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 1993.

The Mexican oil boom of the 1970s brought great hope and prosperity with it. George Grayson shows the influence of oil and the oil sector both within Mexican society and in its relations with other nations. He traces the development of the oil industry from its beginnings in 1901 up until the 1980s, looking at topics that include the history of expropriation; the creation of the state-run company Petr—leos Mexicanos; graft and corruption within the Oil Workers Union; Mexico's relations with OPEC; the political nuances of oil and gas agreements with the United States; and the prospects for the Mexican oil industry and domestic reforms generated from oil revenue.

In the four years since the first edition was published, Mexico's political system—exceptional among Latin American nations—has been severely tested. The administration has been struggling to cope with the effects of a depressed market for oil, the demands of an increasingly vocal opposition, and the foreign policy challenges posed by violence in Central America. In this timely second edition of a work that has received favorable attention in the United States and in Mexico, the authors extend their analysis of Mexico's current and future prospects to cover the dramatic developments of the past few years. Throughout, the authors have updated their discussion to assess the social and political impact of the latest elections, the recent earthquakes, and the continuing cycle of economic crisis, recovery, and renewed crisis. They also pay special attention to Mexico's initiatives for peace in Central America and to recent shifts in Mexican-U.S. relations. Appropriate for courses in Mexican studies, Latin American politics, and Third World development, this text also will be of value to anyone interested in Mexico's political and economic affairs.

How do governments make key decisions on vital economic questions of national importance? Can they advance the national interest on issues that are highly politicized? How do they respond to competing pressures from the international and domestic environments? Forming Economic Policy explores these and other questions in Canada and Mexico, two very different countries which share a common vulnerability to the world economy. Using the case of energy, the book argues that policymakers will address the national interest, but only episodically with the onset of major national crises that invoke a higher and sustained sense of national priorities. These crises are frequently induced by the interaction of domestic and foreign political and economic forces. The conclusions are surprising. Despite profound political and economic differences between these two countries, policymakers have behaved in remarkably similar ways when arriving at key policy decisions. The explanation – which integrates two competing views of politics, the pluralist and the statist – has important implications with regard to the political processes in those states which, like Canada and Mexico, are exposed to the world economy and face problems of political legitimacy at home. Forming Economic Policy will appeal to students and teachers of political economy and comparative politics as well as to those interested in the politics of energy policy.

The books in this set, originally published between 1927 and 1996 discuss the oil industry and its impact on the world economy in the twentieth century. The issues of trade, tax and energy policies as well as national security are all relevant to the economics politics of oil and the volumes analyse and discuss: The extent to which American dominance in world affairs is based on the control of oil resources and the changes which will inevitably take place with the end of the oil era. Discernible trends in such crucial areas as global petroleum supply and pricing, and the international economic and political implications of both. The role of wealth maximisation, and wealth satisficing The impact of North Sea oil and gas on the British economy. Relations between oil exporters and importers, and between the USA, Europe and the Arab world The most important strategic issues facing both the producers and consumers of oil and gas.