Work,Wages and Gender in Export-Oriented Cities: Global Assembly versus International Tourism in Mexico

Drawing on a rich source of urban labour market data, the Mexican National Urban Employment Survey of 1998, this article addresses the question of how dissimilar export-oriented industries shape urban labour markets, particularly with respect to women workers. It compares Ciudad Juárez, which has an economy based on global assembly production, and Cancún, whose economy is based on international tourism. Employing economic base theory and location quotients, the analysis isolates the impact of the export sectors on the local labour markets. Results show that global assembly and international tourism encourage a mix of occupational and income prospects for both men and women in each of these Mexican cities. Female employment tends to be concentrated in the export-oriented sector in both cases, but the types of occupational and income opportunities therein vary. Overall, the analysis challenges common exploitation arguments that tend to stress the universally shared deleterious working conditions and low wages that result from global integration and export-led industrialisation in contemporary Latin America. It suggests that we pay closer attention to the diverse nature of outward oriented industries, which will tend to differentiate the labour market implications of increasing economic globalisation.     

Crises of Confidence: Attitudes of the Domestic Bankers Towards the Credit Problem in Mexico

This paper analyses the Mexican banks' loan policies since 1995. Based on a series of interviews, we find that Mexico's financial system is currently experiencing two crises. First, banks lack confidence in the business practices of small and medium size enterprises. This negative attitude is reinforced by the bankers' perception of a culture of non-repayment. Banks also loan little to big businesses, which rely on the international money market. Second, bankers believe small and medium size business owners lack confidence in the Mexican financial system. Consequently, loan activities are down significantly. Socio-economic growth and development in Mexico will depend upon a profound change in structures, practices and attitudes surrounding loan activities.     

Vulnerable Women in a Pandemic: Paid Domestic Workers and COVID-19 in Peru

Paid domestic workers (PDWs) in Peru, who are predominantly women, are one of the most vulnerable labour sectors in the country. We argue that an important factor explaining this is linked to national legislation that grants only partial rights to the sector, thus maintaining inferior labour conditions for such workers. Here we share our analysis of a survey of 314 PDWs, conducted between April and May 2020, confirming that PDWs in Peru are highly unprotected, particularly during the COVID pandemic, in which there has been a lack of comprehensive social protection schemes.     

Migration Pessimism and the Subjective Well‐Being of Migrant Households in Mexico

A new migration pessimism argues that the economic benefits of international labour migration for migrant households may not justify the social costs. This article provides a test of this argument based on the author's survey of 304 households in Jerez municipio (municipality), Zacatecas, Mexico, in 2009. The results indicate that active households (those with at least one migrant abroad) perceived their economic situation to have improved more, but both their social cohesion and their happiness to be less than those of non‐active households. Social cohesion (family unity and maintenance of values) is shown to be pivotal in the happiness differential enjoyed by the non‐active households.     

Disaggregating Corruption: A Comparison of Participation and Perceptions in Latin America with a Focus on Mexico1

An abundant empirical literature on corruption relying on survey research has emerged since the mid‐1990s. The predominant line of inquiry concerns perceptions of corruption with respect to institutions and processes. Another, separate line of inquiry that has enjoyed less attention concerns reports about individuals’ participation in corruption. These two dimensions of corruption, however, are typically conflated, leading to error and confusion. This article explores the relationship between the two and seeks to differentiate the two. Using data at the country and individual levels, analysis shows how the two may be only weakly related to one another – though causality remains unclear – and respond to distinct sets of determinants and generate distinct outcomes. The analysis underlines the need to specify the findings in the literature: that the causes and consequences of corruption relate more to ‘perceived’ corruption rather than actual corruption.     

A Tale of Two Families: The Mutual Construction of 'Anglo' and Mexican Ethnicities Along the US–Mexico Border

In the American Southwest and along the US–Mexico border, 'Anglos' and Mexicans are often viewed as the quintessential 'others'. This ethnographic study problematises the Anglo‐Mexican opposition with ethnographic data from interviews with a Mexican farmworker family and an 'Anglo' farmer family of the EI Paso Lower Valley. I argue that 'Anglo' hegemony is not based exclusively on cultural separation but often involves hybridity (including 'Mexicanisation') and patron‐client relations entailing 'benevolent' paternalism. I show how the concept of 'Anglo' is a contested identity constructed through interactions between Mexicans and Euroamericans. Through this study of border crossings in situations of asymmetrical power relations, I advocate a 'complicit' anthropology that presents competing ethnic groups in their full complexity rather than as stereotypes or caricatures of their 'others.'     

Seeking Domestic Approval: Determinants of Ratification Duration in International Trade

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have proliferated rapidly since the early 1990s. The ratification of these agreements matters both economically by rendering commitments legally enforceable for outward‐oriented industries and politically by revealing the domestic‐ and international‐level factors which delay or accelerate the entry into force of a PTA. This research note investigates the institutional design and domestic political determinants of the ratification duration for 270 PTAs concluded in the post‐1990 period. The Weibull survival analysis yields two main results: First, neither domestic political constraints measured through veto players nor PTA depth affect ratification spells. Second, ratification processes become more protracted in the presence of stringent formal domestic ratification requirements as well as with a higher number of partner states. These findings suggest that trade negotiators factor in the shadow of ratification in the bargaining phase but still remain subject to formal ratification hurdles and PTA membership dynamics.     

The Federal Dilemma: Organisational Strategies and the Consolidation of Parties in Mexico and Argentina

What accounts for the consolidation of party organisations? The specialised literature has stressed the importance of institutions in shaping the ways in which political parties organise. However, little attention has been paid to the role of federalism. We argue that in federal settings, party territorial organisational strategies condition their capacity to become consolidated parties. We illustrate our theory with an analysis of the development of conservative parties in Argentina and Mexico to explain their different levels of consolidation.     

Explaining Policy Outcomes in Federal Contexts: The Politics of Reproductive Rights in Argentina and Mexico

This article explains the political and institutional factors that affect reproductive rights policies in Argentina and Mexico. Consistent with the comparative literature on gender, politics and institutions, the article reveals that federal arrangements define the arenas in which advocates can challenge governments. The comparative analysis suggests that the content and variations of policy outcomes are not only determined by the legal distribution of such rights. Women's positions towards abortion and contraception was greatly shaped by partisanship and ideology, and this was critical to legislative outcomes, while the number of women legislators was only important to introduce the issues. Important for further research are the effects of institutional and party instability on women's organising in legislatures, and the relevance of links between women's groups outside legislature and political parties for the success of gender equality policies.     

Models of Clientelism and Policy Change: The Case of Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes in Mexico and Brazil

Clientelist systems vary, and this variation influences the adoption and evolution of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes. We find that vertically integrated, corporatist clientelism in Mexico and more locally oriented, bossist clientelism in Brazil differentially shape the choices of governments to turn piecemeal, discretionary CCTs into more expansive and secure benefits.     

Millions of Small Battles: The Peronist Resistance in Argentina

This article studies the working‐class clandestine political organisation known as the Peronist resistance. Created after Argentine President Juan Perón was overthrown in 1955, the resistance movement was much more than a reaction to the limitations imposed on the organisation of unions. It signalled the birth of a new paradigm of political and cultural resistance firmly anchored in the household and the neighbourhood. Looking into the cultural dimensions of violence, the study shows how violence functioned as a creative force, producing transformations in political agency and cultural practices that reached into the Peronist household and shaped mourning rituals and the politics of martyrdom.     

‘A Natural and Voluntary Dependence’: The Royal Academy of San Carlos and the Cultural Politics of Art Education in Mexico City, 1786–1797

In this article, I explore the controversies that characterised the foundational years of the Royal Academy of San Carlos of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in Mexico City (1786–1797). They provide provocative insights into questions of competing agendas and ambitions among the artists and bureaucrats of the royal academy. They also illuminate contemporary understandings about the hierarchical relationships between a metropolitan power, Spain, and its American colonies and their visual culture and artistic production, which mirror broader political hierarchies and relationships of power and subordination.     

Playing the Tune of Citizenship: Indian Brass Bands in the Sierra Norte de Puebla,Mexico, 1876–1911

This article examines popular citizenship practices among the Indians of the Sierra Norte de Puebla (Mexico), focusing on the brass bands that participated in religious and patriotic festivals. Rather than analysing the bands as part of the region’s popular Liberalism, or concentrating on the festivals’ nationalistic content, as previous studies have done, it underlines how the bands’ organisation combined customary Indian practices with Liberal regulations, and transformed both. This resulted in the successful exercise of citizenship providing bandsmen with effective participation in face‐to‐face community life and a form of connection with the wider national sphere.     

Using ‘Public Health Crossings’ to Create Community‐Based Rural Healthcare in Mexico: The Case of Two Health Centres in Xochimilco

Health centres established in Xochimilco, Mexico during the 1930s and 1940s represent a larger shift in the national health agenda from training medical students in rural health to addressing the specific health challenges of rural communities. While the 1935 centre offered urban students practical experience in rural environments, it did not adequately address the area's health problems. In contrast, the 1947 centre utilised improved community exchanges to enhance the region's health and sanitation. This decade of transformation resulted from a network of politicians, international organisations, and health professionals who helped to establish broader community‐based public health programmes in rural Mexico.     

Alpine Masculinity: A Gendered Figuration of Capital in the Patagonian Andes

This article investigates the Patagonian ecotourism industry and the spatial production of gender privilege. The analysis attends to how the spatial practices of park rangers, tourism guides and climbers create a gendered space of capital accumulation that devalues and marginalises othered subjects – such as women and non-alpine men – within specific domains of nature. Developing the concept of a figuration of capital, this article argues that the ecotourism industry has facilitated the rise of an alpine masculine subject based upon key bodily values: robust physicality, a conservationist ethic and heroic narration about engaging wilderness.