Social spending and political support: The "lessons" of the national solidarity program in Mexico

Comparative Politics

Volumn 28, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 171-177

  Bruhn, Kathleen ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 24944540036     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/421979     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. Jorge Castañeda, "Latin America and the End of the Cold War: A Mixed Blessing for the Left," World Policy Journal, 7 (Summer 1990), 480.
2. See, for instance, John Waterbury, "Export-Led Growth and the Center-Right Coalition in Turkey," Comparative Politics, 24 (January 1992), 127-45;
3. Bianca Heredia, "Making Economic Reform Politically Viable: The Mexican Experience," in William Smith, Carlos Acuña, and Eduardo Gamarra, eds., Democracy, Markets, and Structural Reform in Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1994), pp. 265-91.
4. On some hazards of economic reforms in new democracies, see Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
5. Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman, The Politics of Economic Adjustment: International Constraints, Distributive Conflicts, and the State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992);
6. William Smith, Carlos Acuña, and Eduardo Gamarra, eds., Latin American Political Economy in the Age of Neoliberal Reform (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1994);
7. Claus Offe, "Capitalism by Democratic Design? Democratic Theory Facing the Triple Transition in East Central Europe," Social Research, 58 (Winter 1991), 865-92.
8. PRONASOL directors report that several Latin American countries have asked for Mexico's help in setting up a program like Solidarity. See "No es Seguro que se Mantenga en el Próximo Sexenio, Dice Carlos Rojas," El Financiero, Sept. 23, 1991, p. 53.
9. El Nuevo Perfil de la Economía Mexicana (Mexico, D.F.: Secretaría de Hacienda, 1991), p. 15.
10. Daniel Levy and Gabriel Székely, Mexico: Paradoxes of Stability and Change, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987), p. 138.
11. See, for example, Jaime Serra Puche and Pascuál García Alba, Causas y Efectos de la Crisis Económica en México (Mexico, D.F.: El Colegio de Mexico, 1984).
12. That is, total wage income fell a cumulative 40 percent between 1983 and 1988, while the real minimum wage fell 48.5 percent. See Nora Lustig, Mexico: The Remaking of an Economy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1992), pp. 68-69.
13. For other estimates, see Sidney Weintraub, Transforming the Mexican Economy: The Salinas Sexenio (Washington, D.C.: National Planning Association, 1990), p. 13;
14. and Ruth Berins Collier, The Contradictory Alliance: State-Labor Relations and Regime Change in Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 128.
15. Lustig, p. 72.
16. For case studies, see Mercedes González de la Rocha and Agustín Escobar Latapí, eds., Social Responses to Mexico's Economic Crisis of the 1980s (La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1991).
17. Up to 33 percent according to Lustig, p. 81; see also Ana Cristina Laurell, La Política Social Mexicana ante la Integración Norteamericana, paper presented at the 7th Simposio Anuies-Profmex, Mérida, Mexico, 1992, p. 10.
18. Peter M. Ward, "Social Welfare Policy and Political Opening in Mexico," Journal of Latin American Studies, 25 (October 1993), 618-19.
19. Journal of Latin American Studies, Ibid., p. 619. Ward, pp. 619-20, argues that "social development . . . certainly did not suffer the same level of cuts imposed on other sectors," while Lustig, pp. 80-81, and others argue that real social spending fell more than programmable spending between 1983 and 1988.
20. Consejo Consultivo del Programa Nacional de Solidaridad, Solidaridad a Debate (Mexico, D.C.: El Nacional, 1991), p. 7.
21. Manuel Villa, "El Pronasol en la Vida Democrática de la Nación," in Consejo Consultivo del Programa Nacional de Solidaridad, Solidaridad a Debate, p. 225.
22. Consejo Consultivo del Programa Nacional de Solidaridad, El Combate a la Pobreza: Lineamientos Programáticos (Mexico, D.F.: El Nacional, 1991), pp. 15, 70.
23. Oscar Contreras and Vivienne Bennett, "National Solidarity in the Northern Borderlands: Social Participation and Community Leadership," in Wayne Cornelius, Ann Craig, and Jonathan Fox, eds., Transforming State-Society Relations in Mexico: The National Solidarity Strategy (La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1994), p. 282.
24. See Jonathan Fox, "Targeting the Poorest: The Role of the National Indigenous Institute in Mexico's Solidarity Program," in Cornelius, Craig, and Fox, eds., pp. 179-216;
25. see also Contreras and Bennett, Targeting the Poorest: The Role of the National Indigenous Institute in Mexico's Solidarity Program, pp. 281-305.
26. See, for example, Paul Haber, "Political Change in Durango: The Role of National Solidarity," in Cornelius, Craig, and Fox, eds., pp. 255-79.
27. Interview by author, Charo, Michoacán, July 1992.
28. Bailey distinguishes decentralization ("the devolution of decision-making authority to constitutionally authorized bodies separate from the central government line ministries . . . under presidential authority") from deconcentration ("delegating some degree of decision-making authority from the federal ministries to their own field offices"). He argues that "Solidarity's operating logic is one of deconcentration, not decentralization." See John Bailey, "Centralism and Political Change in Mexico: The Case of National Solidarity," in Cornelius, Craig, and Fox, eds., pp. 97-119, esp. 102-3.
29. These scholarships, given to the poorest children, try to keep potential drop-outs in school.
30. For example, says Bailey, revolving funds helped compensate farmers hurt by the privatization of the national coffee market board INMECAFE. See also "Agricultural Sector Reforms and the Peasantry in Mexico," unpublished report of IFAD's special programming mission to Mexico, June 1992.
31. Rudiger Dombusch and Sebastian Edwards, The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 1.
32. See Santiago Levy, Poverty Alleviation in Mexico, Working Papers Series No. 679 (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1991).
33. M. Delal Baer, "Mexico's Second Revolution," in Riordan Roett, ed., Political and Economic Liberalization in Mexico: At a Critical Juncture? (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1993), p. 58.
34. M. Delal Baer, Political and Economic Liberalization in Mexico: At a Critical Juncture? ( Ibid.
35. This interpretation of Solidarity receives support from its similarity to the design proposed by Salinas in his dissertation on the effective use of public funds to win political support. See Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Participation, Public Investment, and Support for the System: A Comparative Study of Rural Communities in Mexico (La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1982).
36. According to Mexican law, no party may use these colors in its propaganda except the PRI. In a society where over half the population has only primary education or less, these nonverbal cues matter.
37. José Ureña, "Clase Política," La Jornada, Sept. 15, 1991, p. 6.
38. Steven Morris, "Political Reformism in Mexico," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 34 (Spring 1992), 32.
39. See also Denise Dresser, Neopopulist Solutions to Neoliberal Problems: Mexico's National Solidarity Program (La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1991).
40. Levy, Poverty Alleviation in Mexico, p. 81.
41. Dresser, p. 2.
42. Ward, p. 628.
43. For example, Dresser; Morris; Laurell. See also Arturo Martinez Nateras, "Solidaridad y Gobemabilidad," in Consejo Consultivo del Programa Nacional de Solidaridad, Solidaridad a Debate, pp. 193-203.
44. See, for example, Joseph Klesner, "Modernization, Economic Crisis, and Electoral Alignment in Mexico," Mexican Studies, 9 (Summer 1993), 187-223.
45. Spending per capita refers to the total of 1989 and 1990 funds, divided by state population. PRONASOL figures are available for 1991 and later, but a measure limited to the earlier years fits the timing of this study better: to measure response to the Cárdenas threat (which had subsided by 1991), and to measure outcomes in the 1991 election, which took place in August. All measures refer to the state level, due to the unavailability of figures on municipal spending. For spending, see Tercer Informe de Gobierno, 1991: Anexo (Mexico, D.F.: Presidencia de la República, 1991), pp. 501-3;
46. for population, see XI Censo General de Población y Vivienda, 1990: Resumen General (Mexico, D.F.: INEGI, 1992), pp. 368-94.
47. This variable attempts to measure changes in social spending priorities after 1988. The complexity of Solidarity funding and its penchant for taking over programs formerly housed in other ministries make it difficult to find an entirely satisfactory proxy. My measure compares spending under the former regional development line of the federal budget (Ramo XXVI) during the De la Madrid government with spending through PRONASOL in 1989 and 1990. The Mexican government itself uses this comparison in reporting social development spending from 1984 to 1991. PRONASOL also took over funding allocated to Ramo XXVI for its 1989 budget. While the comparison weakens over time with the addition of new programs, shifts in states that got priority should be sharpest in the first year or so. Second, Ramo XXVI and PRONASOL programs were both located outside traditional social development ministries and under direct control of the inner elite. Bailey, pp. 106, 109, describes Ramo XXVI-"the immediate antecedent of Solidarity" - as the consolidation of "various interagency programs that Lopez Portillo had administered out of the presidency on an ad hoc basis." Ramo XXVI funds were administered by the undersecretary of the ministry of programming and budget (SPP), Manuel Camacho, and "contained the programmatic elements that later evolved into Solidarity." Through PRONASOL, centralization and presidential discretion increased. This kind of funding may be more flexibly reoriented according to the preferences of the top leadership than most categories of social spending. The specific measure "reorient" converts real spending into a percentage increase per state. Two additional caveats apply. First, it is important to remember that Ramo XXVI and PRONASOL account for a small percentage of total government spending on social welfare. The measure should therefore be seen as an attempt to measure changes in national political priorities rather than total change in services. Second, Mexico City funds are not available for both periods and therefore appear as missing data. Nevertheless, trends in Mexico City appear broadly comparable to results obtained for the nation as a whole.
48. Results reflect the use of the 1988 congressional vote in all models and calculations except for those pertaining to the effect of the 1988 left vote on Solidarity spending. There are two basic differences between the presidential and congressional vote in 1988, recorded through separate ballots. More people voted for president than for congressional representatives. Furthermore, in virtually every state the PRI gets a higher percentage of the congressional than the presidential vote, while the FDN gets a higher percentage of the presidential vote. Most likely, some voters were attracted by the importance of the presidential election, and some were attracted to the personality of Cárdenas. The congressional vote reflects those who were interested enough to fill out the ballot for congress (and therefore would be more likely to turn out in 1991) and reduces the distortion from inflation of the Salinas vote but emphasizes loyalists who are less likely to switch. In models explaining PRONASOL spending, left presidential vote is used to test the hypothesis that the PRI reacted to the Cárdenas vote specifically. However, switching to the congressional vote does not change the sign or significance of any variable in any model except for PRONASOL spending per capita, which falls below .1 significance in bivariate and multivariate relationships with PRI vote measures. For the source, see Silvia Gómez Tagle, Las Estadísticas Electorales de la Reforma Político (Mexico, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 1990), pp. 220-23, 228-31.
49. The marginalization index is calculated by the Mexican government and is a composite of socioeconomic indicators measuring poverty, living standards, and access to services. See CONAPO, cited in Alfonso Guevara N. and Gregorio Santibañez B., "Los Grupos Étnicos Autóctonos como Motive de Marginación," in Fernando Serrano Migallón, ed., Marginalidad Urbana y Pobreza Rural (Mexico, D.F.: Editorial Diana, 1990), p. 69-70.
50. José Silvestre Mendez Morales and Santiago Zorilla, Mexico por Entidades Federativas (Mexico, D.F.: Ediciones Oceano, 1986).
51. If the government compensates those who lost most in the economic crisis, this variable should be significant. I contend that losers got compensation only when they threatened the neoliberal coalition by voting for Cárdenas. I use estimated figures from Antonio Puig Escudero and Jesús Hernandez Rivas, "Un Modelo de Desagregación Geográfica" (Mexico, D.F.: INEGI, 1989), pp. 30-3.
52. It is difficult to attribute this lack of logic solely to bad data, because the same data combine to produce significant models of PRI gains and left losses. Rather, many untapped factors seem to affect funding decisions.
53. Gershberg studies the use of resources in the education sector (through the education ministry as well as Solidarity); Molinar and Weldon analyze a variety of dependent variables, including total PRONASOL spending and subsets of PRONASOL spending (productive, social, and apoyo) into which the federal budget disaggregates Solidarity. Of particular interest are Gershberg's finding that within states the government punishes opposition municipios and Molinar and Weldon's suggestion that some components of Solidarity specialize in rewarding PRI loyalists while others attempt to buy back opposition support. See Juan Molinar and Jeffrey Weldon, "Electoral Determinants and Consequences of National Solidarity," in Cornelius, Craig, and Fox, eds., pp. 123-41;
54. Alec Ian Gershberg, "Distributing Resources in the Education Sector: Solidarity's Escuela Digna Program," in Cornelius, Craig, and Fox, eds., pp. 233-53.
55. Elena Gallegos and Miguel Angel Rivera, "El PEM, Cuarto Partido que no Alcanza el Registro Definitivo," La Jornada, Aug. 25, 1991, p. 3.
56. "Encuestalia: Fraude y los Votantes," Nexos, 166 (October 1991), 75.
57. Baer, "Mexico's Second Revolution," p. 58;
58. Dresser, Nexos, pp. 1, 24.
59. Lourdes Cárdenas, "Las Acciones del Pronasol Políticamente Favorables al PRI," La Jornada, Sept. 2, 1991, p. 29.
60. Martinez, Nateras, pp. 195-98.
61. Confidential interview by author with PRD municipal official in Michoacán, July 1992.
62. Confidential interview by author with PRD municipal official (of a different city) in Michoacán, July 1992.
63. Salvador Guerrero Chipres, "Con el Pronasol Salinas Aplicó Competencia Desleal con los Partidos," La Jornada, Sept. 4, 1991, pp. 1, 8.
64. Collier, The Contradictory Alliance, p. 165.
65. "Pronasol," Este Pais, 7 (October 1991), 11.
66. Pronasol, Este Pais, Ibid., Partisan identifications are not held constant. Among those expressing "sympathy"for the PRI, approval rates were 8.2 percent.
67. Both "PRI gain" and "left loss" are calculated as percentage changes on the basis of absolute numbers of votes instead of simply the difference between a party's percentage of the vote in 1991 and 1988. Given the uneven geographical distribution of the left vote in 1988, direct subtraction would distort the meaning of "losses"; only states where the left did well in 1988 could produce high losses. Rankings according to "left loss" better match intuitive assessments of the PRD's strength than rankings by subtraction. Subtraction ranks Michoacán as a state of greater losses (64.2 percent in 1988-29.8 percent in 1991 = 34.4 percent) than Baja California Sur (25.9 percent - 1.4 percent = 24.5 percent), largely because the left did not have 34 percent to lose in Baja California Sur. "Left loss" ranks Baja California Sur much higher (94 percent of voting base lost) than Michoacán (where Cárdenas kept most of his voting base). Perhaps more important, simple subtraction does not provide a pure measure of the left's ability to keep voters, because official vote percentages also reflect changes in the PRI's ability to attract support. "Left loss" and "PRI gain" take into account only the party's own support. Thus, "PRI gain" is calculated as percentage change in PRI votes and "left loss" is calculated as percentage change in "left" votes, in both cases using congressional vote (see note 36). For sources, see Gómez Tagle, Relación de los 300 Distritos Federales Electorales (Mexico, D.F.: IFE, 1991).
68. Alternatively, one might argue that the competition encourages normally passive PRI supporters to turn out to defeat the opposition or (more sinister) that the PRI uses vote padding in close races.
69. The construction of these models is based on factors found important in other analyses of Mexican voting plus Solidarity spending. See, for example, Klesner. I do not use both agricultural and rural population (the percentage of the population living in towns of less than 2,500) because of concerns about multicollinearity (the two are correlated at .88). When both are included, rural residence is not significant and reduces the significance of agricultural population only slightly.
70. The bivariate correlation between 1988 PRI vote and left vote is -.78, significant at .0001.
71. Both Cuauhtémoc and Lázaro Cárdenas came from Michoacán and served as its governor (Cuauhtémoc from 1980 to 1986). Lázaro Cárdenas also paid a lot of attention to Michoacán during agrarian reform and initiated several large development projects in the state.
72. Confidential interviews by author with PRI organizers, September 1991; see also Jorge Castañeda, "El Fraude 'Moderno,'" Proceso, Aug. 26, 1991, pp. 34-6.
73. Changes in participation may also reflect two other factors under the potential control of the PRI: the size of the voter registry and possible fraud. The voter registry was completely revised for 1991 by a new federal electoral institute under majority control of the PRI. Opposition parties accused the PRI of "shaving" opposition voters from the lists and tacking on "phantom PRI voters." While evidence of fraud is weak, total registered voters dropped by about two million between 1988 and 1991.
74. Tres Ãnos de Represión Político en México (Cuernavaca: Comisión de Derechos Humanos, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1991). While some of these deaths do not belong in the category of political violence, and some occurred in the course of confrontations that also resulted in PRI deaths, the PRD list reflects the level of hostility and threat that PRD members experience subjectively.
75. Confidential interviews with a former member of the PRI's National Executive Committee and two PRI district coordinators in Mexico City, August and September 1994.
76. This conclusion seems consistent with the finding of Contreras and Bennett, p. 287, that while 92.9 percent of their survey population knew about the Solidarity program only 25 percent were aware that Solidarity projects existed in their neighborhood.
77. Alejandro Moreno, "¿Por Que¿ Se Voto¿ por el PRI?," Este Pis, 33 (December 1993), 27. The reported Beta is .14. According to this study, other positively related, significant variables include low income, good opinion of the PRI, and PRI sympathizer; negatively related significant variables include sympathy with the PAN or PRD and youth (age 18-39).
78. El Nuevo Perfil de la Economi"a Mexicana, p. 38.
79. Mexico Is on the Right Track" (Mexico, D.F.: Consejo Nacional de la Publicidad, 1991), p. 2. fifty-four percent of respondents credited Salinas's policies for economic improvements. See "La Intuicion PIuralista en el Distrito Federal,"
80. La Jornada, sec. Perfil, Aug. 11, 1991, p. 1.
81. "Mexico Is on the Right Track," p. 1;
82. "La Intuicio¿n Pluralista en el Distrito Federal," p. 2;
83. William Stockton, "Mexican Pessimism Is Found in Study," New York Times, Nov. 16, 1988, p. 16.
84. For the importance of prospective voting (views about future economic prospects), see Michael Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections: The Major Western Democracies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988).
85. Ibid., p. 79.
86. For an evaluation of stabilization policy under Salinas, see Lustig; also Daniel Oks, "Stabilization and Growth Recovery in Mexico," Policy Research Working Papers, 833 (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1992).
87. See especially Neil Harvey, "Rebellion in Chiapas," Transformation of Rural Mexico Series, 5 (La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1994).
88. "El Pronasol Atrae Más Sufragios que el Mismo PRI," La Jornada, Aug. 19, 1991, p. 26.
89. Contreras and Bennett, p. 282.
90. Waterbury, "Export-Led Growth and the Center-Right Coalition in Turkey," pp. 127, 142.
91. Ibid., p. 128.