The Politics of Economic Restructuring: State-Society Relations and Regime Change in Mexico.

Abstract

Rapid economic restructuring during the 1980s and early 1990s had major consequences for state-society relations in Mexico. The de la Madrid and Salinas administrations broke decisively with post-1940 import-substituting development policies by promoting an economic strategy based on the privatization of state-owned firms, systematic market liberalization, and international economic opening. These changes significantly redefined the state's role as an economic actor, and they transformed relations between important social actors and the state. The essays in this volume examine three key questions arising from these economic and political transformations. First, what is the longer-term relationship between economic liberalization and political democratization in Mexico? Second, what impact has economic restructuring had on elections and the party system and on the state's relationship with organized labor, the private sector, peasant and rural producer organizations, and urban popular movements? How have these different actors responded to the consequences of economic restructuring? Third, what is the significance of the Mexican case for the comparative analysis of economic and political liberalization? This book is the product of a June 1992 conference jointly organized by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies and the Coordinacion de Humanidades, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. The revised and updated essays by political scientists, economists, and sociologists offer incisive evaluations of contemporary Mexican politics and state-society relations.