A historical and network analysis of popular contention in the age of globalization in Mexico

This dissertation examines whether the processes of neoliberal economic transformation at the end of the twentieth century have changed the main patterns of popular contention and the state of citizenship in Mexico.{09} In order to detect the effects of large-scale social changes on actors, targets, action forms, and issues in contention, thousands of episodes of popular protests between 1964 and 2000 are gathered from three national newspapers, Excelsior, Unomasuno, and La Jornada. The author employs a protest event analytic methodology and offers a rare quantitative evidence of popular protests in Mexico.; This study uncovers, first, that the process of political liberalization led to "politicization of targets." On the one hand, the weakened authoritarian state allowed popular actors to target a variety of the state institutions. On the other hand, the neoliberal reforms shifted the balance of power in favor of the business elite and thus made it increasingly difficult for popular groups to challenge these elite.; Second, this study also discovers an important shift in the main actors of contention, namely, the "rise of associationalism." While traditional major actors---mass organizations of workers, peasants, urban popular groups, and students---were losing their mobilization capacities under economic hardship, civic associations jumped into the central stage of popular contention. These emergent actors were playing a distinct role in contention by flexibly making alliances with different social groups and by flexibly interacting with a broad range of the political and economic elites.; In pursuing the economic reforms, the political and economic elites broke the established arrangements and understandings of citizenship that had emphasized the social and collective rights. Popular response to the breach is summarized as "politicization of claims." Popular groups realized that in order to defend their established rights and material interests they must challenge the authoritarian political system. The political rights thus had become the central theme of contention, and this convergence of different claims might have sustained the recent move toward political democratization in Mexico.