Popular Movements in Autocracies
Religion, Repression, and Indigenous Collective Action in Mexico

A new explanation of the rise, development and demise of social movements and cycles of protest in autocracies.

Guillermo Trejo (Author)

9781107680562, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 July 2014

334 pages, 28 b/w illus. 4 maps 12 tables
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.9 cm, 0.5 kg

'This study offers a new perspective on the rise (and what Trejo sees a the post-democratisation 'twilight') of indigenous mobilisation in Mexico … this is a book that invites us to rethink historical processes in general terms that are also causal terms.' John Gledhill, Journal of Latin American Studies

This book presents a new explanation of the rise, development and demise of social movements and cycles of protest in autocracies; the conditions under which protest becomes rebellion; and the impact of protest and rebellion on democratization. Focusing on poor indigenous villages in Mexico's authoritarian regime, the book shows that the spread of US Protestant missionaries and the competition for indigenous souls motivated the Catholic Church to become a major promoter of indigenous movements for land redistribution and indigenous rights. The book explains why the outbreak of local rebellions, the transformation of indigenous claims for land into demands for ethnic autonomy and self-determination, and the threat of a generalized social uprising motivated national elites to democratize. Drawing on an original dataset of indigenous collective action and on extensive fieldwork, the empirical analysis of the book combines quantitative evidence with case studies and life histories.

Part I. Theory: 1. A theory of popular collective action in autocracies
Part II. Protest: 2. Accounting for Mexico's cycle of indigenous protest: quantitative evidence
3. Competing for souls: why the Catholic Church became a major promoter of indigenous mobilization
4. Competing for votes: how elections and repression shaped Mexico's cycle of indigenous protest
Part III. Rebellion: 5. A call to arms: regime reversion threats and the escalation of protest into rebellion
6. From social movement to armed rebellion: religion, repression, and the microdynamics of rebel recruitment
Part IV. The Politicization of Ethnicity: 7. Politicizing ethnicity: the breakdown of religious and political monopolies and the rise of indigenous identities
8. The twilight of ethnicity: democratization as an elite strategy to avert Mexico's indigenous insurgency.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Hispanic & Latino studies [JFSL4], Philosophy of religion [HRAB]