pols 550 comparative politics democracy: structural perspectives october 27, 2005

POLS 550 Comparative Politics

Democracy: Structural Perspectives

October 27, 2005

Democracy: Structural Perspectives

Let’s start off with some questions:

What makes the arguments assigned for today structural?

Do the arguments correspond to or contradict the argument made by Huber, Ruschemeyer and Stephens?

Democracy: Roman and Arregui: Mexico in the Crucible

What is the starting point of Roman and Arregui’s analysis?

They begin with an historical perspective— specifically, they use the historical experiences of Western Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries as a counterpoint to the current situation of Mexico.


What do they say about the Western European Experience?

They acknowledge that the Western European experience, particularly its experience with capitalist industrialization, played a key role in a political transformation as well—i.e., the transformation toward citizenship rights and democracy.


How does their analysis of the Western European experience compare with the argument by HRS?

They suggest that a key element of this transformation was the creation of a working class, which “emerged as a new type of exploited labor, [but] a type with an unprecedented potential for collective action to change both its own condition and that of society” (p. 318).

In this regard, the authors argue that Western Europe experienced a dual revolution.


How does their analysis of the Western European experience compare with other arguments we have read?

On the surface, one would expect that other countries might experience the same type of dual revolution, and, in fact, there seems to be a lot of evidence for this, as we’ve discovered from our readings thus far.


The authors don’t agree (that the dual revolution in Western Europe necessarily tells us what will happen in Mexico).

Their basic argument, instead, is that there is a fundamental difference between the two historical periods, and that Mexico’s dual transformation is likely to proceed along a very different and far less progressive path than the transformation of Western Europe.


To understand why (at the most general level) it is important to see Mexico’s current political/economic development in the broader transnational context of today, a context which is premised on …

the global expansion of neoliberalism.


On this point, it is useful to note, there does seem to be strong overlap with the argument by HRS.

What did HRS have to say about neoliberalism? (Discuss)


With all this in mind, let’s take a deeper look at the authors’ argument. They begin with an analysis of “the new industrial transformation and the working class”


A Note: Their argument here very clearly corresponds to the argument made by HRS in that they begin with the assumption that democracy and citizen rights is primarily a function of class relations – this, in large part, is what makes their argument “structural.”

Unlike HRS, though, these two authors aren’t explicit about the role of class. They seem to take it for granted that their readers know what it is they’re talking about. Is this acceptable?


What is their basic point about “the new industrial transformation and the working class”?

Answer: Global and national processes are transforming Mexican economy and society, and that this transformation is making the working class in Mexico weaker, rather than stronger.


The transformation is based on an “integrated package of policies”:

The unconditional opening up of Mexico to foreign capital

Austerity measures to service foreign debt Neoliberal reforms that break the old social contract These policies are all reflected in NAFTA, but NAFTA did not create the

policies; instead, NAFTA deepened them and gave them international guarantees.


Still, NAFTA is not unimportant.

For one thing, NAFTA deepened the integration of the northern border of Mexico by making it into a sector of U.S. industrial production.


NAFTA also proved to be a tremendous source of employment for Mexican laborers, which helped the industrial Mexican working class grow considerably.

Indeed, according to the authors, Mexico has undergone a remarkable urbanization process over the last two decades: it has experienced an expansion of the workers employed in industry from 7 to 10 million (during the 1990s), and an expansion of industrial workers specifically from 2.4 to 6.2 million.

In certain areas, industrial workers make up almost one-quarter of the entire population.


But if NAFTA resulted in dramatic increase in the urban working class, we are presented with conundrum (at least in relation to the argument put forward by HRS).

What’s the conundrum?


Well, according to HRS, the unprecedented growth of the industrial working class in Mexico—especially one that is subject to all sorts of abuse and hyper-exploitation—should produce the seeds for dramatic political transformation …

after all, with more industrial workers, the capacity for self-organization and collective action should increase, with greater capacity self-organization and collective action should come power? Why hasn’t the balance of class power shifted? Do AR even recognize this as an issue?


The answer to the last question is, at least to some extent, “yes.”

On p. 226, the authors note that “globalization has produced a second industrial revolution in Mexico ….[and] has simultaneously created a new seedbed for fostering an oppositional movement.”


But, the problem is that neoliberalism and the other policies the authors focus on have combined to create much more vulnerability among Mexico’s working class: these policies, for example, create a much higher rate of turnover in employment, which makes the tasks of organizing unions and collective resistance very difficult to achieve.


The authors (AR) provide additional discussion on the challenges faced by the working class in Mexico, but one might respond: The working class always faces challenges. The working class has always been vulnerable and subject to intimidation and coercion by the dominant classes. So by themselves, these factors cannot fully explain why the prospects for democracy seem to dim in Mexico.


Question: How are the authors defining democracy? What seems to be their working or operational definition?

More concretely: Do the authors believe that Mexico is, today, a democracy?


If we define democracy in strictly formal terms, it would be appropriate to call Mexico a democracy, but the authors are implicitly using a more substantive definition of democracy …

and it’s on this point that the democracy is clearly lacking in Mexico.


Ironically, the next part of the authors’ argument hinges on the fact that Mexico is, at least formally, a democratic country.

That is, by making a claim that Mexico is democratic, the ruling elite are able to legitimize the status quo: to assert that it doesn’t just reflect their interests, but that it reflects the interests of all Mexican citizens.


As the authors put it, “Part of the ideological triumph of the right in Mexico as well as in the world more generally is its ability to package its power, the triumph of unbridled capitalism, as the triumph of civil society and democracy. This conflation of capitalist power, free market, and democracy is part of the ideological chicanery of the offensive of capital (under the name of globalization) against all alternatives (democratic or otherwise)” (p. 235).


The foregoing statement reflects a particular type of argument within contemporary Marxism, an argument that sees “ideas” as causally important.

Any guess as to what type of Marxist argument I

am referring?


Answer: A Gramscian argument.

Who is Gramsci? What did he say? What important concept did he develop and articulate?


Key concept is …

H E G E M O N Y


What is hegemony?

Ability of dominant class to create and enforce rules, not through coercion per se, but through consent


The key question that motivated Gramsci’s work was this: Why had it proven so difficult to promote revolution in Western Europe, where the ills of capitalism were so clearly damaging to the ordinary worker? In other words, why was the working class seemingly so passive, even accepting of capitalism?


To Gramsci, these questions seemed even more perplexing since, according to classical Marxist theory, revolution was supposed to start in the most advanced capitalist societies.

Yet, in his lifetime, it was the comparatively backward Russia that had made the first “breakthrough.” This was a riddle, but one to which Gramsci developed a fairly simple answer …


Gramsci’s answer to this question revolved around the idea of hegemony.

To Gramsci, hegemony had a very specific meaning. On the one hand, he understood it like many other thinkers of the time did, i.e., hegemony referred to the most dominant military, economic, policy actor in the world.


This version of hegemony, however, implicitly understood power as being based primarily on coercion. And, this was certainly the view of most other Marxists of the time. Typically, Marxists assumed that capitalism was held together primarily by the coercive practices and capabilities of the state.


Thus, for example, when workers went on strike, the state would send in the military or the police to break up the strike. Workers would be beaten, imprisoned, and even killed.

The state also used coercion and violence to protect private property rights and to otherwise keep the system intact. Eventually, workers would simply be too afraid to rise up.


To Gramsci, this was only half the equation. After all, in many of the more advanced capitalist societies, it wasn’t only fear that kept workers from challenging the system, but it was also their willing acquiescence. More simply, it was consent that kept the system together.

Indeed, in Gramsci’s view, one of the key tasks for the ruling stratum in any society is to inculcate a moral, political, and cultural system that naturalizes or legitimizes their continued rule.


This moral, political, and cultural system must not only reflect the values of the dominant group, but must also be accepted by subordinate groups and classes as their own.

Once this is done, all of the injustices, inequality, oppression, and exploitation of the system is simply accepted as the way things are “supposed to be” .and even the way things “have to be.” In short, the victims of the system become its greatest advocates and supporters. This is what Gramsci means by consent, this is what he meant by hegemony.


But this is the big question, how is consent achieved?

According to Gramsci, it is an unremitting and pervasive process, which takes place through the institutions of civil society: the media, the educational system, churches, voluntary organizations, even in the workplace itself.


Two key implications of this argument

First, unlike traditional Marxists, Gramsci’s analysis tells us that the system we live in today is held together as much be ideological/non-material forces as it is by material/economic forces

Second, it tells us that challenges to the current system must take place primarily in the ideological realm; in other words, society can only be transformed if the consensual element of hegemony is successfully undermined.


In the case of Mexico, the hegemonic process has not been straightforward: after all, the old ruling elite came to power through a populist revolution.

The authors provides a general overview of this process in their section “Right-wing hegemony as the result of a protracted exclusion process.”


Key point: Mexico, as with many other states, has gone through a period of hegemonic reconstruction --- the end result was the emergence of new power bloc that has embraced global neoliberalism with both arms.

The new power bloc is not without its weaknesses, of course, but it has proven to be a formidable force. The authors, moreover, believe that its main objective today is to destroy what little democracy still exists in Mexico.

pols 550 comparative politics democracy: structural perspectives october 27, 2005

Documents

western european experience

authors argument

working class slide

current situation of

comparative politics

starting point of roman

mexicos dual transformation

basic argument