Gênero, discriminação e diversidade sexual em perspectiva política no México (2012-2018)

No ano de 2016, Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), presidente do México, enviou ao Congresso um Projeto de Lei referente a aprovação do casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo. Analisando documentos oficiais da sua candidatura, partido e presidência, como o Programa de Ação, Declaração de Princípios das Convocatórias do PRI (Partido Revolucionário Institucional) e Plano Nacional de Desenvolvimento, não foram encontradas referências diretas à questão da “preferência sexual”, tal qual aparece na Constituição, e que demonstrasse linhas de ação direcionadas às pessoas LGBTI’s. A “perspectiva de gênero”, diretriz manifesta nesses documentos, referir-se-á unicamente à demanda das mulheres e condição social das mexicanas, sendo que já se constituíam em leis e políticas públicas desde o início do século XXI. Considerando a distância entre as propostas dos documentos oficiais e as iniciativas políticas de Peña Nieto, no tocante aos indivíduos com outras formas de vivência da sexualidade, este artigo discute a atuação presidencial como estratégia política e de autopromoção, uma vez que se encontrava em meio a uma grande crise de popularidade e denúncias de corrupção.

Origins of the Mass Party

This book argues that the mass party emerged as the product of two distinct but related “primitive accumulations”—the dismantling of communal land tenure and the corresponding dispossession of the means of local administration. It illustrates this argument by studying the party central to one of the longest regimes of the 20th century—the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in Mexico, which emerged as a mass party during the 1930s and 1940s. I place the PRI in comparative perspective, studying the failed emergence of Bolivia’s Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) (1952–64), attempted under similar conditions as the Mexican case. Why was party emergence successful in one case but not the other? The PRI emerged as a mass party in areas in Mexico where land privatization was more intensive and communal village government was weakened, enabling the party’s construction and subsequent absorption of peasant unions and organizations. Ultimately, the overall strength of communal property-holding and concomitant traditional political authority structures blocked the emergence of the MNR as a mass party. Where economic and political expropriation was more pronounced, there was a critical mass of individuals available for political organization, with articulatable interests, and a burgeoning cast of professional politicians that facilitated connections between the party and the peasantry.

Mexico and Bolivia in Comparative Perspective and the Sociology of Party Formation

This chapter measures up existing approaches to party formation against the rise of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in post-revolutionary Mexico (1929–1946) and the attempt but ultimate failure of Bolivia’s Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (1953–1964) to undertake a homologous process in the aftermath of the 1952 uprising, despite similarity in conditions. The chapters offers a critical review of existing theories of mass party formation and area studies literature, pointing to the limitations of ‘reflective’ and ‘state-modernizations’ approaches to the study of parties. Finally, it lays out the methodological and analytical strategy guiding the empirical chapters of Part II of the book.

Regulating Bracero Migration: How National, Regional, and Local Political Considerations Shaped the Bracero Program

This article examines how federal, state, and municipal governments administered the migrant worker selection process in the states of Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacán during the initial phase of the Bracero Program, a bilateral initiative that allowed Mexican men to work in the United States as seasonal contract farmworkers. It argues that multiple political factors—such as the activities of groups that opposed the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional, organized labor conflicts, and the need to respond to natural disasters—influenced how officials allocated contracts, which rural workers were deemed eligible or ineligible to migrate, and which individual rural workers ultimately received contracts. The article shows that federal authorities delegated increased administrative responsibilities to state and municipal governments as the Bracero Program progressed, which in turn allowed regional and local officials to exercise considerable influence during selection periods.

Unrevolutionary Mexico

Unrevolutionary Mexico addresses how the Mexican Revolution (1910-1940) turned into a capitalist dictatorship of exceptional resilience. While soldiers seized power across the rest of Latin America, in modern Mexico the civilians of a single party moved punctiliously in and out of office for seventy-one years. The book uses the histories of the states of Guerrero and Veracruz as entry points to explore the origins and consolidation of this unique authoritarian state on both provincial and national levels. An empirically rich reconstruction of over sixty years of modernization and revolution (1880-1945) revises prevailing ideas of a pacified Mexico and establishes the 1940s as a decade of faltering governments and enduring violence. The book then assesses the pivotal changes of the mid-twentieth century, when a new generation of lawyers, bureaucrats and businessmen joined with surviving revolutionaries to form the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, which held uninterrupted power until 2000. Thematic chapters analyse elections, development, corruption and high and low culture in the period. The central role of military and private violence is explored in two further chapters that measure the weight of hidden coercion in keeping the party in power. In conclusion, the combination of provincial and national histories reveals Mexico as a place where soldiers prevented coups, a single party lost its own rigged elections, corruption fostered legitimacy, violence was concealed but decisive, and ambitious cultural control co-existed with a critical press and a disbelieving public. In conclusion, the book demonstrates how this strange dictatorship thrived not despite but because of its contradictions.

Mexico’s Democratic Transition and Consolidation since 1977

In 1977, Mexico’s hegemonic ruling party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), initiated an incremental transition to democracy that was propelled forward at significant moments by civil society, a more independent media, and political and economic crises. The PRI finally lost its absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies in 1997 and conceded the presidency three years later to Vicente Fox of the center-right PAN (Partido de Acción Nacional). Mexican democratization focused on running clean elections and strengthening political parties, leaving authoritarian legal and police institutions intact. Moreover, the administrations of PANistas Fox and Felipe Calderón (2000–2012) failed to dismantle Mexico’s corrupt corporatist political system. Democratic consolidation marched hand in hand with spiraling violence and lackluster economic performance. The PRI’s disastrous return to power in 2012 brought the party’s culture of corruption and impunity into clear focus, while the violence raged unabated. In the 2018 elections, Mexicans exercised their hard-fought democratic rights to reject the establishment and deliver stunning victories to populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his fledgling party, Morena. At this time, it is unclear whether AMLO’s self-proclaimed “fourth transformation” of Mexican political life will include a further consolidation of Mexico’s democratic institutions and practices.

Ética Social Y Nacionalismo En El Discurso Polí­tico Mexicano

ResumenLa identidad nacional es un constructo social que se ha derivado de los procesos históricos y sus valores, los cuales han creado una visión particular del ”ser nacional”. En esta construcción han interactuado múltiples factores; en el caso de México, el referente esencial que justificó las acciones gubernamentales se apegó a los hechos de la Revolución Mexicana de 1910, un icono de legitimidad para el Partido Revolucionario Institucional, partido polí­tico en el poder durante la mayor parte del siglo XX. En la presente investigación se analiza el discurso nacionalista emanado del ”mensaje polí­tico” de los informes del gobierno. Se considera en particular la temática referida al ”planteamiento de valores éticos y morales” en dos etapas fundamentales del desarrollo del paí­s: la posrevolucionaria y la neoliberal. En la investigación cobran relevancia los aspectos relacionados al ámbito axiológico y se presenta la evolución discursiva de este tema en cada etapa a lo largo de la historia contemporánea de México.Palabras clave: Nacionalismo, Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), posrevolución, neoliberalismo, valores éticos. AbstractNational identity is a social construct that has derived from historical processes and their values, which have created a particular vision of what the ”national being” is. In this construction, multiple factors have interacted, and, in the case of Mexico, the essential referent, by which the government actions were justified, was attached to the event of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, a legitimacy icon for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, a political party in power for most of the 20th century. In the present research, the nationalist discourse, emanated from the ”political message of government speeches, is analyzed. Particular attention has been given to the subject matter referring to the ”expounding on ethical and moral values”, within two fundamental stages in the development of the country: the postrevolutionary and the neoliberal periods. In this work, the aspects related to the axiological sphere become important, ante the discourse evolution on this subject, within each stage throughout the contemporary history of Mexico, is presented.Keywords: Nationalism, Institutional Revolutionary Party, postrevolution, neoliberalism, ethical values. [1] Dr. en Educación por la Universidad La Salle México. Mtro. en Innovación Educativa por la Universidad la Salle México. Lic. en Teologí­a por la Universidad la Salle México[2] Dra. En Periodismo por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Mtra. en Periodismo por Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Informalidad partidaria y mediaciones entre dirigentes y militantes en México los casos del PAN, el PRI, el PRD y MORENA

Objetivo: el artículo propone evidenciar la lógica informal al interior de los partidos políticos en México, entendida como un mecanismo de mediación entre militantes y dirigentes. Metodología: desde una aproximación cualitativa, se exploró el rol de la informalidad en el Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), el Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), el Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), y Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (MORENA). Resultados: se encontró que la informalidad es de vital importancia, ya que, en algunos casos, su ausencia es signo de polarización interna (PAN); en otros, da evidencia de la existencia de acuerdos más allá de lo establecido en los estatutos (PRI). En algunos más, se muestra la realidad fraccionada de la organización (PRD). Conclusiones: la informalidad puede ilustrar el papel discrecional de ciertos liderazgos, así como la adopción de estrategias que contravienen la legislación electoral en aras de mantener ventaja sobre los posibles competidores (MORENA).

La dictadura como dominación política

ResumenEn este artículo que titulamos La dictadura como dominación política, explicamos en qué consiste y cómo se organiza el uso arbitrario del poder a través de la forma de gobierno que el constitucionalista y politólogo alemán Karl Loëwenstain denomina con el nombre genérico de autocracias. Se refiere al autoritarismo y al totalitarismo que comúnmente llamamos dictadura y que los griegos llamaron tiranía. En otros términos, ambos son dos modalidades de autocracia. Cuando estudiamos esta forma de dominación política nos encontramos con una gran diversidad, pese a que hay algunos rasgos comunes. Esta diversidad se advierte en la monarquía, la autocracia que más ha durado a lo largo de la historia, pero que ahora se encuentra confinada en pocos países de cultura musulmana. También consideramos a las dictaduras individualizadas cuando un individuo, sin pertenecer a una aristocracia, concentra todo el poder como si fuera un monarca absoluto. Este sujeto puede ser civil o militar. Luego explicamos en qué consisten las dictaduras militares, cívicomilitares y el poder militar. En estos regímenes, igualmente, encontramos diversas expresiones políticas e ideológicas. Finalmente tratamos sobre las dictaduras institucionalizadas cuya máxima expresión es el totalitarismo, una forma política de dominación que se inició en el siglo XX y continúa en algunos países como China, Corea del Norte y Cuba. En esta categoría, aunque con una concepción ideológica distinta, están el nacional socialismo alemán y el fascismoitaliano. A las dictaduras de inspiración marxista leninista y maoísta se les llama comunistas; a nuestro modo de ver, un concepto equivocado porque el comunismo es la fase final del socialismo, una sociedad sin clases y sin Estado porque desaparece la dominación, y como esto no existe, en la práctica deberían denominarse dictaduras socialistas, o dictaduras socializantes; también podrían llamarse dictaduras en el socialismo realmente existente. No solo el totalitarismo es una dictadura institucionalizada, también hay formas institucionalizadas autoritarias, como el caso del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) mexicano. Cabe notar que en el caso de los países asiáticos, sobre todo en China, se ha acentuado el culto a la personalidad, fenómeno que había disminuido luego de la reforma de Deng Xiaoping; en cambio, esto ha sido una tendencia constante en Corea del Norte. Ello determina que predomine la voluntad del líder sobre la institución,como ha sucedido en diversos casos en donde las dictaduras burocratizadas de partido único han sucumbido ante el poder de un líder máximo. Un hecho que no sucedió en México porque estaba prohibida la reelección presidencial que duraba siete años. Concluimos afirmando que muchas de estas formas de dominación política, que predominaron durante largos períodos de la historia, como por ejemplo las monarquías, sucumbieron por diversos movimientos de liberación que optaron por formas democráticas de gobierno. Pero también decimos al final del artículo que existe la dominación al interior de la democracia en un régimen económico capitalista que predomina en la globalización y que impera por medio del neoliberalismo.Palabras clave: Dominación, dictadura, autoritarismo, totalitarismo, liberación. AbstractIn this article, titled “The dictatorship as a political domination”, we explain what the arbitrary use of power consists of and how it is organized through the form of government, named by the German constitutionalist and political scientist Karl Loëwenstain with the generic term of “autocracies”. It refers to the authoritarianism and totalitarianism that we commonly call dictatorship and that the Greeks called tyranny. In other words, both are two modalities of autocracy. When we study this form of political domination, we find a great diversity, despite some common features. This diversity is evident in the monarchy, the autocracy that has lasted the longest throughout history but which is now confined to a few countries with a Muslim culture. We also consider individual dictatorships when an individual, without belonging to an aristocracy, concentrates all power as if he were an absolute monarch. This person can be civil or military. Then, we explainwhat military dictatorship, civic-military dictatorship and military power consist of. In these regimes, we also find diverse political and ideological expressions. Finally, we discussed the institutionalized dictatorships whose ultimate expression is totalitarianism, a political form of domination that began in the twentieth century and continues in some countries like China, North Korea and Cuba. In this category, although with a different ideological conception, are present the German National Socialism and Italian Fascism. Dictatorships with Marxist, Leninist and Maoist inspiration are called communists. In our point of view, this concept is wrong given the fact that communism is the final phase of socialism, a classless and stateless society due to the disappearance of domination. Hence, as this does not exist, they should be called socialist dictatorships, or socializing dictatorships. They could also be called dictatorships in the actual existing socialism. Totalitarianism is not the only institutionalized dictatorship; there are also other authoritarian institutionalized dictatorships such as the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).It is worth mentioning that in the case of Asian countries, especially in China, the cult of personality has been accentuated, a phenomenon that had decreased after the reform of Deng-Xiao-Pin, but which has been a constant trend in North Korea. This determines that the will of the leader predominates over the institution, as has happened in several cases where the bureaucratized one-party dictatorships have succumbed to the power of a maximum leader. This case did not happen in Mexico because of the prohibition of presidential re-election, which lasted seven years. In conclusion, we can agree that many of these forms of political domination, which predominated during long periods of history, such as monarchies, succumbed to various liberation movementsthat chose democratic forms of government. Nevertheless, we also mention at the end of the article that domination exists within democracy in the capitalist economic regime that predominatesin globalization, and that prevails through neoliberalism.Keywords: Domination, Dictatorship, Autoritarisms,Tatalitarism, Liberation