Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T10:15:58.728Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Why is Mexican Business so Organized?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Ben Ross Schneider*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In the twentieth century, big business in Mexico invested much more in voluntary encompassing associations than business did elsewhere in Latin America. Multisectoral associations like the CCE, the CMNH, Coparmex, and COECE are rare in the other large countries of the region. Three primary factors gave Mexican business stronger incentives to invest in these associations. First, Mexican business was excluded from elections, PRI politics, and appointments to top government positions and therefore relied more on associations to channel business's organized participation in politics and policy making. Second, in some periods, government actions were threatening to business interests and prompted defensive organization. Third, in other periods of closer cooperation between business and government, government officials relied heavily on these associations to mediate relations with business, giving big business further incentives to invest in associations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Jesse Biddle, Roderic Camp, Peter Lewis, and Strom Thacker for comments on previous versions and to the Fulbright–García Robles Program, the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), and the Center for International and Comparative Studies (CICS) at Northwestern University for research support. Roderic Camp, Blanca Heredia, Matilde Luna, Alicia Ortiz Rivera, and Cristina Puga generously shared insights and data, as did the interviewees listed in appendix 2. Juan Sánchez Navarro was especially helpful in offering his time and opening his personal archives to me.

References

ALBA, CARLOS 1993El empresariado mexicano ante el Tratado de Libre Comercio en América del Norte.” In Liberación económica y libre comercio en América del Norte, edited by Gustavo Vega Canovas, 213–38. Mexico City: Colegio de México.Google Scholar
ALCAZAR, MARCO ANTONIO 1970 Las agrupaciones patronales en México. Mexico City: Colegio de México.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ARAT, YESIM 1991Politics and Big Business.” In Strong State and Economic Interest Groups: The Post-1980 Turkish Experience, edited by Heper, Metin, 135–47. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
ARRIOLA, CARLOS 1988 Los empresarios y el estado, 1970–1982. Mexico City: UNAM and Miguel Angel Porrúa (first published in 1981).Google Scholar
BARKER, WENDY 1990 “Banks and Industry in Contemporary Brazil.” Ph.D. diss., Yale University Press.Google Scholar
BARTELL, ERNEST, and PAYNE, LEIGH 1995 Business and Democracy in Latin America. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
BIRLE, PETER 1997 Los empresarios y la democracia en Argentina. Buenos Aires: Belgrano.Google Scholar
BRANDENBURG, FRANK R. 1958Organized Business in Mexico.” Inter-American Economic Affairs 12, no. 3 (Winter):2650.Google Scholar
BRANDENBURG, FRANK R. 1962A Contribution to the Theory of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development: The Case of Mexico.” Inter-American Economic Affairs 16, no. 1 (Summer):323.Google Scholar
BRAVO MENA, LUIS FELIPE 1987Coparmex and Mexican Politics.” In MAXFIELD AND ANZALDUA MONTOYA 1987, 89104.Google Scholar
BRAZIL, MUSEU DA FAZENDA FEDERAL 1983 Ministros da Fazenda, 1808–1983. Rio de Janeiro: Museu da Fazenda Federal.Google Scholar
CAMP, RODERIC 1989 Entrepreneurs and Politics in Twentieth-Century Mexico. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
CAMP, RODERIC 1993 Who's Who in Mexico Today. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
CASAR, MARIA AMPARO, GASPAR, GABRIEL, JACOBO, EDMUNDO, LUNA, MATILDE, PUGA, CRISTINA, TIRADO, RICARDO, VALDES, FRANCISCO, and VALDES, LEONARDO 1988Los empresarios y el estado en México.” In Empresarios y estado en América Latina, edited by Celso Garrido N., 207–30. Mexico City: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica (CIDE).Google Scholar
CCE (CONSEJO COORDINADOR EMPRESARIAL) 1987 “Informe de labores que el Ing. Claudio X. González, presidente del CCE, presenta al Consejo Directivo de Dicha Institución por el Período 1985–87.” In-house document, CCE, Mexico City.Google Scholar
CEA (CONSEJO EMPRESARIO ARGENTINO) 1994–2000 Memorias. Buenos Aires: CEA.Google Scholar
CENTENO, MIGUEL 1994 Democracy within Reason: Technocratic Revolution in Mexico. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
CENTENO, MIGUEL, and MAXFIELD, SYLVIA 1989 “The Marriage of Finance and Order: Changes in the Mexican Political Elite.” Journal of Latin American Studies 24, pt. 1: 5785.Google Scholar
CLAGUE, CHRISTOPHER, ed. 1997 Institutions and Economic Development. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
COHEN, JOSHUA, and ROGERS, JOEL 1995 Associations and Democracy. London: Verso.Google Scholar
CUSACK, DAVID 1972 “The Politics of Chilean Private Enterprise under Christian Democracy.” Ph.D. diss., University of Denver.Google Scholar
DEROSSI, FLAVIA 1971 The Mexican Entrepreneur. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.Google Scholar
DINIZ, ELI, and BOSCHI, RENATO 2000Globalization and Entrepreneurial Elites: Alternative Patterns of Relations between the Public and Private Sectors in Brazil.” Paper presented to the International Political Science Association, Quebec, August.Google Scholar
DONER, RICHARD, and SCHNEIDER, BEN ROSS 2000Business Associations and Development.” Business and Politics 2, no. 3 (Dec.):261–88.Google Scholar
DREIFUSS, RENE 1981 1964: A conquista do estado. Petrópolis: Vozes.Google Scholar
DURAND, FRANCISCO 1994Las organizaciones empresariales latinoamericanas al final del siglo XX.” In TIRADO 1994, 82100.Google Scholar
DURAND, FRANCISCO, and SILVA, EDUARDO, EDS. 1998 Organized Business, Economic Change, and Democracy in Latin America. Coral Gables, Fla.: North-South Center Press.Google Scholar
ELIZONDO, CARLOS 1992 “Property Rights in Mexico: Government and Business after the 1982 Bank Nationalization.” Ph.D. diss., Oxford University.Google Scholar
FCPS (FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS POLITICAS Y SOCIALES) 1994 Organizaciones empresariales mexicanas: Banco de dados. Mexico City: FCPS, UNAM.Google Scholar
FRIEDEN, JEFFRY 1991 Debt, Development, and Democracy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
GARRIDO, CELSO 1992 La evolución del actor empresarial mexicano en los ochentas. Mexico City: UNAM.Google Scholar
GIACALONE, RITA 1999 Los empresarios frente al Grupo de Los Tres. Caracas: Nueva Sociedad.Google Scholar
GIBSON, EDWARD 1996 Class and Conservative Parties. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
HAGGARD, STEPHAN, and KAUFMAN, ROBERT 1995 The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
HARTLYN, JONATHAN 1985Producer Associations, the Political Regime, and Policy Processes in Contemporary Colombia.” LARR 20, no. 3: 111–38.Google Scholar
HEREDIA, BLANCA 1992Profits, Politics, and Size: The Political Transformation of Mexican Business.” In The Right and Democracy in Latin America, edited by Chalmers, Douglas, Maria do Carmo Campello de Souza, and Borón, Atílio, 277301. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.Google Scholar
HEREDIA, BLANCA 1995Mexican Business and the State.” In Business and Democracy in Latin America, edited by Bartell, Ernest and Payne, Leigh, 179216. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
HEWLETT, SYLVIA, and WEINERT, RICHARD, EDS. 1982 Brazil and Mexico. Philadephia, Pa.: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.Google Scholar
JOHNSON CEVA, KRISTIN 1998Business-Government Relations in Mexico since 1990.” In Mexico's Private Sector, edited by Roett, Riordan, 125–57. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
KAUFMAN, ROBERT, BAZDRESCH, CARLOS, and HEREDIA, BLANCA 1994Mexico: Radical Reform in a Dominant Party System.” In Voting for Reform, edited by Haggard, Stephan and Webb, Steven, 360410. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
KINGSTONE, PETER 1998Corporatism, Neoliberalism, and the Failed Revolt of Big Business: Lessons from the Case of IEDI.” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 40, no. 4 (Winter):7396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LICHBACH, MARK 1996 The Cooperator's Dilemma. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
LUNA, MATILDE, and TIRADO, RICARDO 1992 El Consejo Coordinador Empresarial: Una radiografía. Mexico City: UNAM.Google Scholar
LUNA, MATILDE, TIRADO, RICARDO, and VALDES, FRANCISCO 1987Businessmen and Politics in Mexico, 1982–1986.” In MAXFIELD AND ANZALDUA MONTOYA 1987, 1344.Google Scholar
MADDISON, ANGUS, ET AL. 1992 Brazil and Mexico. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
MAHON, JAMES 1996 Mobile Capital and Latin American Development. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
MAXFIELD, SYLVIA 1987Introduction.” In MAXFIELD AND ANZALDUA MONTOYA 1987, 112.Google Scholar
MAXFIELD, SYLVIA 1990 Governing Capital: International Finance and Mexican Politics. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MAXFIELD, SYLVIA, and MONTOYA, RICARDO ANZALDUA, EDS. 1987 Government and Private Sector in Contemporary Mexico. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
MAXFIELD, SYLVIA, and SCHNEIDER, BEN ROSS, EDS. 1997 Business and the State in Developing Countries. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
MILOR, VEDAT, BIDDLE, JESSE, ORTEGA, JUAN, and STONE, ANDREW 1999Consultative Mechanisms in Mexico.” Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
MIZRAHI, YEMILE 1994 “A New Conservative Opposition in Mexico: The Politics of Entrepreneurs in Chihuahua, 1983–92.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
MUSACHIO, HUMBERTO 1987 Diccionario biográfico de México. Mexico City: Porrúa.Google Scholar
OLSON, MANCUR 1965 The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
OLSON, MANCUR 1982 The Rise and Decline of Nations. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
OLSON, MANCUR 1986 “A Theory of the Incentives Facing Political Organizations: Neo-Corporatism and the Hegemonic State.” International Political Science Review 7, no. 2 (Apr.):165–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ORTIZ RIVERA, ALICIA 1997 Juan Sánchez Navarro. Mexico City: Grijalbo.Google Scholar
ORTIZ RIVERA, ALICIA 1998 “Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios.” M.A. thesis, Instituto Mora, Mexico City.Google Scholar
OSTIGUY, PIERRE 1990 Los capitanes de la industria. Buenos Aires: Legasa.Google Scholar
PAYNE, LEIGH 1994 Brazilian Industrialists and Democratic Change. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
PUGA, CRISTINA 1994Las organizaciones empresariales en la negociación del Tratado de Libre Comercio.” In TIRADO 1994, 171–93.Google Scholar
REMMER, KAREN 1993Democratization in Latin America.” In Global Transformation and the Third World, edited by Slater, Robert, Schutz, Barry, and Dorr, Steven, 91111. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
RETTBERG, BEATRIZ ANGELIKA 2000 “Corporate Organization and the Failure of Collective Action: Colombian Business during the Presidency of Ernesto Samper (1994–1998).” Ph.D. diss., Boston University.Google Scholar
RUESCHEMEYER, DIETRICH, STEPHENS, EVELYNE HUBER, and STEPHENS, JOHN 1992 Capitalist Development and Democracy. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
SANCHEZ NAVARRO, JUAN 1996El empresario mexicano en transformación.” Paper presented to the Unión Social de Empresarios de México.Google Scholar
SCHMITTER, PHILIPPE 1971 Interest Conflict and Political Change in Brazil. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
SCHMITTER, PHILIPPE 1974Still the Century of Corporatism?Review of Politics 36, no. 1 (Jan.):85121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SCHMITTER, PHILIPPE 1985Neo-Corporatism and the State.” In The Political Economy of Corporatism, edited by Grant, Wyn, 3262. New York: St. Martin's.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SCHMITTER, PHILIPPE 1992 “The Consolidation of Democracy and the Representation of Social Groups.” American Behavioral Scientist 35, nos. 4–5 (Mar.–June):422–49.Google Scholar
SCHMITTER, PHILIPPE 1994Organized Interests and Democratic Consolidation in Southern Europe.” In The Politics of Democratic Consolidation, edited by Gunther, Richard, Diamandouros, Nikiforos, and Hans-Jürgen Puhle, 284314. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
SCHNEIDER, BEN ROSS 1997Big Business and the Politics of Economic Reform: Confidence and Concertation in Brazil and Mexico.” In MAXFIELD AND SCHNEIDER 1997, 191215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SCHNEIDER, BEN ROSS 1997–1998Organized Business Politics in Democratic Brazil.” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 39, no. 4 (Winter):95127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SCHNEIDER, BEN ROSS 2000States and Collective Action: The Politics of Organizing Business in Latin America.” Paper presented to the International Political Science Association, Quebec, August.Google Scholar
SCHNEIDER, BEN ROSS 2001 “Business Politics and Regional Integration: The Advantages of Organization in NAFTA and MERCOSUR.” Forthcoming in Regional Integration in Latin America, edited by Bulmer-Thomas, Victor. London: Institute for Latin American Studies.Google Scholar
SHADLEN, KENNETH 2000Neoliberalism, Corporatism, and Small Business Political Activism in Contemporary Mexico.” LARR 35, no. 2: 73106.Google Scholar
SHAFER, D. MICHAEL 1994 Winners and Losers: How Sectors Shape the Developmental Prospects of States. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
SHAFER, ROBERT 1973 Mexican Business Organizations. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
SILVA, EDUARDO 1996 The State and Capital in Chile. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
SILVA, EDUARDO 1997Business Elites, the State, and Economic Change in Chile.” In MAXFIELD AND SCHNEIDER 1997, 152–90.Google Scholar
SILVA, EDUARDO, and DURAND, FRANCISCO 1998Organized Business and Politics in Latin America.” In DURAND AND SILVA 1998, 150.Google Scholar
STORY, DALE 1982Trade Politics in the Third World: A Case Study of the Mexican GATT Decision.” International Organization 36, no. 4 (Autumn):767–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
STORY, DALE 1987The PAN, the Private Sector, and the Future of the Mexican Opposition.” In Mexican Politics in Transition, edited by Gentleman, Judith. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
THACKER, STROM 1999NAFTA Coalitions and the Political Viability of Neoliberalism in Mexico.” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 41, no. 2 (Summer):5790.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
THACKER, STROM 2000 Big Business, the State, and Free Trade. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
TIRADO, RICARDO 1998Mexico.” In DURAND AND SILVA 1998, 183216.Google Scholar
TIRADO, RICARDO, ed. 1994 Los empresarios ante la globalización. Mexico City: UNAM.Google Scholar
URRUTIA, MIGUEL 1983 Gremios, política económica y democracia. Bogotá: Fondo Cultural Cafetero.Google Scholar
VALDES UGALDE, FRANCISCO 1996The Private Sector and Political Regime Change in Mexico.” In Neoliberalism Revisited, edited by Otero, Gerardo, 127–47. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
VALDES UGALDE, FRANCISCO 1997 Autonomía e legitimidad. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
WEINSTEIN, BARBARA 1996 For Social Peace in Brazil: Industrialists and the Remaking of the Working Class in São Paulo, 1920–1964. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
WEYLAND, KURT 1996 Democracy without Equity: Failures of Reform in Brazil. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
WEYLAND, KURT 1997‘Growth with Equity’ in Chile's New Democracy?LARR 32, no. 1: 3767.Google Scholar
WEYLAND, KURT 1998The Fragmentation of Business in Brazil.” In DURAND AND SILVA 1998, 7398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ZUCKERMAN, LEO 1990 “Inflation Stabilization in Mexico.” M.Sc. thesis, Oxford University.Google Scholar