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New Hypotheses for Statistical Research in Recent Mexican History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

James W. Wilkie
James W. Wilkie*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Although at one time some Latin Americanists may have supposed that “(a) useful historical material from Latin America does not exist in statistical form, and (b) even if it did exist, the mystical qualities of Latin culture defy all efforts at measurement,” today we are aware of such fallacies. Leaving aside useful, relatively reliable data, however, we still face the question of how to handle figures which apparently are unreliable and unusable. This article approaches the latter problem by presenting some debatable hypotheses in order to suggest examples of little-examined descriptive statistics which might be investigated fruitfully to reveal new political, economic, and social aspects of Mexican life.

Type
Topical Review
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Summer 1971 , pp. 3 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this study was delivered in Mexico at Oaxtepec, Morelos, on November 4, 1969, and will be published as “New Approaches in Contemporary Historical Research” in Romeo Flores Caballero and Luis González (eds.), Memoria de la III Reunión de Hisotriadores Mexicanos y Norteamericanos (approximate title) (México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, with El Colegio de México, and The University of Texas at Austin). In contrast to the Oaxtepec study, the present work (a) presents some alternative data for historical analysis (including 1970 population census figures as related to an extended series on projected Central Government capital investment); (b) gives additional data (including a critique of election figures by the Partido de Acción Nacional; and (c) provides some updated data (including 1970 presidential results and unemployment figures). Further, discussion and notes take up aspects not developed in the Oaxtepec paper.

a

Excludes amounts not distributed by federal entity.

b

Excludes payments made directly to the Federal Treasury.

c

Excludes collections for prior years.

d

Less than .05 per cent.

Source: Actual tax revenue is from México, Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, Cuenta Pública (blue edition), 1961, 1964, 1967. Population is from Mexico, Dirección General de Estadística, Resumen del Censo, 1970 (48,377,363 persons). Projected investment is from Méxcio, Dirección de Inversiones Públicas, Inversión Pública Federal, 1964-1965-1966; and James W. Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change Since 1910 (2nd ed., rev.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), Table 10-1, a work which also gives the methodology for regional division of Mexico presented here.

References

Notes

1. See Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith, “Notes on Quantitative History: Federal Expenditure and Social Change in Mexico since 1910,” Latin American Research Review, 5:2 (1970): 71-85.

2. The hypothesis that the results of Mexican presidential elections have been manipulated ignores possibilities that generally the Mexican populace has supported official candidates by massive majorities, especially because of economic development in the last 30 years. Further, for a hypothesis which accepts election statistics at face value and develops multiple regression coefficients on the assumption that figures have not been manipulated according to individual cases, see Barry Ames, “Bases of Support for Mexico's Dominant Party,” American Political Science Review, 64 (1970): 153-167.

3. James W. Wilkie and Edna Monzón de Wilkie, México visto en el siglo XX: Entrevistas de historia oral: Ramón Beteta, Marte R. Gómez, Manuel Gómez Morín, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra, Emilio Portes Gil, Jesús Silva Herzog (México, D. F.: Instituto Mexicano de Investigaciones Económicas, 1969), 120. In the same volume, p. 598, Emilio Portes Gil has stated that although Avila Camacho did not win 94 per cent of the Mexican vote, as claimed by official statistics, he did win with more than 75 per cent of the ballots cast.

4. In this regard, one could hypothesize that presidents of the period of economic revolution attempted to develop a more democratic count of the vote.

5. Philip B. Taylor, “The Mexican Elections of 1958: Affirmation of Authoritarianism?” Western Political Science Quarterly, 13 (1960) : 722-744.

6. Contrariwise, the PAN uses official voting data for the Distrito Federal to argue that if it were a “banker's party,” as many observers have claimed, it would fare poorly in lower-middle class and proletarian electoral districts. Actually, in the elections of 1964 and 1970, PAN notes that it gained important shares of votes in poor as well as rich districts. In 1964, for example, the PAN's share of votes for the Chamber of Deputies was 32 per cent in the wealthy Lomas de Chapultepec area (district 8), an amount similar to the total Distrito Federal figure of 30 per cent.

7. Data for 1964 were supplied by PAN; data for 1970 are from El Día, July 18, 1970. For discussion of the 1967 electoral results in Yucatán, see Karl M. Schmitt, “Congressional Campaigning in Mexico: A View from the Provinces,” Journal of Inter-American Studies, 11 (1969): 93-110.

8. Cf. Ifigenia M. de Navarrete, Política fiscal de México (México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1964), 38.

9. See James W. Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change since 1910 (2nd ed., rev., Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), Part I.

10. See Raymond Vernon, The Dilemma of Mexico's Development: The Roles of the Private and Public Sectors (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), Ch. 7, especially p. 188. The shift from economic to balanced revolution is analyzed in Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution, Part I.

11. James W. Wilkie, “La Ciudad de México como imán de la población económicamente activa, 1930-1965,” in Historia y sociedad en el mundo de habla española; Homenaje a José Miranda (México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 1970), 379-395. For valuable analyses of regional disequilibrium problems in Mexico see Rodrigo A. Medellín, “La dinámica de distanciamiento económico social de México,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 31 (1969): 513-546; and Paul W. Drake, “Mexican Regionalism Reconsidered,” Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs, 12 (1970): 401-415. Much of the recent bibliography on standards of living in Mexico City is noted in Wayne A. Cornelius, Jr., “Urbanization as an Agent in Latin American Political Instability: The Case of Mexico,” American Political Science Review, 68 (1969): 833-857.

12. Wilkie and Wilkie, México visto en el siglo XX, 677-678. For a limited sample study of such problems see Comisión México-Estados Unidos de Norteamerica para el Desarrollo de la Amistad Fronteriza en Colaboración con la Comisión Nacional de Salarios Mínimos, “Informes sobre desocupación y subocupación de la mano de obra y algunas características culturales, económicas y sociales en Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; Nogales, Son.; Tijuana, B.C.; Mexicali, B.C.; Matamoros, Tamps.; Nuevo Laredo, Tamps.,” Revista Mexicana del Trabajo, Sept. 1969, 105-188.

13. Given the 1970 data which has been released recently, a third hypothesis is developed below. I am indebted to Edmundo Flores for some suggestions in this regard.

14. Data on economically unemployed population for the D.F. are not available for the period 1931-1939.

15. Calculated from sources in Table 4; and Anuario Estadístico, 1938, 52. Data on unemployment for 1940 are contradictory; the monthly average during the year was higher than figures given on the date of the census (1.0 per cent), except for the D.F. where the monthly average was incomplete or not measured during the period 1931-1940. I have used the monthly average as more representative of the entire year for national totals of unemployed but have used census data for the D.F.

16. See the Catálogo general de las estadísticas nacionales and its separate Indice (1960). See also Rubén Gleason Galicia, Las estadísticas y censos de México: su organización y estado actual (México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1969).

17. See James W. Wilkie, John C. Super, Edna M. Wilkie (eds.), “A Social Census for Latin America,” Draft, Jan. 1970.

18. Howard F. Cline, “Mexican Community Studies …” Hispanic American Historical Review, 32 (1951): 212-242.

19. Michael Belshaw, A Village Economy: Land and People of Huecorio (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), xi-xvi, 123.

20. Both directories are published by the Secretaría del Patrimonio Nacional.

21. Prepared by the Secretaría de la Presidencia, Comisión de Administración Pública. For examples of other positions see Marvin Alisky, The Governors of Mexico (El Paso: Texas Western College Press, 1965); and Marvin Alisky (ed.), Who's Who in Mexican Government (Tempe: Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, 1969).

22. For an example of a recently published work which uses religious data, see James W. Wilkie, “Statistical Indicators of the Impact of National Revolution on the Catholic Church in Mexico, 1910-1967,” Journal of Church and State, 12 (1970): 89-106.