Book review: Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the Centaur, by Wil G. Pansters (ed.)

Abstract

Wil G. Pansters (ed.) Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the Centaur, Stanford University Press, Redwood City, CA, 2012; 400 pp: 9780804781589, US$62(hbk) Mexico is still in crisis. Even if violent incidents have partly disappeared from the news since the PRI took power again in 2012, homicides have only been reduced slightly, and abductions are on the rise (Aristegui Noticias 2013). This security crisis invites us to pose new questions about Mexican state formation, and challenges what have until now been common grounds. This remarkable volume, edited by Wil G. Pansters, challenges accounts in transition studies according to which, by cleverly devised mechanisms, the Mexican governments achieved a largely peaceful transition from the authoritarian state party system of the PRI to democracy, albeit still remaining 'flawed'. It is not only precisely the parallel movement towards party plurality and more visible insecurity (p. 9), but also the electoral return to a PRI government in 2012 that emphasise this critique. Pansters aims to examine 'the interconnections and historical roots of different dimensions, actors, and manifestations of violence, coercion, and insecurity in relation to broader processes of state-making' (p. 6). Violence, thus, even if often dismissed from historical accounts of post-revolutionary Mexico as a 'dark side' (p. 8) or simply as marginal, is nonetheless essential for state formation processes in Mexico after 1910. In fact, Pansters suggests (p. 8), the emphasis on inclusive, co-opting mechanisms might have exaggerated Mexicos role as a Latin American exception and hindered a systematic analysis of violence in Mexican state-making; ultimately, it tends to underestimate the role of violence during PRI times, and to overestimate the violence, illegal economy and conflict we observe today. The so-called paxpriista--the relative stability during decades of PRI rule--therefore, might not have been all that peaceful. And by no means are forms of violence in Mexico such as torture, disappearances, and homicide new destructive practices produced solely from within the 'narco' sphere and clearly separated from the state. Partial overlaps between police and narco organisations are not entirely new, either. Accordingly, the authors try to dismantle the mainstream depiction of the Mexican state as a unitary, corporatist colossus' (p. 29) and instead, based on a Gramscian understanding of the state, stress four fields of study: violence and coercion on a national and regional/local level, and hegemonic processes on both scales as well. A body of nine texts divided into three sections is framed by an introductory essay (Part I) by the editor, and a concluding chapter by Koonings (Part V), who positions the Mexican case within a broader Latin American context. Each of the three main sections (Parts II-IV) contains three chapters. Part II focuses on three 'pillars of state-making'--borders, policing, and the army--covering large parts of the 20th century. Part III concerns a field that is usually neglected: the grey zone between state and non-state actors, state-crime relations and the production of illegalities following new accumulation strategies on a global scale. Part IV focuses on the state-society relation, including issues such as corporatist mechanisms and clientelism, but again looking at these from unusual angles. Pansters offers a systematic analysis of violence and coercion framed by Gramscian concepts, and one aware of diverging theories on the state. The consequential historical perspective compels him to integrate historical peculiarities of Latin American state formation processes. A processual understanding of Gramsci's concept of hegemony allows for relating historical dynamics of state and society, class and violence (p. 26). While Pansters differentiates analytically between 'zones of coercion' and 'zones of hegemony/ consent' (p. …