ABSTRACT
This chapter describes evolving change within the Mexican military and its implications for civil-military relations. It explores the historical record and analyzes contemporary trends and events in Mexico. Although future developments in Mexico portend a resurrection of some military influence, the officer corps has lost the monopoly of power that it exercised in the wake of the Revolution of 1910. The military's resurgence in the polity evolved from serious economic problems during the late 1960s leading to sharpened sociopolitical tensions. The civilian elites have been increasingly sensitive to the military and ever-ready to nurture its good will. Mexico's military policymakers justified the modernization program as a response to the northward spread of political subversion. The several influences converged to produce new demands upon the military and to facilitate new departures to increase the military's political influence and alter the civil-military equation. The interest group model or civil-military relations on the other end of the definitional continuum is also ill conceived.
