Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico

Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico PDF Author: Wil G. Pansters
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804784477
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mexico is currently undergoing a crisis of violence and insecurity that poses serious threats to democratic transition and rule of law. This is the first book to put these developments in the context of post-revolutionary state-making in Mexico and to show that violence in Mexico is not the result of state failure, but of state-making. While most accounts of politics and the state in recent decades have emphasized processes of transition, institutional conflict resolution, and neo-liberal reform, this volume lays out the increasingly important role of violence and coercion by a range of state and non-state armed actors. Moreover, by going beyond the immediate concerns of contemporary Mexico, this volume pushes us to rethink longterm processes of state-making and recast influential interpretations of the so-called golden years of PRI rule. Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico demonstrates that received wisdom has long prevented the concerted and systematic study of violence and coercion in state-making, not only during the last decades, but throughout the post-revolutionary period. The Mexican state was built much more on violence and coercion than has been acknowledged—until now.

Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico

Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico PDF Author: Wil G. Pansters
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804784477
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mexico is currently undergoing a crisis of violence and insecurity that poses serious threats to democratic transition and rule of law. This is the first book to put these developments in the context of post-revolutionary state-making in Mexico and to show that violence in Mexico is not the result of state failure, but of state-making. While most accounts of politics and the state in recent decades have emphasized processes of transition, institutional conflict resolution, and neo-liberal reform, this volume lays out the increasingly important role of violence and coercion by a range of state and non-state armed actors. Moreover, by going beyond the immediate concerns of contemporary Mexico, this volume pushes us to rethink longterm processes of state-making and recast influential interpretations of the so-called golden years of PRI rule. Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico demonstrates that received wisdom has long prevented the concerted and systematic study of violence and coercion in state-making, not only during the last decades, but throughout the post-revolutionary period. The Mexican state was built much more on violence and coercion than has been acknowledged—until now.

Coercion, Survival, and War

Coercion, Survival, and War PDF Author: Phil Haun
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 080479507X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book Here

Book Description
In asymmetric interstate conflicts, great powers have the capability to coerce weak states by threatening their survival—but not vice versa. It is therefore the great power that decides whether to escalate a conflict into a crisis by adopting a coercive strategy. In practice, however, the coercive strategies of the U.S. have frequently failed. In Coercion, Survival and War Phil Haun chronicles 30 asymmetric interstate crises involving the US from 1918 to 2003. The U.S. chose coercive strategies in 23 of these cases, but coercion failed half of the time: most often because the more powerful U.S. made demands that threatened the very survival of the weak state, causing it to resist as long as it had the means to do so. It is an unfortunate paradox Haun notes that, where the U.S. may prefer brute force to coercion, these power asymmetries may well lead it to first attempt coercive strategies that are expected to fail in order to justify the war it desires. He concludes that, when coercion is preferred to brute force there are clear limits as to what can be demanded. In such cases, he suggests, U.S. policymakers can improve the chances of success by matching appropriate threats to demands, by including other great powers in the coercive process, and by reducing a weak state leader's reputational costs by giving him or her face-saving options.

Histories of Drug Trafficking in Twentieth-Century Mexico

Histories of Drug Trafficking in Twentieth-Century Mexico PDF Author: Wil G. Pansters
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826367372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Get Book Here

Book Description
This work brings together a new generation of drug historians and new historical sources to uncover the history of the drug trade and its regulations. While the US and Mexican governments developed anti-drug discourses and policies, which criminalized both high-profile traffickers and small-time addicts, these authorities also employed the criminals and cash connected to the drug trade to pursue more pressing political concerns. The politics, socioeconomic relations, and criminal justice system of modern Mexico have been shaped by these public and covert policies as well as by subnational histories of drug production and trafficking. The essays in this study explore this complicated narrative and provide insight into Mexico’s history and the wider contemporary global drug trade.

Rebel Mexico

Rebel Mexico PDF Author: Jaime M. Pensado
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804787298
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the 2014 Mexican Book Prize In the middle of the twentieth century, a growing tide of student activism in Mexico reached a level that could not be ignored, culminating with the 1968 movement. This book traces the rise, growth, and consequences of Mexico's "student problem" during the long sixties (1956-1971). Historian Jaime M. Pensado closely analyzes student politics and youth culture during this period, as well as reactions to them on the part of competing actors. Examining student unrest and youthful militancy in the forms of sponsored student thuggery (porrismo), provocation, clientelism (charrismo estudiantil), and fun (relajo), Pensado offers insight into larger issues of state formation and resistance. He draws particular attention to the shifting notions of youth in Cold War Mexico and details the impact of the Cuban Revolution in Mexico's universities. In doing so, Pensado demonstrates the ways in which deviating authorities—inside and outside the government—responded differently to student unrest, and provides a compelling explanation for the longevity of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional.

Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State

Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State PDF Author: Peter F. Guardino
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804741903
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is a study of the important but little-understood role of peasants in the formation of the Mexican national state--from the end of the colonial era to the beginning of La Reforma, a moment in which liberalism became dominant in Mexican political culture. The book shows how Mexico's national political system was formed through local struggles and alliances that deeply involved elements of Mexico's impoverished rural masses, notably the peasants who took part in many of the local regional, and national rebellions that characterized early nineteenth-century politics. These rebellions were not battles over whether or not there was to be a state; they were contests over what the state was to be. The author focuses on the region of Guerrero, whose peasantry were deeply involved in the two most important broadly based revolts of the early nineteenth century: the War of Independence of 1810-21, and the 1853-55 Revolution of Ayutla, the rebellion that began La Reforma. The book's central contention is that there are fundamental links between state formation, elite politics, popular protest, and the construction of Mexico's modern political culture. Various elite groups advanced different models of the state, which in turn had different implications for, and impacts on, the lives of Mexico's lower classes. Contesting elites formed alliance with segments of Mexico's peasantry as well as the urban poor and these alliances were crucial in determining national political outcomes. Thus, the participation of wide sectors of the population in politics for varying reasons--and the subsequent learning of tactics and elaborations of discourse--left an enduring mark on Mexico's political system and culture.

La Santa Muerte in Mexico

La Santa Muerte in Mexico PDF Author: Wil G. Pansters
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826360815
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines La Santa Muerte's role in people's daily lives and explores how popular religious practices of worship and devotion developed around a figure often associated with illicit activities.

Votes, Drugs, and Violence

Votes, Drugs, and Violence PDF Author: Guillermo Trejo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108899900
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 379

Get Book Here

Book Description
One of the most surprising developments in Mexico's transition to democracy is the outbreak of criminal wars and large-scale criminal violence. Why did Mexican drug cartels go to war as the country transitioned away from one-party rule? And why have criminal wars proliferated as democracy has consolidated and elections have become more competitive subnationally? In Votes, Drugs, and Violence, Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley develop a political theory of criminal violence in weak democracies that elucidates how democratic politics and the fragmentation of power fundamentally shape cartels' incentives for war and peace. Drawing on in-depth case studies and statistical analysis spanning more than two decades and multiple levels of government, Trejo and Ley show that electoral competition and partisan conflict were key drivers of the outbreak of Mexico's crime wars, the intensification of violence, and the expansion of war and violence to the spheres of local politics and civil society.

Police Reform in Mexico

Police Reform in Mexico PDF Author: Daniel Sabet
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804782067
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
The urgent need to professionalize Mexican police has been recognized since the early 1990s, but despite even the most well-intentioned promises from elected officials and police chiefs, few gains have been made in improving police integrity. Why have reform efforts in Mexico been largely unsuccessful? This book seeks to answer the question by focusing on Mexico's municipal police, which make up the largest percentage of the country's police forces. Indeed, organized crime presents a major obstacle to institutional change, with criminal groups killing hundreds of local police in recent years. Nonetheless, Daniel Sabet argues that the problems of Mexican policing are really problems of governance. He finds that reform has suffered from a number of policy design and implementation challenges. More importantly, the informal rules of Mexican politics have prevented the continuity of reform efforts across administrations, allowed patronage appointments to persist, and undermined anti-corruption efforts. Although many advances have been made in Mexican policing, weak horizontal and vertical accountability mechanisms have failed to create sufficient incentives for institutional change. Citizens may represent the best hope for counterbalancing the toxic effects of organized crime and poor governance, but the ambivalent relationship between citizens and their police must be overcome to break the vicious cycle of corruption and ineffectiveness.

The California-Mexico Connection

The California-Mexico Connection PDF Author: Katrina Burgess
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780804766401
Category : POLITICAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book Here

Book Description
Not since the early nineteenth century, when California was still part of Mexico, have there been such close ties between Mexico and its former northern territory. Today, one Californian in five is of Mexican heritage, compared with fewer than one in ten in 1970. California is Mexico's second-largest trading partner (after Texas) and Mexico is California's second-largest trading partner (after Japan). This book is the first in any language to explore the nature, scope, and effects of the California-Mexico connection. It analyses the movements of people, goods, money, politics, and culture across the California-Mexico border, and explores its implications for both parties.

México Beyond 1968

México Beyond 1968 PDF Author: Jaime M. Pensado
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816539081
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Get Book Here

Book Description
México Beyond 1968 examines the revolutionary organizing and state repression that characterized Mexico during the 1960s and 1970s. The massacre of students in Mexico City in October 1968 is often considered the defining moment of this period. The authors in this volume challenge the centrality of that moment by looking at the broader story of struggle and repression across Mexico during this time. México Beyond 1968 complicates traditional narratives of youth radicalism and places urban and rural rebellions within the political context of the nation’s Dirty Wars during this period. The book illustrates how expressions of resistance developed from the ground up in different regions of Mexico, including Chihuahua, Guerrero, Jalisco, Mexico City, Puebla, and Nuevo León. Movements in these regions took on a variety of forms, including militant strikes, land invasions, cross-country marches, independent forums, popular organizing, and urban and rural guerrilla uprisings. México Beyond 1968 brings together leading scholars of Mexican studies today. They share their original research from Mexican archives partially opened after 2000 and now closed again to scholars, and they offer analysis of this rich primary source material, including interviews, political manifestos, newspapers, and human rights reports. By centering on movements throughout Mexico, México Beyond 1968 underscores the deep-rooted histories of inequality and the frustrations with a regime that monopolized power for decades. It challenges the conception of the Mexican state as “exceptional” and underscores and refocuses the centrality of the 1968 student movement. It brings to light the documents and voices of those who fought repression with revolution and asks us to rethink Mexico’s place in tumultuous times. Contributors: Alexander Aviña Adela Cedillo A. S. Dillingham Luis Herrán Avila Fernando Herrera Calderón Gladys I. McCormick Enrique C. Ochoa Verónica Oikión Solano Tanalís Padilla Wil G. Pansters Jaime M. Pensado Gema Santamaría Michael Soldatenko Carla Irina Villanueva Eric Zolov