Paul Rich
University of the Americas-Puebla
Hoover Institution,Stanford University
Guillermo De Los Reyes
University of Pennsylvania
Precis. Political discourse in Mexico has been heavily influencd by dependency theory, but the present circumstances do not lend themselves to that approach. The authors consider rational choice, but argue that political culture is a much more appropriate theoretical base for understanding the present situation.
A version of this paper was delivered as part of the panel Political Theory in Practice in the Real World at the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, September 2, 1999. Our investigation is one of a number generated by a program of research funded by CONACyT, the Mexican government research institution, at the University of the Americas–Puebla, into civil society, social capital and voluntary organizations — and their political consequences. Another result of the CONACyT project is the current volume on civil society of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (September 1999) edited by Professors Rich and De Los Reyes and on sale at the Sage booth in the APSA book exhibit.
Mexico is in the midst of a deep crisis in which political structures of more than seventy years standing are decomposing -- considering if political theories help in understanding the situation makes common sense. Given the gravity of the times, whether academics have anything on their shelves that might be helpful, and whether theories can contribute to a solution, is more than an idle time avocation. Models really do meet reality in such a situation.
To start with, one has to keep in mind that the political science situation in Mexican universities, not surprisingly, is very different from that in the United States. There are far fewer PhDs, more of the professors are part time, and resources are very limited. Libraries are grossly inadequate. Internet and WWW connections are scarce except at a few top institutions. Access to the latest discussions about theory, either at national conferences or in journals, is hampered by ongoing financial problems which have been deepening, as demonstrated this year by the long bitter strike over a small tuition increase by students at the large state university in Mexico City. The number of Mexican scholars attending overseas meetings has been markedly less than before the start of the financial problems in 1994.
These are probably some of the reasons why debate over theory is sometimes less current or less topical in relationship than what is taking place elsewhere in the political science world; the time warp being especially noticable at universities outside of Mexico City. This is unfortunate, because the growing literature produced by discussion about democratization would certainly seem useful in the current Mexican situation. (Of course, there are Mexican academics who at considerable effort manage to keep competely up to date, but it takes much more of an effort than on an affluent North American campus.)
As to what political theories today are strong in Mexico, the country has more than 400 universities and more than two million university students, so that generalizations about attitudes south of the Rio Grande are obviously dangerous. Mexico has everything from Trotkyites to Monarchists. There are political scientists trying to use liberation theology as well as those who assign readings in the nineteenth-century anarchists. Moreover, since academic meetings are less well attended than in the United States and journals are far fewer, there are difficulties in taking the professorial pulse.
Nevertheless, it would be fair to say that Mexican discourse about political theory was until recently -- and remains in many quarters -- dominated by the dependency approach. In respects, dependency theory has played the role in Mexico that rational choice theory has played in the United States. It proponents sometimes have been evangelical and single-minded, and not always charitable about those who do not agree with them. In the Mexican case, one could argue that more direct discussion about democratization was long overdue and that dependency theory in the academy has only encouraged an atmosphere of “predestination”.
Contributing to the lack of innovation in the theoretical situation, in recent years Mexico in respects has changed less politically than has much of the rest of Latin America. This may be the first year in which the ruling party has tolerated a real primary process and convention. For decades the president has selected his successor, the process called tapadismo and taking place in “a religious aura of mystery”.
Equally relevant to the attitudes of at least some Mexican political scientists is the fact that Mexico, along with Peru and Colombia, is one of the three Latin American countries where guerrilla forces remain a problem. Elsewhere in Latin America, says the former Uruguayian Tupamaro rebel José Mujica, “the left is still searching for answers to today’s social problems -- but through the system and not through some utopian notion that does not exist in reality”.
Perhaps the guerrillas have changed more than the professors. At its very worst, dependency theory merges with conspiracy theory, finds gringos behind everything that has gone wrong, and cares little for notions of equal time for other points of view. Robert Packenham, author of the remarkably useful The Dependency Movement (1992, 1998) comments: “The politicization and nonfalsificationism it engendered and nourished are still very strong in the academy.” Despite the antiquarian flavor of extreme dependency theory, discernable traces of it remain at the bottom of the bowl.
Turning to rational choice theory, since it has done so well in the American political science world, one might express surprise that it had not assumed something like the significance in Mexico that it has elsewhere. One of the apparent reasons for this and the continuing appeal of dependency theory is the immense fascination, even mesmerization, of Mexicans with the United States. There is no parallel in America, where no one country holds the position or attracts the attention that America does in Mexico. Rational choice theory is not nearly as strong in Mexico as in the United States, and one reason may be the continuing appeal of dependency theses.
Mexico and a Choice of Theories
The suggestion being made here is that one theoretical approach should not c owd out all the others. Dependence theory does have a theoretical usefulness, and we are not in any way belittling the usefulness of either dependency theory or rational choice theory, but simply making a case for pluralism. In fact, in studies of banana and sugar politics, we have cited dependency sources. But like any theory, dependency has limitations and liabilities. The limitations and liabilities have become more apparent as the old political order in Mexico has begun gasping for breath. It strains the imagination to blame the United States for everything, as extreme dependists do. The present political situation in our judgement is largely a domestic matter that is not dependent on the United States, and is as much a cultural matter as an economic matter.
If rational choice theory is not in the saddle in Mexico as it is in the United States, and if dependence theory seems a limited alternative, the question then is whether there is any other approach that deserves consideration. With democratization being a principal issue in Mexico, in a number of articles and Hoover Institution working papers we have suggested that political culture theory was useful in the Mexican situation. One reason, we argue, is that so much is being written these days about voluntary societies as creators of social capital and as promoters and defenders of democracy, and such groups are plainly less plentiful in Mexico than elsewhere. Why that is so, and the consequences for the political culture, are important questions. In fact the current issue (September 1999) of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, edited by us, is completely devoted to exploring questions of social capital and the civil society.
Issues such as civil society, associationalism, and voluntarism are clearly part of the discussion of political culture. And the growth of interest in democratization has given political culture theory as well as these subsumed supporting topics a real stimulus. Despite the pessimism of Robert Putnam about the health of voluntarism, the countervailing claim is being made that, “A striking upsurge is under way around the globe in organized voluntary activity and the creation of private, nonprofit or non-governmental organizations.” The assertion is that this is a sort of second society, a parallel world of large numbers of networks of people that has great consequences for democratization.
The commotion being raised about voluntarism as part of a successful political culture has not gone without criticism. In Foreign Affairs, Lester Salamon has criticized “the myth of the immaculate conception”, i.e. the idea this is a new phenomenon: “While recent years have witnessed a dramatic upsurge in organized voluntary activity, such activity has deep historical roots in virtually every part of the world.” He warns that “Careful efforts must thus be made to acknowledge the nonprofit sector’s peculiar historical roots...”, but admits that, “The resulting surge of interest in nonprofit organizations has opened the gates to vast reservoirs of human talent and energy, even while it has created dangers of stalemate and dispute. While it is far from clear what must be done to keep these gates open, a crucial first step is a better understanding of the dramatic process underway and the immense new challenges it represents.”
The expansion or rediscovery of voluntary organizations is reflected south of the Rio Grande in the fact that a recent guide to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Latin America cites 42 directories with more than 20,000 groups, a doubling since 1990. This is welcome news to those who hope that democratization will succeed in those countries like Mexico which have long histories of dictatorships.
Fukuyama Rediscovers Tocqueville
Study of voluntary societies and of their influence is closely tied to the general discussion over civil culture encouraged by recent work of Francis Fukuyama. Surely he is one of the most successful of the new mega theorizers, first attracting enormous attention when his book The End of History put forward the idea that the historical process had resulted in the triumph of the free market and democracy on a world scale. He then produced a volume entitled Trust, which those interested in how to write a successful popular book about theory should read (if only to criticize), and which claims that those nations where social trust prevails will prosper far more than those where such trust is lacking. (Now he has produced The Great Disruption, and having created fears in Trust, holds out hope in his newest volume. ) This social trust is largely manufactured by the voluntary societies that create civil society, and all of this is pertinent to the Mexican situation.
In respects, Fukuyama came across
in Trust as a modern-day de Tocqueville who, like him, appreciates the
importance of non-government groups. It will be recalled that Tocqueville
wrote in a celebrated passage Democracy in America:
In the United States, political associations are only one small
part of the immense number of different types of associations found there.
Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition
are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial
associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different
types — religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited,
immensely large and very minute...In every case, at the head of any new
undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England
some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an
association.
The revival of interest in political culture theory and particularly in interest in the nongovernmental side of society, attracts both optimism and pessimism. “It is perhaps the most significant social phenomenon of our time: the sudden efflorescence of countless movements and organizations of social change at local, regional, and international levels” writes Ann Boyles, who adds, “This blossoming of civil society, as represented by non-governmental organizations, community-based groups, academic institutions, and others, is significantly reshaping the international agenda.”
Not All Voluntarism is Good Voluntarism
However, while a theoretical framework that gives greater importance to the health of civil society in Mexico than it has hitherto received seems quite appropriate, the assumption that nongovernmental organizations per se are good for Mexican society is not sustainable. Theories about trust need to include the dark side of voluntarism. Much of our recent work has been in studying nongovernmental organizations in Mexico such as the Freemasons and Opus Dei, groups which we conclude are not helpful in creating an open society. Nor do we think that the gradual business of building a civil society is the approach for areas where the government has completely lost control, as in Chiapas.
Voluntarism is not a elixir. A more immediate medicine is need for t roubled areas like Chiapas, where the insurgents, albeit with less publicity than formerly, continue to control a large portion of the state. Chiapas needs economic help on a large scale from the government, pure and simple. There is a dismal wrenching poverty which has been largely and long ignored. The situation is so serious that the spread of voluntary groups seems an unlikely way to go about remedying it. To us, the priority in some areas of Mexico is an economic one. In the longrun, there are other factors to consider, but right now the priority surely is infrastructure: potable water, roads, schools, hospitals, and the like.
The view that democratization of Latin America in general and of Mexico in particular entails finding new ways for empowering minorities such as the indigenous overlooks the fact that they must really desire reincorporation into a Western-style state that so far has given them nothing. Many of the revolutionaries in Mexico are people that have long embraced antistatism. They are unlikely to respond, at least in the near future, to efforts to enhance Western political culture.
A Variety of Theoretical Approaches
We advocate the use of a variety of approaches in applying theory to the Mexican morass. Too much, as has been suggested, could be made of our own favorite approach, the potential influence of nongovernmental organizations in building social capital. Still, evidence supports the assertion that the consequences of not having durable intermediate associations that stand between the family and state are — as in Fukuyama’s view — devastating. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe where civil society was destroyed provide a comparable example, but “Many Latin Catholic countries like France, Spain, Italy and a number of nations in Latin America exhibit a saddle-shaped distribution of organizations, with strong families, a strong state, and relatively little in between. These societies are utterly different from socialist ones in any number of important ways, particularly with regard to their greater respect for the family. But, like socialist societies, there has been in certain Latin Catholic countries a relative deficit of intermediate social groups in the area between the family and large, centralized organizations like the church or the state.”
Those theorists who feel that a congenial political culture, revitalized by associationalism and voluntarism, is the major factor in democratization should be wary of becoming as single-minded as the rational choice and dependency advocates. There is a touch of competitiveness between theorists. Fukuyama, after acknowledging the contributions of Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, and other partisans of rational choice, denies that their theoretical approach can be the whole story: “As Adam Smith well understood, economic life is deeply embedded in social life, and it cannot be understood apart from the customs, morals, and habits of the society in which it occurs. In short, it cannot be divorced from culture.” Fukuyama further warns, “Not being content to rest on their laurels, many neoclassical economists have come to believe that the economic method they have discovered provides them with the tools for constructing something approaching a universal science of man.” He adds the unfortunately obvious, that “The political science departments of many major universities are now filled with followers of so-called rational choice theory, which attempts to explain politics using an essentially economic methodology.” But such caveats can be extended to include his theories as well.
The Dangers of Grand Theory
Those interested in voluntary association research and in the underlying theory will appreciate that such investigation is complementary with the revival of political culture as an approach. It follows that with a revival of political culture studies there is going to be more interest in what makes for a successful voluntarism, and all of this is refreshing or threatening according to your theoretical position. If you take a pluralistic view of the use of theory, employing middle-level theories as they are found useful, it is welcome. If you are seeking grand theory, and wish one theory to cover the waterfront, so to speak, then presumably political culture will appear to be a “messy” approach.
A consequence of the end of the Cold War is that the agenda of political science is changing and enlarging, and an interest in NGOs is increasingly part of an expanded view. The train however is going a little too fast. Much of what has been said lately about how voluntary associations contribute to a political culture that sustains democracy should be subject to qualification. In the Mexican situation, as elsewhere in Latin America, the contributions of such voluntary groups as the Freemasons and Opus Dei are difficult to credit with the enhancement of the open society, and we have concentrated our own research on that aspect of the situation. The study of the political activities of such groups over a long period of time modify the popular thesis that voluntary groups per se support an intermediate zone between family and state that promotes democracy.
Discussion of that would need another occasion and far more time. Rather, what we have tried to suggest in the brief time available is that when theory confronts reality as it does in Mexico, the values of pluralism, and of theoretical temperance becomes clear. Without jettisoning either rational choice or dependency theory, the political scientist seeking to understand Mexico at the millennium is well advised to also employ the lens of political culture.