Artikkelit Syyskuu 1/96

Petri Minkkinen

Democratisation of Mexico?

Presentation

What have been the results of modernisation and transnationalization of the political-economic system of Mexico? It is probably the right time to ask that question, especially now, after the first economic crisis of the Mexico's post-national economic policies. When the transformation of Mexican society began in the late seventies, its objective was clear: To (re-)connect Mexico to the world economy as an exporting country through the liberalisation of national economy in the framework set by the contemporary liberal-capitalist ideology.

Notwithstanding the fact that the beginning of the openings or aperturas coincided temporally, the economic apertura has progressed more rapidly and with more decision than the political apertura. The democratisation of Mexican society coincided, also, with the 'wave' of national democratisation processes in the 'Second World' - rest in peace - and in the 'Third World'. A simultaneous phenomena is the transformation of the meaning of representative democracy proper: the primacy of formal democracy over the contents of democracy.

After the transition from military regimes towards liberal democracy in Latin America and the collapse of totalitarian governments in the socialist bloc in the Eastern Europe, in has become commonplace to say that democracy has triumphed over authoritarianism and totalitarianism. It is evident, that in contemporary world exists more that ever countries, in which the 'people' can elect their political representatives in democratic ways. It is also clear, that the frequency of violent repression of the dissidents and the quantity of political prisoners have diminished (1). The degree of freedom of expression has increased and the dissidents can usually express their ideas without violent punishment. It is possible to verify empirically that the formal political democracy has progressed considerably.

However, it is not evident that the voters could have a greater effect than before to the policies executed by the governments. It is so, especially, in respect to the economic and social policies. It may be possible to suppose, that the majority of the people do not appreciate the dismantling of social security and social services. Likewise, the economic policies that prefer the competitiveness of exporting enterprises and the service of foreign debt to internal markets and purchasing power of the consumer-voters, is contrary to the common sense and consciousness of many subjects.

Being so, why do the democratically elected governments implement policies not preferred by the popular sectors. The answer, simplified, is easy. They can not do otherwise, because they are not accountable for voters, but instead for the transnational economic forces and transnational elite (2), which have a power to decide whether a country has chosen the right path to be allowed to survive in the global economic order, and thus, worthy of occupying a status of equal in the nation-state system.

It might be possible to suggest that even though Mexico would reach a credible formal democracy in near future, the Mexicans would not be able to influence a fondo to their national political affairs. It could be claimed, that in order to the form of democracy to be saturated with content of democracy, democracy at national 'level' is a necessary but not a sufficient condition.

As a concept, democracy has been defined in various academic ways (3). It is also a frequently contested concept, even though almost everyone value it as an desirable objective, irrespective to their ideological or theoretical stance.

In this column, which is a part of a more extensive article, democracy shall be defined in a very simplistic manner. The individual subjects, groups and nations must have a possibility to influence to their habitat or environments and their standard of living without causing harmful impacts to other individual subjects, groups and nations. Understood so, the democracy has not existed in many spatio-temporal locations and its existence in contemporary world, that is supposed to have democratised, may be easily contested. It could be, indeed, possible to qualify democracy, especially in the so-called Third World, but more and more also in the 'First World' as "low intensity democracy" (4).

The democracy has traditionally been understood as a internal phenomena of the territorially limited nation-states (5). According to the realist point of view within the field of the study of international relations, we can find anarchical relations between the states in the sphere of international relations. The neo-realists have surpassed the idea of a state as only actor in the world politics, but in their world, democracy still is a nation-state related concept. Therefore, to already mentioned thinkers, as well as to many other thinkers on different academic fields, for different reasons, it is a pure utopia to discuss the possibility of democracy beyond state 'level'.

In the context of European Union we can find an attempt to construct democratic institutions at the level of community of states, but the 'democracy deficit' is still accentuated, because the member states want to preserve their legislative and executive rights, and the transnational forces seem to prefer the democracy at regional level as a façade to the democracy as an expression of real popular sovereignty of EU-Europa. Even if the real democracy were to realise in EU, what would still be lacking, is the democratic control of the transnational economic forces and the democratisation of the international 'economic' institutions.

In the North American economic area, the affairs that are defined as economic, have been liberalised regionally, but in this regional context, democratisation à la EU is not a realist possibility at least on short term. Even though the NAFTA-area is technically and according to the text of agreement just a process of 'economic' integration, and is thus a politically constructed entity, its political institutionalisation is practically non-existent. Its legitimation is based on its economic interpretation which intentionally depreciates NAFTA's political nature. As a world political construction, it has implications for the democracy in Mexico, too.

State, limited democracy, and democracy in Mexico

In the nation-state system, it is the spatial territory of a state, where the concept of democracy supposedly has validity, not in the international relations, nor in international organisations. In spite of that, the democracy, representative, or some other form of democracy, is indispensable at all the 'levels': local, national (6), regional, and transnational.

In the contemporary global political economy, the political parties have lost a significant part of their political identity. Their party programs and declarations of principles still reflect (although less than before) different ideologies and socio-political objectives. In reality, the parties that are represented in a government, find quickly that their hand are tied (7).

Like Robert W. Cox has written: "Since the crisis of the post-war order, democracy has been quietly redefined in the centres of world capitalism (8)". In a report produced for the Trilateral Commission, the 'experts' claimed that from the 1960's the "democratic surge" has produced an overload of demands upon government for [social] services and a challenge on governmental authority, and caused an 'ungovernability of democracies'. Especially the United States suffered from an 'excess of democracy', which could only be abated through political demobilisation of 'marginal' groups (9).

Of the terms "dictablanda" ("dictasoft") and "democradura" ("democrahard") used by O'Donnell and Schmitter, it is the latter that reflects better the socio-political situation in Mexico, even though the Mexican case has features of both versions (10). Constitutionally, Mexico could be qualified as a democratic country, and the official discourse on Mexico's social reality has tried to sustain the illusion of the democratic Mexico. President Ernesto Zedillo, for example, stated in an interview with Spanish television, that "there is no transition [to democracy] in Mexico, because Mexico has already have a formal democracy since 1917 (11)"

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI, continuously in power in Mexico since the 1920's) is a good example of a party, that has maintained its position as a 'state-party', and simultaneously, has tried to transform internally in order to correspond to the changes in political accountability, required (de facto) by the global political economy. The PRI has succeed to guarantee, not without great difficulties, the relative internal stability. It is so, in spite of the frustration created by the political system of that country and the extremely unequal distribution of income, that have aroused a ascension of various 'destabilising' forces, from the Zapatists (EZLN), social movements and opposition parties to the internal fractions inside the PRI itself.

From the point of view of the "national security" of the United States and the interests of USAmerican economic forces (and more and more of other transnational economic forces), the internal stability of Mexico (and its guaranteeing) has traditionally been the prior condition for the 'mutually beneficial' relations. It has been suggested that the unexpressed objectives of NAFTA and the change of 'development strategy' - failed what comes to internal stability - was exactly to defend these interests through the continuity of PRI's (12) political domination - at least on short term. Notwithstanding, in reality, in the (semi-)official rhetoric of the USA, Mexico is frecuently criticised for the lack of real democracy. That indicates a discrepancy between the practices of political-economic interests and a discourse on democracy.

As a counterweight for the transsexenal neoliberal politics of Miguel de la Madrid-Carlos Salinas de Gortari-Ernesto Zedillo, the administration of Salinas de Gortari initiated the National Solidarity Program (Pronasol), as a neopopulist solution to the socio-political problems created by structural adjustments. Pronasol is an important part in the formulation of "social liberalism" as a salinist form of liberal capitalism, supposedly with human face. Pronasol has been administrated by the president, who selects the beneficiaries "according to party political criterions and keeping in mind the personal image of president, and, most importantly, the program in immune to all democratic medium of control or accountability. As a consequence, the Pronasol strengthen the institutions and practices [...] that constitute the principal obstacles to the political change in Mexico (13)". The political parties and the NGO's have criticised strongly the Pronasol, "as a corporatist tool of the government, that utilises it in order to allege support to itself and to PRI" (14).

Other terms used by O'Donnell and Schmitter, "duros" y "blandos", can be applied to Mexican case, too. In PRI or in the political elite, there is "duros" or conservatives ("dinosaurs"), economic nationalists, who think that the perpetuation of the (semi-)authoritarian regime is not only possible, but desirable. The modernising technocrats, with inclination to neoliberal ideology, want a change, but prefer the economic opening to the political opening, and are, therefore, susceptible to the discourse and practices of "new constitutionalism". They can be qualified as "blandos" who "think, that in order that the legitimation shall be factual in the long term, the regime can not postpone excessively certain liberties, at least in acceptable degree to the moderate sectors of internal opposition and international public opinion (15)".

The populists of PRI, who still believe to the ideals of Mexican revolution and reject the neoliberal ideas, defend some kind of economic nationalism and are ambivalent with regard to non-corporative pluralisation of the political system. They could be characterised as "blandos". In the first stages of democratisation, it is difficult to distinguish between "duros" and "blandos", "who would be ready to resort to the repression and tolerate the arbitrarities of a ministry or a corresponding organ of security (16)".

The Mexican political system has changed gradually during past twenty years. The growing consciousness of semidemocratic nature of the system has become very harmful for the legitimacy of system, characterised by state-party, presidentialism, and corporatism, simultaneously including and excluding. The election legislation has democratised, on appearance. The political system has tolerated the triumphs of opposition parties, especially those by the National Action party (PAN, Christian conservative), at local and state level (not national). PAN has various governors and the opposition is present in both chambers of representatives.

Notwithstanding the previous, the opposition parties have not been able to promote their alternatives with success, for two main reasons. 1) the political system does not allow them electoral success if they propose too radical alternatives, 2) in order to obtain the right to win elections, they have to modify their platforms to make them adapt sufficiently with the 'development politics' of promoted by the PRI-technocrats.

The Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD, centre-left) is composed of different lines of thinking, and has not been able to unite the progressive 'centre-left' behind a coherent party alternative. The PAN, for its part, in spite of its better organisation and coherence, does not represent a socially more democratic alternative to the neoliberal development ideology. The PRD has tried to offer itself as a party political mouthpiece of the civil society. The PRD has not been succeed to win important elections - or it has not been allowed - after the already descending neocardenist surge (17), and therefore, has not been able to attempt to put in practice its compromise with progressive civil society.

The partial democratisation has not convinced the Mexicans. According to a opinion poll organised by Gallup in July of 1995, only 30 per cent of Mexicans supported president Zedillo and only 17 per cent were satisfiedwith the democracy in Mexico (18). It is difficult to maintain the belief to the political democracy (formal), when the social democracy (never really established and consolidated) is deteriorating rapidly (19).

The globalization (or transnationalization) has not only debilitated the national state - as various authors suppose. The national state has lost its capacity to act as a realisator of the economic policies promoted by the political parties democratically accountable to the voters; the representative democracy has not been able to guarantee the popular sovereignty over the central political issues. The (national) state, through its transnationalization (20), has transformed into a functional executive apparatus, that is politically less accountable to the 'peoples'. The contemporary national state, especially in the (semi-)peripheric countries of the world economy, is more than ever a executive and administrative branch of the transnational political-economic elite, outside the sphere of popular political control.

In this sense, the differences between countries of the core of global capitalism and the (semi-)peripheral countries has narrowed within the process of (re-)globalization and the strengthening of the transnational financial forces. In the contemporary capitalist world, poverty, incapacitation and de-democratisation are equalising globally, especially in the lower social groups (21).

The neorealists (or neoliberal institutionalists) claim that the world is converting into a Global village, that is composed of liberal democratic countries with market economy, which operate in the liberalised global economy. The individual subjects of these countries are connected globally with new - and more democratic - medium of communication, like Internet. To this world belong the richest countries and in them, the subjects (really) capacitated economically and politically of those social groups that have still escaped the structural adjustments. This global village is not that of equal 'peoples', but that of transnational elites and other capacitated social groups. This Global Village is very exclusive.

In Mexico, the neoliberal politics have not weakened the state, that has already previously been relatively strong, in relation to the popular sectors. As lvaro Díaz puts it, "The real neoliberalism - above the discourse - has not debilitated the state as a source of order and hegemony. In the context of economic-political crisis, what was actually tried, was to construct a state that would be more autonomous of the social pressures and more compromised with managerial class, be it national or foreign (22)".

If the implementation of neoliberal ideology has not produced a state that is less strong, as should happen according to the (neo-)liberal political philosophy, it has, despite of that, succeed with the other, less pronounced, objectives. That is, in the combat against the 'excess of democracy', relative socio-economic equality, and increasing homogenization of the economic polies of various countries.

The liberal capitalist restructuration has increased the autonomy of the bourgeois civil society (23). The individualist political mobilisation with individualising objectives and aggressive force, has exceeded the mobilisation with more communal-collective objectives that are on defensive with its operations as well as with its base of popular support. As a corollary, the autonomy of political society - the state - has decreased. The role of the state has become more instrumental, especially for the internal business groups with orientation towards external markets and for the TNC's.

Conclusions

Democracy can not be treated just as an internal question of a national state. Within the process of globalisation or transnationalisation various influencing factors cross the borders of states. Many of these forces are of such nature that it is impossible to confront them by particular states separately. Moreover, many of these forces, for example economic, operate outside the reach of democratically legitimised control mechanisms. These forces affect, however, the internal social processes of different countries. For that reason, it is important to broaden the notion of democracy to cover broader 'spaces' than just national states. That should not remain at the level of a slogan but should be transformed into transnational democratic practices. Thus, democracy within a national state is a necessary but not sufficient condition for these extended democratic practices, and indeed, for the validity of the notion 'democracy' itself.

In Latin America and in Mexico formal political parties have not been able sufficiently to transform the needs of the electorate into democratically legitimised practices. Being so, the civil society and various social movements are being elevated to a key position in the processes of democratisation in that area. That means that many individual subjects think that democratisation is not possible within the corrupt and corporatist formal political structures. It also reflects the wide-spread belief that foreign economic actors define, in the end, the outcomes of internal political practices in these countries.

Many social movements are trying to increase their transnational cooperation with similar movements in other countries. That happens also between the movements from countries with conflictual histories, like Mexico and United States. They are, therefore, doing - possibly unconciously - what Michel Foucault has suggested: "to be able to resist "the multiplicity of forms of power, we must respond with a multiplicity of localised resistance and counteroffensives [...] Like power, the multiplicity of resistances may be integrated into global strategies" (24).

The social movements can not be the only solution in real democratisation. But, because the social movements are not trapped to the nets of the necessities and only solutions and alternatives, unlike the formal political parties, they can, at least, acts as mouthpieces of the new ideas and solutions and, also, through their transnationalization, as pressure groups both in the national space and in the transnational spaces.

It is not, of course, guaranteed nor even probable that the social movements could or would like to - as only actors - achieve a profound change. But, renouncing nihilism, it is possible and even probable, through promotion of the viable alternatives - national and/or transnational - that they could contest and challenge the neo-liberal discourse and practices. Therefore, if the other contextual influencing factors are favourable, they can promote the gradual change, and, when the context is not favourable, they can, however, affect to these contextual factors in order to make possible the change in the future. There could be room for increasing the content of formal democracy.

References:

(1) It is, in the global level. In many countries, also in democratic ones, we do find political violence, like in Spain, ETA-related violence. In countries where the death penalty is a part of punishment tool-kit, we can found 'structural violence' against marginalised and politically suspicious, like in the United States where the number of coloured (black) people is disproportionately large in comparision with white people. In Mexico, the political violence and violations against human rights are still very frecuent, for example against the activists of PRD and the campesinos. See, for example, "AI denuncia abusos en México", Noticias Aliadas, Vol. 32, No. 44, Noviembre 30, 1995, pp. 1 & 8

(2) Various political, economic, intellectual forces are represented in "the transnational elite". On "transnational capitalist class" or "transnational business class" see, Stephen Gill, American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

(3) For the various models and definitions of democracy, see, for example, David Held 1992, Modelos de democracia, Alianza Editorial, México D.F. Originally published in English in 1987.

(4) See, for example, Barry Gills and Joel Rocamora "Low intensity democracy", Third World Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1992, pp. 501-523 and Edelberto Torres-Rivas, "Centroamérica: democracias de baja intensidad", Estudios Latinoamericanos, CELA, FCPyS, División de estudios de posgrado, UNAM, Vol. 3, A¤o 3, No. 5, julio-diciembre de 1988, pp. 30-37.

(5) See, for example, William E. Connolly, "Democracy and Territoriality", Millennium, Vol. 20, No. 3, 1991, pp. 463-484.

(6) The representative democracy is the standard form of democracy in all countries that are being characterised as democratic. In some countries, like in Switzerland, a form of direct democracy, referendum, extends the representative democracy.

(7) For example the socialist government of Mitterrand in France after its heterodox politics from the beginnings of it tenure. Government of Alan García in Peru, the social democratic government is Sweden, and the contemporary Finnish left-centre-right coalition government.

(8) Robert W. Cox, Global Perestroika, in Ralph Miliband and Leo Panich (eds.), New World Order? Socialist Register 1992, London, The Merlin Press, 1992, p. 32.

(9) Ibid., p. 33.

(10) Guillermo O'Donnell y Philippe C. Schmitter, Transiciones desde un gobierno autoritario / 4: Conclusiones tentativas sobre las democracias inciertas, Ediciones Paidós, Barcelona-Buenos Aires-México, 1.a reimpresión en España, 1994, p. 30. I refer to the famous statement by a Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, according to which Mexico is a "perfect dictatorship".

(11) Marco Rascón, La Jornada, 30.2.1996.

(12) See, for example, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, La Jornada, 9.11.1993. In a meeting of the social movements from Canada, Mexico and United States it was stated, that, "the flagrant contradictions between economic liberalisation and political stormy clouds gives room for a claim, that NATA constitutes an endorsement by the government of Bush for the Mexican antidemocracy. "Las Organizaciones Sociales Frente al Tratado de Libre Comercio", La Otra Cara de México, Núm. 20, marzo-abril 1991, pp. 4-5. See also, Carlos Heredia, "NAFTA and Democratization in Mexico", Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 48, No. 1, Summer 1994, pp. 32-34.

(13) Denise Dresser, Neopopulist Solutions to Neoliberal Problems: Mexico's National Solidarity Program, University of California in San Diego, 1991, p. 3. Cited by Carlos A. Heredia y Mary E. Purcell in, La polarización de la sociedad mexicana: una visi¢n desde la base de las políticas de ajuste económico del Banco Mundial, Equipo PUEBLO y The Development Group for Alternative Policies, 1994, p. 9.

(14) Heredia and Purcell, op. cit., p. 9.

(15) O'Donnell and Schmitter, op. cit., pp. 32-33.

(16) Ibid., pp. 32-33. On the internal divisions of PRI, see Rodolfo Stavenhagen, La Jornada. 17.6.1995.

(17) Neocardenist surge refers to the party political grouping around the figure of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who has been a governor of state of Michoacan, and an alternative-for-change presidential candidate of the center-left against PRI's Salinas de Gortari in 1988. PRI's victory was widely questioned and charged of fraud.

(18) Lucien Chauvin, "Democracia en crisis", Noticias Aliadas, Vol. 32, No. 48 - Diciembre 28, 1995, p. 1.

(19) On the interrelation between political democracy and social democracy, see, Sergio Zermeño, "Estado y sociedad en el neoliberalismo dependiente", Revista Mexicana de Sociología, IIS/UNAM, Año LVI, Núm. 4, Octubre-Diciembre de 1994, pp. 109-132.

(20) In his article "Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Reals Theory", Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 10, No.2, 1981, Robert W. Cox still writes about "internationalization" of state. On transnationalization of the state see, for example, Jorge Nef y Francisco Rojas Aravena, "Dependencia compleja y transnacionalización del estado en América Latina", Relaciones Internacionales, Heredia, Costa Rica, Núm. 8-9, 1984, pp. 101-122.

(21) As a reference for comparation, we could remember what was said about the Soviet Union: over there, everybody are equally poor, save the members of party elite.

(22) lvaro Díaz, "Tendencias de la restructuración económica y social en América Latina", Revista Mexicana de Sociología, IIS/UNAM, México, D.F., Año LVI, Núm. 4, Octubre-Diciembre de 1994, pp. 11-12.

(23) See, Díaz, op. cit., p. 22.

(24) See, Arturo Escobar, "Discourse and Power in Development: Michel Foucault and the Relevance of His Work to the Third World", Alternatives, Vol. X, Winter 1984-85, p. 381. 

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Writer is working at the Institute of Foreign Policy (Ulkopoliittinen Instituutti) in Helsinki. His e-mail address is petri.minkkinen@helsinki.fi)