five facets of economic developments since 1990: Mexico and NAFTA, Mexico's emerging markets, the debt crisis of the 1990s, Mexico and globalization, and migration of Mexicans to the United States. None of these can be viewed in isolation. The intent here is not to provide five separate mini-essays on these topics, but to use each subhead as an entry point into the interlinked aspects of Mexico's economic, political, and social transition in the past decade and a half.
Political Evolution and Economic Liberalization
Since the end of the Mexican Revolution in the 1930s, Mexico has been distinctive in Latin America for its political stability. In contrast to countries such as Argentina -- and to Mexico's previous history in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the army stayed out of politics, there were no coups and countercoups, and no large-scale political turmoil. One strong motive for this stability might be expressed in a saying attributed to 19th century dictator Porfirio Diaz: "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States." Political stability was vital in protecting national sovereignty against a neighbor both so powerful and so often disposed toward intervention.
On the other hand, it might well be argued that Mexico's 20th century stability had purely Mexican roots, in the exceptional trauma of the Revolution and the shrewd political structure that arose after it ended. The PRI, in English translation the Party of the Institutional Revolution, was as its name suggests nominally a radical party. In practice it was a conservative, corporatist party, a vast patronage machine. The Mexican political system as a whole might be characterized for most of the PRI era as "soft" authoritarianism. Opposition parties were permitted, but kept marginal by a variety of indirect means. Dissent was usually permitted, though occasionally brutally suppressed, as in 1968.
The economic system was likewise c...