La Pata de Cabra, Satire and Free Speech in Nineteenth-Century Mexico City

The article examines how La Pata de Cabra (The Goat's Hoof ), an over-the-top fantastical Spanish comedia de magia (magic play), came to figure centrally in serious debates about Mexican politics and society between 1845 and 1857. The article explores the play's popularity and its resonance in the press – it spawned at least half a dozen satirical newspapers – to argue that satire became a critical political language and form of expression that broadened and sustained debates in an era marked by volatile and often heavily restricted press freedoms. The article's focus on the La Pata phenomenon brings two fields of study, theatre and the press, into productive and necessary conversation.

Stories That Make History

From covering the massacre of students at Tlatelolco in 1968 and the 1985 earthquake to the Zapatista rebellion in 1994 and the disappearance of forty-three students in 2014, Elena Poniatowska has been one of the most important chroniclers of Mexican social, cultural, and political life. In Stories That Make History, Lynn Stephen examines Poniatowska's writing, activism, and political participation, using them as a lens through which to understand critical moments in contemporary Mexican history. In her crónicas—narrative journalism written in a literary style featuring firsthand testimonies—Poniatowska told the stories of Mexico's most marginalized people. Throughout, Stephen shows how Poniatowska helped shape Mexican politics and forge a multigenerational political community committed to social justice. In so doing, she presents a biographical and intellectual history of one of Mexico's most cherished writers and a unique history of modern Mexico.

Protest and Performativity

Protests are contentious actions that pose claims to other parties. Protesters seek attention and voice or demand that a third party act (or stop acting) in a way that prompts grievances or causes suffering to the protesters or others. Protestors raise claims for a range of reasons, material, legal (such as rights and protections), and symbolic. Often all the claimants want is to call the authorities’ attention to certain issues because their efforts to be listened to through regular means have been ignored. Protests have been part and parcel of Mexican politics since postrevolutionary times. These protests routinely incorporate performative innovations into their repertoire in order to gain public support and have their demands met. This chapter analyzes the components of performance in protest and discusses a range of contrasting case studies from Mexico, highlighting features such as empathy and identity through performance.

The new Mexican political system: reconfiguration of capacities and power

There exist different elements that contribute to the idea of the political system as such in the context of the Mexican experience, but also that serve as referents that characterize the recent past. For that reason, we present a scheme of analysis – with political trends that are being built and that differentiate the new Mexican political system compared to that of the 20th century. Based on a model of the political system as the methodology of the analysis, we will track the trends of the changing Mexican politics during the 21st century. The destruction of the institutions of the old political system is associated with a long process of political struggle, which has provided for the creation of new institutions, but in very specific political spaces. The article traces the changes in the political system of Mexico in the 21st century in its various spheres and manifestations: public authority, party system, electoral complex, civil society, the process of democratization. We consider the evolution of the three branches of government and analyze their current balance.

Media Coverage of Campaigns: A multilevel study of Mexican women running for office

Previous studies on the United States and Latin America have demonstrated unequal media coverage of men and women during electoral campaigns. However, in Mexico, a country where women increasingly participate in politics, this has seldom been studied. This is worrisome when considering that, with gender stereotyping, the media can create new barriers for female candidates, affecting voters’ perceptions of women’s expertise and policy proposals. Through a comparative analysis, this research explores the role of the media when covering women running for office. It specifically studies coverage of executive-branch campaigns at the three levels of government. This is an important contribution to the literature as there are few studies of the Mexican context; specifically, this research examines the visibility, focus, traits, and issues covered in written media in order to explore, as well expand knowledge of, media biases and Mexican politics. Findings suggest that women running for positions with more power received different appraisal in printed media. Furthermore, male candidates received more coverage with the number of stories and headlines explicitly covering them higher than female candidates. This was most evident in municipal elections. At the same time, coverage of both female and male candidates shied away from personal traits or family matters. The media’s attention was on ‘male’ issues, where women were less competitive than men. Albeit with marginal differences, coverage of municipal elections was positive for women (where they won), compared with that of the across-the-board losses for female candidates running for governor.

The Mexican Spring

The chapter aims at understanding a recent phenomenon in Mexican politics: the use of internet and social media as a new and powerful resource for mobilization and social participation in the policy process. Based on a review of two relatively recent movements in Mexico (#YoSoy132 and The Wirikuta Defense Front), the chapter argues that although the internet is still restricted to the middle and upper classes, the use of social media and its impact transcends class boundaries, draws public attention, creates a valuable social capital for mobilization, and influences the decision-making process. The chapter does not intend to provide evidence to the theoretical discussion on why and how social media enhances political participation and mobilization; rather, it reflects on the features shared by these two movements in order to draw some lines for further research. It finds that, if used appropriately, social media is actually an effective tool to facilitate mobilization and modify the public agenda.

After TPP Is Before TPP: Mexican Politics for Economic Globalization and the Lost Chance for Reflection

This chapter presents an analytical pathological appraisal of elite thinking and mobilization in Mexico after the Trump administration withdrew from TPP and forced Mexico to engage in NAFTA renegotiations. It examines the strategies developed by political and economic elites in response to the threat of trade war coming from Mexico’s most important trade partner. This analysis shows that, although Mexican elites developed sophisticated heuristics in order to confront the immediate challenge from the government in Washington DC, they did not engage in what should be a very important debate about Mexico’s role in the reconfigurations of global trade and order. This is a missed opportunity for Mexico which could affect its role in the ongoing reconfigurations of global trade and law, and thus its future stature in world politics.