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Why is Mexican Business so Organized?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Ben Ross Schneider
Ben Ross Schneider*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Abstract

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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
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , 2002 , pp. 77 - 118
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.

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