Continuity and Change in Mexican Politics: The Legacies of the Mexican Revolution

CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN MEXICAN POLITICS: THE LEGACIES OF THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION∗ Stephen D. Morris Middle Tennessee State University The Revolution set Mexican politics on a unique course. After years of internecine struggle, the Revolution eventually gave rise to one of history’s longest surviving and most durable one-party, authoritarian regimes. Steeped in contradiction, the sui generis post-Revolutionary system combined conflict with stability, authoritarianism with a democratic constitution , repression with inclusiveness, uninterrupted elections with oneparty hegemony, corporatism with pluralism, centralized control within a federalist framework, almost unlimited presidential power coupled with periodic peaceful successions, and even institutionalized revolution. Bolstered by decades of strong, state-managed economic growth known as the Mexican miracle this novel system proved amazingly capable at managing the changes necessary to stay in power up until the end of the century. Owing to these extraordinary features or starting point, Mexican politics also followed a unique path of change. In striking contrast to the numerous cases of democratization during the last quarter of the 20th century – the so called third wave – the Mexican transition was gradual, protracted, and piecemeal, in some ways almost unrecognizable.1 There was no dramatic military march back to the barracks, a celebrated negotiated pact among the ruling elite, the purging of a brutal dictator, a foreign invasion, or mass protests demanding change. Instead, the system eroded gradually, over time, becoming less and less effective at surmounting the challenges of a modernizing society, and slipping ever so gently from the PRI’s grip.2 Indeed, the unique nature of the transition makes it difficult not only to date its beginning with precision, but its culmination as well.3 Following the economic crisis of the 1980s and the imposition of austerity measures and neoliberal reforms, the state’s and the PRI’s already declining legitimacy eroded further, the government’s ability to parlay the system’s spoils into political support or acquiescence – what Alan Knight (1996, 223) once referred to as “chequebook peacekeeping” – slowly dried up, and opposition parties began to attract even more voters to the polls and/or to the streets to demand change. Though reformist efforts contained and channeled these demands for a while, by the mid-1990s the ∗I wish to dedicate this essay to the loving memory of Rafaela (Fita) Nájera de Dı́az, my wife’s grandmother, who on more than one occasion shared with me her recollections and eye witness accounts of the Revolution and its impact in Mexico City. C  2010 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 183 The Latin Americanist, December 2010 PRI and the government had negotiated away their control of the electoral machinery, thereby setting the stage. By 1997, the PRI lost its majority in the Chamber of Deputies and three years later, the presidency. Though a perhaps a long-awaited surprise, the PRI’s acceptance of its electoral loss in July 2000 seemed in some ways just another step along the slow path of change rather than an abrupt and clear historic break. Together, both the uniqueness of the post-Revolutionary system and the novel path of transition raise questions about the mix of continuity and change, and hence the legacies of the Mexican Revolution. But rather than re-chronicle the unique features of the PRI-gobierno, its impressive record of reformism, or even its slow dissolution, this essay attempts to briefly lay out the surviving components of the post-Revolutionary regime and highlight the major areas of change. The essay emphasizes not only how Mexico’s gradual transition has crafted a unique combination of continuity and change, but how this combination of continuity and change complicates our interpretations of the nature of the current challenges facing the county. In the final section, I contrast three non-mutually exclusive interpretations of the current challenges. The first sees many of today’s problems as continuations of certain features of the authoritarian regime or holdovers from the past. This view rests on the notion that democratic change has been uneven: more pronounced in the political/electoral arena and less so in the area of rule of law. A second perspective envisions many of today’s problems as stemming...