How Did NAFTA Contribute To The 1982 Debt Crisis?

This section of the take-home examination will discuss the purposes of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and their tenure as a ruling party in Mexico between 1929 and 2000. I will argue that the debt crisis of 1982 as well as the neoliberal processes of restructuring associated with NAFTA led to the erosion of PRI’s dominance which ultimately contributed to the present-day discriminatory system of elections in Mexico. First, I will discuss the history behind the PRI’s ascension. Second, I will analyze the events of the 1982 debt crisis and its implications for the political party. Third, I will investigate NAFTA’s contribution to PRI’s decrease of influence and its association to the corporate offensive. Finally, I will present evidence

Generally, the oil crisis of 1979 facilitated by OPEC states led to a widening of inflation in other countries. As a result, powerful countries such as the United States enacted monetary policies that would control inflation by limiting the money supply that it had lend out to developing countries like Mexico (Roman and Arregui 18). Through the policies, Mexico faced dramatically proliferated interest rates on their debts. At the same time, the country was faced with a decrease in global demand for oil which impacted its national petroleum industry (Broughton 167). With the consequences of the debt crisis, the Mexican government decided to participate in structural adjustment programs with the International Monetary Fund in which they would be loaned money but were required to reorient their economy into the global framework. This would mean abandoning the ISI programs and engaging in mass privatization of its national industries (Caufield 43). As firms began to privatize, a corporate offensive emerged through a coalition of enterprises between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. This coalition did not support interventionist policies such as PRI’s decision to nationalize banks (Roman and Arregui 41). Therefore, the debt crisis of 1982 initiated a chain of events that eroded the dominance of PRI and set the stage for neoliberal restructuring through the adoption of

Although Mexico’s one-party regime through the 70 year dominance of the PRI may see less democratic, Mexico’s present-day democracy is less unifying and no longer representative of the popular classes that constitute the main electoral body. This is primarily evident through the differentiation of formal and substantive equality in Mexican political, economic, and social spheres. In principle, Mexican citizens have formal rights written in the constitution which should be guaranteed. For example, the country has a labour code entrenched in its constitution, Article 123, that not only guarantees the worker’s rights to organize but also provides socioeconomic rights such as pregnancy and childbirth leave, severance pay, and minimum wages (Caufield 68). However, the formal constitutional protection has not been recognized with the decline of the PRI. Substantively, Mexican workers have been subject to minimal strikes and limited collective bargaining because these rights are seen as barriers to free market driven economic development as articulated by PAN (Caufield 65). Furthermore, Roman and Arregui argue that the deteriorated living standards in Mexico has facilitated the drug cartel which in turn has encouraged the state to respond with repression. Disguised and open military rule have already been established in many