Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics 1940-1968 PDF

3 Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics,...

3 Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics, 1940–​1968 All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. F rom 1940 onward, Mexico held regular elections, boasted high levels of popular participation, featured a wide array of opposing political parties, and observed peaceful transfers of power from one administration to the next. Most important, unlike during the Porfiriato, no one person held absolute power over time. Yet for most of the next several decades, few observers viewed Mexico as a democracy. Indeed, the irony of the Mexican Revolution was that it ultimately produced one of the most durable autocratic regimes of the twentieth century. Contributing to the antidemocratic character of postrevolutionary Mexico was the PRI’s utilization of classic machine-​style politics. While generating genuine support from the party’s clientelistic beneficiaries, the machine also restricted competition through exclusion, fraud, and even the coercive use of force. In this chapter, we explore these characteristics of Mexico’s postrevolutionary system, with special attention to the institutions and practices that held it together for more than sixty years. The discussion will illustrate how the PRI’s favored institutions and tactics eventually undermined its own legitimacy and set the stage for Mexico’s transition to democracy during the latter part of the twentieth century. UNDERSTANDING POSTREVOLUTIONARY MEXICAN POLITICS Mexico’s postrevolutionary political system defies easy classification. It had many of the characteristics of authoritarianism, a political system in which the government derives power through force and coercion. Yet at the same time, Mexican politics also bore the trappings of a democratic political system, in which the government relies Copyright 2020. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. on a system of popular participation, political contestation, and representation. As a result, for much of its modern history, political scientists tended to describe Mexico alternately as either a semiauthoritarian regime or a restricted democracy.1 To be sure, Mexico’s political system was not like other authoritarian regimes.2 Mexico’s revolutionary party held regular elections and relied more on a sophisticated system of co-​optation than on the use of coercive force. During the 1940s to the 1970s, 51 EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY AN: 2398948 ; Emily Edmonds-Poli, David A. Shirk.; Contemporary Mexican Politics Account: s8329666.main.edslive  52 Chapter 3 a period in which many other Latin American countries fell into military dictatorships, the Mexican military was notably absent from government, and the country’s political system appeared relatively stable and even somewhat democratic. Perhaps most important, the regime genuinely enjoyed widespread popular support and achieved important accomplishments in terms of economic performance and the redistribution of wealth. Hence, despite the undemocratic features of the PRI system or “regime,” political scientists were reluctant to refer to Mexican politics as “authoritarian.”3 Still, in other ways, Mexico’s postrevolutionary political system hardly resembled other democracies, due to severely restricted electoral competition and occasional instances of violent repression. Indeed, Mexico was an enigma for many political observers, who viewed it as a democracy with adjectives: an “electoral autocracy,” a democradura, or (at best) an “emerging democracy.”4 By the 1940s, the ruling party had reorganized itself as the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI), which remained the sole party of government for decades to come. Since Mexican elections were anything but “free and fair,” PRI candidates for public office almost always won. They benefited not only from fraudulently manipulated election results but also from the partisan support of the media and government resources to buy popular support. Moreover, the PRI’s total dominance of all branches and levels of government led to widespread corruption and abuse of power. In the worst cases, when opponents could not be bested or co-​opted by the system, they were harassed, disappeared, or even killed. While these occurrences were rare, such a system could hardly be labeled as democratic and for decades—​without opportunities for genuine political participation and contestation—​appeared to have little prospect of changing. Even as late as 1999, a satirical film about Mexican politics was initially banned because of its critical depictions of the ruling party (see textbox 3.1). Textbox 3.1. HEROD’S LAW Written and directed by Luis Estrada, the award-​winning film La Ley de Herodes (Herod’s Law) is a dark political satire set in Mexico in 1949, during the administration of President Miguel Aleḿan. In the role of Juan Vargas, Mexican actor Damían Alćazar plays an innocent, good-​natured junkyard operator who is tapped by his friend Ramírez, a mid-level bureaucrat from the ruling party, to serve as the interim replacement for a corrupt mayor (presidente municipal) who was driven out of office. Vargas and his wife, Gloria, are deeply appreciative of the opportunity and head off to the small indigenous town of San Pedro de los Saguaros. Vargas’s initial efforts to play politics on the straight and narrow lead only to disappointment. On the advice of Ramírez’s boss, the minister of the interior (secretario de gobierno), Vargas gradually comes to understand the crass reality of Mexican politics, which he calls Herod’s Law: “Screw or be screwed.” The film’s theatrical release in 1999 was initially prohibited by the Mexican government due to its references to systemic corruption and political assassination. However, filmmakers and the press, making accusations of political censorship, successfully pressured the government to release the movie. The film provides a useful, if controversial, allegory for thinking about Mexican politics during the classic period of PRI rule. EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics, 1940–1968 53 Remarkably, this political system kept its predominant features over many years. For most of the twentieth century, the classic elements of Mexico’s postrevolutionary system were single-​party hegemony, a virtual fusion of party and government, the centralization of power, restricted political opposition, and occasional instances of repression. Moreover, the political system presided over by the PRI appeared so steady and enduring that some observers referred to it as a “living museum.”5 Today, of course, hindsight tells us that the classic PRI political system was not so impervious to change. Indeed, Mexican politics began to undergo a significant transition toward democracy in the latter part of the twentieth century. By the year 2000, the stable, semiauthoritarian political system that grew out of the Mexican Revolution was replaced by a system that was significantly more democratic but much less predictable. To understand Mexico’s longer-​term transformation over the past few decades, it is essential to have a clear grasp of the dynamics of postrevolutionary politics and the tremendous challenge of consolidating power after a major violent upheaval. As we saw in ­chapter 2, reconstructing and establishing control over the state apparatus after 1910 took more than a decade. The massive mobilization of the population required Mexico’s leaders to create institutions that would facilitate power sharing and decision-​making across the diverse sectors and interests mobilized by the revolution. Moreover, like other postrevolutionary societies in the twentieth century, Mexico found unity and long-​term stability in the creation of a single, institutionalized political party. We therefore begin our exploration of Mexico’s postrevolutionary system with an examination of the history and role of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. PRI HEGEMONY IN ELECTIONS AND GOVERNMENT As discussed earlier, the National Revolutionary Party (Partido Nacional Revolucionario, PNR) was originally founded in 1929 by Plutarco Elías Calles as a means to harness (and to promote national unity among) the forces unleashed by the revolution. The PNR was dissolved in December 1937 and later reorganized as the Party of the Mexican Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Mexicana, PRM), reflecting the desire of President Lázaro Cárdenas to empower the revolution’s neglected labor and agrarian sectors. Cárdenas’s successor, Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940–​1946), introduced further changes to the ruling party and thereby established the enduring elements of Mexico’s postrevolutionary system for the remainder of the twentieth century. Its symbolic status as the champion of the revolution contributed to the ruling party’s genuine popularity among many Mexican voters. The “party of the revolution” bore an intrinsic connection to the founding event and mythology of the Mexican political system and to revolutionary heroes like Villa and Zapata; thus, the ruling party appealed to many voters’ nationalist sentiments.6 Indeed, the ruling party ultimately took explicit advantage of this connection by adopting the colors of the Mexican flag as its own (sometimes confusing illiterate voters who could be persuaded to simply vote for “Mexico”). Moreover, the fact that the PRI presided over a prolonged period of sustained economic growth during most of the mid-​twentieth century provided a substantial degree of “performance legitimacy.” EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  54 Chapter 3 Hence, although the PRI’s advocacy of revolutionary goals often tended to be merely rhetorical, the widespread support of the PRI should not be underestimated. However, the ruling party’s long-​term monopoly on power in Mexico was not just symbolic nor merely the result of a slavish, uneducated electorate. Rather, the dominance of the revolutionary party was the result of a sophisticated system of institutional arrangements and incentives. While several elements of this system were already in place by the beginning of the 1940s, two important changes took place in 1946 that solidified the ruling party and ensured its dominant position in Mexican politics for the remainder of the twentieth century. The first was the creation of the Federal Electoral Law, which established the mechanisms of electoral control that ensured the party’s monopoly on power. The second was the reorganization of the ruling party, which completed its evolution as Mexico’s dominant political force. Below we examine these major developments, how they contributed to the institutionalization of the ruling party, and the functioning of the PRI’s classic postrevolutionary system. The Institutionalization of the Ruling Party The long-​term hegemony of the ruling party over all other rivals was in part guaranteed by the centralization of control over federal electoral procedures. Specifically, as we will discuss in ­chapter 7, the passage of the 1946 Federal Electoral Law placed the regulation of elections for the president and all federal legislators under the control of the Interior Ministry (Secretaría de Gobernación). Previously, state governments were responsible for regulating and tabulating elections, as has been historically the case in the United States. With the 1946 reform, however, Mexico’s electoral system now became more centralized, since one of the president’s most important cabinet ministries was now the authority responsible for registering political parties, overseeing campaigns, and reporting electoral results. This gave significant advantages to the ruling party and also greatly affected the structure of power relationships in Mexico, as the sitting president could effectively modify electoral regulations, prohibit the registration of certain political parties, and ultimately control electoral outcomes.7 In effect, the Federal Electoral Law enabled the ruling party to establish itself as a nationwide political machine with an automatic or machine-​like ability to consistently place its candidates in public office and exercise control over the government. Like political machines elsewhere around the world, including those in the United States in the early and mid-​twentieth century, the power of Mexico’s ruling party was derived in large part from its control over the electoral process. Indeed, postrevolutionary governments frequently resorted to fixing electoral contests through a variety of techniques of fraud, such as having voters return to vote multiple times at the same polling place (“carousel” or “merry-​go-​round” voting), stuffing ballot boxes with folded wads of ballots known as “vote tacos” (tacos de votos), adding false names to voter rolls (e.g., Cantinflas or Mickey Mouse), bringing prestuffed or “pregnant” ballot boxes (urnas embarazadas) to the polls, or simply manipulating official figures. Because the party’s representatives in government controlled the electoral process, there were no legal means to challenge these practices. Hence, the 1946 Federal Electoral Law provided a political instrument to ensure the ruling party’s lasting monopoly on power. EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics, 1940–1968 55 The 1946 Federal Electoral Law also had an important impact on the structure of power arrangements within the ruling party. In particular, the centralization of electoral control at the national level significantly empowered federal authorities vis-​ à-​vis state and local officials, who might otherwise have used their control over local elections to build their own, state-​level bases of power, as was the case in the United States during the era of machine politics. Instead, in Mexico’s postrevolutionary context, machine politics was projected to the national level. Moreover, placing the electoral process under the supervision of the president ensured that political control was not only centralized at the national level but also within the executive branch. Would-​be federal legislators and even the president’s successor depended on the favor of the sitting president. Indeed, as we discuss below in more detail, the organizational structure of the PRI created a hierarchical chain of relationships and loyalties that helped ensure a high degree of party loyalty and predictability. PRI Organizational Structures In addition to centralizing Mexico’s electoral laws, another major development occurred in 1946 when the ruling party underwent a second major reorganization. That year, President Manuel Ávila Camacho was preparing to transfer power to his handpicked successor, then interior secretary Miguel Alemán Valdés. The ruling party’s rebirth as the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI) constituted an emblematic and lasting transformation. The ruling party’s new moniker neatly encapsulated both its role as the champion of the revolution and the paradoxical consolidation of a permanent revolution. Moreover, so institutionalized was the ruling party that it would maintain its lock on power and its basic organizational structure for the next half century. On paper, the PRI had a national, state, and local committee structure; formally elected party leaders and appointed officers; and established internal democratic procedures for determining its candidates and platforms. In practice, the PRI was a political machine with highly centralized and autocratic features whose survival depended on its symbiotic relationship with the government. Ávila Camacho’s reorganization of the party also had the important effect of demilitarizing the ruling party, which highlighted some of the tensions that had developed in his own election in 1940. Ávila Camacho, Mexico’s last president with military experience, had seen very little combat in the revolution and therefore lacked the military cast of the presidents immediately preceding his candidacy.8 In the 1940 election, he faced conservative General Juan Andreu Almazán, who broke from the ruling party out of objection to the policies of Lázaro Cárdenas and what he perceived to be a lack of adequate representation of military interests within the ruling party. Though the election was heavily contested and exhibited indications of fraud, Ávila Camacho was named the victor. In the aftermath, Ávila Camacho worked deliberately to diminish the influence of the military and make way for a new breed of civilian political leadership.9 These efforts were critical in distinguishing Mexico’s political system from others in Latin America, where a prominent role in domestic politics led to military takeovers and prolonged periods of authoritarian rule by the armed forces. While the decision to reduce the power and visibility of the military sector in Mexican politics was of great importance, this EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  56 Chapter 3 is not to say that the military became unimportant in Mexico, nor—​as we discuss later—​that it failed to support the regime when needed. In the formal organization of interest groups within the ruling party, the armed forces were supplanted by a new “popular sector” that represented Mexico’s middle class, professionals, and government bureaucrats. While Cárdenas had informally integrated these groups into the party beginning in 1938, in 1943 they were formally incorporated with the creation of the National Confederation of Popular Organizations (Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares, CNOP). Hence, with the reorganization of 1946, the ruling party’s corporatist system now consisted of three formally recognized sectors: a labor sector most prominently represented by the CTM, an agrarian sector represented by the CNC, and a popular sector represented by the CNOP (see textbox 3.2). The relative size of these three sectors could be estimated by their representation among the PRI’s federal deputies, with the agrarian sector holding the largest share of seats until the 1960s. The labor and agrarian sectors were well rewarded for their organizational muscle—​ their capacity to mobilize large groups to support the ruling party at campaign rallies and on election day. Gradually, however, the popular sector proved an especially important source of leadership and political mobilization for the PRI, supplanting the agrarian sector and serving as the brains of the ruling party.10 Textbox 3.2. CORPORATISM Corporatism is a system in which there is formal and structured incorporation of key interest groups into government decision-​making processes. The term corporatism comes from the Latin word for “the body,” or corpus, and refers to the incorporation of separate units as part of an integrated system. The concept of corporatism was first developed within the Catholic Church as a way of coordinating civic groups and unions that were not formally part of the ecclesiastical body of the Church. Corporatist practices were later applied to politics in Europe and Latin America in the mid-​twentieth century, as governments incorporated highly mobilized popular sectors in Italy (fascism), Germany (Nazism), and Argentina (Peronism). Today, contemporary social corporatism, as found in Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, and Sweden, provides for formal and structured negotiations between democratic governments and key interest groups as a means of facilitating consensus in political decision-​making. In many corporatist arrangements, the government plays a significant role in the formation of associations and interest groups that are formally “incorporated” within the system. In effect, the government therefore determines which interest groups will have a seat at the table. Thus, in some corporatist systems, interests that are not officially recognized may be ignored and may even face harassment or discrimination because they compete with official interest groups. In contrast, pluralism is an alternative model in which autonomously formed and sometimes inchoate interests (for example, in the United States, the National Rifle Association, the Sierra Club, chambers of commerce, etc.) vie for influence on governmental decisions, often with varying degrees of success. That is, in a pluralist system, a group’s influence on government tends to be determined by its financial clout or other factors, such as the effectiveness of its lobbying efforts. EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics, 1940–1968 57 In addition to its corporatist features, the PRI’s organization relied on a complex structure of hierarchical relationships of political exchange among individuals, frequently described as clientelism. Clientelism refers to an arrangement in which individuals with access to power serve as the patrons—​or providers of material benefits and services—​to a certain set of constituents, or clients, in exchange for their allegiance and support (see textbox 3.3). In effect, the PRI consisted of a clientelistic power structure of personal relationships that extended through the federal, state, and local levels, from the highest levels of the political arena to everyday citizens. Within that system, a politician’s prospects for advancing his own career depended on his connections to and ability to win the favor of higher-​ranking politicians. That politician used his access to power to bestow political favors to his most loyal and trusted subordinates, who in turn worked to help that politician advance his goals and mobilize political support, often by drawing on their own network of clients. Textbox 3.3. CLIENTELISM Clientelism is a system in which certain types of goods or favors are exchanged between an individual with access to power and his supporters. The types of benefits bestowed by a “patron” to his “clients” may include tangible material benefits (such as a job, supplies, food, or small gifts) or simply preferential access to certain types of services (such as issuance of public permits, the resolution of fines, or even basic sanitation). The types of support offered by a client may include public demonstrations of support (such as attending a campaign event) or simply showing up to vote for one’s patron on election day. Finally, because clientelist systems often depend heavily on long-​term personal relationships and norms of deference, some of the benefits exchanged can be purely symbolic, such as a visit by the patron or the client to the wedding of a family member. Naturally, the more valuable the support rendered by the client, the greater the potential rewards a patron may offer. The concept of clientelism need not be restricted to the political arena, since patron-​client relationships are often observed within social organizations, organized crime syndicates, and even in certain professions. Indeed, the opening scene of The Godfather portrays a classic example of clientelism, as Vito Corleone offers a favor to Amerigo Bonasera, a humble mortician who asks for his intervention to solve a delicate problem. The Godfather agrees, but notes that “someday, and that day may never come, I may call on you to return the favor.” Such patron-​client relationships are often employed to determine “who gets what, and how” in politics. However, in the political arena, clientelism has a negative connotation because it frequently results in the unequitable distribution of public resources. That is, while a patron-​client system provides some individuals with preferential access to government jobs, services, and other benefits, those who do not support the patron can be deprived of these benefits. Some political observers have noted that a system of preferential access can have certain advantages, particularly for otherwise excludable minorities. For example, in the United States, the clientelistic political machines of New York and Chicago provided Irish and other minorities with access to government jobs and resources. However, modern democracies strive toward a system that does not privilege one group over another but instead provides public goods for the overall benefit of society. EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  58 Chapter 3 A politician’s ties to supporters therefore often reflected long-​standing personal relationships accumulated over years of loyalty, trust, and close interaction. Transferring political loyalties from one faction to another was rare and likely to be viewed with suspicion. The networks of personal influence that developed around individual personalities were referred to as camarillas, and the more elevated a politician’s position became in the PRI’s “labyrinths of power,” the greater the benefits and the support he could generate for his own faction within the party.11 Meanwhile, at lower levels, individuals who failed to advance through the ranks did their best to make lateral moves, sometimes recycling and alternating their positions.12 At the bottom of this chain of influence, of course, were individual voters (especially poor urban and rural voters in dire need of assistance) whose meager benefits of preferential access might include a sandwich (torta) or a T-​shirt for showing up to vote, or a chance to resolve an administrative matter through their connections in the ruling party. Yet even such ordinary citizens demonstrated remarkable loyalty and support for the PRI. Given the PRI’s proclivity for electoral fraud and given that voter support was often contingent on a system of tangible rewards and punishments, it is of course difficult to determine how much political support for the PRI was legitimate. What is clear is that, for the better part of the twentieth century, large numbers of Mexicans regularly backed the PRI at the ballot box, in opinion polls, and in other public demonstrations of support. Party Discipline, Power Sharing, and Ideological Flexibility Given Mexico’s particular institutional context and the prevalence of clientelistic relationships, it is not surprising that there was a very high degree of party discipline within the PRI. The pressure to demonstrate loyalty to the party—​for example, by supporting the PRI’s candidates, official decisions, and legislation—​was especially acute because of Mexico’s constitutional prohibitions on immediate reelection. Mexico’s virtually sacred commitment to the principle of no reelection ensured a high degree of turnover (and a low degree of continuity) in public administration. That is, from one administration to the next, incoming presidents, governors, and mayors would redistribute the spoils of public office—​ political appointments, bureaucratic positions, and government staff jobs—​ to their own networks of clientelistic supporters. Thus, at the end of one’s term in office, the only hope for career advancement in the next administration was to have the favor of other politicians at higher levels in the party hierarchy. A powerful patron could guarantee an appointment to a new, higher-​ranking post or could influence the party officials with the formal authority over nominations for elected office. Hence, in many cases, a politician’s merit and ability mattered less for his career advancement than his personal connections and fealty to the system.13 One natural result of the consistent maneuvering by PRI politicians vying for power was a significant degree of factionalism and internal competition within the ruling party. Indeed, as in other systems where a single party dominated the political system, different camarillas within the PRI necessarily competed for influence within a given administration, or from one administration to the next.14 Hence, the PRI’s longevity as a political party depended in part on its ability to minimize the frictions EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics, 1940–1968 59 resulting from this competition and its ability to ensure a certain degree of power sharing within and across different government administrations. For most of the twentieth century, party leaders were careful to heal intraparty divisions and to woo potential defectors by providing reasonable concessions to the losing candidate or faction. Meanwhile, although PRI factions were highly personalistic, they also frequently represented a wide array of ideological currents. A certain degree of ideological tolerance within the PRI facilitated the expression of these diverse perspectives and frequently muddled the differences between left and right in Mexico. At the same time, the PRI’s broadly inclusive organization and its ability to facilitate power sharing among divergent factions gave the party important advantages vis-​à-​vis potential competitors by incorporating diverse sectors of society and therefore leaving little ideological space for the opposition to organize around. When outside opposition did arise, the PRI’s wide range of political currents also enabled it to shift political positions in order to draw support away from potential opponents. In fact, some observers have noted that, as different factions within the PRI alternated power across different administrations, they tended to move gradually from one end of the political spectrum to the other, oscillating between left and right. While the PRI began as fundamentally leftist under Lázaro Cárdenas, the party moved to the political center under his successor, Manuel Ávila Camacho, who adopted a more favorable position toward business interests and the United States than Cárdenas had. His successor, Miguel Alemán (1946–​1952), moved even further to the right by not only favoring private capital and industry but also strongly opposing communism and severely repressing labor activists.15 Partly in response to the reactionary nature of Alemán’s government, the PRI shifted moderately to the left during the 1950s and early 1960s, under Presidents Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952–​1958) and Adolfo López Mateos (1958–​1964).16 Hence, whatever the PRI’s symbolic references to revolutionary rhetoric, the party’s ideology was quite flexible. Moreover, as we shall see in the next chapter, the actions of outgoing presidents very often made it necessary for incoming presidents to adopt positions that directly contradicted those of their predecessors. In short, by the 1940s, Mexico’s ruling party acquired the basic organizational characteristics and political advantages that ensured its hegemonic position in the Mexican political system for the remainder of the twentieth century. As the official party of the revolution, the explicit connection between the party and the postrevolutionary government, which some scholars have described as a kind of PRI–​government symbiosis, provided the ruling party with tremendous political advantages.17 Through a sophisticated system of favors and influence, government officials maintained close connections with and depended on the support of the PRI’s organizational apparatus, which in turn relied heavily on government resources to help sustain the party’s clientelistic networks. Its success as a political machine was derived from its effective control over the electoral process, a highly centralized and disciplined political hierarchy, the formal incorporation of key sectors of society, and a degree of ideological flexibility that gave the party the ability to adapt to changing political circumstances. Access to government resources and services provided a means of obtaining political support from the public, and PRI government officials were able to offer their endorsement and resources to the EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  60 Chapter 3 party’s candidates for public office. Thus, rather than serving as an agent of political interests in society (as in many democratic countries), in its relationship with society the PRI served primarily as a mechanism for generating political support for the government. CENTRALIZATION OF POWER Mexico’s postrevolutionary political system today comprises thirty-​ one state governments, a federal district, and over twenty-​ four hundred municipal governments. At the federal, state, and municipal levels, power is divided among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Yet despite all of these structural characteristics, political authority in Mexico has traditionally been highly centralized (see textbox 3.4). Indeed, for most of its history, all roads led metaphorically to Mexico City, where political decisions were made, governmental resources were concentrated, and whence the better part of Mexico’s ruling elite emanated. As elsewhere in Latin America, most Mexican presidents dominated the legislature and judiciary to such an extent that there were few real checks and balances across branches of government. Moreover, Mexican presidents had the de facto ability to influence the selection of gubernatorial candidates and to replace sitting governors practically at will, giving presidents considerable influence over subnational affairs as well.18 While partly a continuation of Mexico’s “centralist tradition” stretching back to the colonial era, the concentration of power in the postrevolutionary system exhibited particular features. Indeed, political centralization under the PRI was far more institutionalized than during the Porfiriato. As noted in ­chapter 1, Porfirio Díaz had relied on an extensive personal network of his own cronies to administer other branches and levels of government. While personal ties were still important under the PRI, its corporatist structures provided an institutional context for sustaining relationships and systems of clientelistic exchange that extended beyond and outlived most individual personalities. The key point of difference in the postrevolutionary system had to do with identifiable institutional factors—​more than personal ties—​ that contributed to the power of the Mexican presidency. Textbox 3.4. CENTRALIZATION AND DECENTRALIZATION Organizational systems are often described as “centralized” or “decentralized.” What do these terms mean? In a centralized system, decision-​making and policy implementation are concentrated in an entity at high levels within the system or concentrated in one particular entity or division of the system. By contrast, in a decentralized system, greater decision-​making and authority are granted at lower levels of administration or shared more equally across different branches of an organization. Within systems of governance, there is often horizontal power sharing across different branches of government, or vertical distribution of resources and authority among the national, state or regional, and local governments. EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics, 1940–1968 61 Specifically, the prohibition of reelection, combined with the total hegemony of the ruling party, concentrated authority in the office of the presidency—​rather than in the personality in office—​and ensured a relatively high degree of elite circulation.19 Because no one individual or group could easily monopolize power beyond a single six-​year term, control of the presidency offered that person a one-​ shot grab at the privileges and spoils of office for his supporters (and a lifetime of luxury for himself). At the same time, the no-​reelection rule contributed to a high degree of centralization because ineligibility of governors and legislators to stand for reelection made them heavily dependent on the sitting president and ranking party leaders for future political mobility.20 Indeed, in a context without reelection, executive control of the electoral process was critical in enhancing the president’s powers, as it gave him complete control over the selection of his party’s candidate. In effect, the president handpicked his own successor in a ritual known as the dedazo, or “big finger.” The dedazo was the president’s most important means of assuring party loyalty within the party and, therefore, his vast power during his six-​year term, or sexenio. Until a successor was named, high-​ranking PRI politicians attempted to maintain the favor of the president in the hope that they or the head of their camarilla or faction would benefit from the ultimate prize: the presidency itself. Once a successor was identified—​through the destape, or unveiling of the president’s preferred candidate—​political loyalties naturally gravitated to the man who would become the ultimate authority in the PRI system for the next six years.21 Thus, during most of his term, the influence of the sitting president was paramount, extended downward throughout the political system, and was reinforced by the centralization of administrative controls and fiscal revenues in Mexico. The Mexican president had extraordinary control over the federal bureaucracy, including key coercive agencies of the government, such as the military and the intelligence service. The latter agencies answered directly or indirectly to the secretary of the interior, often seen as the president’s enforcer and a likely candidate for presidential succession. Indeed, of the thirteen presidents elected from the ruling party from 1928 to 2000, eight were former interior secretaries and only one, Francisco Labastida in 2000, failed in his attempt to be elected. Because they enjoyed the president’s trust and because they were likely to succeed him, Mexico’s interior secretaries traditionally exercised significant power and few were willing to defy them. In effect, as we discuss further in ­chapter 6, Mexico’s postrevolutionary political arrangements—​and the dominance of a single, hierarchical dominant party—​meant that the president’s authority was virtually absolute and that the institutional separation of powers that theoretically permits the checks and balances of a federal system to function was practically nonexistent in Mexico.22 The president’s ability to command the allegiance of other politicians and to exercise absolute control over the federal bureaucracy made the executive branch dominant over both the Mexican Congress and the federal judiciary. In effect, the PRI’s virtual monopoly in the Congress made legislators a mere rubber stamp for executive legislation, budgetary approval, and even constitutional amendments. Indeed, from 1917 to the fall of the PRI in 2000, the Mexican constitution was amended more than four hundred times. Meanwhile, the federal judiciary comprised PRI appointees who had little inclination to challenge the president or the Congress. Under the PRI, the federal EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  62 Chapter 3 judiciary lacked a significant budget, and the judiciary’s ability to apply judicial review to government actions or legislation was essentially limited to use of the amparo (an injunction or waiver from government actions or statutes that adversely affect an individual’s constitutional rights). In short, neither the legislative nor the judicial branches of government provided any real check on executive power.23 The exaggerated powers of postrevolutionary Mexican presidents have been described by Garrido (1989) as metaconstitutional and even anticonstitutional because they greatly exceeded those formally ascribed by the constitution.24 OPPOSITION, CO-​OPTATION, AND REPRESSION As noted above, the PRI was one of the world’s strongest, most extensive political machines and held power longer than any other political party during the twentieth century. One secret of the PRI’s success was the fact that—​despite its undemocratic tendencies and significant abuses of power—​the party enjoyed a remarkable degree of public support, thanks to its strategies for popular incorporation, its use of power sharing among divergent interests, and its appeal to revolutionary themes. For decades, the PRI was the choice of millions of Mexicans, who appreciated the stability it provided and believed in the promise that it offered for a better future.25 Still, as noted above, the reality of the PRI system was that its tendency to rely on fraud and repression to maintain its political monopoly diminished the overall legitimacy of the system. Moreover, there were significant sources of opposition to the PRI throughout most of its existence, both in the electorate and in society. The PRI’s approach to managing the political opposition relied on both co-​ optation and coercion: carrots and sticks. Indeed, many believe that the cornerstone of the PRI’s dominance was its ability to achieve a careful balance between persuasive and repressive tactics. Examining the PRI’s approach to managing political opposition therefore provides insights into its long-​term survival. However, as we discuss below, over the years the cumulative effect of PRI coercion—​including a number of particularly severe instances of violent repression—​contributed to the unraveling of Mexico’s perfect dictatorship. Below, we discuss the sources of political opposition in the PRI regime, as well as the strategies the ruling party employed to alternately co-​opt or coerce its opponents. During the classic period of PRI dominance, the relatively small followings, meager resources, and lack of experience of these organizations meant that they were unlikely to wrest power from the behemoth. Moreover, they were prevented from gaining a meaningful foothold in the political arena by the patently unfair system of rules set up by the ruling party. This discussion gives us further insights into the sources of PRI power and Mexico’s gradual transition to democracy. Political Opposition There were effectively three main sources of opposition in the classic Mexican political system. First was the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN). The PAN was founded in 1939, exactly ten years after the birth of the ruling party. The founders of the PAN came from different elements of conservative opposition to the EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics, 1940–1968 63 new regime. First, the PAN attracted educated, upper-​middle-​class professionals who, like the U.S. progressive reformers of the early nineteenth century, were averse to the corruption and ineffective government service produced by machine politics. Second, the PAN attracted Catholics, who initially reacted negatively to the anticlericism of Calles and later to the socialist tendencies of Lázaro Cárdenas. Social and religious conservatives were especially incensed by Cárdenas’s claims that he would socialize education in Mexico. Last but not least, the PAN initially attracted wealthy business interests who were alarmed and angered by the expropriation of properties and the loss of foreign capital during the Cárdenas administration. The PAN was by far the strongest opposition party in Mexico; however, it never came close to challenging the PRI’s electoral dominance until the end of the century.26 A second source of opposition was the seemingly endless array of minor parties. Beginning in the 1960s, electoral rules allowed for a limited form of proportional representation and led to the creation of minor parties, also known as “third parties.” This helped create an appearance of democratic competition. Yet because these parties had no real chance of winning, their existence simply fractionalized the Mexican party system. In some cases, they were described as parastatal parties because they were actually created or supported by the PRI in order to mollify or supplant real opposition groups. One classic example was the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution (Partido Auténtico de la Revolución Mexicana, PARM), which was created in the 1950s by disgruntled PRI members who split from the ruling party. While the PARM ran its own candidates for legislative and lower offices, it consistently supported the PRI’s presidential candidates from its founding until the late 1980s. The PARM also served as an unwavering legislative ally of the ruling party, and it may have even received direct financial assistance from the PRI. In general, parastatal parties and other third parties illustrated the way the PRI was able to neutralize opposition at the height of its power, either by marginalizing or buying off its political opponents. Finally, there were a number of unrecognized or even illegal sources of opposition. These were parties or groups that were excluded from power and considered illegal by the PRI government. The most notable illegal source of opposition was the Mexican Communist Party (Partido Comunista Mexicano, PCM), which was outlawed by the PRI’s conservative governments of the 1940s and 1950s. However, there were a number of other important social movements and insurgent groups, including splinter movements from the ruling party, that formed in opposition to the political system. Long before Mexico’s most famous insurgent group, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) came into public view in 1994, small groups of irregular armies and guerrilla insurgents engaged in military campaigns against the government. In the 1960s and 1970s, homegrown, armed leftist movements such as the student-​run September 23 movement, the Clandestine Revolutionary Workers Party—​Union of the People, and the Popular Revolutionary Army fought to provoke what they viewed as true revolutionary change in Mexico. Such organizations occasionally caused significant damage and loss of life through organized attacks and bombings against businesses and government facilities. However, Mexican insurgent groups were generally ephemeral, largely unsuccessful, and therefore of little threat to the overall political order during PRI rule.27 EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  64 Chapter 3 Political Co-​optation One of the major reasons why the PRI was so successful at retaining power was its ability to use co-​optation to manipulate or reduce opposition to and within the PRI regime. Co-​optation involves the use of persuasion or concessions to win over potential adversaries. Groups or individuals are often said to have been co-​opted when they receive tangible benefits in exchange for some form of tacit or explicit concession on their part. In Mexico, co-​optation took a variety of forms during the PRI’s hegemony. For example, party leaders often awarded important political and bureaucratic posts to political opponents within the PRI; in exchange, the internal opposition might offer its support or simply refrain from an outward challenge against the party. It was also common for the government to grant concessions to critics outside the regime. In such instances, the demands of the interest group, political party, or neighborhood might be partially met (e.g., with a subsidy or government contract, greater revenue or representation, or a public works project, respectively), with the understanding that this was as far as the government was willing to go. On the whole, co-​optation worked well for the PRI, and there is little doubt that its ability to co-​opt would-​be critics and opponents contributed to single-​party dominance, as it allowed the PRI to neutralize all but its most ardent detractors. Yet as opportunistic and undemocratic as it was to essentially buy off opponents, the PRI’s widespread use of co-​ optation contributed in some measure to the party’s inclusiveness. Indeed, it can be argued that this was another way of forcing political interests to compete for access within the confines of the party rather than by challenging the system itself. Once incorporated into the party, groups and individuals were far more likely to have their concerns addressed than had they remained outside the revolutionary family. This is not to say that co-​optation yielded positive results for Mexico; rather, it is simply a point of fact that those who could be convinced to play by the PRI’s rules tended to fare better than those who rejected the system outright. Of course, the line between co-​optation and coercion is often very thin, and the PRI was not above using threats, intimidation, and even force when its efforts to co-​opt would-​be opponents failed. While coercion was generally only employed as a last resort, these tactics represented real and tangible danger that effectively prevented the expression of alternative viewpoints, political protest, and freedom of choice. That the PRI used coercive force with such relative infrequency was a testament to its ability to generate genuine support or, at a minimum, to persuade its opponents through co-​ optation. However, when these tactics failed, the PRI occasionally resorted to the use of repression. When such instances occurred, they illustrated the limits of PRI power and seriously compromised its claims of legitimacy. In fact, many political scientists consider the use of coercion or force to be a show of weakness since it demonstrates an inability to influence people by persuasion or mere threats. Moreover, once the PRI resorted to coercive tactics, it often eliminated any possibility to co-​opt those elements that suffered from repression. In other words, once subjected to its violent side, victims were not so easily won back by the PRI’s charms. Below we discuss the coercive use of power by the PRI, with particular attention to a major incident of political repression that occurred during the 1960s. EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics, 1940–1968 65 Political Repression In the era of PRI hegemony, the ruling party’s use of coercion was relatively infrequent, thereby attesting to the effectiveness of its other tactics for retaining power. However, when applied, the PRI’s use of force ran the gamut from threats of violence against individuals to the organized repression of groups by government forces. Government critics (e.g., journalists, artists, opposition candidates, social movements, and independent labor unions) were characteristically harassed or otherwise intimidated by threats against them and their families. More subtly, just as those who obeyed the system had opportunities to advance their careers in both the public and private sectors, those who were critical of the government found that those same doors were closed to them. Moreover, the government made significant efforts to identify and monitor its opponents, placing wiretaps on potential sources of opposition (including members of opposition parties and officials) and infiltrating social movements and popular organizations. While such tactics have been used in the United States—​as in the case of intelligence efforts to monitor communist organizations, civil rights activists, and even political campaigns—​in Mexico there was little legal recourse for the protection of civil liberties. Meanwhile, outright repression—​ while relatively rare—​ could be severe. The use of police and military units to suppress labor protests was instrumental in establishing the hegemony of the PRI’s official unions in the 1930s and 1940s. Over subsequent decades, as Mexico experienced stronger economic growth, there was a corresponding period of labor mobilization and organization. Mexican workers—​ particularly in the oil and railroad industries—​organized numerous labor strikes in different parts of the country. The PRI government viewed these labor strikes as subversive and damaging to the economic interests of the country. The government responded to the unions and to other dissenting voices with severe repression. In 1958 and 1959, a railway workers’ dispute caused the PRI government not only to break the strike but also to imprison numerous railroad workers and supporters from other unions. In the end, strike organizers Demetrio Vallejo and Valentín Campa were sentenced to sixteen years in prison, effectively decapitating the movement. Among the notable personalities who protested the government’s harsh repression was the renowned muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, who was himself imprisoned as a result.28 Similarly, when Mexican opposition parties attempted to defend apparent victories by their candidates in state and local races, such postelectoral conflicts were likely to expose the PRI’s authoritarian side. Such was the case when the government used violence to crack down on opposition protesters in places like León, Guanajuato, in 1945; Mérida, Yucatán, in 1967; and Tijuana, Baja California, in 1959 and 1968.29 Yet by far the single instance of PRI repression that stands out the most was the 1968 massacre of student protesters in Tlatelolco, a middle-​class neighborhood on the north side of Mexico City, which we discuss below. 1968 Massacre at Tlatelolco During the late 1950s and 1960s, Mexican students—​like many of their counterparts in other countries—​were drawn to progressive, even radical political positions by world EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  66 Chapter 3 events like the Cuban Revolution and the Vietnam War. On the university campuses of Mexico, students sought ways to get involved in addressing these issues by holding meetings and rallies to voice their discontent. This kind of activism was viewed with significant concern by Mexican authorities. Students who organized marches and became involved in left-​wing organizations were closely monitored. Their events were occasionally dispersed with tear gas and the butt of a rifle, as when students marched in Mexico City to celebrate Castro’s government in Cuba. Major leaders in these kinds of activities were sometimes arrested as political prisoners, but nonetheless a growing atmosphere of student activism developed over the course of the 1960s. By 1968, the ten-​year anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, student activism reached new heights and levels of sophistication that created extreme distress for the PRI government.30 The year 1968 was also a particularly sensitive moment for Mexico because the Olympic Games were to be hosted in Mexico City beginning in October. Mexican authorities viewed this as an opportunity to demonstrate the successes of the PRI government to the world. Indeed, the ruling party had reason to boast. After three decades of remarkable economic progress and political stability, Mexico had reestablished itself among the world’s most prominent developing nations and was the shining star of Latin America. Anticipating hundreds of international dignitaries and media representatives, President Díaz Ordaz spent an estimated $240 million (equivalent to about $1.8 billion in 2019) on preparations for the twelve-​ day sporting event.31 Despite these efforts to host a magnificent event, trouble began brewing in the months before the Olympics, as the summer brought heightened tensions between Mexican student activists and police. On June 23, 1968, a fight between two groups who appeared to be from rival high schools provoked a severe crackdown by Mexico City police. A legion of three hundred police then swarmed and violently subdued those involved in the skirmish. While it appears that the instigators of the fight were not even students, police continued their rampage by storming into an unrelated but nearby vocational school and harassing its students and faculty members. The schools in question were associated with two prominent Mexico City public universities, the National Polytechnic Institute (Instituto Politécnico Nacional, IPN) and the much larger National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM). In response to such an exaggerated show of force, outraged students from these two rival universities banded together in a rare demonstration of unity to protest the recent police brutality and the PRI government in general. With 250,000 students at the time, UNAM was the largest university in the hemisphere, and had been a hotbed of student activism over the course of the 1960s. Over the next several weeks, students organized strikes and marches throughout the capital. Using their university campuses as their bases of operations, they took over classrooms and hallways to produce flyers, rally support, and make public speeches. Off campus, students painted protest signs denouncing the PRI government and calling for the resignation of the Mexico City police chief. In addition to tacit (and sometimes overt) support from university administrators and faculty, what made this movement particularly successful was the fact that the students were extremely careful about the structure and organization of their movement. To prevent the government from co-​opting or intimidating its organizers, the students developed an elaborate system of rotating leadership and decentralized operations. EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics, 1940–1968 67 The most important innovation was the rotating National Strike Council—​ comprising 250 representatives from over a hundred schools—​and a complex system of committees and brigades that prevented the easy identification, co-​optation, or coercion of its members. No single student or group could be identified as leader of the movement, since directions were issued by different students from week to week. This enabled the student organizers to create a movement based on generally accepted ideas and strategies, rather than on individuals or personalities. Also, rather than acting through a single, easily identifiable organizational structure, the movement’s separate cells and brigades could act with a high degree of autonomy. The final straw came with the violation of UNAM’s hard-​fought tradition of autonomy from the government, when the military sent ten thousand troops onto the UNAM campus on September 18. This set off an intense wave of protests and marches that grew increasingly strident in their criticisms against the PRI regime itself.32 The Mexican government responded with great concern and frustration, particularly in light of the impending Olympic Games, scheduled to begin on October 12. The government was anxious for an opportunity to show the world how much progress had been made in Mexico under the PRI. Yet the prospect of student demonstrations threatened to embarrass the PRI and project exactly the opposite image to the one the Mexican government wanted. Most important, the PRI was frustrated by its inability to utilize its usual tactics to undermine political opposition. There was little the government could do to co-​opt the student movement according to its standard playbook for handling electoral challengers, union organizers, or armed rebels. On the one hand, the government could not readily appeal to particular leaders to buy off their support, and on the other hand, it could not legitimately resort to full-​scale violence against students and the ordinary citizens who supported them. In short, the PRI government found that co-​optation was not an option and at the same time knew that repression would carry a high political cost.33 With each demonstration, the government’s response was to call in more fully armed police, and even the military, in a massive demonstration of the state’s coercive capacity. As the movement gathered momentum into September, the PRI government began interrupting marches and sending police onto high school and university campuses to try to restore order and identify dissidents. During these increasingly intense clashes, dozens of students were killed and hundreds were injured in the resulting violent conflicts with police. Tens of thousands of people rallied to the cause. Growing sympathy and support from the public soon swelled the movement as it was embraced by ordinary citizens and workers’ unions, who participated in marches that now brought together tens of thousands of protesters demanding not only justice for police abuses and the release of political prisoners but also broader calls for democratic reform in Mexico. As the movement increased in size and support, government officials grew frustrated. This continuing escalation came to a dreadful climax on October 2. Starting around 5:00 p.m., a group of six thousand protesters gathered for a march that was to begin in a residential area surrounding the Plaza of Tlatelolco—​the famed site where Cortés allegedly battled the Aztecs and forged a nation of mestizos—​with plans to continue over to the IPN campus. Within an hour, these students were surrounded by a massive contingent of ten thousand soldiers armed with machine guns and bayonets. Rather than risk undertaking the planned march, the protesters EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  68 Chapter 3 instead began speaking in the plaza, in the view and protection of the surrounding apartment buildings of this middle-​and working-​ class neighborhood. As they spoke, helicopters and armored cars began to arrive, as soldiers moved into fortified positions in and above apartment complexes and buildings surrounding the plaza. Some students also noticed the arrival of plainclothesmen bearing a single white glove and haircuts that seemed to indicate some sort of military affiliation. Soon after surrounding the plaza, the soldiers opened fire on the stage and the front of the crowd. They aimed first at the speakers and then at the panicked crowd. Soldiers then flooded the plaza and began beating and arresting the demonstrators. Those believed to be members of the National Strike Council were lined up along walls and forced to strip to their underwear. Students, ordinary citizens, and journalists alike were assaulted, abused, and otherwise terrorized in the police rampage. One terrified witness in the plaza was a young future politician by the name of Ernesto Zedillo, who would become Mexico’s president a quarter of a century later. In the end, official government figures claimed that only twenty-​five protesters were killed and asserted that these individuals had provoked and fired on police (one of whom was allegedly killed). Yet independent, international media sources and activists refuted these claims and asserted that the death toll was much higher, not least because dozens of protesters and student leaders simply disappeared in the wake of the incident.34 Whatever the number of people who were killed or injured in the assault, the incident came to be aptly described as the 1968 student massacre. What was especially disturbing is that the massacre appeared to be part of a well-​ orchestrated and premeditated plan that could only have been organized and authorized at the highest levels of the Mexican government. Indeed, in addition to participation by the military, the white-​gloved agents who took part in the massacre turned out to be members of a branch of the Mexican secret police known as the Olympia Battalion. Many critics now believe that the massacre was ordered directly by the Office of the President, although it remains unclear who specifically issued the order. While President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz was much criticized for his administration’s actions, human rights activists have focused primary responsibility on then interior secretary Luis Echeverría Álvarez for planning and ordering this and subsequent acts of government repression. Over the past several years, Mexico’s new democratic government and civil rights activists have worked together to sort out the details through the Mexican court system. While a 2018 resolution by the Executive Commission for Attention to Victims (Comisión Ejecutiva de Atención a Víctimas, CEAV) condemned the events of Tlatelolco as a state crime thirty years after the fact, it will take many more years until allegations against many high-​ranking officials are resolved.35 Part of the problem of assigning responsibility is that the incident was effectively covered up by the PRI. Most domestic and international media sources were dissuaded or diverted from covering the story, as the government successfully focused greater attention on the 1968 Olympic Games. To the dismay of Mexican journalist Elena Poniatowska, one of the few who reported extensively on the story, the incident was effectively buried in the media within hours. To the extent that it was covered in the media, official explanations blamed the students and even foreign terrorists for the “incident.”36 Over the next ten days, the blood and protest signs were wiped away and Mexico City made itself up to shine before EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  Postrevolutionary Mexican Politics, 1940–1968 69 the international community. Indeed, the Olympics went on as scheduled. In the immediate aftermath of the games, the most notable memory of Mexico’s Olympic games for most of the world was a tribute to black power and human rights issued jointly by African American U.S. gold and bronze medalists Tommy Smith (who had just set a new world record for the two-​hundred-​meter dash) and John Carlos, with support from Australian silver medalist Peter Norman. In short, the PRI minimized immediate scrutiny and diverted the negative impact of the massacre. Yet, in retrospect, this repressive incident appears to have had long-​ term negative effects for the PRI regime. First, for a large number of Mexicans who were directly involved or subsequently learned about the massacre, the incident dramatically reduced the legitimacy of the PRI regime. Second, this major instance of repression created a new generation of opposition activists fiercely committed to undermining the PRI regime. And third, over the course of the 1970s, it led the Mexican government to make further crackdowns and somewhat imprudent (and largely ineffective) overtures to bolster its political support. In this sense, the repression of the 1968 student movement was for some observers of Mexican politics an incident that ultimately contributed to the downfall of the PRI regime.37 CONCLUSION During most of the twentieth century, Mexico was at best a democracy with adjectives—​ a “limited” or “restricted” democracy; at worst Mexico was an authoritarian regime with only the trappings of democracy and none of its substance. Yet, from the revolution until the late 1960s, Mexico was characterized by institutions of political control that generated political stability and economic prosperity during a period of unprecedented growth and development. Widespread cultural acceptance and a revolutionary mythology helped build support for the PRI. Also, the regime’s ability to incorporate a wide array of societal groups and co-​opt would-​be detractors provided an essential source of support and political stability. However, in 1968, the PRI regime showed signs of weakness and failed to effectively respond to key challenges. In the face of the 1968 student protests, the PRI’s ability to use co-​optation failed, and it was forced to use violence. In the eyes of many, it was the first major illustration of the limits of PRI power. In the aftermath, the PRI would spend decades trying to restore its credibility and control. Over the next three decades, the PRI’s power would gradually erode and give way to a more open and democratic political system. In the next chapter, we discuss this prolonged transition. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. How did the PRI’s internal organization facilitate its rise to and consolidation of power after the revolution? 2. Why was the opposition unable to garner significant support and effectively challenge the PRI at the ballot box until the late twentieth century? EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use  70 Chapter 3 3. In what ways are corporatism and clientelism different from one another? What role did each play in the era of PRI hegemony? 4. Many political scientists argue that the use of repression is a sign of a state’s or government’s weakness. Do you agree? If so, why and in what ways was the PRI regime weak in 1968? 5. Despite the government’s attempts to quash information about the 1968 massacre at Tlatelolco, it became a watershed moment in Mexican history. What was the lasting impact of this event? RESOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY Reading McCormick, Gladys. The Logic of Compromise in Mexico: How the Countryside was Key to the Emergence of Authoritarianism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Castañeda, Jorge. Perpetuating Power: How Mexican Presidents Were Chosen. New York: New Press, 2000. Magaloni, Beatriz. Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pensado, Jaime M. Rebel Mexico: Student Unrest and Authoritarian Political Culture During the Long Sixties. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. Poniatowska, Elena. Massacre in Mexico. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991. Feature Films/​TV Series Herod’s Law/​La ley de Herodes. Mexico, 1999. A black comedy that depicts political life in Mexico during the 1940s and 1950s. The Young and the Damned/​Los olvidados. Mexico, 1950. An award-​winning depiction of the life of the poor in Mexico City in the 1940s Red Dawn/​Rojo Amanecer. Mexico, 1990. Uses witness testimonials to describe the events that unfolded in the Plaza de Tlatelolco on October 2, 1968. An Unknown Enemy/​Un extraño enemigo (Amazon series), Mexico, 2018. A look at Mexico's repressive "dirty war" of the 1960s. Roma. Mexico, 2019. An elegant, award-​winning film about life in Mexico City during the 1970s. Internet Resources NPR podcast with embedded videos: “What’s Changed Since Mexico’s Bloody Crackdown on 1968 Student Protests?” https://​www.npr.org/​2018/​10/​02/​653779935/​ whats-​changed-​in-​mexico-​since-​the-​1968-​student-​protests. Radio Diaries audio documentary: “Mexico ’68: A Movement, A Massacre, and the 40-​Year Search for the Truth,” http://​www.radiodiaries.org/​mexico-​68-​a-​movement-​a-​massacre-​ and-​the-​40-​year-​search-​for-​the-​truth/​. EBSCOhost - printed on 1/11/2025 11:11 AM via TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use