Democracy and Development in a One-Party State*

The political structure of Mexico is defined by the unique combination of traditionalist and new economic power, neither able to overwhelm the other, both requiring the strong single-party state. "Mexico may be one of the best established countries in Latin America and perhaps the only one in which anti-American sentiments has become transformed into a strategy of national independence and development". By contemporary political sociology, Mexico is unlikely to undergo another revolutionary upheaval in the near future, despite the pronounced political problem of single-party democracy. The Mexican revolution was indeed pragmatic at its outset. With the thorough determination of PRI to establish a universal consensus has come an ideological liberalism that is more rhetorical than real and that excludes political participation of other parties. Further, any drastic asymmetry in the pillars of present-day power, any political miscalculations as to which sector of society needs what at whose expense, and Mexico could once again become a dramatically eventful nation.