| Abstract: | The structural economic reforms justified by neoliberal ideas that transformed Mexico's statist political economy in the 1980s posed a direct challenge to the nationalism inherited from the revolutionary era that had long served to legitimise the interventions of the social state. This article examines the strategy adopted by the administration of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–1994) to reconcile the rival ambitions of neoliberalism and nationalism and its reasons for doing so. It does so by examining ideas concerning the state, society and the individual found in writing and speeches published in political organs and the press during this period. |
