ABSTRACT

Agrarian-reform participants formed the National Confederation of Peasants, while urban workers were encouraged to join the Confederation of Mexican Workers, a new labor federation headed by leftist Vicente Lombardo Toledano. Until the late nineteenth century, Mexico's postindependence politics was convulsed by a violent struggle between the anticlerical Liberals and the pro-church Conservatives. Mexican presidents choose cabinet members and other high officials principally from within their personal political network of loyal followers, but they also reserve places for the supporters of other influential leaders. Since the 1930s the Institutional Revolutionary party has exercised hegemony over the Mexican party system. The benign character of Mexican public opinion and political participation was obviously a great asset to the regime. The dramatic events surrounding the 1988 elections indicate that traditional patterns of public opinion and participation can no longer be relied upon to preserve the hegemonic single-party system.