roskin cc13 ch09 lecture

Slide 1© 2016, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Countries and Concepts: Politics, Geography, Culture, 13e
Michael G. Roskin
© 2016, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mexico’s growth shows in the rapid urbanization in Guanajuato in Central Mexico.
Mexico’s growth shows in the rapid urbanization in Guanajuato in Central Mexico.
Credit: emattil/Fotolia
Learning Objectives
9.1 Describe how a revolution can be “institutionalized.”
9.2 Evaluate the advantages of a single six-year presidency compared to two four-year terms.
9.3 List the several ideologies Latin America has imported.
Learning Objectives
9.4 Explain the interpenetration of crime and politics in weak states.
9.5 Evaluate the problems that come with being able to walk from the Third World into the First.
Mexico
Mexico
Why Mexico Matters
Mexico illustrates the interpenetration of crime and politics that characterizes much of the Third World.
Mexican democracy is at war with crime.
Some have said Mexico is collapsing into a failed state, which is inaccurate.
Mexico is a weak state because it cannot control crime or corruption.
Why Mexico Matters
Mexico’s problems are especially troubling for the United States, given the border shared between the two countries.
Although Mexico’s problems are widely discussed, the country has made significant progress, becoming a stable democracy and major economy, albeit one with terrible income inequality.
Why Mexico Matters
The United States cannot isolate itself from Mexico and must take an interest in Mexico’s problems and progress.
Impact of the Past
Roughly 15,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers walked across the Bering Strait in pursuit of game.
Some founded civilizations, but at the time the Americas had few domesticable plants or animals.
This means that the rising civilizations of the Americas lagged behind Europe’s, leaving them easy prey for the greedy Europeans.
Impact of the Past
Several civilizations rose and fell in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards.
The Olmec (1000 BC) set the stage for subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations.
The Zapotec and Teotihuacán (early AD) constructed elaborate palaces and pyramids.
The Mayans (first millennium) built a high civilization in the Yucatán.
Impact of the Past
Several civilizations rose and fell in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards.
The Toltec (10-12th centuries) held sway in Central Mexico until they were destroyed by nomadic invaders.
The Aztecs (14th century) moved from northwest Mexico to the Valley of Mexico around 1300.
Aztec kings ran large bureaucracies and expanded over time.
Impact of the Past
New Spain
Portugal started the voyages of discovery in search of a route to the wealth of the “Indies” that bypassed Arab traders and Moors.
Realizing that Portugal was far ahead in their efforts, Spain sent Columbus on a mission to reach Asia by sailing directly across the Atlantic.
Impact of the Past
New Spain
Columbus thought he had nearly reached India, and Spaniards charged ahead for “gold, God, and glory.”
The Spaniards served the royal treasury, the Catholic church, and the conquistadores.
Impact of the Past
New Spain
At the time of Spain’s arrival, the Aztecs had a big population and a bureaucratic empire.
Impact of the Past
New Spain
The Aztecs were unable to fend off the Spanish conquerors for several reasons.
The Spanish brought smallpox with them, and by 1600 the population of Mexico went from 20 million to one million.
The Spanish had steel weapons and armor.
The Spanish had horses and guns.
Impact of the Past
New Spain
The Aztecs were unable to fend off the Spanish conquerors for several reasons.
Those people that the Aztecs had subjugated aided the Spanish.
An Aztec legend stated that a white god from the east, Quetzalcóatal, would return and destroy them.
Impact of the Past
New Spain
Spanish ships explored Mexico’s coast, finding considerable wealth in the interior.
Hernán Cortés sailed from Havana in 1518 and pushed inland.
Cortés was originally welcomed to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán by the Aztec king Moctezuma.
Impact of the Past
New Spain
Cortés was eventually expelled, but returned in 1521 after smallpox had wiped out much of the city’s population.
The Spaniard captured and killed the last Aztec emperor.
Today, Mexico celebrates many Aztec heroes but no Spanish ones, and many pre-Columbian traditions remain in Mexican culture.
Impact of the Past
New Spain
On the ruins of Tenochtitlán, the Spanish built a new capital called Mexico.
By 1600, the Spanish had taken over all of Mexico and captured its wealth.
Impact of the Past
New Spain
To control what they called New Spain, the Spanish granted land and workers to Spanish soldiers and settlers.
Indian serfs worked the land.
This encomiendas system produced a feudal like social stratification, with those born in Spain at the top, followed by creoles and then mestizos.
Impact of the Past
New Spain
In 1707, the Spanish Bourbons divided New Spain into 12 intendencias, each supervised by a French-style intendente, who reported to a central authority.
Economic liberalization boosted Mexico’s economy, and more Spaniards settled there.
Impact of the Past
Mexican Independence
The late 18th century brought new ideas to Spain’s and Portugal’s Latin America’s colonies.
The Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions inspired some in Mexico to seek independence.
Impact of the Past
On September 16th, 1810, the priest Miguel Hidalgo declared Mexico independent.
Although it went nowhere, this day is still celebrated as Mexico’s Independence Day.
Impact of the Past
Hidalgo demanded equality and the redistribution of land to Indians but fought French-style atheism and for Catholicism.
Hidalgo’s forces grew out of control, and he was captured and executed.
Impact of the Past
Hidalgo’s efforts were carried on by another priest, José Maria Morelos, who led guerrilla warfare attacks in southern Mexico.
Morelos suffered the same fate as Hidalgo, but both are seen as revolutionary heroes and founders of populist nationalism still alive in Mexican politics.
Impact of the Past
Napoleon’s occupation of Spain in 1808 triggered Mexico’s independence.
Mexico’s elite felt that Spain’s 1812 constitution would bring atheism and liberalism to Mexico and threaten their privileged status.
Impact of the Past
To preserve their privileges, Mexican elites declared independence in 1821.
This meant that Mexico’s independence was not revolutionary, was not about mass participation, but instead was elite-led and conservative.
Impact of the Past
Between Monarchy and Republic
Mexico began as a conservative monarchy but that lasted only 18 months.
Mexico's elite split into two camps: conservative centralizers and liberal federalists.
For much of the 19th century, Mexico was led by caudillos—military chiefs or strongmen that take control of the government.
Impact of the Past
A key figure was Antonio López de Santa Anna, who was Mexico’s off-and-on president, general, and dictator.
Santa Anna’s big problem was Texas.
Impact of the Past
Starting in 1821, Mexico began granting land to American settlers to populate Texas, and they soon outnumbered the Mexicans.
To discourage further American settlers, Mexico outlawed slavery in 1828.
By 1833, 30,000 American settlers were living in Texas and demanding self-government.
Impact of the Past
Starting in 1821, Mexico began granting land to American settlers to populate Texas, and they soon outnumbered the Mexicans.
Texas declared independence in 1836 as the Republic of Texas.
Santa Anna rejected this demand and marched north to reclaim Texas.
Santa Anna took the Alamo, but nothing further.
Impact of the Past
In 1845, the United States annexed Texas, which led to war with Mexico from 1846-1848.
Mexico lost, and after occupying Mexico City, the United States took the southwest states and paid Mexico a sum of $15 million.
Mexico was then briefly occupied by France from 1861-1867.
Impact of the Past
Exiled Mexican conservatives convinced Napoleon III that Mexico could be a place to reconstruct a Catholic monarchy.
There was little support for this in Mexico.
The French left when the costs became too high and the American Civil War ended, realizing Mexico was not like orderly Europe.
Impact of the Past
The iconic figure of 19th century Mexico was Benito Juárez (1806–1872).
Juárez was remarkable on several counts.
He was born of Indian parents.
Juárez was educated in law and rose to the presidency in 1858.
Impact of the Past
Juárez was remarkable on several counts.
Juárez wanted redistribution of land and a market economy, federalism, and separation of church and state.
He boosted Mexican anticlericalism.
Juárez was not in power long and was forced on two occasions by conservatives and the French to withdraw to distant locations.
Impact of the Past
Porfirio Díaz (1830-1915) followed in Juárez’s footsteps but transitioned into a harsh dictator.
Díaz turned against Juárez, and was “elected” president 17 times between 1877 and 1910.
Impact of the Past
Díaz centralized all branches of government under his control, and his bureaucrats pushed for economic growth.
However, the benefits of the growth primarily went to the wealthy and foreign investors.
Impact of the Past
The Mexican Revolution
Mexico’s revolution had several sides and is one of Latin America’s few genuine revolutions.
Revolutions do not happen for a single reason, and Mexico had been stockpiling its problems for some time.
Impact of the Past
Anarchist and socialist ideas crept into Mexico from Europe during the Díaz regime.
The Mexican group Regeneration demanded one-term presidencies, civil rights, public education, land reform, improved pay and working conditions, and ending the power of the Catholic Church.
Impact of the Past
The triggering point for the revolution came when Díaz had the obedient Chamber of Deputies “reelect” him.
Candidate Francisco Madero, a wealthy land owner from northern Mexico, declared the election illegal and urged rebellion on November 20, 1910.
Impact of the Past
Díaz eventually retreated to Paris, and Madero became president.
Impact of the Past
Had everything stopped there, it would have simply been a change in power.
Impact of the Past
Federalist general Victoriano Huerta had Madero arrested and shot, and he assumed the presidency.
This led to total revolution.
This also led to an American intervention in 1914, and the American army was chasing revolutionaries in Mexico in an effort to restore order.
Mexico resisted the American intervention.
Impact of the Past
Huerta fell in 1914, but that left the door open to four armies competing for control.
Two armies were truly revolutionary.
Peasant leader Emiliano Zapata’s army in the south.
Pancho Villa’s army in the north.
Impact of the Past
The other two armies were more moderate and were led by
Venustiano Carranza
Álvaro Obregón
All were assassinated between 1919 and 1928, and Mexico still celebrates Zapata and Villa.
Impact of the Past
With the 1917 constitution, Mexico started the perfect dictatorship.
It looked democratic because Mexico limited the presidency to a nonrenewable six-year term.
This system grew out of a deal between Obregón and Plutarco Calles.
Impact of the Past
The Revolution Institutionalized
Obregón became president in 1920, implementing rural education and land reforms, including the granting of ejidos to poor villagers.
In 1924, he arranged the election of Calles, who then got Obregón reelected in 1928.
Impact of the Past
However, a Catholic fanatic assassinated Obregón in 1928 due to anticlerical measures taken in the 1917 constitution.
Calles, running Mexico from behind the scenes, made the presidency a single, nonrenewable six-year term.
Impact of the Past
To perpetuate his power, Calles organized a coalition of state political bosses, generals, union chiefs, peasant leaders into the National Revolutionary Party (PNR) in 1929.
This party would be renamed the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1946.
This party brought stability to Mexico for the rest of the 20th century.
Impact of the Past
From its founding through 2000, the PRI never lost a national election.
The PRI was largely conservative and would only turn more radical with the 1934 election of Lázaro Cárdenas.
Impact of the Past
When Calles opposed Cárdenas, Calles was exiled to California.
Cárdenas was the PRI’s first formal president, turning it into from a loose coalition to a cohesive and well-organized party.
Cárdenas made the party corporatist and introduced clientelism.
Impact of the Past
This initially solved problems associated with participation and access but was not a durable set of solutions.
Political Culture: Mexico’s Political Eras
Three phases of ideological methods, or priísmo, summarize the thrust of PRI presidents in each period.
The four sexenios of the conservative period mark a turn towards business and stability.
In the desperate phase, technocrats applied policies of austerity, which just hurt Mexicans.
*
The Key Institutions
Politics depends on power.
Political power is more than the use of force, which, if used wrongly or too much, can cost a government their legitimacy.
Political power is temporary unless it is turned into political institutions.
One-man rule does not equal institutionalized power.
Prior to 1924, few Mexican presidents came to power or left office in a legal way.
Since independence, Mexico has had four constitutions but not much constitutionalism.
This changed with the six-year presidency and the founding of what would become the PRI.
This led to a contrived stability.
Mexico was a clientelistic system that co-opted other groups into cooperation.
Democracy: Mexico’s 2012 Presidential Election
Mexico’s 2012 presidential election was its third democratic election in a row.
Democracy: Mexico’s 2012 Presidential Election
Mexicans again could choose among left, right, and center.
Enrique Peña Nieto – PRI Party – 38% of votes
Andrés Manuel López Obrador – PRD Party – 32% of votes
Josefina Vázquez Mota – PAN Party – 25% of votes
The Six-Year Presidency
Latin America has generally patterned itself after the United States with presidential systems.
Like the United States, Mexico combines the head of state and chief of government.
Mexican presidents have historically been more powerful because of PRI domination of the Mexican Congress.
In 2000, Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) won the presidency, but without a matching majority in the Congress, he was less powerful than his predecessors.
Since 1928, the six-year presidential term has remained.
Under the PRI, presidential succession was determined by sitting presidents who were also party chiefs.
In consultation with important party members and past presidents, sitting presidents would name their successors.
These successors were the PRI’s nominee for president.
Until 2000, none of these nominees failed to win their bids for the Mexican presidency.
Successors were picked based on the need to preserve the system and dominance of the PRI in a process called dedazo.
Mexico’s Legislature
Mexico’s bicameral Congress has been less important than its presidency.
Amidst uproar over corruption, legislative elections changed in 1986 with the Electoral Reform Law.
Inspired by Germany, Mexico fills a majority of seats by SMD with plurality but also allocates seats based on PR.
The upper house, or Senate, has 128 members elected to six-year terms.
96 senate seats are filled via SMD and 32 by PR.
The lower house, known as the Chamber of Deputies, has 500 seats with three-year terms.
300 seats are filled via SMD and 200 via PR in five regions of 40 seats each.
The 2009 and 2012 elections made PRI the biggest party in the Congress but short of a majority.
Comparison: Term Lengths
Comparison: Term Lengths
Mexico is now a three-party system.
Right—National Action Party (PAN).
Left—Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)
Center—Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
Mexico’s Three-Party System
In a dominant-party system, there can be several parties, but one is so dominant that it seldom loses, giving other parties little chance.
The dominant party is often corrupt, which allows it to sustain its dominance, but voters appreciate the stability and prosperity it brings.
PRI is Mexico’s oldest party.
The party billed itself as revolutionary and socialist long after it dropped those policies.
With the exception of a couple of leftist presidents, most have been moderate centrists.
As the Mexico’s middle-class grew, the PRI became less relevant.
The PRI is still popular in Northern and Central Mexico and did well in the 2009 and 2012 legislative elections.
PAN was founded in 1939 to oppose PRI on religious grounds, as PAN started as a Catholic reaction party.
In the 1980s, PAN also became a pro-business party.
Within PAN, the Catholic and business strands coexist uneasily.
PAN is most successful in northern Mexico.
PAN is less organized than PRI.
Comparison of Party Systems
Comparison of Party Systems
The south is the poorest and the most radical part of Mexico.
The PRD is most successful here.
The PRD was formed in 1989 by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who split from the PRI when it moved in the direction of business.
The PRD is less organized than either PAN or PRD.
Democracy: Mexico’s 2012 Legislative Elections
The legislative elections are watched as an indicator of who will win the presidency.
The PRI did surprisingly well in 2009, foreshadowing PRI’s 2012 presidential victory.
Democracy: Mexico’s 2012 Legislative Elections
The radical PRD and conservative PAN do not like each other, but they could together outvote PRI and deadlock the government.
Mexico is a former dominant-party system, and the PRI now faces bilateral opposition.
PRI declined for two reasons:
Corruption
The growth of an educated middle-class.
Mexican Federalism
The Western Hemisphere boasts the largest number of the world’s federal systems.
Mexico consists of 31 states and the Federal District of Mexico City.
Each state has a governor elected to a single six-year term but only a unicameral legislature.
In actuality, the center has had much power, but this is changing.
Mexican Political Culture
Mexican political culture is a pastiche of several cultures and ideologies.
Indian passivity
Spanish greed
Catholic authoritarianism
Populist nationalism
European anticlericalism
Mexican political culture is a pastiche of several cultures and ideologies.
Liberalism
Anarchism
Positivism
Socialism
Mexican political culture was largely imported, and the country is without a single, coherent political culture.
Mexico’s Indian Heritage
When the Spanish took over from the Aztecs, Indian peasants were used to being subordinates, and most adapted to the forced labor of haciendas and silver mines.
The Spanish also brought their feudal society and imposed it on the Indians.
Spanish conquerors were exclusively male, and females did not arrive until much later.
Mestizaje, or intermingling, became a cultural and social factor, and a new class of those with mixed descent appeared in Mexico.
This contributed to Mexican Catholicism and the beginnings of the middle class.
In Latin America, it is said that the people are free of racial prejudice and that money and manners are more important.
Some counter with the idea that money and life chances tend to come with racial origin in Latin America.
Comparison: Mexico and America as Colonies
Mexico was Spain’s richest colony.
The gold and silver of Mexico funded the giant Habsburg military effort in the Thirty Years War.
Under the mistaken doctrine of mercantilism, Spain fell under the impression that it was rich.
Comparison: Mexico and America as Colonies
But resource extraction in Mexico made both Spain and Mexico poor.
In the American colonies, there was more of an egalitarian ethos.
The American colonies did not have Catholicism’s central control and emphasized hard work, delayed gratification, equality, and individuality.
Imported Ideologies
Latin America is noted for picking up ideas invented elsewhere, warping them, and then trying to apply them where they do not fit.
Patterns of Interaction
Clientelism and Co-optation
Calles and Cárdenas used clientelism to calm tensions between competing groups.
Groups were not only represented in parliament but received favors from the government or even cash.
Elites used these benefits to obtain resources and restrain their followers from violence.
Possibly fake with small payouts
Exclusivity
Rigidity
Calles and Cárdenas used co-optation to control groups that might cause them trouble.
Both promised peasants and workers a better situation but did not deliver.
Neither man tolerated discontent and placed the Mexican Workers Confederation under the thumb of PRI.
Although they claimed to be socialists, they rooted out communists.
PRI really worked to serve itself.
For decades, the government tried to co-opt students by handing out nearly free education and then employing them as civil servants.
This cannot work forever, and the number of students grew along with their discontent.
With the 1968 Olympics just weeks away, the PRI gunned down as many as 300 student protesters.
This served as an example that what the PRI could not co-opt, it could crush.
Democracy: Elections and Democracy
Do elections equal democracy?
The PRI won 14 presidential elections in a row, illustrating that democracy is more complex than just balloting.
In the developing world, there have been several means used to rig elections.
Media dominance
In 1990, under the leadership of PRI, Mexico took major steps in cleaning up its electoral process.
This meant abolishing the corrupt Federal Electoral Commission and replacing it with the autonomous Federal Electoral Institute.
Non-PRI parties saw almost immediate success.
Políticos vs. Técnicos
Mexican politics is pulled between politicians and technicians.
Politicians are populists looking to get elected, and they pay attention to the needs of the masses.
However, they are not attentive to economics and are willing to run up huge deficits.
This pleases the crowd but leads to inflation and outcries from foreign investors and international banks.
The técnicos try to fix economic instability, but they are appointed and worry less about mass demands.
Most are neoliberals.
Presidents Hurtado (1982-1988) and de Gortari (1988-1994) allowed technocrats to stabilize the economy and implement market reforms.
However, these market reforms provided insufficient regulation, and recently freed banks made bad and corrupt loans that sent the economy into collapse in 1995.
The peso lost most of its value in the crisis.
83 percent of Mexicans are professed Catholics.
However, Mexico operates as a secular state.
The Church was not happy about the split from Spain and tilted strongly conservative.
At the same time, Mexico was leaning towards anticlericalism and saw the Church as a source of upper-class conservatism and reaction.
Mexican Catholicism
The 1917 constitution severely limited the Church’s reach into politics and society.
Through multiple outlets, including PAN, the Church is setting the stage for its return.
These are not the politics of a reactionary past but of a modern, business-oriented future.
Political Culture: Songs of Drug Dealing
Mexico has long used song to celebrate bandits.
Although most Mexicans disapprove of the drug trade, respect for the law in not engrained in much of Latin America’s political culture.
Mexicans also know the system is corrupt, and many police are on the payroll of the narcotraficantes.
Crime and Politics
Mexico’s most powerful interest group is drug cartels.
Some 450,000 Mexicans make their living in the drug trade in some capacity.
In a weak state, politics can turn violent because politics are unrestrained, and crime can ignore state power.
Crime and Politics
Justice has always been weak in Mexico, and many crimes go unreported.
Assassinations are not uncommon.
In 1994, two assassinations paved the way for PAN’s later electoral victories.
Luis Donaldo Colosio, a handpicked PRI successor to the presidency, was shot dead in Tijuana during a rally.
Later, PRI party secretary general José Ruiz Massieu was also shot dead.
Crime and Politics
The killings brought together two trends that had been growing over the years.
PRI was stinking more and more.
Mexicans were sufficiently educated to vote out PRI.
Crime and Politics
During the Calderón tenure, drug cartels have battled it out in the streets, and the police have not proven to be trustworthy.
This led Calderón in 2008 to authorize the use of federal troops to battle the cartels, especially along the U.S. border.
Thousands have been arrested or killed.
What Mexicans Quarrel About
The Political Economy of Mexico
Mexico’s population has been growing at a roughly 1 percent a year, but not before it exploded from 16 million in 1935, to 34 million in 1960, to 120 million in 2014.
The slowed growth has much to do with economic development solving population growth.
Mexicans quarrel about how to make an economy that creates jobs for the millions of unemployed and underemployed.
Where PAN wants a free-market economy based on exports, PRD wants socialism and a domestic focus.
Mexico’s state-owned industries grow too slowly to dent unemployment.
The gap between rich and poor is large in Mexico, but it is narrowing.
Mexico has a large informal economy, where millions work off the books and pay no taxes.
Migration to the cities has also been significant.
Poverty is particularly bad in the interior south, where the Zapatista rebellion started in 1994.
Maldistribution of income also creates other problems, especially classes of poor people making less than the $4.50 daily minimum wage.
Without significant domestic capital, Latin American countries depend on foreign capital.
Inadequate schools in rural Mexico and in the poor urban areas mean that the poor cannot move upwards into the middle-class.
The Pemex Problem
A major Mexican quarrel is over what to do with the nationalized oil firm Pemex.
Peña proposed changing Mexico’s constitution to allow badly needed private and foreign partnerships to develop Mexico’s energy.
This was massively opposed by PRD and AMLO.
The Pemex Problem
Without reforms allowing foreign and private investment, Mexico may soon have to import refined petroleum products.
Mexico’s many young, U.S.-trained economists recognize that state-owned industries are stagnant, inefficient, and corrupt, especially Pemex.
Does it really exist?
Does it uplift poor countries?
Globalization is just world trade.
The NAFTA Question
The reach of globalization over time has been debatable, and Latin America played a relatively minor role and was never sure about globalization.
NAFTA was both hailed and feared.
Americans were worried about the loss of jobs at home.
Trade among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada increased.
Much of Mexico’s politics revolves around NAFTA.
The left wants to scrap or seriously modify NAFTA.
On the other hand, PAN is solidly for NAFTA.
Most cocaine and heroin comes from Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia.
The long border with the United States makes smuggling relatively easy.
Drugs are both a Mexican problem and an American problem.
In Mexico, it allows crime to penetrate politics.
The United States is home to a lucrative drug market, and Mexico is meeting the demand of American drug consumers.
Illegal or Undocumented?
We call them illegal immigrants, but Mexico calls them undocumented workers.
There are roughly 11 million illegals in the United States.
This problem parallels the drug problem.
Unemployment and poverty push Mexicans out of their country and into the United States.
At the same time, some American firms and employers will hire illegal immigrants as a source of cheap labor.
This is really an American problem.
Mexico wants a better deal on immigration and wants the United States to accept more immigrants as either legal or temporary, and to grant amnesty to those illegals already here.
Illegal or Undocumented?
Americans are opposed to a flood of new Hispanic immigrants, but those looking for cheap labor give immigrants the motivation to come here.
Going to the United States means escaping the economic problems of Mexico and the chance to send remittances back home.
Modern Mexico?
Compared with most of Latin America, Mexico was a model of growth and prosperity.
With the right policies, Mexico might grow even faster.
What is the right policy for growth?
Remember that productivity must run ahead of wages to promote rapid growth.

roskin cc13 ch09 lecture

Documents