Overview

When Vicente Fox was elected Mexico's president in 2000, the world's most enduring twentieth-century authoritarian regime finally came to an end. In this book Paul Haber explains how urban popular movements contributed to such a historic transition. In the 1960s Mexico's urban poor, effectively incorporated into institutionalized forms of clientelism and cooptation, were perceived as passive and acquiescent. Their situation changed during the 1970s, Haber shows, as popular movements-led largely by young people inspired by the revolutionary ideals of Mexico's 1960s student movement-took the first steps toward mobilizing the urban poor in what would develop into the full-scale political protests of the 1980s. When Mexico's economic crisis came in the early 1980s, urban popular movements were in a position to play a major role in the growing democratic opposition. Haber, using a creative blend of ethnography and policy analysis, traces this history on a national level and with detailed reference to two key organizations, the Comite de Defensa Popular of Durango and the Asamblea de Barrios of Mexico City. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, many of Mexico's most important social leaders saw new opportunities in electoral politics, and the transformation from social movement to party politics began. Haber's study closely follows the urban dimensions of this history and spells out its implications not only for the urban poor but also for Mexico's nascent democracy.

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[Haber] carefully relates social movements to social theory within the Mexican context. This analysis helps one understand how the Mexican political system both withstood popular movements and was ultimately (if only partially) transformed by them. - R. E. Hartwig, Choice Haber's book is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of social movements in Mexico and beyond. His historical summary of Mexican politics in a remarkably brief fifty pages, his methodological discussion, and his review of the literature are excellent and all written in particularly lucid style. Most important, Haber's focus on the impact of social movements on electoral politics (and the impact of electoral politics on social movements) is illuminating. His insistence that the 'story of movements is incomplete without attention' to the fact that 'movements must survive in the world as it is' is, in itself, a major contribution, along with his recognition of the tensions between political and material survival and 'visionary ideals.' - Judith Adler Hellman, York University Power from Experience is a tour de force.... In the early twenty-first century, when movements of the poor are often suggested to be linked to insurgency or global terrorism, it is of urgent importance to consider Haber's work that masterfully illuminates how social movements of the urban poor instead moved Mexico towards democracy. Experts, students, as well as general readers will have much to learn from reading this book. - Vivienne Bennett, California State University, San Marcos

""[Haber] carefully relates social movements to social theory within the Mexican context. This analysis helps one understand how the Mexican political system both withstood popular movements and was ultimately (if only partially) transformed by them."" - R. E. Hartwig, Choice ""Haber's book is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of social movements in Mexico and beyond. His historical summary of Mexican politics in a remarkably brief fifty pages, his methodological discussion, and his review of the literature are excellent and all written in particularly lucid style. Most important, Haber's focus on the impact of social movements on electoral politics (and the impact of electoral politics on social movements) is illuminating. His insistence that the 'story of movements is incomplete without attention' to the fact that 'movements must survive in the world as it is' is, in itself, a major contribution, along with his recognition of the tensions between political and material survival and 'visionary ideals.'"" - Judith Adler Hellman, York University ""Power from Experience is a tour de force.... In the early twenty-first century, when movements of the poor are often suggested to be linked to insurgency or global terrorism, it is of urgent importance to consider Haber's work that masterfully illuminates how social movements of the urban poor instead moved Mexico towards democracy. Experts, students, as well as general readers will have much to learn from reading this book."" - Vivienne Bennett, California State University, San Marcos""

Author Information

Paul Lawrence Haber is Professor of Political Science at the University of Montana.

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