1. Introduction 2. Theory: instability, credible commitments, and growth 3. VPI coalitions in historical perspective: Mexico's turbulent politics, 1876-1929 4. Finance 5. Industry 6. Petroleum 7. Mining 8. Agriculture 9. Conclusion.

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The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability, Credible Commitments, and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876-1929

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Mining Wars: Corporate Expansion and Labor Violence in the Western Desert, 1876–1920

We draw on the selectorate theory and detailed historical research to explain how a government relationship with foreign multinationals will depend on the strategies followed by the host country’s ruler to assure his/her political survival. Focusing in three oil-exporting countries (Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico) and one firm (Standard Oil Company of New Jersey) during the twentieth century, we show that oil rents are a valuable resource for the host country’s ruler to assure the loyalty of his/her winning coalition.


We argue that a government depending on a small winning coalition will use oil rents as a private good to be distributed among those close to the ruler, while a government relying on large coalitions will use oil rents as public goods to be distributed among the population. When acting against foreign multinationals, the host government is constrained by the political power of the firms’ home country over the host country and by the relationship between the firm and its home country. Finally, we show that shared political agendas between host and home governments give the host government more space to maneuver against foreign firms.

Political Survival, Energy Policies, and Multinational Corporations: A Historical Study for Standard Oil of New Jersey in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela in the Twentieth Century.

In the nineteen twenties a group of graduates from the Colegio de San Nicolás and the Universidad Michoacana in Morelia, the capital city of the state of Michoacán, drafted a program for the economic and social development of the countryside that, in the next decade, influenced federal policies and ideas about health care. This article examines the ideas and efforts of two Morelian physicians, Jesús Díaz Barriga (1891-1971) and Enrique Arreguín Vélez (1907-1989) who, during the 1920s and early 1930s, developed an incipient system of rural health in Michoacán. In 1935 they organized the First Congreso of Rural Hygiene, an event which they hoped would launch a state-managed system of rural health, and eventually the socialization of medicine in Mexico.

Rural health and state construction in post-revolutionary Mexico: the Nicolaita project for rural medical services.

THE ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF BENEVOLENT STATES OR COALITIONS of states actively intervening in the internal affairs of other sovereign states has recently become fashionable after being out of favor or simply forgotten for many years. Today the argument tends to be associated, explicitly or otherwise, with a Hobbesian kind of perspective that asserts the need for a benevolent hegemon at the international level and in certain cases the national level. The underlying argument is that social order will not arise spontaneously, but will require the use or sanction of force and, hence, a dominant power. The argument has two forms, which are connected but need to be distinguished. The first (made most notably by Niall Ferguson) argues that in the modern world a global hegemon is needed to provide public collective goods at a global level, such as: (a) a stable world monetary order, (b) protection against pirates, organised crime, ‘rogue states,’ and other predators, (c) a stable set of rules for transnational trade and finance, and (d) a body of rules that will govern inter-governmental relations and conflicts. For the Western Hemisphere since at least the 1890s, this function, says Ferguson and others, has been met by the United States, and

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Empire: Public Goods and Bads

Three theoretical assumptions in liberal sociology long ruled historical study of the Mexican Revolution: mass action is consensual, intentional, and redistributive; collective violence measures structural transformation; and nationalism aggregates interests in a limited division of labour. In plain words, movement of ‘the people’ is movement by ‘the people’ for ‘the people’; the bloodier the struggle, the deeper the difference between ways of life before and after the struggle; and familiarity breeds solidarity. The most influential scholars of the subject also made two radical suppositions about Mexico in particular. First, the most significant fact in the country in 1910 was the struggle between the upper and lower classes. Second, the conflict was about to explode. And on these premises respectable research and analysis framed a pro-revolutionary story of the rise of the downtrodden: the Revolution began over a political issue, the succession to Porfirio Diaz, but masses of people in all regions quickly involved themselves in a struggle beyond politics for sweeping economic and social reforms. Enormous material destruction throughout the country, the ruination of business, and total defiance of the United States were necessary for the popular struggle to triumph, as it did. And through the struggle the champions of ‘the people’ became the revolutionary leaders. Economic and social conditions improved in accordance with revolutionary policies, so that the new society took shape within a framework of official revolutionary institutions. The struggle ended in 1917, the year of the revolutionary constitution. The new revolutionary state enjoyed as much legitimacy and strength as its spokesmen said it did.

John Womack

Papers

The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1920