Abstract
The Programa Nacional de Solidaridad (PRONASOL) offers fertile ground for the debate around change versus continuity which Stephen Morris (1993) identifies in interpretations of political reformism in Mexico. From its earliest days PRONASOL was promoted as ‘a new style of social policy’ giving ‘a new dimension to public investment and social expenditure’ (Gonzalez Tiburcio, 1992: 4–5)1 and seeking ‘to create a new relationship between the people and the state’ (Salinas, cited in Moguel, 1994: 167). The theme of a break with the past is stressed in PRONASOL publications such as Solidarity in National Development: New Relations between Society and Government (SEDESOL, 1993b)2 and has been taken up, sometimes uncritically, by commentators in Mexico and overseas. Even the Programme’s critics acknowledge the claim to newness, for example, by calling PRONASOL a ‘neopopulist’ solution to Mexico’s neoliberal problems (Dresser, 1991). The Solidarity Programme thus epitomises ‘the reverential cult of “the new” which now characterizes Mexican politics’ (Cordera Campos, cited in Knight, 1994a: 29).
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