A Fading Aztec Sun
The Mexican opposition and the politics of everyday fear in 1994
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2361669 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James H Mcdonald (University of Texas at San Antonio, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1997 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 263-292 |
| Publication date | 1997-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critique of Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0308-275X • E-ISSN: 1460-3721 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0308275x9701700304 |
| OpenAlex | W1998051970 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 33 |
■ This article examines the changing nature of contemporary political discourse in Mexico. The traditional nationalist political discourse centered on issues of sovereignty and social justice, carefully cultivated and controlled by the Insititutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to legitimize its dominant position in a one-party corporate state. Using the 1994 presidential elections as my entry point, I argue that the PRI has undergone a semiotic metamorphosis, shedding nationalist rhetoric and image in favor of global ones. Its discourse has evolved as the domestic socio-economic situation has devolved. Central to this project is the redefinition of national identity. As Chatterjee (1993: 21) observes, 'nation- ness is virtually inseparable from political consciousness'. The PRI is establishing new sets of institutional myths about the relationship between prosperity, the free market and globalization. Complementing its symbolic rebirth is a redefin ition of danger in a stark survivalist narrative - the politics of everyday fear. Presi dent Carlos Salinas's (1988-94) message emphasized that traditional nationalist economic policies were dangerous, and that Mexico could only survive through economic globalism. Over the course of his term, he was able to disarm the nationalist symbolism of the leftist opposition candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, with an equally powerful integrationist utopian discourse that promised pros perity, especially to the middle class. I conclude by noting that there is a pro nounced disjuncture between material conditions and the historically imagined identity of Mexicans that signifies a break between the nation and the state. Out of the detritus of economic reform, a critical project facing Mexicans is to reimagine what it means to be Mexican and carry forward a sense of social justice in the new global economic order
Globalism · National identity · Nationalism · Opposition (politics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Sociology · Gender Studies · Globalization and Cultural Identity · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Social and Cultural Dynamics
Basta! Land and the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas
Ritual, politics, and power
Two-Dimensional Man
Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico
The dialectic of enlightenment
Massacre In Mexico (1971)
Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World
Explaining Sociopolitical Change in Latin America
Formal versus Substantive Democracy
The 1994 Mexican Elections
Modernization, Economic Crisis, and Electoral Alignment in Mexico
Neoliberal Economic Policies and the Potential for Electoral Change in Mexico
The sound of a Drum in the Distance Is More Pleasing to the Ears
Disentangling the PRI from the Government in Mexico
Misunderstanding Mexico
Failed Democratic Reform in Contemporary Mexico
Mexican Popular Movements, Clientelism, and the Process of Democratization
The Effects of Truth
Ritual, politics and power
Culture and Political Power in Mexico
Decadence in Times of Globalization
Whose History? Whose Voice? Myth and Resistance in the Rise of the New Left in Mexico
Dialectic of Enlightenment
Political Symbolism
Organizing, Ideology, and Moral Suasion
Black and White and Color
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,15 |
| Citation span | 1999 - 2002 (4) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |