Gawronski, Vincent T. (2002) - The Revolution is Dead. ¡Viva La Revolución! - The Place of the Mexican Revolution in the Era of Globalization

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States

The Revolution is Dead. ¡Viva la revolución!: The Place of the Mexican Revolution in the Era ofGlobalizationAuthor(s): Vincent T. GawronskiSource: Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Summer 2002), pp. 363-397Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the University of California Institute for Mexicoand the United States and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de MéxicoStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/msem.2002.18.2.363 .Accessed: 18/09/2011 11:37

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The Revolution is Dead. ¡Viva la revolución!: The Place of the Mexican Revolution

in the Era of Globalization

Vincent T. GawronskiBirmingham-Southern College

Mexicans have long cherished their revolutionary heritage, but where does theMexican Revolution now reside in collective memory, and does the idea of theRevolution still have any legitimating power? And what has been the relationshipbetween the PRI’s long sequence of legitimacy crises and the Mexican Revolu-tion? Until procedural democracy provides signi�cant substantive and psycho-logical bene�ts, the recent democratic turn will not fully supplant Mexico’s tra-ditional sources of legitimacy. While Mexicans generally see the regime as fallingshort in achieving the basic goals of the Mexican Revolution, there are indica-tions that the Revolution—understood as collective memory, myth, history, andnational identity—still holds a place in political discourse and rhetoric, even ifsuch understandings make little logical sense in the era of globalization.

Los mexicanos han tenido un largo cariño por su herencia revolucionaria, pero¿dónde reside ahora la Revolución mexicana en la memoria colectiva?, ¿todavíatiene poder legitimador la idea de la Revolución? ¿Y cuál ha sido el vínculoentre la secuencia larga de las crisis de legitimidad del PRI y la Revolución Me-xicana? Hasta que la democracia procesal proporcione ventajas substantivas ypsicológicas signi�cativas, la vuelta reciente a la democracia no suplantará com-pletamente las fuentes tradicionales de la legitimidad en México. Mientras quelos mexicanos generalmente entienden que el régimen ha fallado en la reali-zación de las metas básicas de la Revolución mexicana, hay indicaciones quela Revolución—entendida como memoria colectiva, mito, historia e identidadnacional—todavía tiene lugar en el discurso y retórica políticos, incluso si talesconocimientos tienen poco sentido lógico en la época de la globalización.

This essay addresses the overarching question of how a political systemthat emerged from a true social revolution responds to global forces thatseem to be undermining revolutionary nationalism as a source of politi-

MexicanStudies/ Estudios Mexicanos Vol. no. 18(2),Summer 2002,pages 363–397. ISSN 07429797 ©2002

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363

cal legitimacy and regime support. The dominant precepts underlyingglobalizat ion—namely neoliberalism—simply negate many of the prin-ciples upon which revolutionary-nationalist regimes have been based.The speci�c case is Mexico, where the once highly statist, nationalist,and at least rhetorically socialist regime has embraced neoliberalismand is in the throes of democratic transition. The more general ques-tion necessarily provokes several interrelated questions that focus speci-fically on the place of the Mexican Revolution: Where does the MexicanRevolution—with its lofty goals (historically comprising a “religion ofthe patria”)—reside in the Mexican collective memory, especially sinceVicente Fox Quesada of the conservative Partido Acción Nacional (PAN)has defeated the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)? Have themyths and rituals of revolutionary nationalism lost their appeal? Whathas been the relationship between the PRI’s long sequence of legitimacycrises and the Mexican Revolution? Did the PRI so empty the MexicanRevolution of signi�cance as to make its mythology meaningless and thusincapable of rendering support for both the PRI and perhaps even forthe entire political system? Does the electoral defeat of the PRI in theera of globalizat ion �nally signal the Mexican Revolution’s death knell?Does the idea of the revolution continue to have any legitimizing/legitimating power? Finally, and perhaps most important, can the proce-dural democratic transition, with the high, and often unrealistic, expec-tations it has generated, supplant traditional revolutionary nationalismas the foundation of the Mexican political system, thus constituting anew Mexican Revolution? As Benjamin (2000: 13) emphasized: “Mexi-cans invested a lot of meaning in their Revolution with a capital letterduring this century,” but where does that meaning now lay in Mexicancollective memory, especially as so many forces—both local and global—are making it increasingly dif�cult to uphold so many classically revolu-tionary goals and ideals?

Drawing from several public opinion surveys conducted by theMexico of�ce of the well-known �rm Market Opinion Research Inter-national (MORI de México), this analysis and discussion focuses on two1997–1998 surveys that included commissioned items exploring the Rev-olution’s progress and likely demise and the place of the Mexican Rev-olution in the minds of the Mexican people.1 The �rst task was to assessthe saliency of the Mexican Revolution’s basic goals and ideals with the

364 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

1. Public opinion polling has a relatively long history in Mexico, but very few pollsof any signi�cance have tapped attitudes and opinions regarding the relevance and/or ful-�llment of the basics goals and ideals of the Mexican Revolution. Nonetheless, three ofthe more important survey research-based studies are Basáñez (1990), Camp (1996), andDomínguez and McCann (1996).

following question, which was asked on both surveys: “To what extentare the following basic principles of the Mexican Revolution relevant totoday’s (1997–1998) society?” Drawing from Frank Brandenburg’s (1964)notion of a revolutionary creed, the question was broken down to themost commonly understood revolutionary goals and ideals: (1) “The LandBelongs to Those Who Work It,” (2) “Respect for Labor Rights,” (3) “NoReelection of the President of the Republic,” (4) “National EconomicSovereignty,” (5) “Social Justice.” Asking respondents to use a �ve-pointscale (one, “very relevant” to �ve, “not-at-all relevant”), the question wasintended to measure the extent to which Mexicans see the primary goalsand ideals of the Revolution as important to today’s (1997–1998) Mexico.From “relevance,” the survey instrument moved to “ful�llment,” and thesurvey respondents were asked to evaluate the degree to which theysaw each of the �ve basic principles as having been ful�lled, once againaccording to a �ve-point scale (one, “very ful�lled” to �ve, “not-at-all ful-�lled”). “To what extent has the government ful�lled the basic princi-ples of the Mexican Revolution so far?”

The �rst MORI survey (n = 1225) was conducted in Mexico City inSeptember 1997. The second, national in scope (n = 1105, weightedvalid n = 1642), was administered in late December 1997 through earlyJanuary 1998.2 The survey results and analysis empirically validate muchof the existing literature on Mexico, and two very strong conclusionsstand out:

1. The goal of “No Reelection of the President of the Republic” con-tinues to be very relevant to Mexicans, and to Mexico generally,and is the most ful�lled basic revolutionary principle.3

2. The Revolution-generated goal of “Social Justice” is the least rele-vant and least ful�lled goal.

Gawronski: Mexican Revolution in the Era of Globalization 365

2. The questions that were eventually included in the December 1997–January 1998national survey (n = 1105,weighted valid n = 1642) went through several iterations. To en-sure that the questions were understandable, a self-administered pre-test was conductedamong Mexican nationals living in the Phoenix, Arizona, area. In September 1997, MORIde México conducted a pilot study (n=1225) in Mexico City to ensure that the questionswere manageable in the �eld. The pilot study produced valuable quantitative and qualita-tive data and can be considered a stand-alone study of Mexico City. After some minor ad-justments and rewordings,MORI appended the �nal survey instrument to the 1997 MexicoLatinobarómetro, which is a comprehensive public opinion survey modeled after the Eu-robarometer and implemented annually in seventeen Latin American countries and Spain.

3. While the principle of no reelection also applies to other elected of�cials, it is moststrongly associated with the presidency because of the highly presidentialist nature of thepostrevolutionary regime and the existence of the six-year “perfect dictatorships”—the sex-enios. Moreover, it was also much easier to tap opinions regarding the presidency becauseit is has been such a visible and palpable historical component of Mexico’s political system.

The Revolution as a Source of Legitimacy

Exploring public attitudes toward the Revolution is admittedly sensitive.Whether institutionalized, permanent, frozen, or programmatically dead,the Revolution has carried enormous symbolic value and has generateda massive literature.4 Historically it has been a national adhesive, at leastrhetorically, despite never being uniformly understood. Now, however,the Mexican political system, which was founded on revolutionary rhet-oric and socialist ideals (some initially competing), is facing unique chal-lenges. Indeed, contrary to its founding revolutionary ideology, Mexicois increasingly becoming a cog (or “pivot”) in the global system (espe-cially with its unique global trade relations), and the of�cial revolution-ary party—the PRI—is no longer revolutionary or even populist. AsThomas Benjamin (2000: 23) astutely observed:

The Mexican political system during most of the twentieth century has basedits legitimacy largely on la Revolución. The state and the dominant party, ac-cordingly, are the culmination and continuation of the Mexican revolution. LaRevolución is identi�ed with the most sacred values and the highest principlesof the Republic, as well as the greatest needs and aspirations of its people. Therevolutionary origins of the political system and the system’s faithful adherenceto la Revolución have justi�ed the existence of the system, the hegemony ofthe of�cial party, and the authority of the successive regimes that take powerevery six years. This pattern for support is changing, however. The system hasdeviated from its founding principles as Mexican civil society has changed andawakened. Opponents of the government have embraced la Revolución and aremaking it their own.

Addressing legitimacy in Mexico, however, is always fraught with prob-lems because Mexicans supported the PRI-state system for decades de-


4. Within the vast “Mexicanist” mainstream literature, a strong current has empha-sized the Mexican Revolution and its meaning and importance. Still one of the most in-sightful works is The Making of Modern Mexico (1964), where Brandenburg more con-cretely developed the idea of the “Revolutionary Family” and the closely associated“Revolutionary Creed.” Ross’s Is the Mexican Revolution Dead? (1966) and Cumberland’sThe Meaning of the Mexican Revolution (1967) continued the focus. The Revolution wasthen revisited in the mid-1980s with the Cambridge History of Latin America series (1984),Knight’s (1986) erudite two-volume history, and Hart’s (1987) in�uential work. Later, intheir edited volume, Everyday Forms of State Formation, Joseph and Nugent (1994) in-sightfully demonstrated the continuing role of the Mexican Revolution in the relationshipbetween popular cultures and state formation at the local level (see also Becker 1995). Atthe same time, however, other scholars began shifting the theme to the Revolution’s pos-sible demise, speci�cally Meyer (1992), Aguilar Camín and Meyer (1993), and Middlebrook(1995). Benjamin (2000), from a more historical perspective, examined how Mexicans in-terpreted the Revolution through collective memory, myths, and historiography between1910 and 1950.

spite injustices, gross inequalities, and classic semi-authoritarianism.5

Indeed one of the most enigmatic features of Mexican society is the de-gree to which Mexicans have historically tolerated so much. Support,in such cases, for the system does not emanate as much from “belief inthe validity of legal statute” or rational rules, resting more on ideolog-ical foundations and culture than on modern sources, despite Mexico’sremarkable and thoroughly modern constitution. But as globalizat ionbears down heavily on Mexico, the traditional ideological and culturalsources of legitimacy are withering just as democracy seems to be tak-ing hold—that is, as democratic procedures (free and fair elections) andhigh expectations of bene�ts (substantive and psychological) replacerevolutionary nationalism. Thus the traditional symbolic, national ad-hesive that has held the postrevolutionary regime together for so longis now dissolving. However, the apparent democratic transition willmean very little if the average Mexican’s quality of life does not soonimprove. If the regime does not meet a suf�cient measure of social ex-pectations, democratic breakdown and civil unrest may result. As well,if society continues to hold socialist and revolutionary-nationalist idealsor if it maintains unrealistically high expectations, the regime could beforced to deal with greater levels of opposition and/or political violence.Regime performance and effectiveness become more salient whencrises emerge or when social (value) expectations outrun regime (value)capabilit ies.6


5. Padgett’s (1976, 1966) work laid out the fundamental characteristics (semi-authoritarianism, co-optation, corporatism) of what Needler (1995) described as the “clas-sic” Mexican political system.

6. Mexico is indeed in �ux, but potentially the gravest problem resides in the im-plications of a stuck, or at least a severely constrained, policy pendulum. In his famous “Jcurve” theory of revolution, Davies (1962) posited that when an intolerable gap emergesbetween expected values and actual values, conditions become ripe for revolution. Thecontemporary Mexico case, however, is not a perfect �t for Davies. Punctuated with somany crises, Mexico has not yet experienced “a long period of rising expectations andgrati�cations.” In fact, Mexico’s most successful period of economic growth—the so-calledMexican Miracle—exacerbated many inequalities. Indeed, only recently have the mod-ernization of Mexican society and the apparent democratic transition signi�cantly raisedhopes and expectations—unfortunately just as Mexican policymakers are becoming moreconstrained. Therefore, Mexico’s predicament more closely �ts Gurr’s (1967) model thanDavies’s or, for that matter, Johnson’s (1966). Gurr (1967: 3) argued that:

[T]he necessary precondition for violent civil con�ict is relative deprivation, de�nedas actors’ perceptions of discrepancy between their value expectations and their en-vironment’s value capabilities. Value expectations are the goods and conditions of lifeto which people believe they are justi�ably entitled. The referents of value capabili-ties are to be found largely in the social and physical environment:they are conditionsthat determine people’s chances for getting or keeping the values they legitimately ex-pect to attain.

Undeniably, the institutionalization of the Mexican Revolution and thecreation of a revolutionary iconography with its associated myths wereunique historical, political, and cultural processes. And a speci�c pro-grammatic agenda emerged to advance basic revolutionary principles andideals, but this created a tension between the real and the ideal. The PRIlaid of�cial claim to its revolutionary heritage, in essence, by upholdinga nationalist-revolutionary myth (or myths), advancing socialist rhetoric,and implementing certain ideals and goals but freezing others for later.The revolutionaries—the “Revolutionary Family”—blessed the PRI as theof�cial party of the Revolution, as Martin Needler (1995: 68–69) noted:

In Mexico legitimacy has two sources, democratic and revolutionary, re�ectingthe fundamental ambiguity of Mexican political mythology. Legitimacy comesfrom election by the people; it also comes from the heritage of the Revolution.When legitimacy no longer comes from “above,” from royalty ruling by the graceof God, it must come from “below,” from the will of the people, or from the actof the overthrow of the illegitimate ruler itself. Until the system began the ex-tended crisis period of the 1980s and ’90s, these two sources of legitimacy con-verged in the of�cial party, the PRI.

The PRI-state system also relied upon populism and speci�c socialist poli-cies such as land redistribution, albeit limited, and economic national-ism (Import Substitution Industrialization) to foster a sense of Mexican-ness (mexicanidad), which garnered support for the regime. Indeedsupport for the postrevolutionary regime became tightly bundled withMexican nationalism and a sense of identity, especially cultural nation-alism. Also, creating a sense of who is and who is not Mexican bound thenation and the postrevolutionary state (see Knight 1994).

Thus, the vast literature on political legitimacy in Mexico has tendedto focus on how certain institutions, practices, social forms, myths, andheroes became accepted as legitimate. It has generally emphasized thehistorical process whereby the national state came to exercise controland domination after the Mexican Revolution, especially how the state“institutionalized” the Revolution.7 Vincent L. Padgett’s (1976: 59–60)work is still revelatory:

The nationalist, revolutionar y tradition composed of ideals and heroes reachesback through time. The roots lie in the periods of Cárdenas and Zapata, and fur-


7. Importantly, Mexican attitudes toward education are very signi�cant for politicallegitimacy and regime support. Education is an agent of political socialization, and inMexico, the public schools are operated by the national government. Needler (1995: 69)noted that “public education in Mexico has a high content of civic indoctrination.” Thisfactor, as Camp also observed (1993: 57), “could serve as a positive, indirect means of re-inforcing the state’s legitimacy—especially because texts in elementary schools are selectedby the government.” Therefore, education is important for passing on the basic principles

ther, in those of Juárez, Hidalgo, and Morelos, and even stretching back toCuauhtémoc and the days of Indian greatness. All of this has been shaped intoan historical synthesis which focuses on the identity of the people and formsthe basis of the existing national order. “Mexicanism” (Mexicanidad) is used tojustify the present and the future. The Revolutionary coalition has found it a valu-able means of subordinating the deep schisms in Mexican society to the imple-mentation of policy and the stability of government.

This institutionalizat ion process, Alan Knight (1994: 60) later added,while undeniably a state project of cultural transformation, was complexand contradictory:

The revolutionaries, as I have said, �rmly believed in notions of hegemony, evenfalse consciousness (if not in those terms). But how successful were they? First,did they transform popular consciousness, legitimizing the revolutionary regime?(And if so, we may ask again, did thereby foster a new “mysti�cation” or “falseconsciousness”? Or, rather, did they successfully combat a rival legitimation—for example, Catholic conservatism—and thereby demystify, breaking the fettersof false consciousness?) Or was the revolutionary project a failure, a gimcrackfaçade behind which the common people, the peasants especially, grumbled andprayed to old gods, untouched by the new legitimation? Was it a case not justof “idols behind altars” but idols behind altars behind murals?

Needler (1995: 69), moreover, highlighted the role of the president ofMexico:

The popular mandate and democratic legitimacy were of course personalizedin the role of the president. By a sort of pseudo-apostolic succession, the pres-ident was also the direct heir of the martyrs of the Revolution, having receivedthe presidential sash from the hands of his predecessor, who had received his from his, in a line which goes back at least to Obregón. The party and thepresident thus incarnated legitimacy in Mexico.

Benjamin (2000:13), focusing on the early postrevolutionary period, em-phasized the role the voceros de la Revolución had on legitimating theregime. The voceros were those “that had invented and constructed theRevolution with a capital letter in their pamphlets, broadsides, procla-mations, histories, articles, and editiorials.” He (2000: 14) explained:

Their talking, singing, drawing, painting, and writing invented la Revolución: aname transformed into what appeared to be a natural and self-evident part ofreality and history. This talking and writ ing was also part of an older, larger, andgreater project of forjando patria, forging a nation, inventing a country, imag-ining a community across time and space called Mexico.


and ideals of the Mexican Revolution, which Padgett (1976: 9) pointed out early on: “Par-ticularly important is the interpretation of history as presented to most Mexican schoolchildren and young people.”

The Revolution, consequently, became embedded in Mexican collec-tive memory as national myth and history. Virtually every Mexicanisttherefore agrees that Mexico’s postrevolutionary political system has,at least metaphorically, rested on a socialist-nationalist and revolution-ary ideology, but Mexico’s biggest paradox has been the dissonance be-tween revolutionary rhetoric and the reality of the Mexican state, whichbecame readily apparent when Mexico’s post-World War II period ofeconomic growth—the “Mexican Miracle”—started to peter out, andmost starkly in 1968, with the massacre at Tlatelolco.8 Starting in 1968and more or less ending with the highly contested 1988 presidentialelections Mexico experienced a long sequence of legitimacy crises. Thede�nitive end of the sequence of legitimacy crises came with the pop-ular election of Mexico City’s �rst true mayor, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas,in 1997, and of course, with the electoral defeat of the PRI in 2000 byVicente Fox.

The PRI’s Sequence of Legitimacy Crises: Moral, Performance-Based, and Political

Many less astute observers of Mexico have tended to explain the PRI’sloss of support by focusing on perceptions regarding the PRI’s (in)at-tentiveness to social expectations during the 1980s and 1990s;however,the beginning of the end for the PRI must be pushed back to 1968, apoint made by Will Pansters (1999: 250) and many others:

Although the agitated summer of 1968 ended in brutal repression, its longer-term effects are argued to be so profound that there exists a line of continuitybetween this experience (1968) and the electoral opening which, since July 1988,


8. The Tlatelolco rally was not large compared to the protests and demonstrationsthat would be organized in the 1980s and 1990s in Mexico City’s zócalo. On October 2,1968, just days before Mexico would host the Olympics, thousands of students, women,children, and spectators gathered in the Plaza. The demonstration was peaceful. Thespeeches were emotional but not noteworthy. Riding (1985: 60) summarized what hap-pened next:

At around 5:30 P.M. there were 10,000 people in the plaza, many of them women andchildren sitting on the ground. Two helicopters circled above, but the crowd was ac-customed to such surveillance. Even the speeches sounded familiar. Then suddenlyone helicopter �ew low over the crowd and dropped a �are. Immediately, hundredsof soldiers hidden among the Aztec ruins of the square opened �re with automaticweapons, while hundreds of secret police agents drew pistols and began making ar-rests. For thirty minutes, there was total confusion. Students who �ed into the adja-cent Church of San Francisco were chased and beaten and some were murdered. Jour-nalists were allowed to escape, but then banned from re-entering the area when theshooting stopped. That night, army vehicles carried away the bodies, while �retruckswashed away the blood.

seeks to put an end to the hegemony of the of�cial party. These effects rangefrom the modi�cation of values and behavioural practices, through a reorgani-zation of class alliances within the ruling elite (favouring the urban middle classesto the detriment of traditional corporatist sectors), to the emergence of publicopinion as a political factor. Others have emphasized that it was the violent sup-pression of the 1968 student movement and the spreading of leadership andideologies throughout society.

With the massacre of students and other protesters in the Plaza deTlatelolco—several hundred people were killed but the government onlyconceded 32—the PRI-state system was widely challenged, for the �rsttime, on a value basis. The 1968 Olympic Games were held without ma-jor incident, and Mexico’s image abroad was saved. Less immediately vis-ible but more important in the long term, the moral legitimacy of theentire PRI-state system was undermined. In particular the regime lost thesupport of many of Mexico’s established and upcoming intelligentsia.Many of Mexico’s intellectuals had shared with the political system anideological agenda of revolutionary nationalism and the widespread pro-motion of education. Entwined in mutual support, the intelligentsia lentlegitimacy to the regime. In return the regime doled out favors and gov-ernment posts to their favorite sons (and a few daughters). However,shocked by the PRI-state’s behavior at Tlatelolco, such world-renownedwriters as Carlos Fuentes and Octavio Paz strongly denounced the bru-tal actions of the regime, breaking their of�cial ties with the governmentand calling into question, really for the �rst time, the legitimacy of thewhole postrevolutionary system.

Enrique Krauze (1997: 733) noted the historical impact of 1968 onMexican politics and society while focusing on the motivations and con-sequences of people’s actions:

The Student Movement of 1968 opened a crack in the Mexican political systemwhere it was least expected: among its greatest bene�ciaries, the sons of themiddle class. On their own account they rediscovered that “man does not liveby bread alone.” Their protest was not in behalf of revolution, it was for thebroader cause of political freedom. As had been the case with the doctors, thegovernment did not know how to handle middle-class dissidence except throughthe same violent methods (loaded threats or loaded guns) that had given themeffective results with the workers and the peasants. Here, their action had theopposite effect.

But despite the revealed contrast between the regime’s professed rev-olutionary values and its actions, it survived through co-optation, clas-sic semi-authoritarianism, and moderate polit ical reforms. The 1977–1978 reforms softened direct challenges to the system by making it eas-ier for opposition parties to of�cially register and by widening, ever so


slightly, the arena for polit ical mobilizat ion and interest representation.“The political reform was the government’s and the ruling party’s re-sponse to a series of challenges that undermined the ef�ciency and le-gitimacy of the PRI” (Pansters 1999: 250). Indeed, PRI political reformefforts have been more a result of PRI-elite survival strategies than ad-herence to some deep-seated commitment to democracy and revolu-tionary goals and ideals. PRI elites implemented liberalizing political re-forms in response to perceived threats, not because they were beingresponsive and attentive to the needs and wishes of the Mexicanpeople.

Todd A. Eisenstadt (2000: 5–6) argued that the PRI liberalized theelectoral system for four reasons: First, the PRI could, “through multipleiterations of graduated reforms, acquire precise information about in-cumbent and opposition popularity in various segments of the popula-tion.” Second, the PRI could “divide and conquer the opposition throughsuch reforms.” Third, the channeling of opposition into the electoralarena helped the PRI to channel protesters, students, and the stronglydisillusioned “out of the unpredictable realm of street demonstrationsand picket lines and into the highly regulated realm of campaigns andelections.” This channeling “also helped to restore credibility to the [PRI]domestically and internationally.” Finally, political liberalizat ion helpedto “bind the hardliners within the authoritarian coalition.” Eisenstadt(2000: 6) explained:

[T]he party’s technocratic leaders, especially in the 1990s, increasingly dis-counted the old-time machine’s ability to “get out the vote” as a skill valued bythe party. In fact, President Carlos Salinas repeatedly undermined the traditionalmachine bosses by negotiating away their electoral victories at post-electoral bar-gaining tables with the PAN, known as concertasiones (Spanish slang combi-nation of “concession” and “agreement”). Salinas drove a wedge into the partystarting in 1989 which ended in electoral defeat 11 years later by placing a muchhigher premium on getting along with the PAN in federal parliamentary cham-bers on economic policy votes than on getting along with his own party’s tra-ditional vote getting activists. He has been widely blamed for weakening the PRIto the point that PRIístas have proposed his expulsion from the party. ErnestoZedillo, Salinas’s less politically adroit and equally technocratic successor con-tinued Salinas’s policy (but without going to Salinas’s extreme of sacri�cing lo-cal PRI victories for concession agreements with the PAN), divorcing himselffrom party affairs in the controversial “safe distance” policy.

While it is true that the PRI liberalized itself into electoral defeat, thestory needs more contextualization and explanation because the dem-ocratic transition has been so protracted. Moreover, while Mexico hasmade signi�cant democratic strides with the PRI’s losses, very few politi-cians and even fewer academics are declaring the transition complete.


Essentially, the PRI’s implosion and apparent demise must be traced tothe PRI-state system’s long sequence of legitimacy crises, political re-form efforts to deal with several problems, and a general falling out oftouch with the Mexican people as society modernized, all of which re-sulted in the withering away of the PRI’s traditional revolutionarysources of legitimacy and corporatist and populist networks.

In 1982 Mexico announced that it could no longer service its ex-ternal debt, banks were nationalized, and an economic debacle ensued,which initiated Latin America’s “Lost Decade” of development. Chap-pel Lawson (2000: 272) noted that “[b] y the early 1980s, �fty years ofcorruption, cronyism, patronage, and pork barreling had sabotagedMexico’s economy.” Then, in 1985,Mexico City was struck by twin earth-quakes that devastated parts of the city. The PRI-state system’s disasterresponse and subsequent management of the reconstruction werewidely criticized. The regime’s performance legitimacy was lost, aspeople realized just how few resources the PRI-state system really com-manded, how corrupt it was, and how much political space actually ex-isted. The con�uence of these factors made the PRI politically vulnera-ble in the highly tainted 1988 presidential elections, in which the PRIresorted to electoral alchemy to prevent a Partido de la RevoluciónDemocrática (PRD) victory. In 1988, then, the PRI lost political legiti-macy.9 Lawson (2000: 272) emphasized the importance of 1988:

Although the regime’s legitimacy had been eroding steadily, it now collapsed.Like other catalytic events—such as the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968, the nationalbankruptcy of 1982 and the devastating Mexico City earthquake of 1985—thealleged fraud of 1988 triggered mass protests and increasing social mobilization.

Since 1988, Knight (1999: 106–107) argued the PRI has fallen into an-other “Darwinian period,” having gone through three (and now four)stages in its evolution:

[F] irst a Darwinian period (1917–29) of internal con�ict, punctuated by revoltsfrom within the ranks of the revolutionary army, during which, with the recur-rent victories of the central government, the ranks of the dissidents were thinnedand the penalties of insurgency rammed home. Second, a long transitional pe-riod (1929–52) when revolts were few or feeble and PNR /PRM/PRI dissidentsmounted signi�cant but unsuccessful electoral challenges to the of�cial candi-date. Third, the heyday of the PRI (1952–87), when the party machine, possessedof enormous powers of patronage, maintained party cohesion, avoided schismsand defeated the genuine opposition parties with relative ease. The PRI split of


9. A useful heuristic device for clarifying the PRI-state system’s sequence of legiti-macy crises is Collier and Collier’s (1991) “critical juncture” framework. Application ofthe framework reveals that the turn to political liberalization is a direct legacy of the1968–1988 period of change and transformation for the entire country.

1987, followed by the highly contentious 1988 election, represented, in someways, a return to the second phase, although in very different socio-economiccircumstances.

Nevertheless, by the 1991 mid-erm elections, it appeared that everythinghad returned to normal. The PRI regained its strength,primarily becausethe PRD leftist coalition could not muster the same measure of supportthat it had in 1988. However, despite the apparent return to normality,political liberalization continued apace with further electoral reforms.In 1989 the Federal Electoral Institute, Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE)was created and then reconstituted in 1990 to release it further from thefetters of government control and to empower it to oversee and moni-tor the voting process. A 1993 electoral reform law helped to make theelectoral process even fairer and more transparent by giving the IFE morepower and autonomy. Eisenstadt (2000: 11) called the IFE “[ t]he mostcritical autonomous institution for mediating the ‘levelness’ of the elec-toral playing �eld.”

In large part due to the IFE, the 1994 presidential election appearedboth fair and clean, despite being preceded by a host of traumatic events,especially the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas and then the assassinationsof 1994 PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and then MarioRuiz Massieu, the PRI party chairman.

President Ernesto Zedillo who had replaced Colosio as the PRI’s can-didate, was in of�ce less than a month before Mexico tumbled into yetanother economic crisis, as a consequence of a poorly managed pesodevaluation. Millions of jobs were lost as the middle class once again borethe brunt of Mexico’s wrongheaded economic management, and doubtswere raised about Mexico’s future stability, especially as incidences ofhigh-level narco-corruption came to light. But political liberalization anddemocratic aspirations tempered direct attacks on the regime—the var-ious guerrilla insurrections in the South were an exception—and miti-gated a potentially volatile situation.

The 1997 mid-term elections continued the liberalizing trend. Oneimportant result was the election of Mexico City’s �rst true mayor, thePRD’s Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, rather than an appointed regent. This gavethe PRD greater political recognition and prestige. The second result wasan opposition majority in the Chamber of Deputies (Mexico’s lowerhouse), again for the �rst time. But the most historic development hasbeen the most recent.

The July 2000 presidential elections resulted in the PRI’s �rst defeatever, when Vicente Fox Quesada of the center-right, conservative Par-tido Acción Nacional (PAN), but in coalit ion with the Partido VerdeEcologísta (PVE), won the election. Signi�cantly, Zedillo publicly rec-


ognized Fox as his successor, hailing Mexico as a true democracy.10 Andin Chiapas, where the Zapatista problem has been festering since 1994and where the PRI has traditionally and authoritatively dominated poli-tics, the PRI was defeated in the August 2000 gubernatorial race by aformer priísta, Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía. To defeat the PRI, Salazar wassupported by a broad coalit ion of eight opposition parties.

Apparently, the Mexican people had had enough, publicly declar-ing that they would vote PRI but then secretly voting for the opposition.Judith Adler Hellman (2000: 6) emphasized that it was “the sum of mil-lions of individual decisions to vote strategically and non-ideologically”that made the difference.Democratic procedures do matter, and the Mex-ican people voted for change. Indeed they now feel safer voting for theopposition, and for the �rst time, it is possible to contemplate seriouslythe consolidation of democracy in Mexico.11

Through this sequence of legitimacy crises, the PRI-state systemgradually moved further away from its revolutionary heritage, but theRevolution still resided �rmly in the collective memory of the Mexicanpeople. In fact, through the sequence of legitimacy crises, PRI elites were


10. Zedillo, whose sexenio was not especially remarkable, nonetheless found him-self in an interesting situation. Hellman (2000: 9) explained:

At worst, history will note its �nancial scandals, not to mention its failure to resolve the crisis in Chiapas, improve the poor human rights record of Mexico, or make a dentin the growing power of the drug lords. Yet the outgoing president found himself in a win/win situation. Either the PRI would prevail, in which case Zedillo could claimthat the good government and leadership he provided paved the way for victory. Or,as transpired, Labastida would lose to Fox, and Zedillo could play a historic role in thegreat transition, calling for respect for the democratic process, the will of the peopleand the rule of law.

11. However, there remain signi�cant challenges to democratic consolidation. Awealthy and powerful economic class continues to reap the bene�ts from neoliberal, free-trade policies, and economic bene�ts have not been trickling down, despite Mexico’s cur-rent macroeconomic stability and growth rate. No one “eats the GDP,” and approximatelyhalf of all Mexicans live at or below the poverty line, with the income of the poor lowerin real terms that it was before the 1994 crisis. General crime is rampant in some areas,especially in Mexico City and along several lesser-traveled, rural roads, and human rightsabuses are not infrequent. Arbitrary detention, torture, and assassinations with impunitycontinue, and the judicial system is too weak (and often too corrupt) to investigate andprosecute. The illegal drug trade feeds billions into the political economy, which con-tributes heavily to corruption. Also, environmental degradation and pollution on a grandscale are prevalent, especially in Mexico City and along the U.S.-Mexican border. Chroniclow-intensity militar y con�ict continues in a number of states, and �nally, “democratiza-tion has not proceeded at the same pace across all regions or spheres of government. Asa result,Mexico’s new political order comprises a series of authoritarian enclaves in whichthe old rules of the game still operate” (Lawson 2000: 267–268).

assailed for betraying the principles of the Mexican Revolution. This be-trayal would become more evident, and even necessary, as Mexico be-came more deeply integrated into the global economy and more vul-nerable to its vicissitudes and as the government’s policy pendulum stuckto the center-right, with policymakers forced to abandon outright therevolutionary programmatic agenda.12 As Needler (1995:30) pointed out:

Under other circumstances, the change in economic policy would have beenan extremely risky policy for Salinas, putting in doubt his legitimacy as heir of the Revolutionary tradition at the same time as his other source of legitimacy,as winner of democratic election, was also under question. There is, however,a legitimacy that derives from performance as well as a legitimacy that attachesto origins, and Salinas’s position was revalidated in the eyes of the public by thesuccess of his economic policies. This was missed by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas,who continued to focus his attacks on the questionable election of 1988 andfailed to devise a coherent critique of the Salinas economic policies and a plau-sible alternative economic strategy.

The regime and the PRI especially are no longer as �exible as they oncewere because neoliberalism demands that Mexican policymakers dis-avow rhetorical and symbolic commitments to the Revolution. As JosephKlesner (1997: 198) argued: “Revolutionary nationalism does not pro-vide legitimacy for the current rulers because Zedillo, Salinas before him,and de la Madrid even earlier have actively sought to tear down the poli-cies that buttress revolutionary nationalism.” Now Mexican policymak-ers face the dilemma of reconciling the revolutionary past with the ne-oliberal present just as Mexico becomes more deeply embedded in theglobal capitalist system, and with the victory of the center-right, conser-vative PAN, it seems unlikely that the Mexican Revolution will be calledupon in political discourse and rhetoric for garnering regime support.

The Revolution Revisited: Another Mexican Revolution?

As Brandenburg noted, the “Revolutionary Family” advanced a kind ofloose ideology, the “Revolutionary Creed,” which he (1964:8–18) broke


12. Needler (1982, 1990, 1995) had argued that the PRI had set up a presidentialistpolitical system characterized by a corporatist umbrella structure with a wide array of po-tentially con�icting groups. These groups—labor, peasantry, business, the middle class,the military—were not all formally contained within the PRI, but all their political activ-ity was. The key to Mexican political stability then became a strategy (accidental or con-scious) whereby successive Mexican presidents emphasized the interests of certain socialsectors more than others.The emphasis, however, changed with each president. Thus theemphasis or favoritism pendulum would rest temporarily on one group but then move toa different group with the next president. In that way, no group ever felt permanently dis-affected, and all believed that it might be their “turn” next time.

down to fourteen points: (1) Mexicanism, (2) Constitutionalism, (3) So-cial justice, (4) Political liberalism, (5) Racial tolerance, (6) Religious tol-erance, (7) Intellectual freedom and public education, (8) Economicgrowth, (9) Economic integration, (10) Public and private ownershipinitiatives, (11) Defense of labor rights, (12) Financial stability, (13) Ashare in world leadership, and (14) International prestige. This creed,which still pervades Mexican political culture, provided the ideologicaland symbolic adhesive for consolidating state power, garnering popularsupport, legitimating the rule of the PRI, and cobbling together the ever-troublesome and disparate “Many Mexicos.”13

Traditionally, the PRI’s purpose has been to articulate and channelinterests,organize power and authority—through corporatist networks—and advance (purportedly) the basic principles and nationalist-socialistideals of the Mexican Revolution. But the world has changed consider-ably since the founding of the PRI, and Mexico is subject to new glob-alizing forces (internal and external). As David Barkin, Irene Ortiz, andFred Rosen (1997: 27) succinctly explained: “Mexico is transforming it-self through the con�ictive interaction of two powerful forces—the glob-alizing project imposed from above, and the resistance to that project,welling up from below.” This interaction inevitably creates opportuni-ties and constraints while challenging many principles and ideals borneof the Mexican Revolution; it also undermines the regime’s traditionalrevolutionary sources of legitimacy and exacerbates many state-societycon�icts.

To justify often very different state policies, the Revolution has his-torically been made quite �exible, and its basic principles have been un-derstood and reinterpreted over the years in many ways by the averageMexican and political elites. PRI elites even reinterpreted the Revolu-tion to justify such antirevolutionary acts as revoking Article 27, therebyending the ejido system, a cornerstone of revolutionary nationalism. En-gaged in policies of economic liberalizat ion, the PRI elites argued thatthe Revolution had been so successful that Mexico is set to pass on tothe next revolutionary stage despite whole regions of Mexico havingnever experienced the prior stages,most notably Chiapas.14 Glossed overis the fact that the new happens to be substantively antithetical to theold revolutionary goals and ideals.

Inevitably, then, the issue of political stability and the potential for


13. See the classic work by Simpson (1966) and Knight’s (1994) discussion of howthe Mexican Revolution created a sense of nationhood.

14. Interestingly, as the �rst post-Cold War and postmodern insurrectionary move-ment, the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) has been careful to avoid Marx-ist /socialist discourse (see Bruhn 1999). For more comprehensive works on the indige-nous uprising in Chiapas see Harvey (1998), La Botz (1995), and Ross (2000).

political violence and revolution in Mexico must be raised. So while manyscholars have debated the end of the Mexican Revolution, others haveexplored the possible onset of another or at least increased levels of po-litical violence (for example, see Alschuler 1995, Pansters 1999, Knight1999). Speci�cally, however, Linda S. Stevenson and Mitchell A. Seligson,in their exploratory study of assembly plant (maquiladora) workersalong the U.S.-Mexican border and in northern Mexico, were driven bythe question of how prone to revolution Mexico might be. That is, theywere concerned with the propensity for political violence and politicalinstability, arguing that an underlying effect has explained Mexico’s long-standing political stabilit y:

[T]his effect holds only in the case of nations that have undergone an unusuallyviolent, protracted revolution. Bolivia’s revolution of 1952 was short and rela-tively bloodless; and although the Cuban Revolution of 1959 was preceded bytwo years of armed con�ict, its scope and level were relatively minor in termsof casualties. In other cases of modern revolutions, such as Russia, China, andMexico, the insurrectionar y phase of the revolution lasted a number of yearsand was accompanied by an enormous amount of violence.

Thus, we suggest that the sheer magnitude and ubiquity of violence asso-ciated with the revolution in Mexico, in contrast to those in Bolivia and Cuba,has left such a deep psychological imprint on most Mexicans that the fear of re-visiting that violence has been a major constraint on violent political actions.(Stevenson and Seligson 1996: 60)

These scholars (1996: 60) further hypothesized that “ . . . as time passesand the memories of the revolution fade, the degree of fear declines andmore people become willing to take political actions that older genera-tions would not have taken previously.” In other words, as the histori-cal event and the fearful violence associated with it fade from memory,the Revolution no longer serves as a source of political stabilit y.15

Moreover, the increasingly divisive nature of Mexican politics, par-ticularly the camarilla system,has been contributing to the increasinglyviolent nature of politics in Mexico. The camarilla is essentially the sys-tem of patronage and obligation in which loyalty is owed to a benefac-tor who is often a family friend or member of an intimate clique. The


15. Turning this into a hypothesis that can be tested with public opinion polling ismore dif�cult than it seems. Measuring peoples’ propensity to engage in violent or revo-lutionary political behavior can be dif�cult. Public opinion polls do not measure how pronea country might be for a revolution—only feelings, beliefs, and ideas about violence, po-litical participation, and revolution.Moreover,public opinion—particularly a survey snap-shot in time—cannot be used to predict the propensity to engage in political action. Thereis a discontinuity between how people think or how they claim they will behave,and howthey actually do behave. Therefore, public opinion is only one aspect of a very compli-cated reality.

benefactor protects and appoints to key positions the loyal up-and-comerwho reciprocally helps to push the benefactor up the political hierar-chy. Basically, the future of the young subservient is dependent uponthe success of the benefactor, but Pansters (1999: 260) argued that:

The sharpening of camarilla politics shades into the institutional frameworkand generates regime instabilit y. The discretionary use of the law and the useof violence were also inherent to the logic of personalism, but today they tendto subvert the institutional framework. The disruption of important areas of thepolitical and socio-economic system simultaneously fosters different forms ofviolence and undermines the mechanisms to counteract them.

Finally, Mexican public opinion has certainly not ignored Mexico’s lessthan stable situation. For example, in August of 1990, MORI �elded anational survey (n = 1711) that explored Mexican knowledge of, and at-titudes toward, human rights and human rights organizations. Embed-ded in the survey, however, was a most intriguing question: “Some saythat because of poverty, corruption, and other problems, there couldbe a revolution in Mexico within �ve years. Do you believe that is prob-able or improbable?” While the question was a bit sensational, the re-sults were quite startling: Of the 1,598 people who provided substan-tive answers to this question, fully 47.1 percent reported seeing anotherrevolution in Mexico within �ve years as either “probable” or “very prob-able.” Only 39.6 percent believed that it was either “improbable” or “veryimprobable,” and slightly over 13 percent responded with “regular” (inEnglish a kind of “maybe”). Flawed or not, the question appeared to tapsome very deep public concerns over the stability of the country. Fouryears later the Zapatistas burst onto the scene in the southern state ofChiapas. Apparently, many of the 1990 survey respondents indeed hadtheir �nger on something.

The 1997–1998 Survey Results

To explore the current place and or plight of the Mexican Revolutionin the minds of the Mexican people, MORI was commissioned with aset of questions, which were �rst tested on the September 1997 MexicoCity survey and then included (reformulated slightly) on the full nationalsurvey. The �rst task was to assess the current saliency of the Revolu-tion’s basic goals and ideals, and the following question was asked onboth the Mexico City and national surveys: “To what extent are the fol-lowing basic principles of the Mexican Revolution relevant to today’ssociety?” Drawing from Brandenburg’s (1964) notion of a revolution-ary creed, the question was broken down to the most commonly un-derstood revolutionary goals and ideals: (1) “The Land Belongs to Those


Who Work It,” (2) “Respect for Labor Rights,” (3) “No Reelection ofthe President of the Republic,” (4) “National Economic Sovereignty,”(5) “Social Justice.”

Asking respondents to use a �ve-point scale (one, “very relevant” to�ve, “not-at-all relevant”), the question was intended to measure the ex-tent to which Mexicans see the primary goals and ideals of the Revolu-tion as important to today’s Mexico. The values for “very relevant” and“somewhat relevant” were combined to facilitate comparisons, and thegreater the percentage, the higher the degree of perceived relevance (seeTable 1).

Most responsible for holding postrevolutionary Mexico together, therevolutionary principle of “No Reelection of the President of the Repub-lic” continues to be very relevant to Mexicans and to Mexico, being themost relevant goal on both surveys.Panster (1999:237) explained the im-portance of no reelection:

The tenacity with which the principle of no re-election has been maintainedhas the obvious advantage of elite circulation. The rotation of different politicalfactions has assured the system a certain amount of vitality to the degree that ithas mobilized energies and opened up opportunities for those who seek accessto political circles. In the �rst decades after the armed phase of the revolution,this principle meant that members from hitherto subordinated classes couldclimb to the upper echelons of the post-revolutionary state. This degree of po-


Table 1. Perceived Relevance of the Revolution’s Basic Principles:Mexico City and the Nation Compared (“very relevant”and “somewhat relevant” combined)

1997 1997-1998 Mexico City Survey National Survey

ValidFrequency Percent Frequency Percent

The Land Belongs to Those Who Work It 341 27.8 553 35.4

Respect for Labor Rights 339 27.7 463 30.6

No Reelection of the President of the Republic 812 66.2 904 58.9

National Economic Sovereignty 297 24.2 436 28.4

Social Justice 236 19.3 409 28.6

litical institutionalization and constitutionalism sharply contrasts with the fre-quent elimination of constitutional guarantees under authoritarian military gov-ernment in other parts of Latin America.

While no reelection remains a sacrosanct revolutionary principle inMexico, the survey data reveal that “Social Justice” is the least relevantrevolutionary principle in Mexico City and the next-to-least relevant forthe nation, but for all intents and purposes “Social Justice” is tied with“National Economic Sovereignty.” It seems that some of the respondentsare expressing deeply ingrained frustration and cynicism regarding so-cial justice—that is, social justice is perceived as irrelevant perhaps be-cause it has been so unful�lled. Mexicans, after all, have lived with in-stitutionalized inequality and injustice for quite a long time.

In the Mexico City survey, the MORI interview team was able torecord a wide variety of qualitative comments that surrounded the cod-able responses, many of which are wonderfully cynical and sometimeshumorous. For example, when asked about the relevance of the basicrevolutionary principles, one respondent added the following:

“Todos no vigentes, sólo están impresos, pero están muy bien guardados y sonutilizados por conveniencia del gobierno.” (“None of them are relevant, they’reonly published, but they are very closely guarded and used only at the govern-ment’s convenience”).

Because the format of the Revolution questions was changed somewhatfor the 1997–1998 national survey, there are minor problems compar-ing the results. The Mexico City survey respondents were asked to rankorder the basic principles of the Mexican Revolution as to perceivedsaliency to today’s society (1997–1998). According to the results and theinterviewers’ comments, rank ordering proved too dif�cult for the re-spondents, and there may have been some confusion as to the meaningof relevance. Moreover, MORI weighted the responses to create discretedimensions of the same question results. Nonetheless, several distinctpatterns emerged. On both surveys “No Reelection of the President ofthe Republic” is the most relevant basic principle, followed by “The LandBelongs to Those Who Work It,” “Respect for Labor Rights,” and then“National Economic Sovereignty” and “Social Justice.” Because of theproblems revealed in the Mexico City survey, it was decided that eachbasic revolutionary principle should stand alone—that is, on the 1997–1998 national survey, each would be asked as a separate question andnot be rank ordered.

From relevance, the survey instrument moved to ful�llment, andthe survey respondents were asked to evaluate the degree to which theysaw each of the �ve basic principles as having been ful�lled, according


to a �ve-point scale (one, “very ful�lled” to �ve, “not-at-all ful�lled”).“To what extent has the government ful�lled the basic principles of theMexican Revolution so far?”

Once again, the values for “very ful�lled” and “somewhat ful�lled”were combined for ease of comparison, and the same pattern emerged,indicating that degree of ful�llment follows perceived relevance, witha higher percentage indicating greater ful�llment (see Table 2).

From the comparable patterns found in Table 1 and Table 2, it ap-pears that a very close cognitive association exists between the relevanceand the ful�llment results. In fact, when the basic principles are collapsedinto additive index variables for both surveys, the relevance and the ful-�llment question results demonstrate a strong correlation. For both sur-veys, the correlation is signi�cant at the .01 level, Pearson two-tailed test,but it is slightly stronger on the Mexico City survey (.680) than it is onthe national survey (.596).

The most ful�lled principle of the Mexican Revolution, accordingto the Mexico City and 1997–1998 national survey respondents, there-fore, is “No Reelection of the President of the Republic,” indicating thatthis a very important revolutionary goal. Well established, this one ba-sic principle has probably been the most consequential factor con-tributing to Mexican political stability, creating the six-year “perfect dic-tatorships” (see Cothran 1994; Needler 1982, 1990, 1995). One of thequalitative comments was especially acute on this score:


Table 2. Perceived Ful�llment of the Revolution’s Basic Principles:Mexico City and the Nation Compared (“very ful�lled”and “somewhat ful�lled” combined)



The Land Belongs to Those Who Work It 277 22.6 522 33.4

Respect for Labor Rights 276 22.5 449 29.7

No Reelection of the President of the Republic 821 67 874 56.5

National Economic Sovereignty 241 19.7 406 27.5

Social Justice 173 14.1 361 24.8

“Sobre la no reelección, aunque no reeligan a la misma persona, sí lo hacencon el mismo sistema.” (“About no reelection, although you don’t elect the sameperson, you do elect the same system”).

As Table 2 shows, Mexicans view the least ful�lled basic revolutionaryprinciple as “Social Justice.” To recall Brandenburg (1964: 11):

Translated into simplest terms, social justice means that today and tomorroware worth living for the promise of a better life than yesterday’s. Implementationsof this proposition show the state establishing and extending social security;building public clinics, hospitals, schools, libraries and reading rooms; erectinglarge public housing developments, laying out athletic �elds; redistributing agri-cultural lands; allotting part of the government budget to the poor, indigenouscommunities, making available basic foodstuffs at reduced prices to the Mexicanmasses; enforcing rent controls, low transportation rates, and labor rights; andconstructing sanitary public markets, slaughterhouses, drainage systems, andwater supplies. Finally, redistribution of national income and the improvementof the living standards of all Mexicans are important factors in the translation ofjusticia social.

Admittedly, social justice is an amorphous concept that is dif�cult totap with survey data. The concept has been so bandied about in therhetoric of the postrevolutionary regime that it simply cannot be ade-quately nailed down. For example, social justice was not perceived tobe very relevant to today’s Mexico, which may indicate that most Mex-icans are truly cynical about the prospects of actually achieving thisgoal. But why would Mexicans feel cynical about a goal or ideal thatthey do not perceive as relevant? Nonetheless, the fact that an ex-traordinarily similar pattern emerged from both question results pointsto this conclusion.

Only 14.1 percent (173) of Mexico City residents surveyed believedthat social justice had been “very” or “somewhat ful�lled.” To the con-trary, 55.1 percent (675) see it as “slightly” or “not-at-all ful�lled.” Onthe 1997–1998 national survey, nearly 25 percent (24.8 percent, 361 in-dividuals) believed that social justice had been “very” or “somewhat ful-�lled,” but 53.9 percent (786) thought that it had been “slightly” or “not-at-all ful�lled.” At the most extremes, only 4.4 percent (54) of MexicoCity residents and 4 percent (59) of the nation surveyed indicated thatsocial justice had been “very ful�lled,” and over a third (35.3 percent,432 individuals) of Mexico City residents and one-�fth (20.2 percent,297 individuals) of the nation surveyed responded that “Social Justice”had been “not-at-all ful�lled.” Tellingly, when a cross-tabulation was runwith region, no respondent within southern Mexico indicated that so-cial justice had been “very ful�lled,” and 41.1 percent (60) believed thatthis goal was “not-at-all ful�lled.”


Indicating that the principle of social justice might remain an im-portant but unrealized goal in Mexico, the question results that tap theperceived ful�llment of social justice correlate with two separate 1997–1998 national survey question results, but only very weakly. One ques-tion measured the extent to which social equality is important for democ-racy, and its results are signi�cant at the .01 level, Pearson two-tailed test(.084). Of course, social equality is not precisely the same thing as so-cial justice. Nonetheless, they are very similar concepts. The respondentswere also asked to assess the degree to which they believed that severalfactors, conditions, or meanings were associated with democracy. Almost40 percent (39.8 percent, 635 individuals) felt that social equality wasvery much associated with democracy. The other survey questiontapped the perceived injustice of income distribution, and its results aresigni�cant at the .05 level, Pearson two-tailed test (.054). Almost 70 per-cent of the survey respondents perceive Mexico’s distribution of incomeas either “unjust” or “very unjust.”

The second least ful�lled basic principle of the Mexican Revolutionis “National Economic Sovereignty,” with only 19.7 percent (241) of theMexico City and 27.5 percent (406) of the national survey respondentsseeing this goal as “very” or “somewhat ful�lled.” This perception is notsurprising given NAFTA and Mexico’s increased integration into theglobal capitalist system. Globalized neoliberalism has changed concep-tions of nationalism and sovereignty, which becomes evident since “Na-tional Economic Sovereignty” is neither perceived to be important norful�lled. Apparently most Mexicans indeed understand the obsolescenceof this principle, or they now have a new meaning for economic na-tionalism. Supporting this understanding, the “National Economic Sov-ereignty” question results weakly correlate with the results from two na-tional survey questions designed to tap perceptions of Mexico’s externaldependence and policy �exibilit y. The relationship is signi�cant at the.01 level, Pearson two-tailed test (.175). The �rst question focused gen-erally on the perceived degree of the Mexican president’s independencefrom external sources in foreign policy formation. Interestingly, 51.3 per-cent (739) felt that the Mexican president is either “somewhat depen-dent” or “very dependent” on external (global) in�uences in Mexicanforeign policy formation.

The second question focused speci�cally on the perceived degreeof Zedillo’s independence from the United States in domestic policy for-mation. This question results weakly correlated with the 1997–1998 na-tional survey’s “National Economic Sovereignty” variable, signi�cant atthe .01 level, Pearson two-tailed test (.081). The results appear in Table 3,the question being: “Regarding domestic politics, to what extent do youthink that President Zedillo and his government are independent from


the United States? Very independent. Somewhat independent. Somewhatdependent. Very dependent. Don’t know/No response.”

From Table 3 and combining the valid percentages for “somewhatdependent” and “very dependent,” it can be seen that 64 percent (907)of Mexicans surveyed believe that President Zedillo and his governmentwere constrained by Mexico’s relationship with the United States, and29 percent (412) see Mexico as “very dependent.” Not surprisingly, thenational survey respondents indicated that “The Land Belongs to ThoseWho Work It” was almost as unful�lled as “Social Justice,” which makessense given the close relationship between social justice issues and landtenure problems in the countryside, especially in southern Mexico. Aseparate question on the 1997–1998 national survey addressed the de-gree to which the respondents felt protected by Mexico’s labor laws,and buttressing the point, 64.1 percent (965) indicated that they sawthemselves as enjoying little or no protection, but this question’s resultsdid not correlate with the corresponding “Land Belongs to Those WhoWork It” and “Respect for Labor Rights” question results.

The “Land Belongs to Those Who Work It” and “Respect for LaborRights” are more or less tied, according to perceptions of revolutionary(non) progress. Approximately 23 percent of Mexico City residents androughly 30 percent of the national survey respondents believed that thesetwo goals had been “very” or even “somewhat ful�lled.” While these twobasic principles might be viewed as the Revolution’s most resilient pro-grammatic core, very few Mexicans on the 1997–1998 national surveybelieved that these basic revolutionary principles had been “very ful-�lled” (only 5.6 percent and 3.7 percent respectively). Several recordedcomments from the Mexico City survey directly addressed the land tenureand labor protection principles, and they were hardly positive:

“La tierra es de quien tenga dinero, para comprar papeles que demuestra queson dueños y comprar abogados.” (“The land belongs to those who have themoney, to buy papers that show that they are the owners and to buy lawyers.”)


Table 3. Perception: U.S. Constraints on Zedillo and His Government

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Very Independent 139 8.5 9.8Somewhat Independent 370 22.5 26.1Somewhat Dependent 495 30.1 35.0Very Dependent 412 25.1 29.0Don’t Know/No Response 226 13.7Total 1642 100.0 100.0

“Más bien, la tierra es del gobierno y se trabaja para él. (“Rather, the land be-longs to the government, and you work for it [ the government] .”)

“Derechos laborales, como lo dice una palabra, sólo han sido principios,en la actualidad se cambia la Constitución para bene�cio del gobierno y nodel pueblo.” (“Labor rights, as one says in a word, have only been principles, reallythey changed the Constitution to bene�t the government and not the people.”)

“No hay casi campesinos y los pocos que hay están en la miseria y endeu-dados, no se valen las huelgas, el PRI siempre gana y la justicia se perdió y no se encuentra.” (“There hardly aren’t any peasants, and the few that thereare, are in misery, indebted; strikes don’t accomplish anything, the PRI alwayswins, justice is lost and can’t be found”).

Therefore, from the 1997 Mexico City and the 1997–1998 national sur-veys, it can be tentatively concluded that Mexicans generally see the PRIregime as falling short in achieving the basic goals of the Mexico Revo-lution. A separate question measuring the extent to which the PRI is seenas having been in touch with the general needs of el pueblo lends sup-port to this �nding. The respondents were asked to �nish the followingphrase, and the possibilities were read to them: “With respect to the needsof the population generally, during the 1980s and 1990s the PRI hasbeen . . . out of touch with the people; somewhat out of touch with thepeople; neither in touch nor out of touch; somewhat united with thepeople; very united with the people; Don’t know/No response.”

Comparing the results (see Table 4), it is evident that the majorityof both Mexico City and national survey respondents believed that thePRI was “out of touch” or “somewhat out of touch” with society dur-


Table 4. The PRI: Out of Touch? Mexico City and the Nation Compared



Out of touch 392 32 397 25.0Somewhat out of touch 429 35 608 38.3Neither in touch

nor out of touch n/a n/a 384 24.2Somewhat united 274 22.4 185 11.7Very united 66 5.4 13 .08Don’t know/No response 64 5.2 55Total 1225 100.0 1642 100.0

ing the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps even more telling is the very smallpercentage of respondents on both surveys who felt that the PRI hasbeen “somewhat united” or “very united” with el pueblo. Because a �fthoption (“regular,” a kind of “maybe” or “so-so”) was not provided onthe Mexico City pilot study, the “somewhat united” cell is probably in-�ated for Mexico City, especially since the capital has had very strongleftist sympathies since the 1985 Mexico City disaster.

Most revealing, the Mexican Revolution “ful�llment” question re-sults, with all the basic principles collapsed into an additive index vari-able, resulted in statistical signi�cance in an Ordinary Least Square (OLS)multiple regression model using the “out of touch” question results asa dependent variable. However, the two variables are correlated onlymoderately, signi�cant at the .01 level, Pearson two-tailed test (-.145).Multiple regression reveals the degree to which a set of independentvariables predicts position on the dependent variable—that is, multipleregression analysis is a method of analyzing the variability of a depend-ent variable by relying on information available from two or more inde-pendent variables. The OLS procedure for multiple regression passes aline through a plotting of the values of cases on several variables in sucha way as to minimize the sum of the squared distance of each point fromthat line. While imperfect, this statistical procedure allows for somemeasure of the interaction of several independent variables simultane-ously on a dependent variable. Because the “ful�llment” question resultswere signi�cant as an independent variable in the OLS regression model,the following interpretation can be made:Because the PRI was “blessed”by the “Revolutionary Family,” the endorsement increased pressure onthe party to carry out the principles, goals, and ideals of the MexicanRevolution. From the interpretation of the statistical relationships, then,perceived failure to achieve these goals—especially when they are per-ceived as relevant—could translate into a failure to meet society’s ex-pectations and the corresponding assessment of being “out of touch.”

However, a separate OLS model that focused on perceptions of eco-nomic and political stability revealed that the Revolution’s basic prin-ciples having not been carried to fruition does not directly in�uenceperceptions of political and economic stability. That is, the Revolution“ful�llment” variable did not result in statistical signi�cance in the OLSmultiple regression model predicting perceptions of political and eco-nomic stabilit y.

The Mexican Revolution basic principles collapsed into an additiveindex variable did not result in statistical signi�cance in the regressionmodel as a direct in�uence on stability, but the extent to which the PRIis perceived as addressing society’s needs during the 1980s and 1990sdid hold up. That is, the “out of touch” variable resulted in statistical sig-



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ni�cance in the OLS multiple regression model predicting Mexican per-ceptions of political and economic stability. This seems to indicate thatperceptions of ful�llment of revolutionary principles and goals mightbe indirectly in�uencing perceptions of stability because the MexicanRevolution variable resulted in statistical signi�cance in the OLS modelexplaining assessments of PRI performance in the 1980s and 1990s. Thispossible two-step relationship, however, is not very strong because thesevariables are not especially powerful as independent variables in theirrespective models, but this relationship to perceptions of instability,while not overtly apparent, is very important. If the idea of the Mexi-can Revolution is still driving at least some peoples’ political and socialexpectations, and if the regime can no longer provide grati�cations basedon those expectations, then Mexico could �nd itself in classic “relativedeprivation” scenario. However, procedural democracy now seems tobe supplanting the average Mexican’s political and social expectations,but democratization must deliver strong psychological grati�cations andsubstantive bene�ts to become the primary source of legitimacy fortwenty-�rst-century Mexico.

The survey results and the analysis suggest that Mexican feelingsabout the Revolution are strong, but Mexicans apparently realize thatthe PRI has not been substantively committed to revolutionary goals.Apparently most Mexicans still cherish many of the Revolution’s basictenets, goals, and ideals and understand the meaning of those basic prin-ciples. It also seems that Mexicans comprehend that the Mexican Rev-olution has been quasi-of�cially ended without ever being completed.Nonetheless, the Revolution still carries enormous rhetorical and sym-bolic value. It seems doubtful, however, that it will continue as an ide-ological and symbolic national adhesive, which means that it will bedif�cult to keep the Many Mexicos cobbled together based on the Rev-olution’s basic principles. The problem, put simply, is that so much haschanged. Mexico is now much more deeply embedded in the globalcapitalist system and therefore must accede to the prevailing globalizedideology of neoliberalism, an ideology antithetical to revolutionar y so-cialism and national economic sovereignty. The Mexican Revolution gen-erated the founding principles of the post-revolutionary regime. Howthe average Mexican understands these principles, however, is open todebate largely because the Revolution has been so variously interpreted,which is not surprising given that Mexicans experienced different rev-olutions simultaneously, and as Benjamin (2000: 20–21) noted:

La Revolución emerged as successive of�cial memories in a process not unlikegeological formation: an uneven sedimentation of memory, myth, and history. Itwas named, historicized, and rei�ed quite early on. As the postrevolutionary state


tried to consolidate power and authority in the 1920s, however, the existence ofdifferent, partisan revolutionary collective memories and myths—codi�ed in timeinto competing revolutionary traditions, each with their own heroes and villains,sacred and bitter anniversaries, myths and symbols—retarded the process.

Indeed, Fuentes (1996: 35) argued that the Mexican Revolution was “atleast three revolutions”:

Revolution number 1—�xed forever in pop iconography—was the agrarian, small-town movement led by chiefs such as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. This wasa locally based revolt, intent on restoring village rights to lands, forests, and wa-ters. Its program favored a decentralized, self-ruling, communitarian democracy,inspired by shared traditions. It was, in many ways, a conservative revolution.

Revolution number 2,more blurry in the icons of the mind, was the national,centralizing, and modernizing revolution led originally by Francisco Madero, thenby Venustiano Carranza after Madero’s assassination in 1913, and �nally consoli-dated in power by the two forceful statesmen of 1920s Mexico: Álvaro Obregónand Plutarco Elías Calles. Their purpose was to create a modern national state ca-pable of setting collective goals while promoting private prosperity.

Somewhere between the two, and de�nitely dim in the collective memory,an incipient proletarian revolution number 3 took place, re�ecting the dis-placement of Mexico’s traditional artisanal class by modern factory methods.

Whatever the number of its iterations, The Revolution still lives inMexico’s collective memory, and the goal of “No Reelection of the Pres-ident of the Republic” continues to be very relevant to Mexicans and toMexico. In fact, it is the most ful�lled basic revolutionary principle. How-ever, the Revolution-generated goal of “Social Justice” is simultaneouslythe least relevant but the least ful�lled basic principle, which is moreproblematic and points to Mexican frustration and likely cynicism.

Social justice may simply be too amorphous a concept to test in apublic opinion poll. It may have too many dimensions and interpreta-tions, and the respondents may have been confused by the question.However, if we conclude that they were not confused, then we can ex-plain the response: Mexicans are truly cynical about the prospects ofachieving social justice, having lived without it for so long. They havedeveloped strategies for surviving in a country rife with injustices andwith one of the most unequal distribution pro�les of income in the world.

After all, the Mexican political system has only recently begun tomeaningfully change. Social justice will likely continue as an almostmythic goal, but as Mexico’s economic policies enrich the few, not themany, social justice may take on more concrete interpretations and be-come even more relevant to the average Mexican.

Put simply, Mexico’s current economic policies simply do not coin-cide with the Revolution’s basic principles. James F. Rochlin (1997:179),in his work on Mexican “security” issues, aptly noted:


It has been argued that the myth of the Mexican Revolution was traded for themyth of First World insertion, especially during 1988–1994. The myth is ametaphor for society’s faith and hope in the nation, and a key subjective ele-ment of social cohesion. A chilling component of the NAFTA period is that Mex-icans �nd themselves with no national myth at all. Revolutionary nationalismhas evaporated, and the myth of First World status was laced with false prom-ises. With the absence of hope in a clear national project, at the turn of the cen-tury Mexico �nds itself mired in the process of disintegrat ion.

The goal of national economic sovereignty is moot in the era of NAFTAand globalized neoliberalism. As Stephen D. Morris (1999: 393) stated,essentially “globalisation erodes the power and purpose of the nation-state.” And the ejido system has been of�cially ended. Respect for laborrights, moreover, becomes ever more dif�cult as labor becomes a �uidcommodity that transcends political borders.

Conclusion: Mexico in the Throes of Transition

The Mexican political system is in period of political transition, movingfrom classic semi-authoritarianism to a possible full-�edged democracy,which in many ways is truly revolutionary for a system that for so longsacri�ced democracy for political stabilit y and one-party rule. This tran-sition connotes not only change in political practices and institutionsbut also a fundamental shift in the Mexican regime’s sources of supportand political legitimacy. The legitimacy of Mexico’s postrevolutionarypolitical system has historically rested on a socialist-nationalist and rev-olutionary ideology, which no longer holds in the globalized neoliberalera. The more traditional sources of legitimacy are withering as proce-dural democracy promises a better future for Mexico and Mexicans, butthe government of Vicente Fox may �nd itself between a rock and hardplace when it comes to actually satisfying needs and value expectations,especially since people may be harboring unrealistically high expecta-tions. Democracy itself can be an important source of legitimacy, butMexicans must see their lives as improving, and as the traditional sourcesof legitimacy wither, Mexican political and social expectations will rise.As Roderic Ai Camp noted (2000: 636): “The majority of Mexicans ex-pect equality and economic progress from democracy, not liberty or fairelections.” These expectations can not outrun regime performance forvery long. There will be a time lag as the Mexican people and the regimecome to terms with the more modern and legal-rational sources of le-gitimacy associated with developed democracies. It is during this timelag that democracy is most fragile. Fox will de�nitely have a dif�cult roadahead of him, and it is highly likely that the PRI will attempt to capital-ize on any dif�culties that he may have while in of�ce. So far, Mexico


has procedural democracy without true political liberalism, despite thegains made in the last few elections. Until democracy is fully consoli-dated, the Mexican political regime still runs the danger of delegitima-tion, democratic breakdown, and instability.

Nonetheless, Mexicans now feel more comfortable voting for theopposition because the economic situation appears to be stable and im-proving. In this era of economic and political liberalization, party sup-port and voting behavior are becoming increasingly complex, but manyMexicans fear change and many are still concerned with the possible lo-cal consequences of not voting for the PRI. Voting for the opposition atthe national level likely generates fewer local effects than voting or notvoting for the PRI at the local level. Mexico certainly seems to be pro-gressing into an era of the genuine alternation of power between polit-ical parties and the negotiation of rule, but the process could still stag-nate politically and break down, which would then exacerbate existingsocial tensions. What is most certain is that Mexico’s political system isin �ux and democratization is unleashing potentially more con�ictiveforces, and the promises of democracy can fall far short of social expec-tations. Democracy must deliver noticeable and substantive bene�ts—that is, a better quality of life—and in a country like Mexico where somany live in poverty and where authoritarian tendencies still run strong,democracy could as easily break down as consolidate.

Does liberalization and the PRI’s �rst presidential defeat end thelegacy of the Mexican Revolution? Not yet, at least from a political cul-ture standpoint. Of course, nothing is assured in Mexico, and we cannot yet put the Mexican Revolution entirely to rest, even as Mexico morevigorously integrates into the global economy and as elites apply moreneoliberal policies. The country is currently experiencing a kind of massand regime cognitive dissonance as the arena of public discourse widensbeyond the PRI and the rhetoric of the Mexican Revolution.

For decades the ideology of the revolution has effectively marked the bound-aries of public debate, thereby limiting the emergence of alternative discourses.This ideology acted as unifying and formed the basis of an exclusive claim to po-litical power, thereby hampering the development of ideological pluralism.(Pansters 1999: 238)

While the basic principles of the Mexican Revolution live on in the heartsand minds of many Mexicans and still fuel many social expectations, Mex-ican elites have killed the programmatic agenda of the Revolution, de-spite continuing to use the Revolution as a rhetorical reference point.But since the PRI is the “of�cial” party of the Mexican Revolution, rev-olutionary ideals and values are still associated with the PRI, and thatparty has �nally met its �rst electoral defeat for Mexico’s highest exec-


utive of�ce. However, because of continuing and strong ideological andemotive associations, a great number of Mexicans still support the PRI.Lending support to this notion, Lynn Stephen (1997: 41–42) discoveredthat it is possible to be both “pro-Zapatista” and “pro-PRI” because thediscourse and legacy of the Revolution are so deeply embedded inMexico’s political culture:

This convergence of historical symbolism con�ating Zapata and the Mexican Rev-olution as employed by state agencies, the historical consciousness of eji-datarios of their own agrarian struggles, and the emergence of the Zapatistamovement have created a complex set of discourse and behavior concerningMexican agrarian polit ics, political ideology, and voting.

However, in Chiapas, where the Zapatista problem has been festering since1994 and where the PRI has traditionally and authoritatively dominatedpolitics, the PRI was defeated in the August 2000 race for governor byan opposition coalition candidate. Apparently, the Mexican people hadhad enough, publicly declaring that they would vote PRI but then se-cretly voting PAN, and democratic procedures do matter. People nowfeel safer voting for the opposition and a demonstration effect is occur-ring. This was especially evident when Chiapas state voted PRI in July2000 but then for an opposition coalit ion candidate one month later.

With the PRI now internally divided and faced with coming to termswith its possible (but not likely) demise, and with Mexicans feeling morecomfortable and safer voting as they see �t, it is now possible to con-template the consolidation of democracy in Mexico. Nonetheless, the Rev-olution was tacitly ended without ever being completed, and the regime’straditional rhetorical and symbolic commitment to it no longer makesmuch ideological sense. In fact, many argue that the Revolution wasfrozen during or soon after the Lázaro Cárdenas administration. That is,certain revolutionary goals were cemented early on to placate the masseswhile others were never to be truly implemented, replaced instead withempty rhetorical commitments. In fact, postrevolutionary Mexico’smost enduring dilemma has been how to reconcile the rhetoric of theRevolution with the reality of state practice and policy.

While the Mexican Revolution remains deeply embedded in Mexi-can political culture, it seems unlikely that Mexico will experience an-other full-blown revolution. This does not mean, however, that dissatis-�ed and frustrated Mexicans will not engage in regional violent politicalprotest. If the Chiapas and Guerrero situations and the increasing levelsof crime in Mexico City are any indication, apparently at least some Mex-icans are now more willing to engage in violent behaviors—some withovertly revolutionary-political goals. Nevertheless, there are now manymore avenues for political participat ion and protest, and Mexicans seem


willing and ready to use those avenues since the recent procedural dem-ocratic transition. Democratization continues apace—yet to fully con-solidate, because one or two clean elections do not a full-�edged democ-racy make—and will likely forestall a second Mexican Revolution, butonly if Mexicans begin to see their standard of living improving.

In sum, the survey data and analysis demonstrate that Mexicans gen-erally see the regime falling short in achieving the basic goals of the Mex-ican Revolution. Moreover, since the PRI was charged with carrying tofruition the programmatic agenda of the Mexican Revolution, it is notsurprising that Mexicans also see the PRI as not being in touch with thegeneral needs of el pueblo during the 1980s and 1990s.Now that Mexicohas embraced both neoliberalism and globalism can procedural democ-racy serve as the national adhesive to cobble together the Many Mexi-cos? Because of the democratic transition the Mexican Revolution is play-ing less of a role as a source of political legitimacy. However, there arestrong indications that the Revolution—understood as collective mem-ory, myth, history, and national identity—still holds a place in politicaldiscourse and rhetoric, even if it makes little logical sense in the era ofglobalizat ion. The idea of the Mexican Revolution does continue, butthe defeat of the PRI indicates that average Mexicans no longer considerthe PRI the legitimate standard-bearer not only of everyday hopes andaspirations but also of the Revolution. The current political system, de-spite its many transformations, is still, ultimately, the product of the Mex-ican Revolution. The system is indeed in �ux, but no one is yet speak-ing of post-postrevolutionary Mexico nor can anyone seriously claim thatMexico is now a full-�edged democracy.

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Documents

Gawronski, Vincent T. (2002) - The Revolution is Dead. ¡Viva La Revolución! - The Place of the Mexican Revolution in the Era of Globalization