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University Autonomy in Mexico: Implications for Regime Authoritarianism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Daniel Levy
Daniel Levy*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Until recently, the Córdoba Reform of 1918 was the symbolic landmark in twentieth-century Latin American higher education. Achieving a pioneering victory in Argentina, the Reform soon became influential throughout much of the region, and university autonomy from government emerged as its most cherished legacy. Despite frequent violations, the principle of autonomy often promoted a substantial degree of university self-rule and even sanctuary for free expression. In 1968—fifty years after the Reform's genesis—the Mexican government's brutal repression of university students seemed to symbolize a secular change. Many observers feel that events of the last decade have reduced autonomy to little more than a cherished memory. Autonomy has indeed suffered a tragic fate in Cuba, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile, among the more important nations. But what about Mexico? This article argues that the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) remains substantially autonomous. This is, admittedly, a relative statement; no public university is completely independent of government control. However, UNAM seems to enjoy considerable self-rule and is notably autonomous in cross-national perspective.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , 1979 , pp. 129 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the OAS and the Lilly Endowment, and the helpful comments of many Mexican and U.S. colleagues.

References

Notes

1. A more elaborate study, going beyond UNAM and investigating more inclusively the components of autonomy and government control, will appear in Daniel Levy, Government and University in Mexico (forthcoming). Descriptive material on Mexican higher education is found in Thomas Noel Osborn, Higher Education in Mexico (El Paso: Texan Western Press, 1976) and Richard King et al., The Provincial Universities of Mexico: An Analysis of Growth and Development (New York: Praeger, 1971). See also Larissa Lomnitz, “Conflict and Mediation in a Latin American University,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 19, no. 3 (1977):315–38.

2. Charles Anderson, Politics and Economic Change in Latin America: The Governance of Restless Nations (New York: Van Nostrand, 1967), pp. 104–14. See, for example, Galo Gómez O., Chile de hoy: educación, cultura y ciencia (México: Casa de Chile, 1976); Jerry Haar, Higher Education in Brazil (New York: Praeger, 1977); I.A.U. Secretariat, “Higher Education in Peru,” Bulletin of the International Association of Universities 21, no. 4 (1973):1–19.

3. Among the best works of this general persuasion are: José Luis Reyna and Richard S. Weinert, eds., Authoritarianism in Mexico (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1977); Susan Kaufman Purcell, The Mexican Profit-Sharing Decision: Politics in an Authoritarian Regime (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975); Evelyn Stevens, Protest and Response in Mexico (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1974); Kenneth Johnson, Mexican Democracy: A Critical View (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1971); Roger Hansen, The Politics of Mexican Development (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971); Frank Brandenburg, The Making of Modern Mexico (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964).

4. See his recent elaboration, “Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes,” in Handbook of Political Science 3, ed. Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1975), p. 264 and passim, pp. 175–411.

5. Howard J. Wiarda, “Corporatism and Development in the Iberic-Latin World: Persistent Strains and New Variations,” in The New Corporatism, ed. Frederick Pike and Thomas Stritch (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), pp. 9–10n.

6. James Malloy, “Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America: The Modal Pattern,” in Authoritarianism and Corporatism, ed. Malloy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977), pp. 3–4.

7. Robert R. Kaufman, “Mexico and Latin American Authoritarianism,” in Reyna and Weinert, Authoritarianism, p. 193.

8. See, for example, Evelyn Stevens, “Protest Movement in an Authoritarian Regime: The Mexican Case,” Comparative Politics 7, no. 3 (1975): 381; Purcell, Mexican Profit-Sharing, p. 8.

9. Linz, “Totalitarian,” pp. 272–73, 264.

10. Purcell, Mexican Profit-Sharing, p. 4.

11. On higher education, see Guy Benveniste, Bureaucracy and National Planning (New York: Praeger, 1970), pp. 70–75, and Purcell, Mexican Profit-Sharing, pp. 130–31; on the left, Johnson, Mexican Democracy, pp. 145–56.

12. John Van de Graaff, Burton Clark, Dorotea Furth, Dietrich Goldschmidt, Donald Wheeler, Academic Power: Patterns of Authority in Seven National Systems of Higher Education (New York: Praeger, 1978).

13. In 1975 UNAM had 123,000 students at the licenciado (or undergraduate) level, or 28 percent of the national total (data from the Ministry of Education's Informe de labores 1974–75 [México: SEP, 1975], p. 214). On funds see table 2. On recruitment: Roderic Ai Camp, “Education and Political Recruitment in Mexico: The Alemán Generation,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 18, no. 3 (1976):295–322.

14. This quote is from Raúl Carrancá, La universidad mexicana (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1969), pp. 89–90; Paz, Posdata (Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1970), pp. 30–31; Fuentes, Casa con dos puertas (Editorial Joaquín Mortiz, 1970), p. 178.

15. Octavio Derisi, Naturaleza y vida de la universidad (Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1969), pp. 201–2.

16. Daniel Levy, “Limits on Government's Financial Control of the University: Mexico,” a working paper published by the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, New Haven, 1977. To outline the findings: UNAM internally draws up its budget requests; it must negotiate these with the government, a necessity common to nearly all public universities, which detracts from their autonomy; bargaining, even with corporatist overtones, is better than unilateral government imposition, however, and UNAM negotiates directly with the president; UNAM receives one lump sum rather than targeted piecemeal grants for ongoing costs; research and construction allocations are more variable and controlled; there is very little accountability for how funds are spent; annual inflation-controlled subsidies have never declined since 1961; even adjusted for student population growth, subsidies have grown almost linearly, in sharp contrast to the situation in the Mexican government's own National Polytechnic Institute. While some of these facets of relative financial autonomy are common to public universities elsewhere, others emphatically are not.

17. Flagrant abuses are more common in some provincial universities. An interesting case of curriculum autonomy is the preponderance of theoretical Marxist economics in UNAM, in contrast to the more applied economics in the IPN, and the more free enterprise economics in the private universities. See Richard A. LaBarge and T. Noel Osborn, “The Status of Professional Economics Programs in Mexican Universities,” Inter-American Economic Affairs 31, no. 1 (1977):9–13.

18. Roger Geiger, “European Universities—The Unfinished Revolution,” Comparative Education Review, Spring 1978.

19. The Mexican university's strength is augmented by its incorporation, apparently unique in Latin America, of (a major proportion of) upper secondary education. Elsewhere, this educational level, generally comprising the last three years before higher education, is not part of the university itself. The government has failed in its attempt to transfer authority over this level to its own public school system.

20. Levy, “Limits,” pp. 18–22. There are ad hoc rewards, but not statistically significant correlations between the career choice and subsidy variables.

21. See Roderic Ai Camp, “The National School of Economics and Public Life in Mexico,” LARR 10, no. 3 (1975):137–51.

22. Burton R. Clark, Academic Power in Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1977), p. 82.

23. Of course, even ministerial authority need not imply the absence of consultation with university officials.

24. Alfonso López Bello, Análisis comparativo de las leyes orgánicas de las universidades mexicanas (México: SEP, 1974), pp. 255–57. The board exists in half the state universities, but in 70 percent of these cases it is elected by the university council.

25. Leonel Pereznieto Castro, Algunas consideraciones acerca de la reforma universitaria en la UNAM (México: UNAM, 1976), p. 73.

26. Diego Valadés, La Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (México: UNAM, 1974), p. 50.

27. Gastón García Cantú, written response, received 3 February 1976.

28. Javier Barros Sierra, Conversaciones con Gastón García Cantú (México: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1972), pp. 45–47; Pereznieto, Algunas consideraciones, p. 73.

29. See, for example, Seminar on Higher Education in the Americas, “Las universidades de los Estados Unidos y las de América Latina: análisis comparativo de algunos aspectos,” in Acotaciones a problemas fundamentales de la educación superior en las américas, ed. Ana Herzfeld and Barbara Ashton Waggoner (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas, 1971), p. 22.

30. López Bello, Análisis comparativo, p. 46.

31. Barros Sierra, Conversaciones, p. 116.

32. Interviews with Carlos Herrera Ordónez, 21 January 1976, in Pachuca, Carlos Celis Salazar, 10 February 1976, in Cuernavaca, and Guillermo Ortiz Garduño, 1 April 1976, in Mexico City. Rector selection in the state universities follows one of three equally common patterns: council selection, board selection, and either direct government selection or government-council collaboration.

33. Barros Sierra, Conversaciones, p. 182.

34. Interview, 10 November 1975, Mexico City.

35. The board's selection of Barros Sierra (1966) drew the strongest University reaction in recent years, due to the designee's unusually scanty UNAM affiliation. (Rarely would the University have a more loyal leader.) The selection of González Casanova (1970) tipped the balance back toward the academic side of the ledger.

36. Jesús Silva Herzog, Una historia de la universidad de México y sus problemas (México: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1974), p. 117. In another instance, the government may have pressed for the reelection of Rector Ignacio Chávez in 1965.

37. See, for example, Genaro Fernández Mac Gregor, El río de mi sangre (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1969), pp. 384–97, 427–35; Silva Herzog, Una historia, p. 96; Silva Herzog, Una vida en la vida de México (México: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1972), pp. 326–27.

38. Silva Herzog, Una historia, pp. 93–99, 121, 139–40; Mis ultimas andanzas (México: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1973), pp. 122, 127–28.

39. Silva Herzog, Una historia, p. 139.

40. Silva Herzog, Una vida, p. 328.

41. Fernández Mac Gregor, El río, p. 384; Barros Sierra, Conversaciones, pp. 180–87.

42. Barros Sierra, Conversaciones, pp. 201–2.

43. Valadés, La Universidad, p. 49.

44. Interviews conducted on 6 April, 31 March, 6 April, 20 April, and 23 March, 1976, respectively, all in Mexico City. Zea was the director of the Faculty of Philosophy, and is one of Mexico's most respected authors; Salmerón, director of the Institute for Philosophic Studies when interviewed, had been rector of the University of Veracruz (and presently is rector of the Autonomous Metropolitan University—Iztapalapa); Ruiz Fernández is UNAM's planning director; Pablo González Casanova is one of Mexico's foremost social scientists; Henrique González Casanova is president of UNAM's Commission on New Methods and Programs.

45. I make a fuller analysis in “The Political Struggle over Tuition in Mexico,” Revista del Centro de Estudios Educativos (forthcoming).

46. I refer, for example, to scholars in the Centro de Estudios Educativos, as manifested in many issues of their aforementioned Revista del Centro de Estudios Educativos.

47. Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, Cuenta Pública, 1975.

48. See, for example, Barbara Burn, Higher Education in Nine Countries (New York: McGraw Hill, 1971).

49. Again see almost any issue of their Revista.

50. Interview with Manuel Pérez Rocha, 26 November 1975, Mexico City.

51. Quoted by Pablo Latapí, Universidad y cambio social (México: 1975), p. 19.

52. Latapí, Universidad, p. 22.

53. Interview with Oscar Méndez Nápoles, 8 January 1976, Mexico City.

54. Quoted by Pérez Rocha, “Universidades manipuladas,” Excélsior, 7 November 1975.

55. For example, see the Excélsior articles of 14 November 1975: Pérez Rocha, “Vías para aumentar la autonomía”; Armando Labra, “¿Agencia bancaria o educación popular?” Froylan López Narváez, “Crédito educativo.”

56. If the government's failure appears most striking when compared to its own goals and strong image, it also contrasts, but more ambiguously, with cross-national experience. As enrollments and costs have risen, many governments have insisted that students assume part of the financial burden. Even such a traditional no-tuition fortress as the City University of New York has had changes imposed upon it. The Chilean junta has dramatically redirected the financial burden to the student, though not nearly to the absolute extent originally projected. The absence of tuition in the Argentine and Brazilian cases may be due to potential student opposition, the recency of government preoccupation, or, in Brazil, the fact that about half the enrollment is accounted for by the tuition-paying private sector.

57. Data for the Echeverría administration covers the first five years.

58. Aguascalientes drew 36 percent of its 1975 income from nongovernment sources. In contrast, the Technological Institute of Monterrey, Mexico's most famous private educational institution, draws about 97 percent of its income from nongovernment sources, two-thirds from tuition alone. See the Ministry's Las universidades estatales de México 1970–1975 (México: SEP, 1975), pp. 3–4; ANUIES, La educación superior en México 1966 (México: ANUIES, 1966), apéndice A.

59. Despite all these data, a prudent guess is that some trend toward university self-financing will finally develop. Mexico probably cannot continue to escape cross-national patterns in higher education to the extent it presently does. Ever-growing enrollments and costs make the government's financial responsibility increasingly burdensome. If greater regime insistence on partial relief is likely, it will have occurred considerably later than the regime had wanted. We would still have to explain the regime's unusually protracted acquiescence to university pressure.

60. Interview with Roger Díaz de Cossío, 27 February 1976, Mexico City.

61. The present rector recently reaffirmed his opposition to tuition even in the midst of worker strikes which would increase UNAM's operating costs. “No habrá aumento,” El Día, 20 January 1977.

62. Interviewed 13 January 1976, Mexico City.

63. For a brief discussion on Mexico, see Daniel Levy, “Government Efforts to Cope with Giantism,” London Times, Higher Education Supplement, 20 January 1978.

64. Barros Sierra, Conversaciones, p. 95.

65. Raymond Vernon, The Dilemma of Mexican Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1963), pp. 154–93; John F. H. Purcell and Susan Kaufman Purcell, “Mexican Business and Public Policy,” in Malloy, Authoritarianism, pp. 191–226; Daniel Cosío Villegas, El sistema politico mexicano (México: Cuadernos de Joaquín Mortiz, 1973), p. 72.

66. Recent analysis of the Echeverría administration suggests that the regime's and even the president's power has been exaggerated. See the Purcells' illuminating comparative analysis of five attempted government reforms, “El estado y la empresa privada,” Nueva Política 1, no. 2 (1976):229–50; Yoram Shapira, “Mexico: The Impact of the 1968 Student Protest on Echeverría's Reformism,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 19, no. 4 (1977):570.

67. The criterion of differential regime control over policy is distinct from, though obviously related to, the criterion of policy content or output. Problems with categorizing regimes according to policy output are summarized in Karen Remmer, “Evaluating the Policy Impact of Military Regimes in Latin America,” LARR 13, no. 2 (1978):39–54.