On the Process of Neoliberalization: A Figurational Analysis of Mexican State Transformations, 1970–2000

• In Event: Comparative-Historical Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Comparative-Historical Roundtable 6

Abstract

Mexico was the first case to be conceptualized as a neoliberal state. This is not surprising, given that it was the first country to face a debt crisis resolved through conditional debt relief by an International Financial Institution, leading to the adoption of a Structural Adjustment Plan. Consequently, it became a central case in the literature on neoliberalism, especially as a representative of the path to economic reform for third-world, debt-dependent countries. However, the literature on the Mexican case, as with most literature on neoliberal states, has focused on the implementation of economic reforms at the expense of analyzing the broader historical transformations in mechanisms of state-formation during the neoliberal era.
In contrast, this paper analyzes the transformations of the Mexican state during the period 1970-2000 through what I call, following Norbert Elias, a figurational approach. Understanding the state as constituted by and embedded in a network of chains of interdependency – a figuration – I analyze Mexican state elites' decision-making as the contextual decisions of agents simultaneously embedded in a plurality of interdependent relations. I focus on three sets of interdependent relations: a) the state-society matrix; b) the sources of state economic resources; and c) the political system.
In this way, I argue, it is possible to analyze the implementation of policies and reforms as emerging from and contributing to deeper transformations in the mechanism of state-formation. It also implies understanding the neoliberal era as a phase of the figurational process, characterized by specific shifts in the balance of power and forms of interdependence. This paper thereby departs from the tendency to see neoliberal transformations as exceptional forms of statehood. Instead, it conceptualizes them as new moments of the state-formation process, analyzing the mechanisms involved from a historical-comparative perspective.

Author

• Gustavo Rojas, New School For Social Research