Abstract
This paper sets out to explore the changing political and economic landscape of the Mexican state against the backdrop of the growing disciplinary power of the globalised financial markets (e.g., capital flight and investment strikes). Specifically it asks if the general defining characteristics of a neoliberal “competition state” found in the advanced industrialised countries (AICs) can be applied to the Mexican case. The paper sustains that although the Mexican state conforms to the basic features of a neoliberal competition state, this transformation has brought about neither sustained economic growth nor less dependence on external sources of capital. A fundamental reason for this failure lies in the highly contradictory nature of the stale's neoliberal policy formulation that is marked by domestic objectives such as subduing class conflict and international exigencies such as signalling creditworthiness.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
