Suchergebnisse

On the basis of qualitative and quantitative data, I show that nonviolent protests against politically motivated repression in Mexico were more significant, both in terms of their histories and their political impact over time, than the literature suggests. I document that Mexico had human rights movements prior to the late 1980s that have been overlooked because activists since 1968 framed their struggles in terms of amnesty for political prisoners as well as the reappearance of, and accounting for, the disappeared. I further show that their 25-plus years of struggle were effective in the passage of two amnesties for political prisoners (1971 and 1978) as well as the emergence of an ombudsman called the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH circa 1989/1990), along with the negotiated settlement of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. This evidence suggests that even against strong odds, and even in the context of ongoing repression, nonviolent social movements of relatively powerless people can independently influence nondemocratic governments not only to pass favorable policy, but also to restructure the polity.

This research explains why Mexico's 1968 student movement ended in the massacre of hundreds of students, while the peasant revolts that followed won land reform from the state. I argue that because Mexico's presidents managed each movement with both repression and concessions, other factors beyond the state's political opportunity structure explain these sharply contrasting social movement outcomes. The evidence strongly suggests that while Mexico's version of authoritarianism increased the odds of repression, each movement's levels of organization, disruption, and framing strategies determined the forms and degree of state violence. The analysis shows how politically salient frames may decrease the odds of repression or increase the odds of political alliances with state elites. It follows that political opportunities are more dynamic and dialogically emergent than previously theorized.

Focusing on shopkeepers in Latino/a neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Dolores Trevizo and Mary Lopez reveal how neighborhood poverty affects the business performance of Mexican immigrant entrepreneurs. Their survey of shopkeepers in twenty immigrant neighborhoods demonstrates that even slightly less impoverished, multiethnic communities offer better business opportunities than do the highly impoverished, racially segregated Mexican neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Their findings reveal previously overlooked aspects of microclass, as well as "legal capital" advantages. The authors argue that even poor Mexican immigrants whose class backgrounds in Mexico imparted an entrepreneurial disposition can achieve a modicum of business success in the right (U.S.) neighborhood context, and the more quickly they build legal capital, the better their outcomes. While the authors show that the local place characteristics of neighborhoods both reflect and reproduce class and racial inequalities, they also demonstrate that the diversity of experience among Mexican immigrants living within the spatial boundaries of these communities can contribute to economic mobility.--