(iPoster) Market Pressure and Realized Interdependence in Mexico’s Communal Municipalities

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Foundations of Political Theory III & Comparative Political Economy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Political Economy

Abstract

This paper examines how exposure to varying levels of market pressure reshapes political beliefs and collective action in Mexico’s low-market-pressure, self-governing municipalities. It focuses on comuneros, members and land rights holders of Mexico’s communal land municipalities, and conceptualizes realized interdependence as a contextually activated perception of mutual reliance and communal obligation, rather than a fixed cultural trait. The study links perceived economic risks and benefits from market encroachment and privatization to changes in interdependent self-construal and support for land privatization and related policy outcomes. Building on a threshold model of communal life valuation, the paper outlines a survey-based research design in which participants from low-pressure municipalities are exposed to vignettes simulating mid- and high-market pressure, followed by measures of realized interdependence and policy attitudes. This design isolates the causal impact of changes in economic context on interdependence and downstream preferences, showing how heightened market pressure might sharpen awareness of mutual reliance and offering an alternative causal pathway to the so-called collective action problem. The project contributes to comparative political economy and the study of subnational governance by showing how market expansion can reconfigure policy-relevant beliefs within communal land regimes in Mexico.

Author

• Tania Massicotte, University of Colorado, Boulder