The Politics of Food in Mexico

Jonathan Fox compares a broad range of food policy reforms in Mexico, long one of Latin America's most autonomous states, in order to shed light on the broader problem of the determinants of state capacity. Moving beyond conventional state- and society-centered theories, Fox proposes an interactive approach to discover why conflicts within the state interact recursively with changes in the balance of power within society.

In a thorough examination of the politics of policy reform from both above and below since Mexico's revolution, the author concentrates on the SAM experiment (Sistema Alimentario Mexicano, Mexican Food System), a brief but massive subsidy program designed to channel oil boom revenues toward national food self-sufficiency. Although most of the SAM's food policy reform efforts failed to reach the poorest people, the extensive village store network proved to be an important exception. For the first time in Mexico, an anti poverty program encouraged its ostensible beneficiaries to hold the bureaucrats accountable. This opening from above encouraged autonomous mobilization from below, changing the contours of peasant politics. The dynamic interaction between state reformists and autonomous social movements weakened Mexico's entrenched authoritarian elites. This "sandwich strategy" provides a framework for understanding future paths for political change in Mexico, and may well account for rural reform processes across a wide range of political systems.

Jonathan Fox is Associate Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.