The Moral Logic of Sacrifice: Program Implementation During Mexico’s Fourth Transformation

• In Event: Neoliberalism, Austerity, and State Retrenchment.

Abstract

During his presidency, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018–2024) enacted sweeping social policy reforms as part of a left populist, pro-poor political project. Paradoxically, these reforms were accompanied by severe administrative cuts: the Republican Austerity Law of 2019 slashed administrative budgets and public sector salaries, while changes to the Federal Public Administration Law eliminated or consolidated key ministries and dismantled the administrative units that had historically coordinated federal social program delivery. This paper theorizes this tension, arguing that populist austerity is sustained through a moral logic in which sacrifice substitutes for state capacity. Taking Sembrando Vida, a flagship anti-poverty program, as my empirical site and drawing on interviews, ethnographic observation across nine states, and analysis of worker social media, I examine how this moral logic is produced and reproduced through four interlocking registers: from above, through presidential discourse, austerity legislation, and managerial practice; and from below, through the everyday practices of street-level bureaucrats. I show how the moral logic introduced by the administration interpellates public workers as bearers of the state’s transformative project, rendering their material sacrifice organizationally necessary. The paper contributes to theorizations of populism, the culture of bureaucracy, and the morality of the state.

Author

• Diana Graizbord, University of Georgia