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Review
| Mexico Under Fox, edited by Luis Rubio and Susan Kaufman Purcell. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004. 178 pages. $16.95, paper.
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| The editors of Mexico Under Fox have assembled six essays that examine Mexico's political system, its economic and social policy, and its international relationship since Vicente Fox's 2000 election. Editor Luis Rubio works through CIDAC, a private Mexico City based research institute. His coeditor Susan Kaufman Purcell works through the Americas Society and the Council of the Americas. These are New York based organizations associated with the Rockefeller family and large corporations that promote and support investment and legislation conducive to investment in Latin America. One example would be their support for the FTAA. The book is a follow up to an earlier work Mexico Under Zedillo. |
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The authors of the six essays provide an astute reader with a general comprehension of twentieth century Mexican history by presenting a very understandable dissection of Mexican realpolitik and the Mexican domestic economy. A brief review of PRI history at the beginning of the first essay places the current debate in historical perspective, which is a strong point of the book. Luis Rubio discusses the sexenio, the 1968 student riots in Mexico City, and the Byzantine system of patronage which the PRI has used so effectively for decades of political power leading to entrenched corporatist institutions such as PEMEX and Telmex. The subsequent essays debate the effectiveness of Fox's political efforts in different arenas of domestic and international policy, and the authors speculate on the possibilities of the remaining years of his term. I found some of the writing on Jorge Castañeda's brief tenure, U.N. politics before the Iraq war, and the post-9/11 APEC meetings at Los Cabos to be intriguing. |
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The authors' frustration and exasperation with the inability of Mexican institutions to meet their full potential echoes throughout the book. That Mexico, a nation of 100 million people and ample natural resources, does not reach a higher level of development has been a big question for many scholars, citizens and politicians. It seems that corruption, poverty, and inefficiency are trenchant problems which critics of all shades agree need to be solved. But by what path can they be solved? Mexico Under Fox clearly sees the path to a better Mexico through a free market approach that would disassemble much of what was built from the time of the 1910 Revolution onward. Author Edna Jaime, for example, writes about the inability of Fox and the executive branch to create structural reforms in the outdated and inadequate electricity sector. Fox's proposals meet with failure in the PRI dominated legislature. "The triumph of these interests over the executive branch was furthered by uninformed public opinion...deeply rooted ideas of sovereignty as synonymous with public ownership of firms in strategic sectors,...a divided political class that lacks consensus...(and) a legislature...with a powerful desire for revenge." (p. 59). Teachers' and workers' unions and ejidos are also singled out as elements of society that stubbornly refuse to change. |
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Those seeking an analysis of changes under Fox in areas outside of politics or economics will be disappointed with what this work offers. Race, gender, class consciousness, art, music or other areas of culture are not included. I found some of the work to be dismissive or even contemptuous of many Mexican attitudes or social institutions. The human costs of the Revolution, the foreign monopolies of the Porfirio Diaz era, or really any idea associated with socialism are not taken into serious account, though in my opinion failure to do so creates an inaccurate view of Mexico. Nevertheless, Mexico Under Fox updates and synthesizes the events of Vicente Fox's first three years in office. The analyses of NAFTA and of attempted reforms and diplomatic relations after September 11th and the war in Iraq provide a condensed overview on recent developments. The work is solid and serious, and I would recommend it for reading as much by a World Bank executive as by a WTO street protestor. As a caution I would say that the text reads like a business report, but that it would find a ready audience with Latin American economists, journalists, political scientists, MBA students interested in Latin America and modern Mexican historians. The 177-page work should be used in upper level undergraduate and graduate level classes, as it debates a fairly specialized subject matter. |
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| Los Angeles Harbor College |
William Diaz-Brown |
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