ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and explains the developments, and suggests their implications with regard to the future course of Mexico's political transition and the reform of its regime. "Regime" is defined here as the set of institutionalized rules that regulate political representation and mediation and government decisionmaking. The chapter offers some theoretical considerations on politics and the private sector, and proposes some hypotheses for research. It discusses the role of business organizations in the Mexican political arena, and examines the two-decade conflicts between the government and the private sector and the resulting changes in their relationship. The chapter deals with the new dynamics of business's participation in the political process, and explains how this model has achieved a marked degree of success. There is, however, no evidence at all of a change of heart on the part of Mexico's neoliberal modernizers with respect to those two essential features of modernity that they have studiously neglected to implement: equality and democracy.
