Yearly Archives: 2010

The president refuses the possibility of turning over the government to the PRI. The probable new PAN president, Gustavo Madero, speaks of “finishing off” the PRI. The alliances that led the PRI to defeat in three emblematic states and that are being negotiated for a few others were predicated based on the need for removing […]

Mexican society has experienced phenomenal change and has achieved the feat of becoming majority middle class. Felipe Calderón understood the untdelying dynamic in 2006 and that’s the reason why he was able to beat López Obrador. The inherent revolution in this transformation is staggering and its implications –economic and political- extraordinary.   The concept of […]

An anecdote relates that Talleyrand, the great French statesman, took refuge in his home while Paris burned as a result of the disturbances ending with Louis Philippe on the throne. At long last, after three days, bells were heard, to which Talleyrand exclaimed “Ah, good, we are winning”, at which one intrepid assistant asked him: […]

                                                                                  by Luis Rubio   Mexico has never had a fully-fledged citizenry, at least not […]

Something peculiar took place vis-à-vis the Bicentennial celebration: the government organized it, but the population appropriated it. The transcendence of the fact should perhaps not surprise anyone, but it speaks volumes about the Mexico of today, above all concerning the enormous potential for development that it has ahead of itself, but also concerning the quality […]

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” reads Dante’s inscription above the gates of hell. Many Mexicans must feel like this: that history has betrayed them. Crises, leadership styles, and promises generate expectations and hopes, to wind up quashed in a sea of tears. Causes and circumstances change, but the result is the same: the […]

In a visit to Mexico at the end of the eighties, the head of a delegation of businesspeople presented himself with a pithy phrase that left the audience cold:  “I introduce to you the new Chilean business community, because the old ones no longer exist”. In Mexico, it would be difficult to make such a […]

The violence stalking the country does not let up, nor does it seem to respond to the calculations, strategies, and expectations of the experts, of those in charge, or of the lookers on. The only thing that we know for certain is that it is not a linear process, but rather, that there are many […]

“Transition presupposes –says Joaquín Villalobos- dismounting repressive apparatuses, reconstructing institutions, learning to employ the laws, and protecting the citizen instead of keeping a watchful eye on him”. The political transition opened a new space of freedom for the citizenry and of competition for political parties. In the process, it changed the structure of numberless institutions, […]

“In democratization theories” -writes Joaquín Villalobos- “it is said that authoritarianism is made up of uncertain processes with certain results, and democracy, of certain processes with uncertain results.” Although the interminable democratic transition that Mexico has experienced has been excessively terse, its consequences have been extraordinarily grandiose and not all good. Decentralization of power has […]