Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2009
Keywords
State-Business Relations, Business Power, Capitalists, Elites, Mexico, Latin America, World-Systems, Political Sociology, Neoliberalism
Abstract
This study explains why the power of neoliberal business over the Mexican state increased during the last three decades of the 20th century. It identifies three sources of increased neoliberal business power that occurred in conjunction with neoliberal reforms: (1) active mobilization by neoliberal business, (2) increased access to the state by neoliberal business, and (3) increased economic power of neoliberal business. It thereby contributes additional evidence that counters the view of Mexico’s state neoliberalizers as acting autonomously from business. It further outlines two conditions that were instrumental in bringing about the increased power of neoliberal business: the onset of economic crisis in the 1970s, and a shift in foreign capital preferences in Mexico. The analysis demonstrates how Mexico’s sources and conditions of business power differed from those in advanced industrial societies, and outlines why the Mexican case may be a good starting point for devising a historically-contingent theory of business power in the semiperiphery.
Publisher Attribution
This article was published in Theory and Society from Springer.
Recommended Citation
Gates, Leslie C., "Theorizing business power in the semiperiphery: Mexico 1970-2000" (2009). Sociology Faculty Scholarship. 8.
https://orb.binghamton.edu/sociology_fac/8
Comments
Best Article Award of 2009, Political Economy of the World-System Section, American Sociological Association