Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T07:28:42.713Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Agenda for Mobilization: The Agrarian Question and Popular Mobilization in Contemporary Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Michael W. Foley
Michael W. Foley*
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of America
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Mexican politics has long been regarded as a closed system, with policy-making dominated by the reigning president and his circle and presidential succession (with all its possibilities for change of course) managed by an only slightly larger “Revolutionary Family” of top figures in the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). So intertwined are the Mexican state and the dominant party that scholars and opposition leaders alike have begun to speak of the “PRI state.” E. E. Schattschneider observed that in the U.S. system, 90 percent of the population never has access to the “pressure system” that directs policy choice. The percentage of the excluded is undoubtedly even larger in Mexico because the system is more decidedly “closed.” Yet in both countries, policy innovation is not uncommon. Marked changes of course have occurred at times, and opposition forces external to the system have occasionally managed to block presidential decisions and force reevaluation and sometimes painful adjustments. This article will examine the “agrarian question” in Mexico and will argue that its persistence and the ways in which it has been framed have constrained policymakers while encouraging and sustaining the development of an independent peasant movement during the 1970s and 1980s.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , 1991 , pp. 39 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Jonathan Fox, LAR Editor Gilbert Merkx, and the anonymous readers for their very helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

References

The Agrarian Question and Popular Mobilization in Contemporary Mexico*

Austin, James E., and Esteva, Gustavo, EDS. 1987 Food Policy in Mexico: The Search for Self-Sufficiency. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bachrach, Peter, and Baratz, Morton 1970 Poverty and Power. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bailey, John J. 1988 Governing Mexico: The Statecraft of Crisis Management. New York: St. Martin's.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barkin, David, and Dewalt, Billie R. 1988 “Sorghum and the Mexican Food Crisis.” LAR 23, no. 3:30–59.Google Scholar
Barkin, David, and Suarez, Blanca 1982 El fin de la autosuficiencia alimentaria. Mexico City: Nueva Imagen and Centro de Ecodesarrollo.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank R. 1989 Conflict and Rhetoric in French Policymaking. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank R., and Jones, Bryan D. 1989 “Shifting Images and Venues of a Public Issue: Explaining the Demise of Nuclear Power in the United States.” Paper presented at the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, 31 August–3 September.Google Scholar
Bosso, Christopher J. 1987 Pesticides and Politics: The Life Cycle of a Public Issue. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Calva, Jose Luis 1988 Crisis agrícola y alimentaria en México, 1982–1988. Mexico City: Fontamara.Google Scholar
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique 1979 “On the Characterization of the Authoritarian Regimes in Latin America.” In collier 1979, 33–60.Google Scholar
CENTRO DE ECONOMIA AGRICOLA 1978 Foro: perspectivas de la reforma agraria. Chapingo, Estado de México: Colegio de Posgraduados.Google Scholar
CEPAL (COMISION ECONOMICA PARA AMERICA LATINA) 1982 Economía campesina y agricultura empresarial. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
Cobb, Roger W., and Elder, Charles D. 1972 Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda-Building. Boston, Mass.: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Collier, David, ED. 1979 The New Authoritarianism in Latin America. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
De La Madrid Hurtado, Miguel n.d. “Exposición de Motivos de la Reforma de 1984,” 30 Nov. 1983. In Ley Federal de la Reforma Agraria, Reformada, 2d ed., edited by Aguilera, José Carlos Guerra. Mexico City: PAC, xxxiii.Google Scholar
De Riz, Liliana, and De Ipola, Emilio 1985 “Acerca de la hegemonía como producción histórica.” In labastida martin del campo 1985.Google Scholar
Echeverria Alvarez, Luis 1972 Voz en la historia: II informe de gobierno, hechos e ideas. Mexico City: Novaro.Google Scholar
Elder, Charles D., and Cobb, Roger W. 1983 The Political Uses of Symbols. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Esteva, Gustavo 1987 “Food Needs and Capacities: Four Centuries of Conflict.” In austin and esteva 1987, 23–47.Google Scholar
Esteva, Gustavo, WITH Barkin, David 1983 The Struggle for Rural Mexico. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin and Garvey.Google Scholar
Feder, Ernest 1977 “Campesinistas y descampesinistas: tres enfoques divergentes (no incompatibles) sobre la destrucción del campsinado,” pt. 1. Comercio Exterior 27, no. 12 (Dec. 1977):1439–46.Google Scholar
Esteva, Gustavo, WITH Barkin, David 1978 “Campesinistas y descampesinistas,” pt. 2. Comercio Exterior 28, no. 1 (Jan. 1978):42–51.Google Scholar
Fernandez Y Fernandez, Ramon 1978 “La salvación del ejido.” In centro de economía agrícola 1978, 33–40.Google Scholar
Fireman, Bruce, and Gamson, William A. 1979 “Utilitarian Logic in the Resource Mobilization Perspective.” In The Dynamics of Social Movements, edited by Zald, Mayer N. and McCarthy, John D. Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop.Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, E. V. K. 1978 “The Fiscal Crisis of the Latin American State.” In Taxation and Economic Development, edited by Toye, J. F. J., 125–59. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Flores Lua, Graciela, Pare, Luisa, and Sarmiento, Sergio 1988 Las voces del campo:movimiento campesino y política agraria, 1976–1984. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
Fox, Jonathan 1985 “Agrarian Reform and Populist Politics: A Discussion of Steven Sanderson's Agrarian Populism and the Mexican State.” Latin American Perspectives 12, no. 3 (Summer):29–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia Murillo, Manuel 1982 Desarrollo y reforma agraria: el pensamiento politico de Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado. Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Históricos del Agrarismo en México, 15–16.Google Scholar
Gibson, Bill, Lustig, Nora, and Taylor, Lance 1987 “SAM's Impact on Income Distribution.” In austin and esteva 1987, 298–314.Google Scholar
Gordillo, Gustavo 1988 Campesinos al asalto del cielo: de la expropriación estatal a la apropiación campesina. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
Grindle, Merilee S. 1981 Official Interpretations of Rural Underdevelopment: Mexico in the 1970s. Working Papers in U.S.-Mexican Studies, no. 20. La Jolla, Calif.: Program in U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Grindle, Merilee S. 1986 State and Countryside: Development Policy and Agrarian Politics in Latin America. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Nora 1982 The Limits of State Autonomy: Post-Revolutionary Mexico. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hardy, Clarisa 1984 El estado y los campesinos: la Confederación Nacional Campesina (CNC). Mexico City: Nueva Imagen.Google Scholar
Hellman, Judith Adler 1983 Mexico in Crisis. 2d ed. New York: Holmes and Meier.Google Scholar
Hewitt De Alcantara, Cynthia 1976 Modernizing Mexican Agriculture: Socioeconomic Implications of Technological Change, 1940–1970. Geneva: UNRISD.Google Scholar
Kingdon, John W. 1983 Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Labastida Martin Del Campo, Julio, ED. 1985 Hegemonía y alternativas políticas en América Latina. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto 1977 Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory. London: New Left Books. 1985 “Tesis acerca de la forma hegemónica de la política.” In labastida martin del campo 1985. latin american perspectives 1982 Special issue on Mexico in the Eighties. Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter).Google Scholar
Lopez Portillo, Jose 1976 Tenernos un camino: discursos de toma de protesta y de final de campaña, octubre 1975–junio 1976. Mexico City: PRI.Google Scholar
Lucas, Ann 1982 “El debate sobre los campesinos y el capitalismo en México.” Comercio Exterior 32, no. 4(Apr.):371–83.Google Scholar
Mares, David 1987 Penetrating the International Market. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moguel, Julio, ED. 1988 Historia de la cuestión agraria mexicana. Vol. 7: La época de oro y el principio de la crisis de la agricultura mexicana, 1950–1970. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
Labastida Martin Del Campo, Julio 1989 Historia de la cuestión agraria mexicana. Vol. 8: Política estatal y conflictos agrarios, 1950–1970. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
Montanari, Mario 1987 “The Conception of SAM.” In austin and esteva 1987, 48–60.Google Scholar
Montañez Villafaña, Carlos 1988 “Los condicionantes de la política agropecuaria.” Comercio Exterior 38, no. 8 (Aug.):679–85.Google Scholar
Montañez Villafaña, Carlos, and Warman, Arturo 1985 Los productores de maíz en México: restricciones y alternativas. Mexico City: Centro de Ecodesarrollo.Google Scholar
Moore, Harrington JR. 1966 Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston, Mass.: Beacon.Google Scholar
Moore, Harrington JR. 1978 Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt. White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Barbara J. 1984 Making an Issue of Child Abuse. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Niemeyer, E. V. JR. 1974 Revolution at Querétaro: The Mexican Constitutional Convention of 1916–1917. Austin: University of Texas Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'DONNELL, GUILLERMO 1979 “Tensions in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State and the Question of Democracy.” In collier 1979, 285–318.Google Scholar
Paige, Jeffery M. 1975 Agrarian Revolution: Social Movements and Export Agriculture in the Underdeveloped World. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Piven, Frances Fox, and Cloward, Richard A. 1979 “Introduction to the Paperback Edition.” Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Restrepo, Ivan 1988 Naturaleza muerta: los plaguicidas en México. Mexico City: Ediciones Océano.Google Scholar
Riker, William H. 1986 The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Roman, Richard 1973 “Ideology and Class in the Mexican Revolution: A Study of the Convention and the Constitutional Congress.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Rubio, Blanca 1987 Resistencia campesina y explotación rural en México. Mexico City: Era.Google Scholar
Salinas De Gortari, Carlos 1980 Producción y participación política en el campo. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
Salinas De Gortari, Carlos 1982 Political Participation, Public Investment, and Support for the System: A Comparative Study of Rural Communities in Mexico. La Jolla, Calif.: Center for U.S. -Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego. n.d. “Modernización con apego a nuestros valores.” In Discursos de campaña, vol. 4. Mexico City: PRI.Google Scholar
Sanderson, Steven E. 1981 Agrarian Populism and the Mexican State: The Struggle for Land in Sonora. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sanderson, Susan R. Walsh 1984 Land Reform in Mexico, 1910–1980. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
SARH (SECRETARIA DE AGRICULTURA Y RECURSOS HIDRAULICOS) n.d. El desarrollo agroindustrial y la ganadería en México. Documentos de Trabajo para el Desarrollo Agroindustrial, no. 8 Mexico City: SARH/Coordinación General de Desarrollo Agroindustrial.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1960 The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 1976 The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Silva Herzog, Jesus 1959 El agrarismo mexicano y la reforma agraria: exposición y crítica. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda 1979 States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teichman, Judith A. 1988 Policymaking in Mexico: Prom Boom to Crisis. Boston, Mass.: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles 1978 Prom Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE 1988 Agricultural Trade: Causes and Impacts of Increased Fruit and Vegetable Imports. Report GAO/RCED-88–149BR. Washington, D.C.: GAO.Google Scholar
Villa Issa, Manuel R. 1978 “Presentación.” In centro de economia agricola 1978.Google Scholar
Warman, Arturo 1972 Los campesinos: hijos predilectos del régimen. Mexico City: Nuestro Tiempo.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric R. 1969 Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Zamosc, Leon 1986 The Agrarian Question and the Peasant Movement in Colombia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar