Home › Features › Essays › Mexico at an Impasse

Mexico at an Impasse

M. Delal Baer
January/February 2004
Summary -- 

Three years into Mexico's democratic revolution, few of its hopes have been realized: the political system is gridlocked, the economy is stagnant, and relations with the United States are deteriorating. A crisis is not imminent, but progress must come soon if Mexico's grand experiment with political and economic liberty is to continue.

M. Delal Baer is Director of the Mexico Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and editor of The NAFTA Debate.

Login or Register to leave a comment.

THE EXPECTATIONS REVOLUTIONS

The July 2000 defeat of Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) after more than 70 years of rule sparked a revolution in expectations. There were celebrations in the streets, glowing editorials in foreign newspapers, and expressions of undiluted optimism in investment and policy circles. Newly elected president Vicente Fox projected a triumphant image of strength and confidence that inflated hopes at home and abroad: private investment would flood in, the rule of law would prevail, the sins of the past would be punished, and the U.S.-Mexico relationship would flower. More profoundly, Mexico would elude its existential condition as an underdeveloped nation.

Three years into Mexico's democratic transition, few of these dreams have been realized. Mexican politics are more democratic but less governable and are suffering from gridlock between the executive and legislative branches. The economy is stable, but growth and competitiveness are lagging as the next generation of reforms -- tax, energy, and labor -- falls prey to partisan bickering in Mexico's Congress. And the friendship between Fox and President George W. Bush has cooled over differences about immigration and policy toward Iraq. Mexico shows no signs of an imminent crisis, but its triple political, economic, and diplomatic impasse is taking a toll. The price of unreasonably high expectations has been premature disillusionment. A breakthrough in at least one area must come fairly soon -- lest Mexico's grand experiment with economic and political liberty fail to fulfill its potential.

UNGOVERNABLE DEMOCRACY

The principal concern of Mexico's political elite today is how to build governing majorities and achieve consensus. After three years of stalemate in Congress, there is debate over whether Mexico's political paralysis is the result of a constitutional structure that makes it inherently ungovernable or of weak leadership on the part of President Fox. The answer to this question is not insignificant. If the logjam is due to weak leadership, the presidential elections of 2006 might resolve the problem. If the logjam, however, is structural in nature, it will be much more difficult to overcome.

This is a premium article

You must be a Foreign Affairs subscriber to continue reading. If you are already a print subscriber, click here to activate your online access.

Buy PDF

Buy a premium PDF reprint of this article.

Related

Essay, Jul 1970
The Spoils of the Mexican Revolution
John Womack, Jr.

The Mexican Revolution is doing well-not the grievous struggle for justice that started 60 years ago, in the ancient past before the First World War, but the famous economic boom that Mexican entrepreneurs have executed in the present generation. The old days of revolt are gone-the days of dictators falling, grimy rebels storming into the towns, cotton choppers and mechanics debating in sovereign assemblies. The grand staging of the Olympics two years ago gave proof that the business of the Mexican Revolution is now business.

Read
Essay, Winter 1985
Mexico at the Brink
Jorge G. Castaneda

Mexico's famed political stability has not been destroyed by the country's current economic crisis. But that stability can no longer be taken for granted. Over the past half-century, the Mexican political system has brought economic development, albeit unjustly distributed, inefficiently planned and plagued with waste and corruption. It has ensured social peace and political continuity, although with recurrent repression and electoral fraud. And it has maintained peaceful relations with the United States, despite asymmetries, irritants and sporadic confrontations. These three pillars of Mexico's stability, which is unique in Latin America, are not yet crumbling, but all are growing weaker, as is the political system they sustain.

Read
Essay, Fall 1984
Mexico: The New Challenges
Miguel de la Madrid H.

In 1985, Mexico will commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of its revolution. A new political system and social order was founded after 1910, which modernized our nation within a climate of democratic freedom and political stability. Now, toward the end of the century, Mexico faces harsh new challenges. Our economic development has brought structural imbalances which must be corrected, and we face the immediate impacts of external pressures, the international economic situation, and conflicts afflicting the international system in Central America, the Middle East and other regions of the world.

Read
Cover image

In the Magazine

July/August 2009 / 4, 88
Essay
Africa's Capitalist Revolution
Ethan B. Kapstein

Many economies in Africa have remained largely sheltered from the global financial crisis. To keep economic development there on track, the West must avoid protectionist impulses.
Read