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Neoliberalism, Grievances, and Democratization: An Exploration of the Role of Material Hardships in Shaping Mexico’s Democratic Transition

Journal of World-Systems Research

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Title Neoliberalism, Grievances, and Democratization: An Exploration of the Role of Material Hardships in Shaping Mexicos Democratic Transition
 
Creator Shefner, Jon
Stewart, Julie
 
Subject —
 
Description This article explores the relationship between neoliberalism and democratization in Mexico. For decades the Mexican state maintained the one-party rule of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) through a complex arrangement involving corporatist and clientelist practices. The onset of neoliberalism including the 1982 peso crisis and the imposition of structural adjustment policies realigned state policies with the result that the Mexican state transformed from a populist provider for many Mexicans to the instrument of their severe hardships. The state did little to protect people from nation-wide declines in wages and increases in unemployment, while withdrawing a range of subsidies necessary for daily survival. The size, scope and density of the resulting hardships, in turn, united a multi-class coalition that for the first time was able to work together to demand political change. Multiple demands emerged, corresponding to different sectors of society and different hardships, but in the end the demand for democracy became the unifying strategy. A decade after the end of one-party rule in Mexico, we can evaluate how hardships united people to demand change, even as that change has been more procedural than substantive.
 
Publisher University Library System, University of Pittsburgh
 
Contributor —
 
Date 2011-08-26
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
—
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/421
10.5195/jwsr.2011.421
 
Source Journal of World-Systems Research; Volume 17, Issue 2, 2011; 353-378
1076-156X
 
Language eng
 
Relation http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/421/433
 
Rights Copyright (c) 2015 Jon Shefner, Julie Stewart
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0