Mexico's Changing Political Reality: an Analysis of the Eighties

Abstract

Toward the end of 1979 an important collection of essays by some of Mexico's most prominent and progressive scholars was published by Siglo XXI. Entitled Mexico, hoy (Mexico, today), this collection attempted to provide a critical analysis of contemporary Mexican society, delineate the major economic, social, and political problems facing the country as it entered the eighties, propose a political strategy which could lead to the increasing democratization of Mexican society, and provide the basis for a transition to democratic socialism. This work remains the most important analysis of Mexican society to date. In the preface the coordinators of this collective effort, Pablo Gonzailez Casanova and Enrique Florescano, give the political context of Mexico, hoy: For the authors of these essays the solution to national problems does not lose its validity if a socialist and internationalist position is taken . . . We share one certainty: Humanity's problems have to be resolved by the road of socialism and in the framework of a new international order. While these statements might lead one to believe that the contributors have in common a socialist and internationalist perspective, the positions actually taken by the essayists range from those of revolutionary nationalism and social democracy to that of a revolutionary socialist solution to Mexico's problems. To Gonzailez Casanova and Florescano, such differences of political perspective are not a fundamental problem at this stage of political development because all the contributors share the conviction that progressive forces in Mexico, both outside and within the state, must now join together to pressure the regime into pursuing more democratic and nationalistic policies. A decade ago a comparable collection of essays, El perfil de Mexico en 1980 (Profile of Mexico in 1980), was published by Siglo XXI. This three-volume collection represented an effort by Victor Urquidi, director of El Colegio