The Struggle for Mexico: State Corporatism and Popular Opposition

In the 1970s political and economic changes to the world order led to an emerging "globalization" credited with the ceding of state sovereignty to a "de facto world government" and with the anti-globalism movement directed at countering it. Mexico, however, has maintained the salience of the national unit in the form of the state as a ruling apparatus and as the target of organized, non-state, political opposition. This study examines the transformation of Mexico's social and political organization from state corporatism to transnationalized corporatism, a form distinguished by the effect that International Financial Institutions and the World Trade Organization have on the state's relationship to the rest of society. By exploring how non-governmental organizations, political parties, unions and social movements (notably the Zapatistas) engage with the state under neoliberalism, this work significantly emphasizes the continued relevance of corporatist structures in an environment of electoral democratic reform.