The Struggle for Mexico

In the 1970s political and economic changes to the world order led to an emerging “globalization” credited with the ceding of state sovereignty to a “de facto world government” of transnational corporations and with the anti-globalism movement directed at countering it. Mexico, however, has maintained the salience of the national unit in the form of the state as a ruling apparatus and as the target of organized, non-state, political opposition. This study examines the transformation of Mexico’s social and political organization from state corporatism to transnationalized corporatism, a form distinguished by the effect that International Financial Institutions and the World Trade Organization have on the state’s relationship to the rest of society. By exploring how non-governmental organizations, political parties, unions and social movements (notably the Zapatistas) engage with the state under neoliberalism, this work significantly emphasizes the continued relevance of corporatist structures in an environment of electoral democratic reform.

Debra D. Chapman is a lecturer in political science, global studies and North American studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. She is the author of articles on development theory and electoral movements in Mexico.

Debra D. Chapman
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 233
Bibliographic Info: appendix, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2012
pISBN: 978-0-7864-6583-5
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8960-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      ix

Abbreviations of Organizations and Interviewees      xi

Preface      1

Introduction      9

1. Theoretical Framework      23

2. The Mexican Corporatist State      47

3. Integrative Oppositional Strategies I      76

4. Integrative Oppositional Strategies II      97

5. The Zapatista Movement      128

6. Experiments in Delinking and Deglobalization      158

Conclusions      170

Epilogue      176

Appendix: The Plan de Ayala      179

Notes      183

Bibliography      193

Index      209