The State and Capital Accumulation in Mexico

Power, Contradictions, Crisis and Conflict

Issue Editors: Veronica Silva and Jorge Márquez, UNAM


With the July 2018 presidential election elevating leftist anti-neoliberal Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to chief executive of a dysfunctional, repressive, and corrupt capitalist Mexican state, the current conjuncture raises important theoretical and strategic issues regarding the possibilities and strategies for the radical social transformation AMLO’s supporters desire. This involves addressing important question such as the nature of the Mexican state and the current form of capital accumulation in Mexico. This issue seeks to disentangle the multiple dimensions along which Mexican society is fractured and bring clarity to the debates over societal, political and economic development.

One strand of analysis, in line with well-known Marxist approaches, calls for a fresh look at economics as a key diagnostic tool for the deeper and wider problems that afflict Mexican society. For example, what is the impact of the recent trend toward concentration of capital in a few industries such as high-tech, media, and finance and how does it compare to similar “Gleichschultang” processes in the US and other core capitalist countries? To what extent has it contributed to an increased coalescence and concentrated influence of business interests on various aspects of Mexican public life? How does the Mexican case refute the neoliberal argument for strict reliance on the market to allocate scarce resources as in neoliberal, market-driven deindustrialization contributing to stagnant or falling wages and rising inequality? How can the left compete in the realm of ideas to counter the dominant market ideology?

We also seek to address the important and contested  role of the state. As history shows, electoral victory confers only limited power when a leftist movement, party, or coalition gains partial control of the state apparatus in what continues to be a capitalist economy with multiple centers of power. We want to examine how the goal of implementing a progressive agenda in Mexico collides with the reality of a neoliberal capitalist state and mode of capital accumulation that reflects decades of consolidating the neoliberal model and a specific mode of insertion in the international political economy.

Recognizing that the state is a condensation of social relations and terrain of class struggle, this issue seeks to bring critical theory (for example Marx, Poulantzas, Gramsci) to bear on empirical analysis of the Mexican state and its relationship to the economic base and the social formation in which it is embedded.  It will address questions such as: How does the state reflect the current correlation of political, economic and social forces? To what extent it is an instrument of the dominant capitalist bloc and in what ways is it a product of successful social struggles by subordinate groups? What are the principal contradictions it embodies and what crises and conflicts do these generate?  How do these vary across different state sectors and levels? How does the state exercise different forms of power and with what consequences? How is the national state shaped by international political and economic forces?  What are the implications of the answers to these questions for strategies and alliances on the left?

We invite submission that analyze crisis and conflict in Mexico by considering topics that include, but are not limited to:

the economic role of the state overall or for specific sectors (e.g. industry, energy, agriculture, etc.) and the impact of the current form of the state and/or capital accumulation on:

  •    democratic institutions (elections, the judiciary, the media, etc.)
  •    inequality overall or for specific areas (e.g. income, health, education, housing, etc.)
  •    civil society overall or for specific sectors (unions, women, indigenous groups, etc.)
  •    strategies, alliances, and policies for structural change
  •    violence and repression
  •    corruption
  •    international trade and finance
  •    Mexico-US relations

 

SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS

To avoid duplication of content, please contact the issue editors to let them know of your interest in submitting and your proposed topic. We encourage submission as soon as possible, preferably by Jan. 30, 2019, but this call will remain open as long as it is posted on the LAP web site.

Manuscripts should be no longer than 8,000 words of paginated, double-spaced 12 point text with 1 inch margins, including notes and references, using the LAP Style Guidelines available at  www.latinamericanperspectives.com under the “Submit” tab where the review process is also described.   Manuscripts should be consistent with the LAP Mission Statement available on the web site under the “About” tab.

Manucripts may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. If you do not write in English with near native fluency, please submit in your first language.  LAP will translate manuscripts accepted in languages other than English. If you are not submitting in English, please indicate if you will have difficulty reading reviews and/or correspondence from the LAP office in English.

Please feel free to contact the issue editors with questions pertaining to the issue but all manuscripts should be submitted directly to the LAP office, not to the issue editors. A manuscript is not considered submitted until it has been received by the LAP office.  You should receive acknowledgment of receipt of your manuscript within a few days.  If you do not receive an acknowledgment from LAP after one week, please send a follow-up inquiry to be sure your submission arrived.

E-mail Submissions: send to lap@ucr.edu

Subject Line: Author name – Manuscript for Mexico issue

Please attach your manuscript as a Word Document (doc or docx)

Include: Abstract (100 words), 5 Keywords, and a separate cover page with short author affiliations (less than 130 words) and complete contact information (e-mail, postal address, telephone).

Postal correspondence may be sent to: Managing Editor, Latin American Perspectives¸ P.O. Box 5703, Riverside, California 92517-5703.

For an article with more than one author, provide contact information for all authors but designate one person as the Corresponding Author who will receive correspondence from the LAP office.  If any contact information changes while your manuscript is under consideration, please send the updated information to LAP promptly.

Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in the journal. Authors should not submit a manuscript that has been previously published in English in identical or substantially similar form nor should they simultaneously submit it or a substantially similar manuscript to another journal in English.  LAP will consider manuscripts that have been published in another language, usually with updating.  Prior publication should be noted, along with the publication information.


Issue editor contact information:

Verónica Silva: verosilva.unam@gmail.com

Jorge Márquz: jorgemarquezmunoz@politicas.unam.mx