June 20, 2006
THANKS, NAFTA:
Mexico's Election (NY Times, 6/19/06)
Something unusual is going on in Mexico — a normal presidential election. Mexico's relatively new democratic institutions are not being strained, and are not at risk. There are three major candidates, and while they have been doing a lot of mudslinging, they offer voters a real ideological choice.Mexico lived through 71 years of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which fell in 2000 to an opposition candidate, Vicente Fox, who proved to be a lackluster president. In other new democracies in Eastern Europe and Latin America, voters at this point have tended to grow nostalgic for dictatorship or eager to find an outsider who promises revolution. The first democratic election after dictatorship is always joyous; the second one can be deadly.
Not so in Mexico. Roberto Madrazo, the PRI candidate, is far back. One front-runner is Felipe Calderón, who was Mr. Fox's energy minister. He is a respectable model of the Latin American colorless, Harvard-educated, pro-business candidate. He wants to modernize Mexico and make it more globally competitive, thereby creating more jobs. Mr. Calderón advocates opening Mexico's poorly run and underfinanced energy sector to foreign investment. It is an unpopular idea, but sorely needed.
The End of History doesn't skip states. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 20, 2006 7:07 AM
Nonsense - Mexico is changing primarily because of its proximity to the US and the ties that are wound by immigration and trade. Move it 500 miles to the south and you might get Venezuela.
Some Latin nations have chosen to go backwards, to their detriment. And Africa (with the exception of Morocco and potentially Libya) is probably in worse shape than it was 15 years ago.
It's easy to get skipped - just ask a North Korean, an Albanian, a Cuban, a Burmese, a Pakistani, a Russian, a South African, or a Zimbabwean. Now, recovery can happen quickly, but in many places, tyranny is just a few crimes from reality.
Posted by: ratbert at June 20, 2006 8:36 AMThey haven't been skipped, they're next.
Posted by: oj at June 20, 2006 9:18 AM"Nonsense - Mexico is changing primarily because of its proximity to the US and the ties that are wound by immigration and trade. Move it 500 miles to the south and you might get Venezuela."
If that's the case, then how do you explain what's going on in Colombia?
Posted by: Foos at June 20, 2006 10:02 AMGood question - I forgot about Colombia. I can only say it's almost a miracle, given their recent past.
Posted by: ratbert at June 20, 2006 12:14 PMProximity explains Mongolia too.
Posted by: oj at June 20, 2006 12:18 PMName another one, and I might fold.
But don't forget Germany, which was doing well from 1955 through about 1985, and then began to slide. If their end is to be a rusty, dinosaur industrial version of Turkey, then they belie your Future.
However, I still say that Mexico would be in much worse shape if it didn't border us.
Posted by: ratbert at June 20, 2006 2:16 PMMalawi. Botswana. Chile. Taiwan. Poland.
Posted by: oj at June 20, 2006 2:29 PMChile and Malawi are back-sliding, and the militant left is quite dangerous in Chile (these Maoists just don't know when to quit). Nepal is another problem. Bangladesh is probably going to crumble into Somalia soon.
Poland and Taiwan - yes. Perhaps even Mozambique.
Posted by: ratbert at June 20, 2006 3:15 PMWhen Chile is less Third Way than we are Second we'll worry about it.
Posted by: oj at June 20, 2006 3:59 PM