Chapter Sechzig

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Chapter Sechzig

• Politics in Mexico

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Country Bio Mexico

• Population
• 106 million
• Territory
• 761,602 sq. miles
• Year of Independence
• 1810
• Year of Current Constitution
• 1917
• Head of State
• President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa
• Head of Government
• President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa

• Language
• Spanish, various Mayan, Nahuati, Zapotec, and
  other regional indigenous languages
• Religion
• Nominally Roman Catholic 89, Protestant 6

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Background Mexico

• 2006 presidential election- three strong
  candidates
• Very close
• Not typical Usually election dominated by by the
  Partido Revolucionario Institutcional (PRI)
• Economic crisis
• 1988 election brought a tidal wave of
  antigovernment voting
• PRI got a bare majority

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Background Mexico

• 2000 election Vincente Fox (PAN Party)
• 2006 PRI lost the presidency but retained control
  of half of the state governorships
• End result Mexico has a more competitive,
  pluralistic political system, in which no single
  party is dominant but each of the three major
  parties has regional strongholds.

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Recruiting the Political Elite
I. SOVEREINGTY, POWER, AUTHORITY

• Who becomes one of Mexicos political elite?
• Recruited predominantly from the middle class
• 1982-2000 mostly people born or raised in Mexico
  City
• Postgraduate education, especially at elite
  foreign universities and in disciplines such as
  economics and public administration
• Vincente Fox favored persons with nongovernmental
  experience and who had no political party
  affiliation.
• Calderon had an MA in economics and public
  administration (latter from Harvard) and had
  extensive party experience.
• Kinship ties
• Political inbreeding?

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Interest Representation and Political Control
I. SOVEREINGTY, POWER, AUTHORITY

• Corporatist system
• NGOs and govt working together to manage the
  state based on mutual agreements (you scratch my
  back, Ill scratch yours)
• The official party itself was divided into three
  sectors
• Labor Sector
• Peasant Sector
• Popular Sector
• Each sector dominated by one mass organization
• Some groups did not need representation through
  the major party, but dealt with government
  directly.
• Military, Catholic Church, foreign and domestic
  entrepreneurs
• Patron-client relationships/networks

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Political Parties
I. SOVEREINGTY, POWER, AUTHORITY

• PRI
• Established to reduce political conflict
• Party that would be used to built popular support
  for government policies and mobilize
  participation in elections.
• Party enjoyed limitless access to government
  funds to finance its campaigns.
• President enjoyed a slush fund authorized by
  congress.
• Was in power for 71 years
• PAN
• Party that is currently in power
• Party that represents the vies on the right of
  the ideological spectrum
• Founders include Catholic intellectuals and urban
  middle class.
• Also attracts votes from socially conservative
  peasants and the urban working class.
• PRD
• Represents the left ideological spectrum
• Members believe in moderate socialist political
  ideas
• Some lean toward communist ideology

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Political Parties Shifting Social Bases
I. SOVEREINGTY, POWER, AUTHORITY

• Dramatic shift in the 2006 election
• PRIs most dependable base before 2006 was the
  rural voter did well with women and older
  voters.
• In 2006 PRDs Obrador did best among rural
  voters.
• PAN did best among urban voters prior to 2006,
  but in 2006 PRD finished ahead of PRI for the
  urban vote.

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Political Structure and Institutions
II. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

• Nature of the regime? One-party democracy
  evolving toward true democracy? Authoritarian
  regime?
• Hybrid part-free, part authoritarian
• Democratic breakthrough election of 2000
• On paper a presidential system, three autonomous
  branches of government with checks and balances,
  and federalism with considerable autonomy at the
  local level
• In practice decision-making highly centralized
  president dominated the legislative and judicial
  branches

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Political Structure and Institutions
II. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

• Federalism
• Political centralism
• 31 states and the Federal District
• Each one divided into municipios headed by a
  mayor and a council
• Each layer of government successively weaker
• Struggle against centralism
• New federalism

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Political Structure and Institutions The
Legislative Branch
II. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

• Federal Congress has two houses
• A 128 member upper chamber, the Senate
• A 500-member lower house, the Chamber of Deputies
• Both employ a mixed-member system
• Some of the members are elected by plurality vote
  in SMD
• Others are elected by a system of compensatory
  proportional representation on closed-party lists
• Electoral rules for Senate and Chamber of
  Deputies
• Mixed-member system effects on the party system
• Complicates creating majorities

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Political Structure and Institutions The
Legislative Branch
II. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

• Presidential vetoes
• Can take to forms
• Regular veto, in which the president expresses
  his rejection of a bill
• Corrective veto, in which the president requests
  that Congress amend the bill, usually because of
  technical errors in the text
• In either case, Congress can insist on the
  original text of the bill by a two-thirds vote,
  after which the president must publish the
  legislation

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Political Structure and Institutions The
Legislative Branch
II. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

• Powers of the Chambers
• Each has exclusive powers and areas of
  specialization
• Party discipline
• Very strong each party generally votes as a bloc

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Political Structure and Institutions The
Executive Branch
II. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

• More dominant political actor in Mexico for the
  greater part of the twentieth century
• Possessed broad range of unwritten but generally
  recognized metaconstitutional powers

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Political Structure and Institutions The
Executive Branch
II. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

• During the PRIs seven decades of rule at the
  national level, three factors were required to
  create strong presidentialism
• The presidents party had to have a majority in
  both chambers of Congress.
• There must be high levels of discipline in the
  majority party of Congress.
• The president must be considered the leader of
  his party.
• Zedillo and recasting of the presidency
• Executive-legislative relations
• New dynamics emerge
• More combative

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Political Culture and Socialization
III. CITIZENS, SOCIETY, THE STATE

• Mexicans are highly supportive of the political
  institutions that evolved from the Mexican
  Revolution
• Endorse the democratic principles of the
  Constitution of 1917
• Critical of government performance
• Pessimistic about their ability to affect
  election outcomes
• Evaluate candidates on performance
• Growing distrust of Congress and the political
  parties

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Cleavages and Politics
III. CITIZENS, SOCIETY, THE STATE

• Urban v. Rural Urban people are less likely to
  be controlled by patron-client systems than rural
  people. Mexico today is 75 urban.
• Social Classes Social inequality is high in
  Mexico. The middle and high classes tend to vote
  PAN and the poorer classes tend to veto PRI.
• Mestizos v. Amerindian (main ethnic cleavage)
  30 of the Mexican population think of themselves
  as Amerindians and tend to live in marginalized,
  poor rural communities.
• North v. South The North of Mexico is generally
  more prosperous than the South due to trade with
  the US. More Amerindians live in the South.

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Civil Society
III. CITIZENS, SOCIETY, THE STATE

• DEF voluntary organizations separate from the
  government
• Mexico has practiced state corporatism for many
  years and the PRI had divided the civil society
  into social classes and they failed to include
  every single person in the civil society, thus
  they failed to stay in power. Now the structure
  of the civil society is uncertain.

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Political Culture and Socialization
III. CITIZENS, SOCIETY, THE STATE

• Mass Political Socialization
• Pre-adult political learning
• Family
• Schools
• Catholic Church
• Adult political learning
• Personal encounters with government functionaries
  and the police
• Proliferation of popular movements
• Mass media
• Print media
• Television

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Political Culture and Socialization
III. CITIZENS, SOCIETY, THE STATE

• Political participation is of two broad types
• Ritualistic, regime-supportive activities
• Voting and attending campaign rallies, for
  example
• Petitioning or contacting of public officials to
  influence the allocation of some public good or
  service
• By law voting is obligatory
• Voting turnout
• Closeness of 2006 presidential vote

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Political Culture and Socialization
III. CITIZENS, SOCIETY, THE STATE

• Mexico works in a patron-client system and it has
  worked for them. They form a hierarchical network
  of favors to get interests articulated.
• With the growth of a larger middle class the
  protests are more common because there is a need
  for more legitimate channels to articulate
  interests.
• The Zapatista movement is currently working on
  the rights of the poorest natives in the southern
  state of Chiapas.

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Historical Perspectives
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Colonial Perspectives
• Indian civilizations
• Decimated by disease only small number left
• Cortes and the Spanish Crown Catholic Church
• Conflict between church and state
• Constitutions of 1857 and 1917 reduced this
  conflict

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Historical Perspectives
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Revolution and its aftermath
• 1910 first of the great social revolutions that
  shook the world
• In Mexico revolution originated with the ruling
  class
• Anti-Porfirio Diaz and local bosses and
  landowners
• Led by Francisco Madero
• Zapata
• Pancho Villa
• Diazs dictatorship disintegrated into warlordism

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Historical Perspectives
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• After first decade of revolution progress made
• Constitution of 1917
• Principle of state control over all natural
  resources
• Subordination of the church to the state
• The governments right to redistribute land
• Rights for labor
• Took two decades to implement

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Historical Perspectives The Cardenas Upheaval
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Elites maintained control during the 1930s
• But era of massive social and political upheaval
• Lazaro Cardenas (1934-1940)
• Encouraged urban workers and peasants to demand
  land and higher wages
• Wave of strikes, protests, and petitions for
  breaking up large rural estates.
• Most disputes settled by the government in favor
  of labor
• Nationalization of oil companies
• Creation of large organizations for labor and
  peasants
• Fundamentally reshaped political institutions
• Presidency primary institution of the political
  system
• Sweeping powers but limited six year term
• By 1940 more Mexicans included in the national
  political system

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Historical Perspectives The Era of Hegemonic
Party Rule
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Cardenas political system
• Remarkably durable
• PRI would become the worlds longest continuously
  ruling party (with the fall of the Soviet
  Communist Party)
• In the 1970s concerns arose
• President Ordaz dirty war
• Execution of more than 700 alleged enemies of the
  state
• Good news discovery of massive oil and natural
  gas resources, but this collapsed and so did
  support for reform
• Economic crisis in the 1980s
• Carlos Salinas
• Chiapas rebellion Colosio assassination
• 1994 Zedillo PRI retained control

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Historical Perspectives The End of PRI Dominance
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Shortly after the 1994 election, economic
  troubles returned
• Capital flight
• Deep recession

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Historical Perspectives The End of PRI Dominance
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Ex-President Salinas publicly criticized Zedillo
  and his cabinet and went into defacto exile in
  Ireland
• Zedillo made Salinas the scapegoat for the crisis
• PRI appeared to be in a state of decomposition
• Defeat of its presidential candidate in 2000
• Third place finish in presidential election in
  2006
• Retreated to its regional strongholds status as
  a national party in jeopardy

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Historical Perspectives International Environment
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Proximity to the United States
• A powerful presence in Mexico
• 2,000 mile border
• Labor and resources in Mexico
• History
• Annexation of Texas in 1845
• Mexican-American War
• U.S. seized half of Mexicos national territory
• Railroads and mining
• Intertwined economies
• Immigration
• NAFTA

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Government Performance
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Promoting economic growth and reducing poverty
• Under Mexicos four most recent presidents, the
  government has implemented a neoliberal economic
  development model
• Freer rein to market forces objective- a
  technocratic free-market revolution
• Privatization
• Considerable spending on welfare at the same time
• Safety net for short term losers from
  neoliberal economic policies
• Segura Popular

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Government Performance
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Financing development and controlling inflation
• Salinas financial problems
• Created illusions of prosperity
• Zedillos inexperienced and inept economic team
• Fox fiscal restrain and good fortune

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Government Performance
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Establishing the rule of law
• Greatest failure of all
• Cannot deal with street crime
• ¾s of crimes go unreported why? Citizens low
  expectations that the perpetrators will be caught
  and punished.
• Remedies
• Real progress only by addressing root causes

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Mexicos Political Future
IV. POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE

• Transition to democracy
• Elections are as democratic and transparent as
  nearly any other country in the Americas
• Talk of changing the Constitution of 1917 to
  weaken the presidency and strengthen the Congress
• Should be classified a democracy
• One of the best functioning in Latin America

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Current Policy Challenges
V. PUBLIC POLICY

• Mexicos 21st century difficulties
• An economy that produces too few jobs to
  accommodate the number of people entering the job
  market
• An educational system in need of modernization
• A growing impoverished population
• Half of Mexicans live below the official poverty
  line
• Highly unequal distribution of income
• Huge developmental gap between urban North, and
  rural, mostly indigenous South
• Acute environmental problems
• A criminal justice system that barely functions

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Current Policy Challenges
V. PUBLIC POLICY

• Emerging policy challenges
• Must catch up to its international trade
  partners/competitors
• Modernize its agricultural sector
• Renovate energy sector
• Expand the tax base
• Change election rules
• Campaign finance

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Current Policy Challenges
V. PUBLIC POLICY

• Drug Cartels 10 facts about its most pressing
  issue
• 1. A recent U.S. government report suggests that
  "Two large and important states bear
  consideration for a rapid and sudden
  collapse Pakistan and Mexico."
• 2. Mexico has one of the highest kidnapping rates
  in the world An average of 70 people are
  abducted each month.
• 3. More than 1,100 guns found discarded at Mexico
  shooting scenes or confiscated from cartel
  gangsters were traced to Texas gun merchants in
  2007.
• 4. One of Mexico's most notorious drug kingpins,
  Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, escaped a maximum
  security prison in 2001 by driving out in a
  laundry truck.
• 5. This year Forbes magazine included Joaquin
  Guzman, a Mexican drug lord, on its annual
  billionaires' list.

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Current Policy Challenges
V. PUBLIC POLICY
SOURCE http//www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/
mexican-drug-war-10-shock_n_187361.html

• Drug Cartels 10 facts about its most pressing
  issue
• 6. A drug cartel hood named "The Cook reportedly
  dissolved the bodies of 300 victims in acid as
  part of the grisly work he committed for crime
  bosses.
• 7. The FBI has reported 75 open cases of
  Americans kidnapped in Mexico.
• 8. In a poll by the daily newspaper La Reforma,
  Mexico City residents ranked public insecurity as
  a worse crisis than the economy by a 5-to-1
  margin. In the past year, 20 percent were crime
  victims.
• 9. In the past year, Mexico's civil drug war has
  claimed some 6,300 lives.
• 10. Grammy-nominated singer Sergio Gomez was
  kidnapped and his genitals were burned with a
  blowtorch in December 2007, presumably for
  singing narco corridos, or "drug ballads."

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Mexico and the UK
VI. COMPARATIVE METHOD

• Political System
• Mexico federal system
• UK unitary
• Sovereignty, Authority, and Power
• Mexico ? PRI lost much power in 2000 elections
• UK ? Blair gave up some power by allowing
  devolution in Scotland and Wales

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Mexico and Russia
VI. COMPARATIVE METHOD

• Political Power
• They both have federal systems, on paper
• Both, in reality, have very different power
  structures
• Mexico (throughout the 20th century) PRI ruled
• Russia (21st century) Putin and United Russia
  rule
• Civil Liberties
• At some point, they have been low to nonexistent
  for their citizens
• Mexico under the PRI regime in the 20th
  century, very few rights were allowed for
  citizens (e.g., freedom of assembly)
• Russia under Putin, from the late 1990s to now,
  many rights have been taken away from citizens
  (e.g., freedom of speech, press, etc.)

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Mexico and China
VI. COMPARATIVE METHOD

• Economics
• Both have nationalized businesses
• Mexico PEMEX
• China all industry and agriculture under Mao
• Presently, both are attempting to move their
  economies towards market-based capitalism
• Mexico NAFTA promoted economic growth PEMEX
  still controlled by the govt
• China SEZs, Four Modernizations

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Mexico and Nigeria
VI. COMPARATIVE METHOD

• Economy
• Both nationalize oil
• History
• Both were victims of imperialism
• Cleavages
• Both have major fighting among cleavages
• Mexico urban v. rural ethnic
• Nigeria religious (North Muslims v. South
  non-Muslims) SES

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Mexico and Iran
VI. COMPARATIVE METHOD

• Legitimacy
• Both use religion as part of legitimizing their
  governments
• Iran Islam
• Mexico Catholicism PAN supports the religion,
  giving them legitimacy
• Economy
• Both are LDCs whose main resource is oil
• Rentier State
• Definition(s) a country that obtains lucrative
  income by exporting a raw material or leasing out
  a natural resource to foreign countries
• a country that obtains much of its revenue from
  the export of oil or another natural resource
• a country that receives a significant amount of
  income in the form of rents from foreign
  companies
• Both countries do this, or have, with their oil
  (as have Nigeria and Russia)

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