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State and Society in Mexico: Must a Stable Polity Be Institutionalized?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Susan Kaufman Purcell  and
John F. H. Purcell
Susan Kaufman Purcell
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
John F. H. Purcell
Affiliation:
California State University, Fullerton
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Abstract

The Mexican state is based on a constantly renewed bargain among several ruling groups and interests representing a broad range of ideological tendencies and social bases. Mexican political stability rests primarily not upon formal institutions, but upon the interaction of principles of political discipline (closely linked to the concept of authoritarianism) and political negotiation (associated with the concept of proto-democracy). The combination of repression and co-optation with just the “right” mix of responsiveness and compromise produces: (1) elites that are both linked to, and insulated from, their potential constituencies; (2) a pattern of political and administrative decision making called “policy incoherence”; and (3) avoidance of the crystallization of factional alliances, and their opposition to one another.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , January 1980 , pp. 194 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1980

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References

1 See, for example, Brandenburg, Frank, The Maying of Modern Mexico (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1964)Google Scholar; Hansen, Roger, The Politics of Mexican Development (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Press 1971)Google Scholar, Fagen, Richard R. and Tuohy, William S., Politics and Privilege in a Mexican City (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1972)Google Scholar, Ronfeldt, David, Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1973)Google Scholar; Stevens, Evelyn P., Protest and Response in Mexico (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press 1974)Google Scholar; Purcell, Susan Kaufman, The Mexican Profit Sharing Decision: Politics in an Authoritarian Regime (Berkeley: University of California Press 1975)Google Scholar; Padgett, L. Vincent, The Mexican Political System (2d ed.; Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1976)Google Scholar; Reyna, José Luis and Weinert, Richard S., eds., Authoritarianism in Mexico (Philadelphia: ISHI Press 1977)Google Scholar; Eckstein, Susan, The Poverty of Revolution: The State and the Urban Poor in Mexico (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1977)Google Scholar. See also the following articles: Anderson, Bo and Cockcroft, James J., “Control and Cooptation in Mexican Politics,” in Horowitz, Irving Louis, Castro, Josué de, and Gerassi, John, eds., Latin American Radicalism: A Documentary Report on Left and Nationalist Movements (New York: Random House 1969), 366–89Google Scholar; Segovia, Rafael, “Tendencias politicas en México,” Foro Internacional, xvi (No. 4, 1976), 421–28Google Scholar; Meyer, Lorenzo, “Veinticinco años de politica mexicana,” in Comercio Exterior, xxv (December 1975), 1334–42Google Scholar. These writings, as is evident from some of the titles, often explicitly classify the Mexican political system as a type of authoritarian regime.

2 From time to time, a few observers have suggested this characterization of the Mexican political system. See especially Vernon, Raymond, The Dilemma of Mexico's Development: The Roles of the Private and Public Sectors (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1965)Google Scholar. Journalists are more likely to have this view than scholars, probably because they are influenced more by immediate considerations and see Mexico in times of crisis. Scholars have more long-range views and tend to assume that, because Mexico has been politically stable for a number of decades, it will remain so. For a recent interpretation of Mexican politics by a journalist emphasizing instability, see Lyons, Gene, “Inside the Volcano,” Harper's, Vol. 254 (June 1977), 41–55Google Scholar.

3 Huntington, , Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press 1968), esp. 255–56 and 315–24Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., 59–71.

5 See Hansen's discussion of the praetorian aspects of Mexican politics (fn. 1), 101–2.

6 See, for example, the discussion of the dualism between the tlatoani (the institutional, impersonal ruler) and the caudillo (the personal ruler) in Paz, Octavio, The Other Mexico: Critique of the Pyramid (New York: Grove Press 1972), 102–5Google Scholar. See also the discussion of dualism in the works of Mexican thinkers such as Jose Vasconcelos, Antonio Caso, Samuel Ramos, Octavio Paz, and Leopoldo Zea, in Weinstein, Michael A., The Polarity of Mexican Thought: lnstrumentalism and Finalism (University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press 1976)Google Scholar. Of course, the substance of the dualisms described are not always the same; nor are they precisely the ones developed here.

7 Vernon (fn. 2) emphasizes the constraints on presidential decision making. The principal studies that stress the proto-democratic aspects of the Mexican political system are Scott, Robert E., Mexican Government in Transition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1959)Google Scholar, and Needier, Martin C., Politics and Society in Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1971)Google Scholar.

8 Brandenburg (fn. 1), 7–18.

9 The name of the ruling party itself illustrates the conflicting tendencies inherent within the very make-up of the Mexican state: the Institutionalized Revolutionary Party.

10 CONASUPO (Compania Nacional de Subsistencias Populares) is a decentralized government agency that buys agricultural commodities at fixed prices and sells basic foodstuffs in lower-class urban areas at reduced prices.

11 Interview, Mexico City, 1976. This and all other quotations attributed to informants are from interviews carried out by the authors in Mexico City between September 1975 and October 1976. All translations are by the authors.

12 Perlman, Janice, The Myth of Marginality (Berkeley: University of California Press 1976)Google Scholar.

13 This is the praetorian problem pointed out by Huntington. Each social force uses its particular strong suit to confront its competitors directly. This usually results in clubs becoming trumps (Huntington [fn. 3]). See also Douglas Chalmers's description of the politicized state in his “The Politicized State in Latin America,” in Malloy, James M., ed., Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press 1977), 23–45Google Scholar.

14 On the concept of political authoritarianism in general, see Linz, Juan J., “An Authoritarian Regime: Spain,” in Allardt, E. and Lktunen, Y., eds., Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systems: Contributions to Comparative Political Sociology (Helsinki: Transactions of the Westermarck Society 1964), 291–341Google Scholar. For an adaptation of Linz's framework to Mexico, see Purcell, Susan Kaufman, “Decision-Making in an Authoritarian Regime: Theoretical Implications from a Mexican Case Study,” World Politics, xxvi (October 1973), 28–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the works cited in fn. 1.

15 Examples of powerful families that are said by some observers to owe their fall at least partially to the hostility of the President or other powerful political figures include Garcia Mora, Longorria, and Sacristan.

16 Among those who have focused on the theme of political negotiation are Roger Hansen (fn. 1), in certain aspects of that work; Grindle, Merilee S., Bureaucrats, Politicians, and Peasants in Mexico: A Case Study of Public Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press 1977)Google Scholar; William P. Glade, “Entrepreneurship in the State Sector: CONASOPO of Mexico,” revised version of paper prepared for seminar on “The Economic Anthropology of Investment Behavior in Latin America” (School of American Research, Santa Fe, N.M., August 1975); Vernon (fn. 2); Cornelius, Wayne A., Politics and the Migrant Poor in Mexico City (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1975)Google Scholar; Padgett, L. Vincent, The Mexican Political System (1st ed.; Boston: Houghton-Mifflin 1966)Google Scholar; Scott (fn. 7); Needier (fn. 7).

17 For a more detailed discussion of clientelism in Mexico, see Susan Kaufman Purcell, “Clientelism and Development in Mexico,” paper presented at a conference on “Political Clientelism, Patronage, and Development,” Bellagio, August 1978.

18 Brandenburg (fn. 1), 157.

19 Smith, , Labyrinths of Power: Political Recruitment in Twentieth Century Mexico (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1979)Google Scholar.

20 El Universal, April 9, 1976, p. 1.

21 Political entrepreneurism is used here in a sense quite similar to, although broader than, Glade's concept of bureaucratic entrepreneurism. Glade (fn. 16, p. 31), argues that bureaucrati c entrepreneurs in the parastatal sector in Mexico are nourished by the fact that “jus t as the pecuniary sale of ‘economic’ outputs provides the public or parastatal enterprise with financial resources, th e non-pecuniary ‘sale’ of political benefits yields a return in constituency-building, power and influence. The two ‘currencies’ enjoy at least limited or partial convertability. …”

22 Godau, Rainer Horst, “Mexico: A Bureaucratic Polity,” M.A. thesis (Austin: University of Texas, October 1975), 137Google Scholar.

23 El Universal, August 3, 1976, p. 7.

24 Excelsior, September 4, 1976, p. 28.

25 For specific examples of this type of economic involvement on the part of politicians or former politicians, see Excelsior, November 9, 1974, p. 1, and March 19, 1976, p. 1; El Universal, February 26, 1976, pp. 1 and 13, and June 30, 1976, p. 1.

26 While not suggesting that all policy output is explicitly derived from some ideological position, we are including in the ideological mode certain policy positions that are explicitly tied to ideology; see below, in our discussion of the development models known as “stabilizing” and “shared” development

27 To be “burned” (quemado) means that one's political fortunes have suddenly become bleak due to an error in judgment. Note the connection in imagery with the earlier quotation to the effect that “Mexican politicians are like the phoenix. They rise from the ashes.” To be quemado is therefore not necessarily a permanent condition.

28 This is a controversial point. At least one person who was a very high-level Treas ury official at the time denies that the Treasury opposed the project.

29 “Chileanization” implied nationalization; “Mexicanization” merely implied majority ownership by Mexicans, with continued foreign private ownership in a minority position.

30 CONACYT (Consejo National de Ciencia y Tecnologia) is the National Council of Science and Technology.

31 A good recent description of these conflicting points of view is to be found in Markiewicz, Dana, “Ejido Organization in Mexico, 1934–1976,” Interdisciplinary paper submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the M.A. degree in Latin American Studies (University of California, Los Angeles 1978)Google Scholar.

32 Bueno, Gerardo, “The Structure of Protection in Mexico,” in Bela Belasa, The Structure of Protection in Developing Countries (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press 1971), 181Google Scholar.

33 For a compelling description of this frustrating process of constantly having to search for new “leaders” as old ones disappear, as it affected the ejidatarios of Atencingo, see Ronfeldt (fn. 1).

34 Lijphart, Arend, “Consociational Democracy,” World Politics, xxi (January 1968), 207–25Google Scholar.

35 Evelyn P. Stevens, “Mexico's PRI: The Institutionalization of Corporatism?,” in Malloy (fn. 13), 250. That corporatist institutions frequently do not reflect society and are often created by political elites for the purpose of controlling their constituencies is also argued by Alfred Stepan in his discussion of “organic-statist” regimes in Latin America. See Stepan, , The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective (Prince ton: Princeton University Press, 1978), esp. chap. 2Google Scholar. For an interesting discussion of cor poratist control in terms of the interplay between constraints on group behavior and inducements to attain group support, see Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, “In ducements versus Constraints: Disaggregating ‘Corporatism,’” American Political Sci ence Review, forthcoming.

38 Chalmers, , “Parties and Society in Latin America,” Studies in Comparative International Development, vii (No. 2, 1972), 102–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Robert R. Kaufman, “Corporatism, Clientelism, and Partisan Conflict: A Study of Seven Latin American Countries,” in Malloy (fn. 13), 109–48.

38 These ideological tendencies are constantly updated; concepts and applications a borrowed from the rest of Latin America and elsewhere by Mexican intellectuals. Tl relationship between the intellectual community and the government is close; mai professors and researchers have entered the government (at least recently) at high levt or have obtained well-paid government advisory positions. Perhaps the importance ideological resources to various political factions requires the constant manufacture relevant and up-to-date ideology-cum-policy perspectives, and a large number of gover ment-oriented intellectuals to perform the task. The fact that reform-oriented and evi radical perspectives (“within the Constitution”) have a potential “market” within tl government seems to encourage Mexican intellectuals to succumb, at times, to tl temptation of policy relevance; in other Latin American countries they appear to hopelessly alienated.

39 Lipset, Seymour Martin and Rokkan, Stein, “Cleavage Structures, Party Systerr and Voter Alignments: An Introduction,” in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., Party Systet, and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives (New York: Free Press 1967), 15–1Google Scholar.