POLS 550 Comparative Politics

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POLS 550 Comparative Politics

• Democracy Structural Perspectives
• October 27, 2005

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Democracy Structural Perspectives

• Lets start off with some questions
• What makes the arguments assigned for today
  structural?
• Do the arguments correspond to or contradict the
  argument made by Huber, Ruschemeyer and Stephens?

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• What is the starting point of Roman and Arreguis
  analysis?
• They begin with an historical perspective
  specifically, they use the historical experiences
  of Western Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries
  as a counterpoint to the current situation of
  Mexico.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• What do they say about the Western European
  Experience?
• They acknowledge that the Western European
  experience, particularly its experience with
  capitalist industrialization, played a key role
  in a political transformation as welli.e., the
  transformation toward citizenship rights and
  democracy.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• How does their analysis of the Western European
  experience compare with the argument by HRS?
• They suggest that a key element of this
  transformation was the creation of a working
  class, which emerged as a new type of exploited
  labor, but a type with an unprecedented
  potential for collective action to change both
  its own condition and that of society (p. 318).
• In this regard, the authors argue that Western
  Europe experienced a dual revolution.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• How does their analysis of the Western European
  experience compare with other arguments we have
  read?
• On the surface, one would expect that other
  countries might experience the same type of dual
  revolution, and, in fact, there seems to be a lot
  of evidence for this, as weve discovered from
  our readings thus far.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• The authors dont agree (that the dual revolution
  in Western Europe necessarily tells us what will
  happen in Mexico).
• Their basic argument, instead, is that there is a
  fundamental difference between the two historical
  periods, and that Mexicos dual transformation is
  likely to proceed along a very different and far
  less progressive path than the transformation of
  Western Europe.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• To understand why (at the most general level) it
  is important to see Mexicos current
  political/economic development in the broader
  transnational context of today, a context which
  is premised on
• the global expansion of neoliberalism.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• On this point, it is useful to note, there does
  seem to be strong overlap with the argument by
  HRS.
• What did HRS have to say about neoliberalism?
  (Discuss)

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• With all this in mind, lets take a deeper look
  at the authors argument. They begin with an
  analysis of the new industrial transformation
  and the working class

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• A Note Their argument here very clearly
  corresponds to the argument made by HRS in that
  they begin with the assumption that democracy and
  citizen rights is primarily a function of class
  relations this, in large part, is what makes
  their argument structural.
• Unlike HRS, though, these two authors arent
  explicit about the role of class. They seem to
  take it for granted that their readers know what
  it is theyre talking about. Is this acceptable?

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• What is their basic point about the new
  industrial transformation and the working class?
• Answer Global and national processes are
  transforming Mexican economy and society, and
  that this transformation is making the working
  class in Mexico weaker, rather than stronger.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• The transformation is based on an integrated
  package of policies
• The unconditional opening up of Mexico to foreign
  capital
• Austerity measures to service foreign debt
• Neoliberal reforms that break the old social
  contract
• These policies are all reflected in NAFTA, but
  NAFTA did not create the policies instead, NAFTA
  deepened them and gave them international
  guarantees.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Still, NAFTA is not unimportant.
• For one thing, NAFTA deepened the integration of
  the northern border of Mexico by making it into a
  sector of U.S. industrial production.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• NAFTA also proved to be a tremendous source of
  employment for Mexican laborers, which helped the
  industrial Mexican working class grow
  considerably.
• Indeed, according to the authors, Mexico has
  undergone a remarkable urbanization process over
  the last two decades it has experienced an
  expansion of the workers employed in industry
  from 7 to 10 million (during the 1990s), and an
  expansion of industrial workers specifically from
  2.4 to 6.2 million.
• In certain areas, industrial workers make up
  almost one-quarter of the entire population.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• But if NAFTA resulted in dramatic increase in the
  urban working class, we are presented with
  conundrum (at least in relation to the argument
  put forward by HRS).
• Whats the conundrum?

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Well, according to HRS, the unprecedented growth
  of the industrial working class in
  Mexicoespecially one that is subject to all
  sorts of abuse and hyper-exploitationshould
  produce the seeds for dramatic political
  transformation
• after all, with more industrial workers, the
  capacity for self-organization and collective
  action should increase, with greater capacity
  self-organization and collective action should
  come power? Why hasnt the balance of class power
  shifted? Do AR even recognize this as an issue?

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• The answer to the last question is, at least to
  some extent, yes.
• On p. 226, the authors note that globalization
  has produced a second industrial revolution in
  Mexico .and has simultaneously created a new
  seedbed for fostering an oppositional movement.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• But, the problem is that neoliberalism and the
  other policies the authors focus on have combined
  to create much more vulnerability among Mexicos
  working class these policies, for example,
  create a much higher rate of turnover in
  employment, which makes the tasks of organizing
  unions and collective resistance very difficult
  to achieve.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• The authors (AR) provide additional discussion on
  the challenges faced by the working class in
  Mexico, but one might respond The working class
  always faces challenges. The working class has
  always been vulnerable and subject to
  intimidation and coercion by the dominant
  classes. So by themselves, these factors cannot
  fully explain why the prospects for democracy
  seem to dim in Mexico.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Question How are the authors defining democracy?
  What seems to be their working or operational
  definition?
• More concretely Do the authors believe that
  Mexico is, today, a democracy?

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• If we define democracy in strictly formal terms,
  it would be appropriate to call Mexico a
  democracy, but the authors are implicitly using a
  more substantive definition of democracy
• and its on this point that the democracy is
  clearly lacking in Mexico.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Ironically, the next part of the authors
  argument hinges on the fact that Mexico is, at
  least formally, a democratic country.
• That is, by making a claim that Mexico is
  democratic, the ruling elite are able to
  legitimize the status quo to assert that it
  doesnt just reflect their interests, but that it
  reflects the interests of all Mexican citizens.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• As the authors put it, Part of the ideological
  triumph of the right in Mexico as well as in the
  world more generally is its ability to package
  its power, the triumph of unbridled capitalism,
  as the triumph of civil society and democracy.
  This conflation of capitalist power, free market,
  and democracy is part of the ideological
  chicanery of the offensive of capital (under the
  name of globalization) against all alternatives
  (democratic or otherwise) (p. 235).

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• The foregoing statement reflects a particular
  type of argument within contemporary Marxism, an
  argument that sees ideas as causally important.
• Any guess as to what type of Marxist argument I
  am referring?

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Answer A Gramscian argument.
• Who is Gramsci? What did he say? What important
  concept did he develop and articulate?

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Answer A Gramscian argument.
• Who is Gramsci? What did he say? What important
  concept did he develop and articulate?

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Key concept is
• H E G E M O N Y

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• What is hegemony?
• Ability of dominant class to create and enforce
  rules, not through coercion per se, but through
  consent

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• The key question that motivated Gramscis work
  was this Why had it proven so difficult to
  promote revolution in Western Europe, where the
  ills of capitalism were so clearly damaging to
  the ordinary worker? In other words, why was the
  working class seemingly so passive, even
  accepting of capitalism?

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• To Gramsci, these questions seemed even more
  perplexing since, according to classical Marxist
  theory, revolution was supposed to start in the
  most advanced capitalist societies.
• Yet, in his lifetime, it was the comparatively
  backward Russia that had made the first
  breakthrough. This was a riddle, but one to
  which Gramsci developed a fairly simple answer

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Gramscis answer to this question revolved around
  the idea of hegemony.
• To Gramsci, hegemony had a very specific meaning.
  On the one hand, he understood it like many other
  thinkers of the time did, i.e., hegemony referred
  to the most dominant military, economic, policy
  actor in the world.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• This version of hegemony, however, implicitly
  understood power as being based primarily on
  coercion. And, this was certainly the view of
  most other Marxists of the time. Typically,
  Marxists assumed that capitalism was held
  together primarily by the coercive practices and
  capabilities of the state.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Thus, for example, when workers went on strike,
  the state would send in the military or the
  police to break up the strike. Workers would be
  beaten, imprisoned, and even killed.
• The state also used coercion and violence to
  protect private property rights and to otherwise
  keep the system intact. Eventually, workers would
  simply be too afraid to rise up.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• To Gramsci, this was only half the equation.
  After all, in many of the more advanced
  capitalist societies, it wasnt only fear that
  kept workers from challenging the system, but it
  was also their willing acquiescence. More simply,
  it was consent that kept the system together.
• Indeed, in Gramscis view, one of the key tasks
  for the ruling stratum in any society is to
  inculcate a moral, political, and cultural system
  that naturalizes or legitimizes their continued
  rule.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• This moral, political, and cultural system must
  not only reflect the values of the dominant
  group, but must also be accepted by subordinate
  groups and classes as their own.
• Once this is done, all of the injustices,
  inequality, oppression, and exploitation of the
  system is simply accepted as the way things are
  supposed to be .and even the way things have
  to be. In short, the victims of the system
  become its greatest advocates and supporters.
  This is what Gramsci means by consent, this is
  what he meant by hegemony.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
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• But this is the big question, how is consent
  achieved?
• According to Gramsci, it is an unremitting and
  pervasive process, which takes place through the
  institutions of civil society the media, the
  educational system, churches, voluntary
  organizations, even in the workplace itself.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Two key implications of this argument
• First, unlike traditional Marxists, Gramscis
  analysis tells us that the system we live in
  today is held together as much be
  ideological/non-material forces as it is by
  material/economic forces
• Second, it tells us that challenges to the
  current system must take place primarily in the
  ideological realm in other words, society can
  only be transformed if the consensual element of
  hegemony is successfully undermined.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• In the case of Mexico, the hegemonic process has
  not been straightforward after all, the old
  ruling elite came to power through a populist
  revolution.
• The authors provides a general overview of this
  process in their section Right-wing hegemony as
  the result of a protracted exclusion process.

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Democracy Roman and Arregui Mexico in the
Crucible

• Key point Mexico, as with many other states, has
  gone through a period of hegemonic reconstruction
  --- the end result was the emergence of new power
  bloc that has embraced global neoliberalism with
  both arms.
• The new power bloc is not without its weaknesses,
  of course, but it has proven to be a formidable
  force. The authors, moreover, believe that its
  main objective today is to destroy what little
  democracy still exists in Mexico.