Mexican Politics in Transition

Judith Gentleman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367010638
• eBook ISBN: 9780429721748
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Parties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Initiated in the mid-1970s, Mexico's program of political reform was designed to provide a new opportunity for political competition. In this book, contributors examine the significance political mobilization has had and the extent to which the reform has served as a vehicle for defusing discontent in the wake of Mexico's failed oil-based developme

PART ONE
Introduction

1
Political Change in Authoritarian Systems

Judith Gentleman

Mexico's political system has successfully weathered crises in the past, and indeed as Martin Needier observes in his contribution to this volume, crisis is hardly a new experience for Mexico. Despite this fact, some have suggested that the current crisis plaguing the nation is of a degree of severity that may well set it apart from previous experiences and may be creating a context in which there could emerge important departures from past political practices. As such, the current period may be viewed as a period of transition for Mexico's authoritarian political system potentially leading to an intensification of the authoritarian framework in response to crisis, or perhaps shifting to a more liberal competitive mode, or perhaps simply leading to an erosion of state power and a growing political vacuum in which oppositional interests might organize on an independent basis.

Contributors to this volume have examined this transitional phase from differing points of view and with a variety of emphases. All, however, share in a recognition of the enduring strength of the political system even in the face of overwhelming crisis. Nonetheless, the interest that has drawn the contributors together is the consideration of the potential sources of change in the political system, recent experiences with political reform, the sources of elite resilience in managing the current crisis, and the impact of the crisis experience upon the structure of political authoritarianism in Mexico.

Authoritarian systems have traditionally been distinguished from other political systems on the basis of several distinctive traits. In his recent study of the process of industrialization in Mexico, Dale Story specifies three key features of such systems including "limited political pluralism, low subject-mobilization and hierarchical ordering of relationships."¹ Others, including Juan Linz, Wayne Cornelius and Ann Craig, have further noted the tendency for such systems to be subject to weak ideological constraints.² In Mexico, political life is conducted not only within an authoritarian political system but also within an authoritarian tradition that transcends the nation's experience of revolutionary transformation, as both Lorenzo Meyer and José Luis Reyna have argued.³

What was elaborated by the Mexican Revolution politically, it may be argued, was not a system derived from the reformulation of class relations, the destruction of the class system or the development of a new belief system, but ultimately a reorganization of intra-elite interests with the acceptance of state sector management of the process of capital accumulation, and the development of an effective structure for the corporatist-authoritarian management of the broader society. The ruling elites sought to legitimize the new political approach to the management of the society on the basis of a "loosely connected set of goals or symbols,"⁴ none of which were fundamentally destructive of the essential interests of elites, in particular, the hegemony of the dominant class.

While a "political revolution," in Theda Skocpol's conceptualization of the phenomenon, did occur, the transformation of political structures was not accompanied by the degree of social transformation that one might argue has taken place even in some non-revolutionary situations. In Argentina, for example, the convergence of labor mobilization with Perón's populist authoritarian leadership induced changes in society that in the long run created a basis for the pluralist, post-authoritarian situation present in Argentina today. In the Mexican case, the political transformation was accomplished at a point prior to the successful independent formal organization of non-elite interests in society, leaving to the state the opportunity for such organization.

Mexico's political revolution was always much more convincing in terms of its corporatist-structural accomplishments than in terms of the development of a legitimizing corporatist ideology. As Roger Hansen has pointed out, the chief innovation of the post-revolutionary period was in the structural dimension of politics with the creation of the official party designed for the purpose of organizing and managing the expression of potentially conflictive interests in society while providing for the reconciliation of elite interests on an independent basis. Story observes that authoritarianism in Mexico has meant the effective incorporation of non-elite interests into a closely controlled framework for political involvement while elites have remained comparatively free to pursue their interests.⁵ This approach of course is a direct function of the fact that the revolution led to the further entrenchment of a state capitalist model of development. In short, the postrevolutionary political system that developed in Mexico was clearly characterized by limited political pluralism and low subject-mobilization.

The dominant party system which emerged actually espoused an official ideology of political democracy and even lent some symbolic legitimacy to the concept of political competition in the system by permitting auxiliary political parties to exist although within strictly defined parameters. Nevertheless, as John Booth and Mitchell Seligson have pointed out,⁶ the agents of "liberalism" and liberal reforms in the Mexican system have always been the effective managers of the authoritarian political system, thus conveying decidedly mixed signals, a situation which in and of itself, has provided substantial political advantage and minimal constraint. The regime has tended to characterize competitive political systems as fundamentally suspect owing to their tendency to be dominated by elites and to display frequent deficiencies in terms of mass participation and the defense of mass interests.

By contrast, a system that emphasizes substantive democratic outcomes rather than emphasizing rules governing the procedural aspects of political competition is a more probable guarantor of democratic ideals according to the regime's advocates. Ultimately, however, the traditional argument over the relative merits of so-called "substantive" versus "procedural" democracies has been decided in the Mexican case, one might argue, in favor of neither as measured by the regime's record of political and economic performance.

That Mexico's inclusionary corporatist authoritarian regime has endured with relative ease especially in contrast to the experience of many of the bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes that populated the region in the 1960s and 1970s has remained a question of substantial theoretical interest. The political "liberalization" or "reform" initiated in Mexico in the late 1970s along with rapid and dramatic political changes elsewhere in the region have pressed social scientists to renew consideration of the process of political change, a process that is, even now, poorly understood.

In a recently published compendium of works on theories of change in Latin America, one of the volume's editors, Thomas J. Bossert, notes the rather limited accomplishments of social scientists to date in formulating "systematic explanations for regime changes." In particular, Bossert argues that scholarship has yet to specify the relationship that exists between "the character of the state" and the "particular demands of economic structures and class conflict."⁷ Further, the nature of the relationship that exists between the dependent capitalist state and different forms of political regime remains unclear.

Many studies completed during the 1970s of the new bureaucratic authoritarian regimes of the Latin American region suggested that the rise of such exclusionary regimes was fully consistent with the cultural proclivities and socio-political history of the region. Efforts were further undertaken to demonstrate why such bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes were fully consistent with the character of the economic policy implemented in response to crisis. As work progressed in this vein, Mexico was always regarded as the exceptional case, having seen the establishment of an inclusionary authoritarian regime decades prior to the onset of the range of economic crises argued to have stimulated the imposition of brutal demobilizing regimes elsewhere in the region. Notably, however, the very same crisis of development in Mexico produced a state sector strategy purporting, at least, to introduce liberalization as a politico-economic strategy.

Throughout the period, Latin America's authoritarian regimes were depicted in fairly static terms, a tendency that was understandable in light of the widespread view that corporatist-authoritarian forms of political organization were essentially "natural" to the region. Pluralist options were commonly characterized as alien grafts upon the body politic and as such, consideration of change within authoritarian systems was virtually precluded. While some observers cautioned against viewing "corporatism or authoritarianism as the constant normative pattern,"⁸ little attention was paid to the question of change in authoritarian systems. More recently as several states in the region have experienced substantial political change, efforts have been undertaken to examine more closely the dynamics of change in authoritarian systems.⁹

The Mexican political system's seeming immunity to massive dislocations stemming from economic stress has been attributed to a variety of factors. Fernando Cardoso has identified several key characteristics of the system that have served to stabilize Mexico's political life over time: massive cooptation, the incorporation of "broad sectors of society in national life," the openness of the system to "pressures and suggestions from the bottom," the "bureaucratic capacity for control," the "extensive system of bargaining with regard to economic interests, the system's "efficient financial and economic performance," and the governing class's "success in reorganizing society to cope with more complex forms of capitalist growth," including the state's ability to control labor, the "state bureaucracy" and "public enterprises."¹⁰ Traditionally, the strength of the system was evidenced by its ability to overwhelm interests in society, including those seeking to challenge the system's insistence upon a limited, essentially coopted form of pluralism that was never based upon the acceptance of the principle of political competition. As Cornelius and others¹¹ have argued, while the state's autonomy has been limited, at the same time, the system has not permitted the emergence of "large, national level opposition parties and movements that are truly beyond governmental control." At best, as Cornelius and Craig note, such interests have managed to establish a bargaining relationship with the government but not upon an independent basis.¹²

Essential for the stability of the political system has been a low level of political participation.¹³ As Susan Kaufman Purcell argues, the system rests upon and even counts upon the "passivity and apathy of large sectors of the population." The chief benefit of such a condition of political torpor is that political elites need only cope with intermittent demands from most sectors of society, permitting more energy to be devoted to the critical activity of harmonizing elite interests. Pablo Gonzalez Casanova has argued, for example, that between 50 and 70% "of today's Mexicans are effectively barred from making any type of demand upon the political system."¹⁴ Kaufman Purcell maintains that the real key to the maintenance of the Mexican system has been the political system's "wherewithal to institute the kinds of basic reforms required to defuse the potential for mass mobilization."¹⁵ It may further be added that the maintenance of tranquility among competing elites also serves to forestall the potential mobilization of the mass of the population who might otherwise be recruited via an elite inspired populist vehicle during intensified elite competition.

As has been widely discussed, the current political-economic climate in Mexico has raised questions concerning the system's ability to sustain itself, its record in attempting to preserve the hegemony of its political elite and about the character of potential political change in the nation. Certainly the political reform of the late 1970s served to stimulate widespread speculation regarding Mexico's political future.¹⁶ To what extent, if any, have the system's critical political capabilities been undermined by the strengthening of opposition under the aegis of political liberalization or has political reform enhanced the system's capabilities?

At issue it seems is not so much the state's well-established formula for the management of Mexico's vast urban and rural working class and peasant sectors. Instead, the system's current difficulties appear to stem from growing deficiencies with the traditional formula for the management of intra-elite relations and elite-middle class relations. The task for the political elite, if it is to ensure its hegemony, is to prevent the coalescing of disaffected middle sector elements with dissident elites. Most critical, however, would be the regime's efforts to achieve a reharmonization of elite interests, a difficult goal given the nature of elite discontent over the nation's economic difficulties and the continuing tendency for the political elite to monopolize increasingly scarce resources. The two issues, therefore, that could serve as a rallying point for a new center-right coalition of opposition supported by disaffected middle sector and elite interests would be first, the apparent erosion of consensus within the broader elite concerning the primacy of the political elite in the management of the nation's economy and the political elite's continuing effort to monopolize resources and second, the problem of the political integration of the dissident middle sectors.

Potentially, then, a center-right coalition could emerge to challenge the traditional political-economic monopoly enjoyed by the political elite. As several contributors in this volume suggest, the middle sectors of Mexico's society have scarcely been placated by the decidedly lackluster commitment made by the regime to its own program of political reform. What benefit might have been obtained by the regime in this regard as a means of offsetting the middle sector's dismay over the regime's record of economic mismanagement has been lost. As in the past, recent reform efforts have come not in response to demands for reform but rather have emerged as elite inspired initiatives designed to assuage middle sector discontent and to direct potentially more disturbing leftist oppositional energies into the electoral channel where they might be managed successfully. Unhappy elements within the ruling coalition of elite interest might also be mollified by the apparent creative initiatives of the political elite.

Previously, the political elite could safely abandon most reform efforts once the propaganda advantage had been won. As both John Booth and Mitchell Seligson have shown, there has been little evidence of support among the urban middle class and urban working class in Mexico for authentic political competition or political pluralism. According to Booth and Seligson's study, only 26.2% of respondents surveyed approved of regime critics seeking public office while fully 51.7% disapproved.¹⁷ And certainly, the non-political elite itself had little interest in such efforts. As there was little insistence observable from any quarter in the system for fundamental political reform, political strategists enjoyed a relatively free hand in fashioning such measures as the apertura democratica of the Echeverría period, for example, and then quietly retreating from the pursuit of the initiative.

Yet, as so many political observers have noted over time, one of the most potent stimuli for the erosion of regime legitimacy is continuing economic crisis. While the regime would not otherwise feel pressed to adhere to its strategy of reform in more favorable economic ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Preface
• Part One Introduction
• Part Two Political Reform and Economic Crisis in Mexico
• Part Three Recent Performance in the Political System
• Part Four Perspectives on the Political Opposition
• About the Contributors
• Index