Social Movements and Economic Transition
Markets and Distributive Conflict in Mexico

This book examines patterns of political mobilization among groups in Mexico.

Heather L. Williams (Author)

9780521772563, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 January 2001

254 pages, 11 b/w illus. 1 map 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.5 kg

'Beautifully written and meticulously researched, this book will be valued not only by Mexicanists and students of social movements, but by all who seek better understanding of the social and political dimensions of economic change.' Social Movement Studies

This book examines patterns of political mobilization among groups in Mexico whose livelihoods have been threatened by trade opening, fiscal retrenchment, and market liberalization. Using data from case studies of a worker-based movement and a farmer-based movement, Williams argues that economic transition, in altering modes of state-society bargaining, has shifted the locus of contention and has altered the form and shape of distributive protest. Williams further argues that social movements make strategic choices in their use of resources in order to widen their constituencies and extend the length of their insurgencies.

List of figures and tables, Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I: 1. Markets, machine politics and protest in Mexico
2. The insurgent's toolbox
Part II: 3. Privatization and protest in a steel town
4. Shifting markets, shifting demands in Lázaro Cárdenas
5. The rise of the Barzón farmers' movement in Zacatecas
6. The Barzón movement: from a farmers' to a debtors' insurgency
Conclusion: the interplay of movements and markets
References
Interviews cited
Index.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]