Reviewed by: Made in Mexico: Regions, Nation, and the State in the Rise of Mexican Industrialism. 1920s–1940s by Susan M. Gauss Aurora Gómez-Galvarriato Susan M. Gauss. Made in Mexico: Regions, Nation, and the State in the Rise of Mexican Industrialism. 1920s–1940s. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011. xii+ 292 pp. ISBN 978-0-271-03759-2, $64.95(cloth); 978-0-271-03760-8, $24.05(paper). There is a wide body of literature that studies import substitution industrialization (ISI) in Latin America, yet most of these studies deal with this policy from an economic perspective, related to questions of development and underdevelopment, and the economic ideas that supported it. However, few studies deal with the politics behind it, the different actors that had a stake in it, and the conflicts and negotiations involved in its shaping and implementation. In this book, Susan Gauss makes an important contribution to the literature by exploring these issues in Mexico, a country where ISI policies were carried out with particular strength and endurance. As she points out, in Mexico protectionist policies became more than simply a means to enhance revenue or develop industry: “They became the cornerstone of ruling-party efforts to forge political unity, achieve economic independence from the United States, and improve national standards of living” (p. 5). Through a very well researched and eloquent narrative, the book succeeds in providing a wide picture of the several heterogeneous groups within the government, the business community, and labor that intervened in the political arena from which ISI policies emerged. It shows that different conflicting views were in contention on what development meant, what role the state should play to achieve it, and how different regions would take part in it. The book reexamines the challenges to state intervention posed by an organized capitalist class that coalesced in regional groups to place limits to a centralizing state. It solidly argues that protectionist policies were not a result of a planned project devised by a hegemonic state based on the economic ideas then in vogue, but rather were the instrument that the state used to accommodate and reconcile the diverse interests in dispute to increase and retain its power. The book explores the relation between the state and industrialists from the end of the Mexican Revolution to the 1950s and the different ways by which ideas on industrialization and protectionist policies evolved. It delves into the formation of Mexico’s post-revolutionary governments and on the role played by a group of educated “technocrats” who served in different offices related to economic issues—particularly in the Bank of Mexico—with a clear vision about the importance of fostering industrialization as a way to economic development. Although these technocrats promoted [End Page 467] protectionist policies, they wanted these policies to be carried out in a rationalistic and scientific way through well-analyzed, planned programs targeted to specific sectors. They advised against the dangers of ill-devised protectionism and excessive state intervention. However, they were a minority within a government that was not strong enough to carry such policies even if it had desired to. Instead, government politicians forged alliances with different sectors of society to remain in power, through pragmatic protectionist policies based on a political, not an economic, rationale. Among these interest groups were several business associations that became important actors in the shaping statist industrialization. The book makes a splendid work in describing the genealogy, character, and political stance of these groups that continue to be influential in Mexico until today: CANACINTRA, CONCAMIN, COPARMEX, CONCANACO, and so on. This is, by itself, an important contribution of the book, as the role played by these groups is key to understanding Mexico’s contemporary history. As Gauss convincingly argues, the spurt of so many business associations in Mexico in the course of a few decades was the result of the failed attempt of the government to organize business as part of a corporatist structure that successfully included other sectors of society, such as peasants, workers, or bureaucrats, within the ruling party. Taking advantage of caveats in the Law on Chambers of Commerce and Industry that sought to control them, businessmen...
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Mar 24, 2023
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