This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1977.

Compares a range of Mexican food policy reforms, focusing on the SAM (Mexican Food System), a program in place from 1980-82, designed to shift subsidies and privileged access from large private farmers and ranchers to peasants and small producers. In this context, Fox (political science, MIT) examines the limits and possibilities of political reform, and its history and future in the Mexican state. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Mexico is undergoing its worst economic cr1s1s since the world depression of the 1930s. In this volume contributors analyze significant patterns that might affect political stability and legitimacy, economic viability, and social change over the next several years, often reaching controversial conclusions. They argue, for example, that the military is not likely to change its present civil-military role; that political opposition, rather than political violence or pressure from foreign governments, will have the most profound influence on the changing pattern of political legitimacy and system stability; and that decision-making in the private sector may have the greatest potential to resolve or exacerbate the current crisis. Finally, they suggest that because economic conditions have been altered so dramatically in the recent period, Mexican policymakers will need to develop a new range of political alternatives to stabilize the economy and redirect the country's future.

Why do many Asian, African, and Latin American states have such difficulty in directing the behavior of their populations--in spite of the resources at their disposal? And why do a small number of other states succeed in such control? What effect do failing laws and social policies have on the state itself? In answering these questions, Joel Migdal takes a new look at the role of the state in the third world. Strong Societies and Weak States offers a fresh approach to the study of state-society relations and to the possibilities for economic and political reforms in the third world. In Asia, Africa, and Latin America, state institutions have established a permanent presence among the populations of even the most remote villages. A close look at the performance of these agencies, however, reveals that often they operate on principles radically different from those conceived by their founders and creators in the capital city. Migdal proposes an answer to this paradox: a model of state-society relations that highlights the state's struggle with other social organizations and a theory that explains the differing abilities of states to predominate in those struggles.

This book addresses the causes, effects, and dynamics of political corruption in Mexico. Systematic analysis of corruption is critical to a better understanding of the politics of Mexico, and despite the many conceptual and methodological obstacles, the importance of the subject matter demands treatment. Morris's work should therefore be seen not as definitive, but as an initial step in understanding a central dimension of Mexican politics. Corruption, as a topic of research, invites certain misunderstandings, as it is a broad concept conveying a variety of moral connotations. This inquiry into political corruption is not intended to depict the Mexican people or society as any less or more moral than others. The study draws on extensive content analysis of news reports from the Mexican press, a public opinion poll conducted in 1986, and personal interviews. The objective is not to expose scandals and wrongdoing by Mexican officials, name names, or point fingers; it is an academic endeavor. The author discusses scandals and gives examples of corruption for illustrative purposes, but his analysis is more theoretical than anecdotal. He questions whether in fact corruption has enhanced or diminished the stability of the Mexican government, and examines the reasons for the failure of many anti-corruption efforts.

Since 1983, Mexico has undergone a rapid and thorough economic restructuring program, with privatization at the core. The government has divested itself of hundreds of public companies, increasing the role of private capital, both domestic and foreign. Supporters have argued that divestiture would have positive implications for Mexican democracy, but Judith A. Teichman concludes that political and economic power in Mexico is more concentrated and exclusionary than ever. She uses extensive field research, including interviews with top political and business leaders to describe and analyze the process by which the Mexican state has reformed its mammoth public enterprise sector.