Mexican Regionalism Reconsidered

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Abstract
Mexico's present political organization bears the imprint of regional fragmentation, which has strong pre-Revolutionary antecedents. Early Revolutionary governments reduced the weight of regional loyalties and divisions in the political equation without totally removing them. By attacking latifundia, caudillos, infrastructural deficiencies, and other underpinnings of regionalism, they advanced toward national integration. Nevertheless, the political pattern set by ancient conditions persisted in a new context. When President Miguel Alemán (1946-1952) institutionalized the Revolution, he also sanctioned a form of institutionalized regionalism. The ruling party (Partido Revolucionario Institutional or PRI) adapted the traditional mode of political participation to a new governing style. As a result, the regional recruitment of national leaders still depends more on the historical status of the states from which they come than on such modern criteria as the state's economic power or population size.

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