¹ Cohen, Jean, ‘Strategy or Identity: New Theoretical Paradigms and Contemporary Social Movements’, Social Research vol. 52, no. 4 (1985), pp. 663–716Google Scholar; Alberto Melucci, ‘The Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Movements’, Ibid., pp. 789–817; Claus Offe, ‘New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of Institutional Polities’, Ibid., pp. 817–69; Alain Touraine, ‘An Introduction to the Study of Social Movements’, Ibid., pp. 749–87.

² Eckstein, S. (ed.), The Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements (Berkeley, 1989)Google Scholar; Mainwaring, Scott and Viola, Eduardo, ‘New Social Movements, Political Culture, and Democracy: Brazil and Argentina in the 1980s’, Telos, no. 61 (1984), pp. 17–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Henry, Etienne, ‘Urban Social Movements in Latin America: Towards a Critical Understanding’, in Slater, David (ed.), New Social Movements and the State in Latin America (Netherlands, 1985), pp. 127–47Google Scholar; Tilman Evers, ‘Identity: the Hidden Side of the New Social Movements in Latin America’, Ibid., pp. 43–71; David Slater, ‘Social Movements and the Recasting of the Political’, Ibid., pp. 1–26; Oxhorn, Philip, ‘Organizaciones Poblacionales y Constitución Actual de la Sociedad Civil’, Revista Mexicana de Sociologia, vol. 50, no. 2 (1986), pp. 221–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mainwaring, Scott, ‘Urban Popular Movements, Identity, and Democratisation in Brazil’, Comparative Political Studies vol. 20, no. 2 (1987), pp. 131–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Fuentes, Lisa, ‘The New Democratic Pact: The Alliances of Middle Classes and Grassroots Movements’, paper presented at the Latin American Studies Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans (03 17–19, 1988)Google Scholar; Urrutia, E. Rivera and Sojo, A., ‘Movimiento Popular, Conflicto Social, y Democracia’, Revista Mexicana de Sociología, vol. 47, no. 4 (1985), pp. 17–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Calderón, Fernando and Santos, Mario R. Dos, ‘Del Petitorio Urbano a la Multiplicidad de Destinos’, Revista Mexicana de Sociologia, vol. 51, no. 4 (1989), pp. 77–91Google Scholar.

⁴ In fact, much of the so-called ‘cutting edge’ research on Latin American demo cratisation, practically takes as given the role played by social movements, identifying as its central problematic the post-transition conditions that determine whether and how social movement pressures for democratisation can be sustained and institutionalised to support a more stable system of competitive party politics. See Caldeira, Teresa, ‘Electoral Struggles in a Neighborhood on a Periphery of São Paolo’, Politics and Society, vol. 15, no. 1 (1987), pp. 43–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fernando Henrique Cardoso, ‘Democracy in Latin America’, Ibid., pp. 23–42; Peter Evans, ‘Three Views of Regime Change and Party Organization in Brazil’, Ibid., pp. 1–21; Margaret E. Keck, ‘Democratization and Dissention: The Formation of the Workers Party’, Ibid., pp. 67–96.

⁵ Moore, B., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston, 1966)Google Scholar; Wolf, E. R., Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Paige, J.M., Agrarian Revolution: Social Movements and Export Agriculture in the Underdeveloped World (New York, 1975)Google Scholar; Tilly, C., From Mobilization to Revolution (Boston, 1978)Google Scholar; Skocpol, T., States and Social Revolution (Cambridge, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ See also Castells, M., City Class and Power (New York, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Castells, M., The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements (Berkeley, 1983)Google Scholar.

⁷ Hartlyn, J. and Morley, S. A. (eds.), Latin American Political Economy: Financial Crisis and Political Change (Boulder, 1986)Google Scholar; David Felix, ‘On Financial Blowups and Authoritarian Regimes in Latin America’, Ibid., pp. 85–127; Kaufman, Robert, ‘Democratic and Authoritarian Responses to the Debt Issues: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico’, International Organisation, vol. 39, no. 3, (1985), pp. 473–503CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wallerstein, Michael, ‘The Collapse of Democracy in Brazil: Its Economic Determinants’, Latin American Research Review, vol. 15, no. 3 (1980), pp. 3–40Google Scholar.

⁸ Foweraker, Joe, ‘Los Movimientos Populares y la Transformación del Sistema Politico Mexicano’, Revista Mexicana de Sociologia, vol. 51, no. 4 (1989), pp. 93–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ This is not to say that research on contextual conditions is totally lacking outside the Mexican context. Some of the most provocative writings on the recent ‘transition to democracy’ in the southern cone highlight contextual forces and conditions that can further enhance the popularity and power of social movements in their challenges against the state – factors including debt crisis, the breakdown of patron-client relationships, and the crisis of party politics. See O'Donnell, G. et al. , Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore, 1986)Google Scholar; Stallings, B. and Kaufman, R. (eds.), Debt and Democracy in Latin America (Boulder, 1988)Google Scholar; Walton, John, ‘Debt, Protest, and the State in Latin America’, in Eckstein, Susan (ed.), Power and Popular Protest in Latin America (Berkeley, 1989)Google Scholar. The point, however, is that this work is rarely presented in the context of social movement theory; among those taking the social movement paradigm as central, scholars of Mexico tend to lead the way in focusing on contextuality.

¹⁰ Knight, A., ‘Historical Continuities in Social Movements’, in Foweraker, Joe et al. (eds.), Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico (Boulder, 1990), pp. 183–99Google Scholar.

¹¹ For a review of Mexico's history of popular mobilisation, from the 1910 Revolution to the 1968 Tlatelolco massacres, and the emergence of widespread urban social movements in the 1970s, as well as an assessment of their impact on the nature and direction of scholarship, see Davis, D. E., ‘The Sociology of Mexico: Stalking the Path Not Taken’, Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 18 (1992), pp. 395–417CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Foweraker, J. and Craig, A. (eds.), Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico (Boulder, 1990), pp. 10–12Google Scholar.

¹³ Eckstein, Susan, ‘Formal vs. Substantive Democracy’, Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, vol. 6, no. 2 (1990), pp. 213–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ While Eckstein (Ibid.) does not claim that the PRI is becoming more authoritarian, she does argue that it is not becoming any less authoritarian, even with accelerating urban movements or with the introduction of legal and institutional reforms that, on the surface, provided more room for democratic participation. Her argument is that the legal and institutional reforms in local political participation introduced by the PRI over the 1970s were evidence of formal (and not substantive) democracy. Among the compelling evidence she uses to make this point is the fact that the reforms split existing community movements along territorial and administrative lines, something which ultimately undermined their power and capacity to make political demands on the PRI-dominated Mexican state.

¹⁵ In point of fact, in pre-revolutionary periods and through the first two decades of revolutionary rule, Mexico City was organised around a municipal structure that provided such rights. But in 1928, after prolonged debate about establishing Mexico City as a Federal District (Distrito Federal) much along the same principles governing other national capitals like Washington, D.C., the municipal system was eliminated and replaced by the current system that allowed no direct electoral representation. Since that time, Mexico City's mayor has been appointed by the President, and any representation of local concerns has been undertaken in the national legislature along with other national issues.

¹⁶ Accordingly, in this article our main point of departure is the state and its willingness and capacity to introduce democratic reforms. As such, our treatment of social movements is confined to the ways such bottom-up pressures influence state actors and their actions vis-à-vis democratic reform. We have consciously avoided in-depth discussion of the nature and demands of social movements, partly because we feel any thorough treatment of these issues would take too much space and would shift the article's focus away from what we consider to be the most critical starting points for understanding the problematic of democratic reform: state actors and their responses to social movements. For more detailed analysis of urban social movements in Mexico, however, including their class and social composition, the nature of their demands, and their relationships to the Mexican state as well as opposition political parties, see Sáiz, J. M. Ramírez, El Movimiento Urbano Popular en México (Mexico City, 1986)Google Scholar and Hernández, R. S., La Coordinadora Nacional del Movimiento Urbano Popular (CONAMUP): Su Historia 1980–1986 (Mexico City, 1987)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Interviews were conducted with individuals from the following: (1) government dependencies or agencies: Secretan'a de Programación y Presupuesto, Secretaría de Gobernación, Gobierno del Distrito Federal, Secretaría de Desarrollo Urbano y Ecología, Renovación Popular, Comisión de Vialidad y Transporte, and Comisión Nacional de Salubridad Popular; (2) political parties: Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) (including special interviews in the Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares, or CNOP), Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN), Partido Socialista Unido de México (PSUM); (3) urban social movements: Confederación Nacional de Movimientos Urbanos Populares (CONAMUP), Asamblea de Barrios, Mujeres para el Dialogo.

¹⁸ For an overview of these conditions see Ríos, M. A. Rivera, Crisis y Reorganización del Capitalismo Mexicano, 1960–1985 (Mexico City, 1986)Google Scholar; Tello, C., ‘La Crisis en 1985: Salidos y Opciones’, in Casanova, Pablo González (ed.), México Ante la Crisis: El Impacto social/Las Alternativas (Mexico City, 1986), pp. 399–415Google Scholar; A. Ziccardi, ‘Problemas Urbanos: Proyectos y Alternativas Ante la Crisis’, in Ibid., pp. 52–87.

¹⁹ de la Luz Arriage Lemus, Maria, ‘Austeridad y Bajos Salarios, Prémisas de la Reconversion’, Excelsior (15 06 1987)Google Scholar.

²⁰ de la Madrid, M., Los Grandes Problemas Nacionales de Hoy (Mexico City, 1982)Google Scholar; de la Madrid, M., Nacionalismo Revolucionario: Siete Tests Fundamentales de Campaña (Mexico City, 1982)Google Scholar.

²¹ ‘Antes del Miércoles Se Fijarán los Aumentos a Mínimos: Se requería un aumento de por lo menos el 35% para iniciar la recuperación del nivel de compra, dijo el representante obrero’, La Jornada (20 June 1987).

²² See Hernández, La Coordinadora and Ramírez Sáiz El Movimiento Urbano for discussion of the basic organising principles of urban social movements.

²³ M. de la Madrid, Los Grandes Problemas, p. 26.

²⁴ Rico, Carlos Flores, ‘Democratización de DF; El Estado Inconveniente’, El Día (24 07 1986)Google Scholar.

²⁵ For further elaboration of these programmes and priorities, see Edelberto Cervantes Galván, ‘Prioridades Nacionales e Intereses Locales: La explotación del Petroleo en Tabasco’, and Silva, Fernando, ‘Planeación Regional y Descentralización’, in Torres, Blanca (ed.), Descentralización y Democracia en México (Mexico City, 1986), pp. 69–91 and pp. 135–61Google Scholar.

²⁶ Here we should clarify our use of the term ‘state’ and the reasons for speaking of separate interests of the PRI, the President, and other national cabinets like the Mayor's office. By ‘state’ we refer to the body of institutions and their constituent actors that comprise the governing apparatus in Mexico, of which the Presidency, the PRI, and the Mayor's office comprise those principal parts. While much work on Mexico tends to ignore in practice the distinction between the State and the PRI, or between government agencies and the PRI, such a conceptual distinction is necessary. With respect to the President and his relationship to the PRI, moreover, the analytic distinction is even less frequently recognised – in large part due to the plethora of early writings on Mexico which suggested that the President acted ail-powerfully, as a representative of the PRI by somehow rising ‘above’ it. Given this, another principal finding from this case study is that the President does not always see eye to eye with the PRI, and that he is not all-powerful in enforcing his will, especially if he faces opposition.

²⁷ Eckstein, Susan, ‘Urbanization Revisited: Inner City Slum of Hope and Squatter Settlement of Despair’, World Development, vol. 18 (1990), pp. 165–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gilbert, A. and Ward, P., Housing, the State, and the Poor: Policy and Practice in Three Latin American Cities (Cambridge, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ Ziccardi, A., ‘Empresas de la Construcción y Grandes Obras en la Ciudad de México’, in Garza, Gustavo (ed.), Una Década de Planeación Urbano-Regional en México, 1978–1988 (Mexico City, 1989)Google Scholar.

²⁹ Some may question this conclusion given the centralised power the Mayor holds over the delegado system; but in their study of this network of delegates, Alan Gilbert and Peter Ward also suggest that several of these delegados had become relatively powerful urban caciques over the years, thus indicating that they might have much to lose with the introduction of the local legislature. See A. Gilbert and P. Ward, Housing, the State, and the Poor, p. 195.

³⁰ It is probably also worth noting that Ramón Aguirre may have had his own personal reasons for opposing the reform. Many involved in the political scene at the time claimed that Aguirre had strong presidential aspirations and that he, naturally, wanted to pursue a course of action that would buttress his image as one in full control of Mexico City. This, in turn, meant he was reluctant to support any changes that might be associated with serious conflicts or problems in administrative decision-making during his term, and would thus undermine his own reputation.

³¹ This conflict between the President and the Mayor over urban administrative reform was also demonstrated by the fact that Aguirre was the only national-level cabinet member to reject the Secretary of Planning and Budgeting's six-year plan in early 1983. In keeping with the President's administrative decentralisation and economic recovery objectives, this six-year plan had also called for an administrative reform in Mexico City, one which would reallocate decision-making and investment responsibilities in the Mexico City area on the basis of economic sectors (i.e. transport, housing, etc.). Yet because the plan had suggested that major decisions made in Mexico City were to fall under the jurisdiction of the other national cabinets concerned with these particular sectors, and the Mexico City Mayor's office would be left only as an administrative body, with very little decision-making power, Aguirre adamantly opposed the plan.

³² Preventing this was important to the PRI leadership because many considered Mexico's ‘presidentialism’ to be the wild card explaining the historical success of the PRI-dominated political system. It was widely believed that the president's institutional strength and autonomy gave him the power to balance incorporated sectors in conflict, and that this in turn was responsible for facilitating political stability and the PRI's power over the decades.

³³ Even within the PRI – which was comprised of the Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares (CNOP), the Confederación Nacional Campesina (CNC) and the Confederación de Trabajadores Mexicanos (CTM)– there were substantial disagreements about the appropriateness of democratic reform. Indeed, while the CNOP supported the idea of the intermediate reform, the PRI's strongest sector, the CTM – whose constituents were national labour groups and not a specifically urban population – actively opposed it. Moreover, even within the CNOP there was some dissension, which is not surprising since it is such a large and heterogeneous organisation; and many of the technocrats working in Mexico City government, mentioned earlier as opponents of the initial proposal for democratic reform, were in the CNOP. Yet this information is not crucial to the general argument presented here, mainly because even with some internal disagreement over urban democratic reform, the PRI leadership was able to act in a clear and decisive manner with respect to its stand on the reform at different points in the process. For additional reference to those internal splits, see ‘El Partido Contra el Presidenre’, La Jornada, 25 July 1986 and Salvador Sánchez Vázquez, ‘La CTM y la Renovacion Electoral en el DF’, El Día, 2 August 1986.

³⁴ The CNOP was created several years after the other two main organisations within the PRI, the CTM and the CNC. In some ways, then, the CNOP was a catch-all organisation, one meant to include all those groups not already incorporated into the CTM and CNC. By the late sixties, growing problems associated with rapid industrialisation-led urbanisation began to cause schisms within this heterogenous organisation and between the organisation and the PRI leadership. For a thorough documentary history of the CNOP, see Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Historia Documental de la CNOP, vols. I, II, III (Mexico City, 1984)Google Scholar; for discussion of conflicts within the CNOP see Davis, D., Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia, PA, 1994)Google Scholar.

³⁵ Bassols, M. and Delgado, A., ‘La CNOP y las Organizaciones de Colonos’, paper presented at the Seminar on the State and Urban Social Movements, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 08 1985)Google Scholar; Purcell, S. and Purcell, J., ‘Machine Politics and Socio-economic Change in Mexico’, Latin American Urban Research, vol. 3 (1973). PP 49–76Google Scholar

³⁶ Alonso, J., ‘La Crisis y las Capas Mas Despauperadas de las Ciudades’, in Casanova, Pablo González (ed.), México Ante La Crisis: El Impacto Social/Las Alternativas (Mexico City, 1985), pp. 312–25Google Scholar.

³⁷ Soledad Loaeza, ‘Las Clases Medias Mexicanas y la Coyuntura Económica Actual’, Ibid., pp. 221–38; J. Antonio Rojas Nieto, ‘Algunas Implicaciones Sociales de la Estrategia Económico-Social del Régimen’, Ibid., pp. 11–27.

³⁸ In addition to reducing the pressures on the CNOP that threatened to delegitimise the political system among low and middle-income populations, some even saw the legislative reform as holding the potential to strengthen both the CNOP and the PRI, since the CNOP's strong historical presence in Mexico City, some of it among urban social movements themselves, made many party activists confident that the PRI would control the legislative body anyway. Accordingly, introducing the legislative reform would evidence commitment to democratisation, even while it was not expected to threaten the power and control of the PRI.

³⁹ This is not to say that all members within the PRI were happy or willing to drop the idea of reform; just as it is not possible to say that all forces within the Mayor's office from the beginning opposed reform and all forces within Gobernación actively and consistently supported urban political reform. But, again, this article is concerned with identifiable political positions on the part of the leadership of each of these sectors which have been corroborated in interviews with members both within and outside each of these three sectors.

⁴⁰ Hernández, La Coordinadora, pp. 61–8.

⁴¹ Quarterly Economic Review of Mexico (1984), pp. 10–14.

⁴² ‘Reconoce el CANACINTRA que se Postergue la Política de Liberalizatión Comercial’, Uno Más Uno, 13 July 1985; ‘El Partido Contra el Presidente?’, La Jornada, 25 July 1986.

⁴³ ‘DF: 50% de abstención y 40 triunfos del PRI’, Uno Más Uno, 15 July 1985.

⁴⁴ See ‘Podemos Aprender la Ciudadanía’, Excélsior (9 February 1986).

⁴⁵ By most counts, the government failed to provide emergency aid, protect victimised populations from vandalism and disease, or even to show appropriate political concern. This is all discussed in gruesome detail in a special issue (April 1986) of the Revista Mexicana de Sociologia entitled ‘Sismo: Desastre y Sociedad en la Ciudad de México’. Also see Presidencia de la República, Terremotos de Septiembre (Mexico City, 1986).

⁴⁶ Massolo, A., ‘Que el Gobierno Entienda, ilo Primero es la Vivienda!’, Revista Mexicana de Sociología, vol. 46, no. 2 (1986), pp. 195–238CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁷ ‘Proponen Diputados Priistas Crear un Plan Nacional de Participación Ciudadana en Casos de Desastre’, Excélsior (1 October 1985), p. 1; ‘El Pueblo Se Inquietará si los Recursos Para la Reconstrucción no son Empleados’, Excélsior (1 February 1986), p. 4–A.

⁴⁸ ‘Reforma en la Organizatión del Gobierno Desburocratiza Funciones: C. Mireles’, Excélsior (7 February 1986).

⁴⁹ ‘El Partido Contra el Presidente’, La Jornada (25 July 1986).

⁵⁰ ‘Voz Popular: Municipios, sí, Delegaciones, no’, El Día (22 July 1986).

⁵¹ ‘Cronologías e Indicaciones Internationales y Nacionales, Síntesis de Prensa de Diciembre, SIPRO, vol. 3, no. 30 (1987), pp. 55.

⁵² Ibid., p. 55.

⁵³ Vacs, Aldo, ‘Authoritarian Breakdown and Redemocratization in Argentina’, in Malloy, James M. et al. (eds.) Authoritarians and Democrats: Regime Transition in Latin America (Pittsburgh, 1987) pp. 26–9Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Silvio Baretta and John Markoff, ‘Brazil's Abertura: A Transition from What to What’, Ibid., pp. 57–9.

⁵⁵ This is not to say that opposition parties played no role. Even though opposition parties were not strong enough to bring groups within the PRI to join together to introduce the moderate reform in 1985, they did constitute a strong enough threat to make the PRI worried about losing its political support in elections – which was one of the reasons the debate was started in the first place. These worries about opposition party success, moreover, were as much a direct product of the growth of social movements as of anything else. Even though most social movements in Mexico have prided themselves on maintaining autonomy from political parties, the individuals and groups who join such movements are generally good support for opposition parties during elections, and the PRI knows this. Fear of this fact played an important role in the shifting positions and alliances between state actors in 1983, 1985, and again in 1986. Accordingly, to the extent that social movements are seen – or present themselves – as the potential base for opposition parties, rather than as autonomous social forces oriented towards civil society and rejecting the state and formal politics, they may have a greater impact on democratic outcomes. This proposition also calls into question the literature on social movements which sees democratisation as stemming from social movements' rejection of formal politics and stresses their contribution to democratic political culture in civil society.

⁵⁶ Cárdenas, C., Nueslro Lucha Apenas Comienza (Mexico City, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Approximately 66% of the 322, 437 citizens who voted supported the establishment of a new, autonomous and democratically-controlled jurisdiction in the capital. Close to 84% supported both direct election of the mayor and expanded legislative powers for the Asamblea. However, we must be cautious about relying too heavily on these figures, because the circumstances of the plebiscite probably ensured that voters were skewed into two principal groups, not necessarily representative of the Mexico City population: social movement activists involved in organising the plebiscite v. party activists mobilised to produce a counter vote. Very little about the plebiscite was reported by the public media, so large masses of people remained entirely unaware of it.