NAFTA and the Mesoamerican States System

Abstract

Mexico's indigenous communities and the Mexican government can be viewed as forming a Mesoamerican states system. In this article, the evolution of this system is traced, and it is argued that the process leading to the signing and implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had a double impact on it: the process eroded the Mexican government's legitimacy in the eyes of the indigenous communities, and it unintentionally strengthened a rebel group—the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN)—that claims to speak on behalf of these communities. In early 1996, negotiations between the Mexican government and the EZLN resulted in an agreement that could mark the beginning of a substantial transformation of the Mesoamerican states system.