Clientelism and Mexico’s poor population
Clientelism allows patrons to control population behaviors by filtering information that is available to them. Due to the limited amount of information, the poor are unaware of the other resources and therefore feel like they are making the best decision based on the resources that are provided to them. In this case, the PRI has been able to manipulate the poor by purposely omitting information from them in order to remain in power. Clientelism was hard for me to understand, so I associated it with the PRI to get a better understanding.
I thought the case of the two rival groups in Solaridad, Oaxaca was interesting because we see the emergence of the PAN, who is the rival of the PRI. The PAN encouraged people to break free from the PRI and clientelism by establishing a form of self-government in their neighborhoods. This lead to a split because not everyone was on board with PAN’s proposal, even though they all wanted the same things: land service and water titles. Eventually, COMVIVES were established by the PAN to sever clientelism and members of the PRI stopped participating in community organizations.
So why wasn’t everyone on board with the PAN and COMVIVE? They were after all, offering the same thing the PRI was. While the article addresses the reasoning behind this is due to having strong or weak ties, I believe that because the PRI was in power for 71 years, it was able to establish a brain washing mechanism that tricked the poor into thinking that they were actually cared for and not marginalized. I also believe that the PRI had such a strong influence on Mexico, that the poor thought the PRI was the only way to access government resources. They were afraid to break away from the PRI because they didn’t know anything else.
How is your explanation of clientelism inconsistent with Holzner’s explanation?
I guess I subconsciously agreed with him. I remember he stated in the article that the poor continued to support the PRI because the PRI was controlling the political scene and so the poor population didn’t really know they had another option. Holzner also pointed out, in the case of Lima, it was hard for them to break away from clientelistic relations because of “hegemonic controls”. But then he says that the idea of hegemonic controls cannot be applied to Mexico because the PRI was not a hegemonic party. So how was the hegemonic control of PRI almost “nonexistent”? I thought this was confusing because the PRI controlled its poor citizens, yet Holzner says that “we should not assume that they are irrational, but look at the ways in which their choices are constrained.” Their choices were constrained by the PRI…so how is that not exerting hegemonic control?
I think you make a good question that wraps up your post, why wasn’t everyone on board with PAN? PRI held office for 71 years and they dominated the news, politics and Mexico as a whole. PAN when it emerged was small and could not open up to the public due to the oppression from PRI. This changed in 1994 when Colossio (PRI Candidate) was murdered, this opened the door for other parties to emerge, and 6 years later PAN finally broke the PRI rule. I think your conclusions here are consistent with the history of Mexico and how PRI was able to control every aspect of society.