Mexico: The Other Side of the Wall

The capacity of Mexico´s civilian government to maintain the domestic order has weakened as a result of the decline of PRI as hegemonic apparatus of rule, the implantation of neoliberalism and the rise of organized crime.  As a result, Mexico has undergone a pattern of militarization in which military spending has doubled since 2000 and where, through the Law of Internal Security, the Mexican military can now be deployed by the Mexico´s president unilaterally, with no Congressional oversight and with no accountability for the military itself in terms of how it deploys force.  This makes me think of Carl Schmitt's view of soveriegnty as the capacity to decide when a nornal situation exists or not.  If not, then we enter into a state of exception where the normal rules of politics are suspended and order is imposed by any means necessary.  Since 2000, Mexico has descended into a more or less permanent state of exception. The passage of the Internal Law of Security last...

This blog post is a preliminary sketch of the October 28 Movement in Puebla, Mexico.  I will start with some theoretical points of reference and then move on to discuss the movement. The sociologist William Robinson is a key theorist of globalization.  He argues that globalization is shaped by a transnational capitalist class.  In terms of theories of imperialism, this is very different from Lenin´s thesis of inter-imperialist rivalry.  There is conflict between states in terms of how they position themselves within the global economy, a phenomena which can be understood in terms of the concept of the competitition state.  But the primary lines of conflict in the world today are not between states, but between transnational capital and the great majority of people in the world whose livelihoods, communities and environments are uprooted, dislocated or destroyed by the encroachment of transnational circuits of capitalist accumulation.  This is exactly what...

Yesterday the study abroad class that I have been teaching in Cholula, Mexico met with journalist, Samantha Paez Guzman, Adan Xicale, an attorney and social activist, and his son, Paula Xicale, also a local activist.  They told us about the movement Cholula Viva y Digna.  The movement began in 2014 when the governor of the state of Puebla, Rafael Moreno Valle (of the PAN) announced a plan to develop the archeological zone in Cholula. To tell the story of Cholula Viva y Digna, some background about the archeological zone is in order.  At the center of this zone is the grand pyramid of Cholula, the largest pyramid in the world.  Cholula has been inhabited since 1500 BC and a series of civilizations have flourished there.  During the colonial period, the Spaniards used the stones of the ancient temples to build their churches.  In Cholula, they buried the great pyramid by building a hill over it and then constructing the Church of the Virgen de los Re...

The 2018 election in Mexico was an unequivocal victory for Morena and AMLO (Lopez Obrador), its leader.  AMLO captured 53% of the vote in what was previously a fairly evenly split electorate (if you look at 2000, 2006 and 2012).  This time the PAN got 22% of the vote and the PRI just 16%. But their losses and Morena's gains did not end there.  AMLO's coalition also won a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, controlling 300 out of 500 seats and a majority in the Senate too.  Morena also won 4 of the 9 governorships plus Mexico City and won control of 19 of 24 (of 32 states on the ballot) state legislatures.  All of this ftom a party that was founded in 2014 after AMLO split from the PRD, the previous party of the left, whose remnants shifted to the center and now are on the verge of political extinction. What does all this mean?  Actually, it is hard to say.  The AMLO of 2006 wanted to reverse the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s and many alarmed neol...