence and
revolution
in
Mexico
must be raised. So
while
many
scholars have
debated the
end
of
the Mexican
Revolution,
others
have
explored
the
possible
onset of another or at
least increased levels of
po-
litical violence
(for
example,
see Alschuler
1995,
Pansters
1999,
Knight
1999).
Specifically,
however,
Linda S.
Stevenson
and
Mitchell
A.
Seligson,
in
their
exploratory
study
of
assembly plant
(maquiladora)
workers
along
the U.S.-Mexican border and in
northern
Mexico,
were driven
by
the
question
of how
prone
to revolution Mexico
might
be. That
is,
they
were
concerned
with
the
propensity
for
political
violence and
political
instability,
arguing
that
an
underlying
effect has
explained
Mexico's
long-
standing political stability:
[T]his
effect holds
only
in the case of nations that have
undergone
an
unusually
violent,
protracted
revolution. Bolivia's revolution of
1952
was
short
and
rela-
tively
bloodless;
and
although
the Cuban Revolution
of
1959
was
preceded
by
two
years
of armed
conflict,
its
scope
and level were
relatively
minor in terms
of
casualties. In
other
cases of modern
revolutions,
such
as
Russia, China,
and
Mexico,
the
insurrectionary
phase
of the revolution lasted a
number
of
years
and was
accompanied
by
an
enormous amount of violence.
Thus,
we
suggest
that the sheer
magnitude
and
ubiquity
of violence asso-
ciated with the revolution in
Mexico,
in contrast to those in Bolivia and
Cuba,
has
left
such a
deep psychological imprint
on most Mexicans that the fear of re-
visiting
that
violence has been a
major
constraint
on
violent
political
actions.
(Stevenson
and
Seligson
1996:
60)
These scholars
(1996:
60)
further
hypothesized
that
...
as
time
passes
and the memories of the revolution
fade,
the
degree
of fear declines and
more
people
become
willing
to take
political
actions that older
genera-
tions would not have
taken
previously.
In other
words,
as
the
histori-
cal event and the fearful violence associated with it fade from memory,
the Revolution no
longer
serves
as a
source of
political stability.15
Moreover,
the
increasingly
divisive
nature
of
Mexican
politics, par-
ticularly
the
camarilla
system,
has
been
contributing
to
the
increasingly
violent nature of
politics
in Mexico. The camarilla is
essentially
the
sys-
tem of
patronage
and
obligation
in
which
loyalty
is
owed
to a
benefac-
tor who
is
often
a
family
friend or member of
an
intimate
clique.
The
15. Turningthis into a hypothesis that can be tested with public opinion polling is
more
difficult
than it seems.
Measuring
peoples' propensity
to
engage
in violent or revo-
lutionary
political
behavior
can be difficult. Public
opinion
polls
do
not measure
how
prone
a
country
might
be
for a
revolution-only
feelings,
beliefs,
and ideas about
violence,
po-
litical
participation,
and
revolution.
Moreover,
public opinion-particularly
a
survey
snap-
shot in time-cannot be used
to
predict
the
propensity
to
engage
in
political
action. There
is a
discontinuity
between how
people
think or
how
they
claim
they
will
behave,
and how
they actually
do
behave.
Therefore,
public opinion
is
only
one
aspect
of a
very compli-
cated
reality.
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benefactor
protects
and
appoints
to
key positions
the
loyal up-and-comer
who
reciprocally helps
to
push
the benefactor
up
the
political
hierar-
chy. Basically,
the future of the
young
subservient
is
dependent
upon
the
success
of the
benefactor,
but
Pansters
(1999: 260)
argued
that:
The
sharpening
of
camarilla
politics
shades into the
institutional framework
and
generates regime
instability.
The
discretionary
use
of
the law and
the use
of
violence
were also inherent to the
logic
of
personalism,
but
today
they
tend
to
subvert the
institutional framework. The
disruption
of
important
areas
of the
political
and socio-economic
system simultaneously
fosters different forms of
violence
and undermines the mechanisms to counteract them.
Finally,
Mexican
public opinion
has
certainly
not
ignored
Mexico's less
than
stable
situation. For
example,
in
August
of
1990,
MORI
fielded a
national
survey
(n
=
1711)
that
explored
Mexican
knowledge
of,
and at-
titudes
toward,
human
rights
and human
rights organizations.
Embed-
ded in
the
survey,
however,
was
a most
intriguing
question:
Some
say
that
because
of
poverty, corruption,
and
other
problems,
there could
be
a revolution
in Mexico within five
years.
Do
you
believe
that is
prob-
able
or
improbable?
While the
question
was
a
bit
sensational,
the re-
sults were
quite
startling:
Of the
1,598
people
who
provided
substan-
tive answers to this
question, fully
47.1
percent reported
seeing
another
revolution in Mexico within
five
years
as either
probable
or
very
prob-
able.
Only
39.6
percent
believed
that
it
was either
improbable
or
very
improbable,
and
slightly
over
13
percent responded
with
regular
(in
English
a kind of
maybe ).
Flawed or
not,
the
question appeared
to
tap
some
very
deep
public
concerns
over the
stability
of the
country.
Four
years
later the
Zapatistas
burst onto
the scene
in the southern
state of
Chiapas. Apparently, many of the 1990 survey respondents indeed had
their
finger
on
something.
The
1997-1998
Survey
Results
To
explore
the current
place
and or
plight
of the Mexican Revolution
in the minds of the Mexican
people,
MORI was commissioned with
a
set of
questions,
which were first tested
on
the
September
1997
Mexico
City survey
and then included
(reformulated slightly)
on the
full
national
survey.
The first task was
to
assess the current
saliency
of the Revolu-
tion's basic
goals
and
ideals,
and the
following
question
was
asked on
both
the Mexico
City
and national
surveys:
To what extent are the fol-
lowing
basic
principles
of the Mexican Revolution
relevant to
today's
society?
Drawing
from
Brandenburg's
(1964)
notion
of a revolution-
ary
creed,
the
question
was
broken
down
to
the most
commonly
un-
derstood
revolutionary
goals
and ideals:
(1)
The Land
Belongs
to Those
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litical institutionalization and constitutionalism
sharply
contrasts
with
the fre-
quent
elimination
of constitutional
guarantees
under authoritarian
military
gov-
ernment in other
parts
of Latin America.
While no reelection remains a sacrosanct
revolutionary
principle
in
Mexico,
the
survey
data reveal that Social
Justice
is the least relevant
revolutionary principle
in Mexico
City
and the next-to-least
relevant for
the
nation,
but
for all
intents and
purposes
Social
Justice
is
tied with
National Economic
Sovereignty.
It
seems that
some of
the
respondents
are
expressing deeply
ingrained
frustration and
cynicism
regarding
so-
cial
justice-that
is,
social
justice
is
perceived
as irrelevant
perhaps
be-
cause
it
has been so unfulfilled.
Mexicans,
after
all,
have lived with in-
stitutionalized
inequality
and
injustice
for
quite
a
long
time.
In the Mexico
City survey,
the MORI interview team was
able
to
record a wide
variety