: A new and dangerous dynamic has been introduced into the Mexican internal security environment. That new dynamic involves the migration of power from traditional state and nonstate adversaries to nontraditional nonstate private military organizations such as the Zetas, enforcer gangs like the Aztecas, Negros, and Polones, and paramilitary triggermen. Moreover, the actions of these irregular nonstate actors tend to be more political-psychological than military, and further move the threat from hard power to soft power solutions. In this connection, we examine the macro "what, why, who, how, and so what?" questions concerning the resultant type of conflict that has been and is being fought in Mexico. A useful way to organize these questions is to adopt a matrix approach. The matrix may be viewed as having four sets of elements: (1) The Contextual Setting, (the "what?" and beginning "why" questions); (2) The Protagonist's Background, Organization, Operations, Motives, and Linkages (the fundamental "who? why?" and "how" questions); (3) The Strategic-Level Outcomes and Consequences (the basic "so what?" question; and (4) Recommendations that address the salient implications. These various elements are mutually influencing and constitute the political-strategic level cause and effect dynamics of a given case.

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The politics of Mexican development

A "New" Dynamic in the Western Hemisphere Security Environment: The Mexican Zetas and Other Private Armies

A longstanding scholarly debate asks what lasting changes revolution makes in political attitudes and behaviors. Scholars generally regard revolution as transformative, but research on revolution's behavioral and cultural legacies after transfers of state power has been limited. This study explores revolution's residual impact on individuals' electoral participation, civil society engagement, and social capital by comparing postrevolutionary Nicaraguans to their Central American neighbors. Using survey data on comparable samples of urban Central Americans, the research found higher electoral engagement in Nicaragua than in the other nations in the region that experienced major insurgencies but not revolution. It also found among Nicaraguans greater support for civil disobedience, greater school and union activism, and more frequent leftist political identification. Although revolution did leave residual effects in Nicaragua, more significant influence appears to have decayed rapidly.

background

Revolution's Legacy: Residual Effects on Nicaraguan Participation and Attitudes in Comparative Context

If someone has a chief who is capable and has the prospects for a good future, then that person will probably think, "Perhaps I can go with him at the sexenio"; and it happens in reverse, too, if someone has a chief who is not particularly capable but who has influential friends, some will want to follow him. There are a lot of changes and it affects our program, especially when people stop working to pursue their futures. Political time in Mexico is measured by the six year incumbencies of successive presidents. The bureaucrats who made the statements above were recognizing an inescapable fact of political life in that country: Each change of administration is marked by a massive turnover of personnel within the government at the national and state levels, echoed at the municipal level every three years. The turnover is complete among occupants of elective positions who, like the president, cannot succeed themselves. Party officials also abandon their previous responsibilities, some to be appointed to bureaucratic positions and others to assume elected posts, while many take up other functions in the party. Middleand high-level bureaucrats in turn are initiated into new appointive or elective offices. Cabinet members and heads of government agencies, commissions, trusts, and industries are selected by the incumbent presi*This article has been adapted from a larger study of policy making and implementation processes in Mexico. A fuller discussion and elaboration will be found in chapters 2 and 3 of Bureaucrats, Politicians, and Peasants in Mexico: A Case Study in Public Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). Field research was supported by the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies. The author benefitted from the helpful comments of Wayne Cornelius, Harvey Sapolsky, and Myron Weiner of MIT on an earlier version of this paper. An intellectual debt is owed to Anthony Leeds's seminal work on careers in Brazilian society (1965).

Patrons and clients in the bureaucracy: career networks in mexico*

not by cultural lag or precapitalist conditions but by the nature of dependent capitalism in contemporary Mexico and its particular class structure. More specifically, it is argued that dependent capitalist development, by transferring abroad a large part of the domestically produced surplus, limits the internal distribution of industrial benefits and encourages such particularistic relations as clientelism.

The Class Basis of Patron-Client Relations

This thesis aims at explaining the reasons behind Mexico's tax revenue stagnation, by exploring the structural weaknesses of the tax system, identifying the main actors in the tax policy making process, and studying the tax reforms attempts and the role policy actors played to shape them in the last thirty years The dissertation first shows Mexico's low tax collection yield and its stagnation for more than thirty years The analysis portrays an inefficient tax collection system, with a tax structure plagued with a plethora of privileges and exemptions that dilute collection A large number of interviews with public authorities, politicians, intellectual, representatives of businesses, social and international organizations showed a common concern over Mexico's low tax effort An issue, which surprisingly has always been in the rhetoric of the political agenda, but has received very little political, social or scholarly attention The thesis rises a puzzling paradox By looking at the dynamics of tax reform, the evidence seems to suggest that even in a strongly centralized and hierarchical state like Mexico, frequently depicted as authoritarian, policy makers have been constrained to shape tax policy Government's policy objectives and the "uniqueness" of the relationship with socio-economic actors, principally the business community, have affected the nature, profile and outcome of the tax reforms I argue that the Mexican political system has been upheld by a very fragile political coalition with socio-economic actors, which has become the most important constraint on reform The historical analysis shows that a substantial tax reform has been avoided, despite that increasing government revenue is crucial for the long-term economic development of the country Instead, the government pursued other less politically troublesome means for financing the State However, these alternative revenues- raising policies exacted a very high social and economic cost in he long run The study of the tax policy decision making highlights the dominant role of politics in the policy making process, concluding the clientelism best describes the politics of tax policy making As a result, the current shape of the Mexican tax system responds largely to the political accommodation of powerful vested interests Economic policies have been subordinates to political stability, as well as upholding the fragile coalitions that support the Mexican political regime

The politics of Mexican development

Citations

A "New" Dynamic in the Western Hemisphere Security Environment: The Mexican Zetas and Other Private Armies

Revolution's Legacy: Residual Effects on Nicaraguan Participation and Attitudes in Comparative Context

Patrons and clients in the bureaucracy: career networks in mexico*

The Class Basis of Patron-Client Relations

The political economy of tax collection in Mexico : the constraints on reform, 1970-2000

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