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Mexico in Transition

Mexico in Transition

Gerardo Otero

(2008)

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Abstract

Mexico in Transition provides a wide-ranging, empirical and up-to-date survey of the multiple impacts neoliberal policies have had in practice in Mexico over twenty years, and the specific impacts of the NAFTA Agreement. The volume covers a wide terrain, including the effects of globalization on peasants; the impact of neoliberalism on wages, trade unions, and specifically women workers; the emergence of new social movements El Barzón and the Zapatistas (EZLN); how the environment, especially biodiversity, has become a target for colonization by transnational corporations; the political issue of migration to the United States; and the complicated intersections of economic and political liberalization. Mexico in Transition provides rich concrete evidence of what happens to the different sectors of an economy, its people, and natural resources, as the profound change of direction that neoliberal policy represents takes hold. It also describes and explains the diverse forms of resistance and challenge that different civil-society groups of those affected are now offering to a model the downsides of which are becoming increasingly manifest.
'Mexico in Transition is a wonderful collection that will provide readers a broad and insightful analysis of the impact of twenty years of neoliberal policies and the ways that Mexicans have responded to these changes.' Judith Adler Hellman, author of Mexico in Crisis 'A superb collection of essays on matters of labour, the peasantry, migrants, indigenous groups, women, export industries, and debtors, that brings to light the "other side" of neoliberalism, namely the problems it creates and grass-roots efforts to redress the problems.' Susan Eckstein, Latin American Studies Association 'A must read for anyone interested in the political economy of development.' Michael J. Watts, University of California
Gerardo Otero is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Latin American Studies Program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Cover Cover
Contents v
Figures and tables viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 | Mexico’s double movement: neoliberal globalism, the state and civil society 1
Gerardo Otero 1
Neoliberal globalism, the state and civil society 2
Mexico’s two cycles of double movements 6
Conclusions and organization of this book 11
2 | Rebellious cornfields: towards food and labour self-sufficiency 18
Armando Bartra\r 18
Mexico’s countryside can endure no more 20
A brief history of the collapse 22
Dealing with Mexico’s lower half: Plan Puebla-Panamá 29
Beyond neoliberal globalism 31
Conclusion 33
3 | Fruits of injustice: women in the post-NAFTA food system 37
Deborah Barndt 37
Precious human cargo 37
The Tomasita project 37
Interlocking analysis of power 39
Mexican women workers – in Mexico 41
Factories in the fields: hi-tech greenhouse production 43
Into the fields 45
Mexican women workers – in Canada 47
Fruits of injustice and seeds of hope 50
Notes 50
4 | Conservation or privatization? Biodiversity, the global market and the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor 52
Laura Carlsen\r 52
Conservationist thought and the birth of corporate conservation 53
The Mesoamerican Biological Corridor 59
An alternative model of indigenous/peasant stewardship 67
Notes 71
5 | State corporatism and peasant organizations: towards new institutional arrangements 72
Horacio Mackinlay and Gerardo Otero\r 72
Corporatist theory and Mexican authoritarianism 73
The Mexican ejido system and corporatist authoritarianism 78
Towards new institutional arrangements 86
Conclusions 88
Note 88
6 | Institutional democratization: changing political practices and the sugarcane growers’ unions of the PRI 89
Peter Singelmann\r 89
Industrial crisis and new challenges 92
The changing political parameters of the growers’ unions 95
Conclusions 101
Notes 103
7 | Manufacturing neoliberalism: industrial relations, trade union corporatism and politics 104
Enrique de\r la Garza Toledo 104
The macroeconomy in the 1990s: the neoliberal transition 106
Changes in the industrial relations system 110
Conclusions 119
8 | Who reaps the productivity growth in Mexico? Convergence or polarization in manufacturing real wages, 1988–99 121
Enrique Dussel Peters\r 121
Concepts and overall tendencies in Mexico’s labour market and productivity 121
Real wages, productivity and employment 125
Performance of branches with highest labour productivity 130
Conclusions 136
9 | Labour and migration policies under Vicente Fox: subordination to US economic and geopolitical interests 138
Raul Delgado Wise\r 138
The true face of trade between Mexico and the USA 140
Dialectic between export growth and international migration 143
Mexico’s migration policy: from ‘no policy’ to open subordination 147
The migrant community and the challenges of neoliberal globalism 152
10 | Community, economy and social change in Oaxaca, Mexico: rural life and cooperative logic in the global economy 154
Jeffrey H. Cohen\r 154
The community 154
Usos y costumbres: some ways to cooperate in Santa Ana 155
Approaching identity 159
Santañero past and present 160
Economy and identity 162
Cooperative traditions and change 165
Cooperation and solidarity in contemporary Santa Ana 166
Conclusions 167
Notes 168
11 | Survival strategies in neoliberal markets: peasant organizations and organic coffee in Chiapas 169
Maria Elena Martinez Torres\r 169
Coffee, neoliberalism and international markets 170
Responding to market and state reconfiguration 172
Case studies 179
Conclusions 184
Note 185
12 | The binational integration of the US–Mexican avocado industries: examining responses to economic globalism 186
Lois Stanford\r 186
Establishment, growth and economics of the avocado industry in California and Mexico 188
Mexican entry into the US market, 1997–2002: impacts of globalism 192
Market integration 192
Company operations at the local level 195
Challenges and alternatives to neoliberal globalism 198
Conclusion 202
Notes 203
13 | Convergence: social movements in Mexico in the era of neoliberal globalism 204
Humberto Gonzalez\r 204
New social movements 204
Neoliberal policy in Mexico 206
Bank debtors opposed to state policy: the civil arena 208
The struggle in the juridical and political arena 214
Political action and political parties 217
Conclusions 218
Note 220
14 | Contesting neoliberal globalism from below: the EZLN, Indian rights and citizenship 221
Gerardo Otero\r 221
Political-class formation (PCF) and civil society 222
Regional cultures, collective identity construction and indigenous demands 224
Expanding national borders within: Indian rights and citizenship 227
Conclusions 233
Note 235
About the contributors 236
Abbreviations 238
Bibliography 242
Index 265