Teaching Comparative

The Challenge for Calderon

Jorge Castañeda was Mexico's foreign minister from 2000-2003 and is now a professor of politics and Latin American studies at New York University. He wrote the editorial excerpted here for Project Syndicate.

I think it would be a good introduction to a study of how the Mexican state developed over the past 70 years. You could ask your students to identify the steps in the creation of the the three "pillars" Castañeda identifies. It could also be used as a conclusion to the study of Mexico, asking students to identify signs of change in thsoe "pillars." Or it could be used as the framework for a comparative exercise. Students could hypothesize about what institutions or situations in other countries are analogous to those "pillars" and, of course, asking them to defend their thinking.

Calderon’s Cauldron

"Under dramatically inauspicious circumstances, Mexico has finally got itself a new president...

"Most Mexican commentators believe that it should be relatively easy for Calderón to improve on the largely self-inflicted failure of outgoing President Vicente Fox’s term... If Calderón can strengthen law and order, and use his considerable political skills to reach agreement with the PRI on structural economic reforms, he will succeed...

"But the foundations of the old PRI-corporativist system created in the 1930’s remain untouched, and represent the main and most formidable obstacles to Mexico’s growth and success.

"The first pillar of this system is the public and private economic monopolies that dominate the country...

"The second pillar is formed by the unions that have controlled the Mexican labor movement since the 1930’s...

"The third pillar of the system is political monopoly...

"So Mexico’s challenges boil down to liberating the labor movement, breaking up the private monopolies and opening the public monopolies to competition, and lowering entry barriers that restrict access to the political arena..."

posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:42 AM