NGOsinMexico

NGOs and the Changing Structure of Mexican Politics

Douglas A Chalmers and Kerianne Piester

Columbia University

1995

One of the more subtle changes in Mexico in the last decade has been the expansion of independent associational life, sometimes referred to as the growth of civil society. If it continues to strengthen, we believe it will have a profound effect on the way Mexican politics is conducted. There are many significant forms of independent associations, including businesses, grassroots organizations, private universities, among others. We wish to describe some of the characteristics of political patterns emerging in the relationship between non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the people and the state -- one important segment of this new level of associational life. Reversals and fundamental redirection are possible, and it is highly unlikely that these new styles of politics will ever completely eliminate other forms, but we believe there is a high probability that these characteristics will be part of Mexico's future.

In the last decade, there have been a rising number of NGOs. These are non-profit, non-official organizations, whose members are generally educated, and often professional. They often deliver some kind of service, for example, developmental assistance to the poor, or serve as an alternative policy 'think-tank'. Our concern, though, is not with these particular activities in themselves, but how NGOs and their networks fit into the political system, and how they are, potentially, changing it.

This growth of associationalism is a common trend in many countries.[1] It is probably better understood as the result of structural changes (which we will not try to discuss) rather than particular governments' policies to promote associations, although government responses to crises generated by structural changes may be important in shaping their specific role. In Mexico, a key moment came in 1968 when popular reaction against a violent government actions against protesters mobilized a number of movements. More recently, another moment came in the aftermath of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, when many citizens organized, either to take over relief from the slowly responding government, or to make demands on the government and influence the reconstruction.

Some characteristics of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's term of office (1988-1994) have also given a distinctively Mexican shape to this growth of civil society. As a result of the rise and subsequent frustration of opposition parties in 1988, and of widespread skepticism about the fairness of the elections that brought Salinas to power, many sought to organize politically, independent of the government. This impulse was strengthened when Salinas decided to downplay political reforms in favor of economic ones. The government’s National Solidarity Program, a striking effort to deal with the problems of poverty and the economic dislocation through (at least nominally) demand-based development programs, was both a recognition of the growing number of popular organizations (by explicitly seeking to incorporate or preempt them) and a stimulus to the formation of new ones. Further, Mexico's turn outward, most obviously through negotiating NAFTA, has made international influences more legitimate in Mexico. International norms have been adopted, neoliberalism has pushed the “private sector”, and internationally-based “voluntary” and “non-profit” organizations have become active, and all of these promoted the growth of a “third sector.”

In Mexico, which has had a strong state and a strongly statist culture, the growth of this sector gets less attention than it might elsewhere. Further, attention has focused on the so far incomplete process of democratization and the newly threatened state capacity to carry out economic reforms. In such a climate, it is easy to overlook the fact that there are incipient trends which would shift the structure of Mexican politics away from a long established clientelistic and corporatist pattern. If the growth of associations continues, democratization and economic policy making will look quite different than they would if the state still dominated structurally and institutionally.

It is impossible at this stage to assess precisely the size and importance of this movement towards civil society and the growth of NGOs. NGOs are not a single movement or organization. They take multiple forms, are fragmented, they change frequently, and there is no meaningful inventory which is useful for understanding their political role. But our strong impression is that the growth of the number and significance of NGOs and other independent associations would be very difficult to reverse or hold back.

Therefore, although extrapolation is risky, we think it is worthwhile to point to the characteristics of this group of new organizations and the institutions, both formal and informal, that are emerging around them to suggest the possible directions of changes in Mexican politics. The question is, what new kinds of politics are being generated by these groups?

To begin exploring this question, a group of us carried out an investigation of four NGO networks in Mexico. [2] Networks may be considered a sort of super-NGO, in that they, too, are generally non-profit, unofficial organizations, often staffed by professionals which perform services. In this case, however, their principle bases are not directly in the grass-roots, but rather a large number of other NGOs. They usually aim at serving to strengthen the impact of their constituent organizations, to provide them with a national presence giving them recognition in society, and to provide some protection for the autonomy of the NGOs, particularly from the state. NGO networks offer at least the potential of providing coherent organization for significant part of civil society. We wanted to know whether this potential was real. Our sample of four cases was too small to make conclusive results, but we are able to suggest some possible dimensions of change.

The first potential characteristic of the new structures of Mexican politics associated with the NGOs is that they are not creating a self-sufficient world apart from the state, but rather enhancing the autonomy of societal organizations in order to deal with the state. We are in an era in which one frequently encounters the rhetoric of 'non-governmental', 'deregulation', 'free enterprise', 'limited role for the state' and 'autonomous civil society'. It is easy to imagine that the growth of NGOs might illustrate the creation of some sort of privatized world. In the case of non-profit NGOs, quite the reverse is the case. The internationally-based developmentalist NGOs have, for example, gone through periods of trying to stimulate self-sufficiency and complete autonomy, for example among rural communities. But today the consensus seems to be that NGOs should promote the capacity of groups to extract resources and favorable regulation from the state. This is particularly so in the policy areas we looked at in our 1994 study: social policy and women's rights, environment and working conditions.[3]

The sample of four NGO networks in our project appeared to have a common point of view on this question. They were all seeking to alter the relationship of people to the state, not break that relationship. This was obviously true of those who were interested in political practices, such as the network named the Convergence of Civil Organizations for Democracy, (Convergencia,) but also for those that focus on policy, for example, the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC) which seeks to influence trade policy, and the Mutual Support Forum (FAM), which seeks to shape social policy.

Second, NGOs are building a politics that is not only independent of the dominant party, but in which political parties do not dominate the process. Mexico for some time has had a strong executive tightly linked to an "official" (i.e., ruling) party, the PRI. Concern for democratization has centered attention on the possibility of opposition parties successfully challenging the PRI. But NGOs and NGO networks are beginning to carve out an arena where political forces meet each other, and where both the official state-party and the opposition parties are either marginally important, or take center stage only at some moment, such as election time, or in the legislature.[4]

One example is the NGO network, Mutual Support Forum (FAM), which has created a structure to serve multiple local and Church affiliated groups at the community level, with the specific purpose of formulating and influencing social policy at the national level. While its origins are in the Catholic charitable and relief efforts, it has not affiliated with the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN), the party closest to the Church, nor has it affiliated with the Partido de la Revolución Democratica (PRD), despite their shared commitment to the popular classes. The FAM has opted to maintain autonomous linkages, working with a variety of governmental institutions. Since it works with the government, a strict 'we-they' attitude, not uncommon in some Mexican circles (probably most common among intellectuals), might argue that they were being coopted by the PRI establishment. But what seems more significant to us is that FAM appears to be establishing a space that is potentially autonomous from all parties, in which interests are developed, conflicts resolved, and policies promoted without direct involvement of political parties.

The issue is more complicated for NGOs concerned directly with political practices and democratic change. Alianza Civica is a network of civic organizations, predominantly NGOs, which was formed to promote a fair electoral process for everyone. Since its formation, Alianza Civica has struggled to be recognized as a non-partisan organization, and to remain one. On the one hand, the issue of fair elections in Mexico has meant, and continues to mean, challenging the PRI/Government. It necessarily entails holding the PRI to standards it has accepted only reluctantly and partially -- providing a level playing field for all participants, and allowing transparent procedures that would risk a defeat for the itself. Insistence on honest elections has long been defined as anti-PRI, and has been a major banner of the opposition parties, the PAN and the PRD. Whatever their intentions, many thought the Alianza was 'objectively' partisan, simply by working for honest elections. There was also no question but that the activists in the Alianza were generally more sympathetic to the PRD than to the PRI or the PAN. A widespread culture of "us versus them," in which people are either categorized as with the establishment or against it, an attitude characteristic of the opposition as well as the government, reinforces the assumption of partisanship. It conceptualizes the political process in terms of these broad groups, and not in terms of the specific patterns of organizations and institutions. But organizationally and institutionally, Alianza was clearly moving in the direction of staking out a non-partisan institutional role. It is not clear at this writing whether, if it continues beyond the Presidential elections, it will strengthen its non-partisan quality, or succumb to the assumptions of many that such a role does not exist on this issue.

Related to this separation from parties is a third aspect. The NGOs appear to be participating in the creation of a kind of pluralism, and specifically undercutting any attempt to construct, or reconstruct broad political blocs in society. This is important especially for the way popular sectors are represented in politics. Many, including Latin Americans, often look to the European model of mass movement mobilization. The social-democratic ideal was a single movement representing the entire lower class. In Latin America, this was often transformed into a state sponsored populist-corporatist structure. In Mexico it was President Lazaro Cárdenas who built this mass bloc through the creation of corporatist organizations that were linked to the official party.

The rhetoric of the left opposition to the PRI has often echoed the ideal of a broad, united, and organized front representing 'the people.' 'Vanguardism' was an extreme version of this view, and it may have been dealt a decisive blow with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the idea of a broadly organized front is common to any view of politics as being divided along a simple divisions (class, religion, etc.), and which assumes that that struggle requires a kind of organized confrontation.

The NGO phenomenon, in harmony with the non-partisan and specialized qualities of politics we have already described, constitutes a different sort of popular politics. Many of the NGOs, particularly those which have emerged out of grassroots organizing or national and international developmental projects, have a strong identification with 'the people' or at least with causes that are meant to benefit the people.[5] Among them, the rhetoric of broad solidarity is still very common. The thrust of NGO organization and activity, however, is against such broad formations. An emphasis on dialogue and democratic procedures make forming large bureaucratized organizations less likely. An argument can be made, in fact, that in contemporary Mexico, specialized and independent organizations are more rational. Building mass organizations, the argument would run, does not promise massive success. They are more likely to produce internal division, bureaucratization and weakness.

In any case, the current thrust of NGO activity appears to work against organizational consolidation on the left, and is much more pluralist, however much these groups still identify with 'the people' in some general sense.[6] Thus, the NGO networks have not led to the formation of peak organizations. Instead, the networks appear to be what the name infers, a channel of communication, but not of authority, a link that expresses a generalized agreement on a general thrust of political activity, but not a commitment to a particular party nor ideology.

A perhaps extreme example of this is the network called Ganando Espacios (Winning Space). It is a relatively small group of activists, loosely linked to a wide variety of women's organizations, which has taken as its goal increasing women's participation in elected and appointed offices. This specialized campaign has been carried out with minimal organization, even internally. But even an elaborate organization such as Convergencia, does not operate as a peak organization, and has no authority over its 'constituent' organizations. It is a relatively stable organization, but its links with the NGOs are, as the name we have given it implies, in the form of networks, which leaves much room for divergence, bargaining and when necessary, going their separate ways.

A fourth direction towards which the NGOs might be pushing Mexican politics towards is the construction of a complex set of organizations to provide specialized political services to a range of what might be called 'political clients'. These specialized organizations do not so much have special interests as specialized functions. This is happening in many countries. Among the public, the interest groups, the parties, and the government, there has emerged a set of organizations which have professionalized public opinion polling, image construction, technically sophisticated policy making, and many other tasks. NGOs are contributing to this specialization of politics.

Some specialize in a policy area, becoming a space to mobilize opinion, trade information and debate policy around a loosely stated goal. Convergencia began as a group to defend against the restrictive treatment of NGOs. The Government had proposed to treat them in the same fashion as profit making entities. The issue is still unresolved, and new legal definitions are in the works. Convergencia evolved, however, to focus on democratic change, being among the first to develop the capacity to observe elections. RMALC was formed as a coalition of labor, environmental and other groups concerned with trade, and opposed to NAFTA as it was shaped by the Salinas administration. Since NAFTA’s passage, it has sought a new role, but still around the issues that emerged in that debate. FAM, though a relatively new network, has sought to formulate alternative social policies in the areas in which its members have some expertise, including social and rural development, housing, and care for children, the disabled, and the elderly.

Specialization also occurs with respect to functions. Alianza Civica was an organization sponsored by Convergencia and other civic organizations specifically to observe the 1994 elections. This entailed a series of specialized capacities, including training a large number of observers, conducting a parallel vote count, conducting a broad campaign for civic education, and analyzing media coverage. Specialization may take a wide variety of forms, and there was one case that even represented a function often thought to be quintessentially governmental, the management of crises. At the time of the Chiapas rebellion, a variety of NGOs came together in a network called CONPAZ in Chiapas, and then a national organization called ESPAZ, which sought to intervene to break the cycle of violence that threatened in that state. Dedicated to securing a peaceful solution to the crisis, they created a human wall around the site of the negotiations, serving to insulate the process to some degree from possible disruptions from partisans of either side, but also from the various local political factions that were not formally at the table.

The general point is that the NGOs and networks we looked at are providing a range of specialized political services. Taken individually, they may have strong ties with one or another group and a sharply critical view of the government. Taken together, they constitute a kind of field in which specialized groups interact, bargain, trade services, and in many ways acts more like a marketplace in which politics is, or may be played, than the imagined arenas of log rolling or mobilization we often think of.

A final characteristic of politics which NGOs represent is the internationalization of politics. NGOs and NGO networks have provided a way through which foreign-based groups -- foundations, support and solidarity organizations, international policy networks, as well as international organizations and financial institutions -- have been able to participate in Mexican politics, generally without generating a strong nationalist reaction. The opposite pole here might appear to be the ostensibly strict exclusion of any important political role of foreigners up to now, and certainly Mexicans have insisted as strongly as any country in the world on the inviolability of its political practices and institutions to foreign 'intervention'. In fact, of course, the presence of a very influential US Embassy and powerful multi-national corporations are only two examples that have powerfully contradicted this rhetorical position.

Unlike the past, however, today the composition and the numbers of such intervening groups, and the degree to which they are becoming (at least informally) institutionalized within the system is growing. There is no question that the NGOs, with their foreign funding, their involvement of international experts on policy, their involvement of foreign observers for the election and many other ways, facilitate the participation of an increasing number and complex set of foreign actors in Mexican politics. The lack of sustained outcry against the presence of these foreigners remains to be studied, but we suspect that it has something to do with the diversity among the foreigners involved (in place of the massive presence of the neighbor to the North), and to the fact that through the NGOs, the foreigners' presence is in some sense institutionalized and tamed.

Election observation was a case in point. In many countries, observers were sent in by external organizations. In Mexico, where the Government resisted for a long time accepting any foreign observers, they were finally admitted for the 1994 general elections. While a few came on their own, many obtained domestic sponsorship in order to have a much more systematic role. Many Mexican organizations did sponsor foreign observers (including the two authors). A significant segment of the foreign observers were trained and deployed by Alianza Civica, for example. For many nationalists, the fact that the foreigners were not operating independently probably legitimized their role .

The mutual benefits of foreign involvement are significant. From the point of view of the NGOs, outsiders bring funds and other resources that may be difficult to get internally without support from the state. FAM is a network that emerged out of the relief organizations channeling international relief funds from international Church sources. FAM itself has become a channel, like many others, for involving international social policy expertise, as well as international project funding.

On the other hand, international donors and institutions are increasingly interested in NGO networks as a way to foster more cooperative relationships between NGOs and state agencies. In Mexico, the United Nations Development Program(UNDP), for example, has sponsored a project to improve communication and collaboration between NGOs, the government and itself. This project, entitled “International Cooperation for Social, Indigenous and Non-Governmental Organizations,” (more commonly referred to as the Ba Asolai project, which means “transparency”) is significant because it has involved representatives of thirteen NGO networks, together with representatives from three state agencies, in all levels of decision making concerning the project’s objectives, funding distribution and management. For various international institutions, networks are a way to promote more and better NGO-state partnerships.

Access to international media is among the most important resources provided by the international linkages for those NGOs directly involved with confrontations with the state. Convergencia, Alianza Civica and human rights organizations in Mexico systematically prepare for the mobilization of international opinion to support their projects. The mobilization of international opinion was even more direct with RMALC. It was founded with the active help of Canadian and US environmental and labor groups, and the network continued to be very involved in mobilizing support from allies in those countries during the struggle over NAFTA.[7] International support provided important leverage in dealing with the Government, which in turn needed international support in the external, secondary arenas of Mexican politics, often located in Washington, D.C. The NGOs hardly had a monopoly on this track, and, in fact, the Government itself began to lobby extensively in the US, but the NGOs represent a strong push in the direction of making that international influence an enduring feature of Mexican politics.

The new administration in Mexico is confronting a severe economic crisis very early in its tenure, symbolized by the sudden devaluation of the peso before Zedillo's term was a month old. The consequences of this crisis, which, given the tensions within the PRI and the slowly growing strength of the opposition, could lead in a number of directions. These include a fundamental upheaval, or the weakening of the PRI to the point that it will begin to lose more elections -- but also, extrapolating from past crises, it is always possible that the outcome will merely be a partially reformed political system.

We do not pretend to argue that the characteristics of Mexican politics we have spoken of will determine that outcome, and certainly not that the NGOs will be a dominant player in that drama. But we do argue that the trend towards a new pattern of politics in Mexico will have an affect whether Mexico is democratic or authoritarian, stable or unstable. A more plural, specialized, non-partisan and internationalized politics is likely to be an important part of its future. Democratic consolidation and political stability are both likely to require incorporating and institutionalizing this new form of politics.