ABSTRACT
This chapter draws from Mexico's experience of policy reform under President Salinas to discuss the notion of state autonomy. The theories discussed in the chapter are classified according to their approach to policy reform, whether they are society-centred or statecentred. Society-centred theories were based on the pluralist model, where policy decisions are the result of competition between interest groups and the state is a neutral arena where this competition takes place. State-centred approaches received a great boost from the study of LDCs as part of the effort to understand situations where the society-centred models could not explain major policy reforms. The state has the monopoly of their enforcement but not of their introduction or modification, where social organisations have also an important role influencing their content and nature. The bureaucracy in Mexico is a centralised body, deeply embedded into the economic and social relationships of the state, and highly sensitive to the leadership of the President.
