ABSTRACT
Mexico would use the eighty years from 1930 to 2010 to catch up with the rest of Latin America in political development and to make a strong start in becoming a democracy. The vehicle through which the construction of a viable political system was undertaken was not only the complete antithesis of Brazil's path, but also distinct from the path of any other Latin American nation: a disciplined and hegemonic political party. The government's close ties to both labor and the peasantry were institutionalized in 1936 through the Mexican Workers Confederation, an umbrella union organization, and the National Campesinos Confederation, a massive outreach to peasants and rural workers in 1938. The period found Ruiz Cortines well past the midpoint of his uneventful administration, and with the economy on the upturn. The greater responsiveness to "outsider" elements of society provided by the transformation greatly reduced the prospect of widespread, protracted political unrest.
