ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a discussion of the sui generis nature of the Mexican state, centering the analysis on the concept of the state as rector. It reviews of the literature that attempts to qualitatively account for the rectorship role of the state, provides a range of intruments of state policymaking that give concrete shape to the rectorship role. The chapter discusses the murky realms of theory—the theory of relative state autonomy and introduces its principal variants in Mexico. It deals with theory of state monopoly capitalism. According to standard "value-added" concepts of national income accounting, the Mexican state has not been overwhelmingly large. Economic development, particularly industrialization, proved to be more difficult than the structuralist theoreticians at Comision Economfca para America Latina had assumed in the early 1950s. The theory of state monopoly capitalism is ambiguously situated in terms of the debate between the instrumentalists and the autonomy theorists because it approaches the state from a different perspective.
