Semantics of Violence: Revolt and Political Assassination in Mexico (Cultural Sociology) 3030946940, 9783030946944

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CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY

Semantics of Violence Revolt and Political Assassination in Mexico Nelson Arteaga Botello

Cultural Sociology

Series Editors Jeffrey C. Alexander Center for Cultural Sociology Yale University New Haven, CT, USA Ron Eyerman Center for Cultural Sociology Yale University New Haven, CT, USA David Inglis Department of Sociology University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland Philip Smith Center for Cultural Sociology Yale University New Haven, CT, USA

Cultural sociology is widely acknowledged as one of the most vibrant areas of inquiry in the social sciences across the world today. The Palgrave Macmillan Series in Cultural Sociology is dedicated to the proposition that deep meanings make a profound difference in social life. Culture is not simply the glue that holds society together, a crutch for the weak, or a mystifying ideology that conceals power. Nor is it just practical knowledge, dry schemas, or know how. The series demonstrates how shared and circulating patterns of meaning actively and inescapably penetrate the social. Through codes and myths, narratives and icons, rituals and representations, these culture structures drive human action, inspire social movements, direct and build institutions, and so come to shape history. The series takes its lead from the cultural turn in the humanities, but insists on rigorous social science methods and aims at empirical explanations. Contributions engage in thick interpretations but also account for behavioral outcomes. They develop cultural theory but also deploy middle-­range tools to challenge reductionist understandings of how the world actually works. In so doing, the books in this series embody the spirit of cultural sociology as an intellectual enterprise. More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14945

Nelson Arteaga Botello

Semantics of Violence Revolt and Political Assassination in Mexico

Nelson Arteaga Botello Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila Saltillo, Mexico

Cultural Sociology ISBN 978-3-030-94694-4    ISBN 978-3-030-94695-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94695-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Il y a plus affaire à interpréter les interprétations qu’à interpréter les choses Michel de Montaigne Essais Cap. XIII, De l’expérience

To my father

Foreword

Semantics of Violence is a superbly argued work of theoretical sociology and, at the same time, a subtle, deftly accomplished work of empirical hermeneutics. Theoretically, Nelson Arteaga takes Civil Sphere Theory (CST) in new directions. In the decade and half after I introduced the model, social theorists and social scientists around the world have been engaged in a series of individual and collaborate efforts to elaborate and revise CST, demonstrating how the model’s abstract tenets can be separated from the particular empirical contexts—mostly American and European—to which they were first applied. One strain of this theorizing, pioneered by Arteaga and Carlo Tognato, has developed the idea that in Latin American nations civil codes have long been powerfully challenged by competing and anti-­ democratic patrimonial codes, parties, and institutions. In Semantics of Violence, Arteaga brilliantly fills out this idea. He provides a new sociological history of Mexico’s key political and communicative institutions, one that zooms in on the year 1994, when both patrimonial and civil elements responded to conspicuous and potentially highly destabilizing episodes of violence. Counter-intuitively, Arteaga demonstrates that the patrimonial strain in Mexico, despite its decidedly anti-democratic character, was as critical of these violent eruptions as were the nation’s emerging democratic traditions and institutions. Indeed, this book has something very distinctive to say about how such deeply antagonistic culture structures as patrimonialism and democracy can become intertwined in a manner that, rather than deepening social polarization, contribute to institutional stability and the ix

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gossamer threads of civil comity. This truly unexpected insight is vitally important to a better understanding of the dangerously polarized conditions that civil spheres around the world experience today. But Semantics of Violence is not just an original theoretical investigation. It is also an empirical tour de force that displays a high level of hermeneutic skill. Arteaga shows that violence is more than a heinous physical action, and that it must be made meaningful before it can exert social force. Examining thousands of social communications, Arteaga subjects them to a theoretically informed interpretation and elegantly reconstructs their collective meanings. He is able to create a literary plot that mirrors and sensitizes the reader to the social plots he is interpreting and explaining. Arteaga’s narrative also establishes suspense for the reader as the social scientific story unfolds. Rhetoric and reality intertwine; this book makes a compelling “read.” Semantics of Violence makes an important contribution not only to CST but to cultural sociology tout court. It will be of great interest to CST theorists around the world and to all those who are interested in the theory and methods of cultural sociology. The book is also a major contribution to understanding the civil sphere in Mexico, and how its basic communicative and regulative institutions have exerted increasing civil power over the course of recent decades. Jeffrey C. Alexander Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University New Haven, CT, USA

Acknowledgments

This work represents the end of a journey I began over fifteen years ago when I first read Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith’s work on the strong program of cultural sociology (SPCS) and Alexander’s book on the civil sphere theory (CST). It continued with a series of works I published alongside Javier Arzuaga, from 2013 to 2018, where we tried to understand the tensions between the civil sphere and Mexican patrimonialism. Our work was significantly enhanced when I came in touch with Carlo Tognato in Yokohama, Japan, during the International Sociological Association Conference in July 2014. Then, thanks to Tognato’s enthusiasm and intellectual commitment, we started meeting regularly in Bogota and Mexico City. In addition, Liliana Martínez, Santiago Carassale, and I started carrying out symposia and conferences at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences-México (FLACSO) hosted by our Sociology of the Frontier seminar, which allowed attendees to reflect upon the SPCS and the CST from a Latin American perspective. Graduate students promptly joined us, and the work and discussions from that seminar finally developed into the book Society, Culture and the Civil Sphere; an agenda of cultural sociology (FLACSO, 2019), edited by Tognato and myself. In 2016 I participated in Tognato’s research seminar Civil Society in Post-Conflict Colombia, hosted by the Center for Social Studies at Bogota’s National University of Colombia. That same year, Alexander and Tognato organized the Civil Sphere in Latin America workshop at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University. This meeting was followed by the seminar The Courage for Civil Repair: Narrating the Righteous in International Migration, organized by Tognato, Alexander, and Nadya xi

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Jaworsky, and hosted by the Center for the Cultural Sociology of Migration at Masaryk University, in Brno, Czech Republic. These encounters inspired me to find the link between the CST and my research on violence in Mexico. Thus, Arzuaga and I embarked on a theoretical exploration of how symbolic societal structures lay down a pattern for interpreting violence. Our research was later published in Sociologies of Violence: structures, subjects, interactions, and symbolic action (FLACSO, 2017). My projects on violence in Mexico are indebted to countless discussions with some extraordinary colleagues, including Alfredo Zavaleta, Salvador Maldonado, Gabino Solano, Willibald Sonnleitner, María Eugenia Suárez de Garay, Juan Pablo Moloeznik, Paul Hathazy, Ileana Padilla, Carmina Jasso, Rodrigo Díaz, Karina Ansolabehere, Evelyn Mejía, Cristina Puga, Óscar Contreras, Diana Guillén, Claudia Zamorano, Trevor Stack, Alejandro Monsiváis, and Rafael Valenzuela. They contributed with ideas and perspectives that helped me develop a more theoretically and methodologically solid point of view. I was able to write the first draft of this book thanks to a grant from the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) and the support of FLACSO, which allowed me to do a sabbatical stay in the Center for Cultural Sociology (CCS) at Yale University in 2019. As coordinators of the CCS, Alexander and Smith provided me with extraordinary conditions that helped me do my job in a stimulating and enriching environment. In addition, I participated in the CCS workshop during my stay, presenting a preliminary version of Chap. 3. The contributions and suggestions made to that document were essential for the further development of my research. Smith and Tognato also made comments and suggestions to the first draft of this book, and the latter kindly accompanied the writing with a critical and discerning spirit. This book would not have seen the light without his vital inputs, and I am profoundly grateful for that. Also, Nadya Jaworsky did a splendid job editing the English version and making it legible. Finally, it is essential to point out that this book came to fruition thanks to an environment of care, discussion, and work that Luz Angela Cardona and I built. In addition, she accompanied the writing of this book with critical, sharp, and frank comments that generated a real spirit of intellectual cooperation. The last draft of the book was presented during the seminar Conceptual and Methodological Strategies for Studying Violence in Latin America, organized by the Institute of Social Research Dr. José María Mora. I wish

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to thank Kristina Pirker, coordinator of the seminar, for giving me the chance to obtain feedback on my work right before sending the final manuscript to my editor. Finally, I thank the Autonomous University of Coahuila for providing excellent conditions where I could happily finish writing this book.

Praise for Semantics of Violence “Nelson Arteaga Botello is offering, with this book, a deep, rich and insightful analysis of the recent political life and events characterizing contemporary Mexico. Relying on an interpretation of the cultural dimension of this peculiar example in Latin America, his book enables one to understand the multi-layered phenomena that played out throughout the major transformations that shook the country in the last decades. As political violence erupted in the 1990s in Mexico, with the Zapatista revolt in Chiapas and the assassination of the PRI’s presidential candidate Collosio Murrieta, among others, Arteaga Botello shows how the Mexican civil sphere reacted to those unprecedented acts in order to foster a more democratic order within the country. Instead of seeing the use of political violence through the narrow perspective of its unilateral condemnation, the analysis reveals how the reactions emanating from the various sectors of Mexican society dealt with this issue while maintaining such phenomenon within manageable civil codes. The book provides the best example of what cultural sociology can bring to the analysis of Mexican society, and highlights with great perspicacity the semantics of political violence in the context of reconstructing the civil sphere in times of intense social and historical transformations. Using Jeffrey C. Alexander’s civil sphere theory enables Arteaga Botello to shed light on the role of mass media in the symbolization of this passage from an authoritarian form of political direction, under the PRI’s 70 years reign, to a neoliberal agenda. With his deep and intimate knowledge of the cultural roots of Mexican political life, together with his expert eye on violence and political action, Arteaga Botello allows the reader to reach a high degree of understanding on how civility is being reconstructed through a new distribution of power between patrimonialism and neoliberalism. The new civil codes that enabled actors to recreate solidarity by sharing feelings about violence and its containment within rational limits is described with great minutia and subtility, providing a new key in the interpretation of how the civil sphere acts as a medium of democratic practices. Evolving between illegitimate and legitimate violence, the codification of the violent acts helps situating the normative aspect of its anti-civil or civil significance for the general population. In this sense, such codification provides guidance for the inclusion or exclusion into the civil sphere of the motivations, perpetrators and effects of violence, rendering this threat to social life a viable political means for achieving the historical transformations at stake. Far from seeing violence as a mere impossible match with politics, Arteaga Botello’s analysis shows how its use is on the contrary always on the brinks of political life, especially in the context of dire social shifts or important changes in traditional

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political culture. This brilliant book is worth reading for enhancing anyone’s interest in the complexity of Mexico’s cultural life, seen from the angle of its civil commitments. Both highly instructive and cleverly written, Arteaga Botello’s book represents a significant addition to the interpretation of the challenges facing democracy in Mexico, and elsewhere, in our era of deepening political polarizations, showing the crucial importance of maintaining a civil sphere where debates can still be held.” —Professor Jean-François Côté, Department of sociology, Université du Québec à Montréal “In his creative deployment of civil sphere theory, Nelson Arteaga Botello offers a compelling and original account of the role of competing cultural codes shaping contemporary Mexican politics. The dialectical tensions both within and between the patrimonial and civil codes constitute competing discourses in the nation’s civil society in its slow and fitful democratization. This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how what Mario Vargas Llosa has described as Mexico’s ‘perfect dictatorship’ has been forced to reckon with the prospects of this transition to democracy.” —Peter Kivisto, Augustana College and University of Helsinki “Ao partir da evidencia de que a violência pode ter diferentes (e mesmo contrapostas) interpretações, este livro (ou Arteaga) desenvolve uma abordagem original e extremamente inovadora das questões analíticas implicadas (e mal resolvidas) nos estudos sobre a violência na América Latina. O tema decisivo da competição pela legitimação ou deslegitimação das violências é tratado com grande acuidade. Trata-se de uma análise cuidadosa do caso mexicano mas que servirá para abrir novas perspectivas na pesquisa e na teoria sociológica latino-americana sobre a sociedade civil, o Estado e as diferentes formas de violência política e social aí implicadas. By starting from the evidence that violence can have different (and even opposing) interpretations, this book develops an original and extremely innovative approach to the implicated (and unresolved) analytical issues of violence in Latin America. The decisive issue of competition for the legitimation or delegitimation of violence is treated with great acuity. It is a careful study of the Mexican case but one that will serve to open new perspectives in Latin American sociological research and theory on civil society, the state, and different forms of political and social violence. Based on the evidence that violence can have different (and even opposing) interpretations, Arteaga develops an original and extremely innovative approach to the analytical issues involved (and poorly resolved) in studies on violence in Latin America. The decisive issue of competition for the legitimation or delegitimation

of violence is treated with great acuity. This is a careful analysis of the Mexican case but will serve to open new perspectives in Latin American sociological research and theory on civil society, the state, and the different forms of political and social violence implicated therein.” —Michel Misse, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 The Civil Sphere 15 3 The Mexican Civil Sphere and the Patrimonial Code 37 4 The Indigenous Revolt 77 5 A Succession Under Attack127 6 Violence Within the Party167 7 Conclusion205 Index211

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 3.1 Table 3.2

Patrimonial semantics of violence Civil semantics of violence Patrimonial interpretations of violence Civil interpretations of violence

29 31 63 64

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Latin America experienced an agitated and violent twentieth century. From the 1950s until the end of the century, several wars caused by territorial disputes, guerilla movements, military coups d’état, and dictatorships left a mark on the region. In some countries, the Cold War heated internal conflicts. Bolivia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador were marked by state violence, including indigenous and peasant resistance. At the same time, Colombia descended into a downward spiral of violence that continues to this day. In countries like Peru, terrorism has long had a devastating effect on society. In Ecuador, the urban guerilla movement operated in some cities with an equally bloody repressive response from the state throughout the 1980s and 1990s. During most of the second half of the twentieth century, Bolivia experienced brutal political persecution. Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay suffered the onslaught of military dictatorships that ended the lives of thousands of people. In short, Latin America experienced numerous forms of violence that left an indelible mark on its historical memory. In contrast, Mexico remained peaceful for seven decades. Violent events did not ultimately lead to a military coup d’état or the establishment of a socially supported permanent guerilla force, as was the case in other Latin American countries. Instead, it underwent a slow and complicated democratization process, subject to authoritarian excesses and explosions of isolated and local violence. However, what might have appeared to be a peculiarity on the Latin American horizon exploded in 1994. In the first © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Arteaga Botello, Semantics of Violence, Cultural Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94695-1_1

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hours of that year, the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN) burst onto the national scene, with effects that would reverberate on a global scale. Two months later, the presidential candidate for the official party—the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had maintained power for seventy years—was assassinated. Only five months later, the secretary-general of the same party was also killed. Since then, violence has become widespread throughout all corners of Mexican society. In the last twenty-five years, the assassination of politicians, journalists, and social leaders, the massive number of “disappeared” citizens, mass executions of migrants, femicides, decapitations of organized crime members and citizens, armed blockades in cities, among other acts of violence, have come to characterize Mexico’s social horizon. To re-establish order and find a way out of the violence, Latin American societies sought to understand its causes, the responsible parties and their goals, and its consequences. For example, part of the population interpreted the military coups d’état of Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1973–1988) and Rafael Videla in Argentina (1976–1981) as responses that would halt the supposed turn toward the socialist left of the governments of Salvador Allende and Eva Perón. Meanwhile, another part of the population in both countries understood the military coups d’état as a reaction by local elites that sought to prevent the disruption of their political and economic interests. Similar interpretations have been put forth concerning the military coups d’état in Bolivia (1971–1978), Brazil (1964–1985), Ecuador (1971–1974), Paraguay (1954–1989), and Uruguay (1971–1984). Likewise, guerilla movements have garnered support for their supposedly liberating character and criticism because they embodied authoritarian ideals. Among these movements, the most debated was the Cuban Revolution of 1953, spearheaded by the brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro, who ended up establishing what was, for some, one of the most long-­ standing authoritarian regimes in the American continent and, for others, a model of popular democracy worthy of imitation. Even today, disputes about the transformative or merely strategic character of revolutionary struggles continue to mark the insurrection of the Montoneros (Argentina) and the Ñancahuazú Guerilla (Bolivia), as well as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front (El Salvador). For a long time, sympathy for the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Nicaragua) was practically unanimous since the front had confronted the dictatorship of the Somoza family, which spanned three generations (1937–1979). Something similar

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occurred with the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity and the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement (Uruguay). In contrast, the debate on the acts of violence perpetrated by the Shining Path (Peru) was much more polarizing, as was the more recent dispute on the popular or authoritarian signification of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela headed by Hugo Chávez, responsible for leading a coup d’état in 1992. Guerilla rebellions and military revolts have confronted civil and political societies in Latin America, making it clear how difficult it is to control violence in the region. The positions in favor of and against the calls to war and the military coups d’état constitute moral stances on the legitimate, correct, or appropriate character of the use of violence. Their moral character accounts not only for a panoply of political viewpoints, but it also expresses ideas about solidarity, a sense of belief and social belonging, and collective ties. In this way, interpretations of violence reinforce opinions about how the social order should appear. Hence, it is possible to interpret violence as a threat to the said order, a way to re-establish it, or a rugged path that leads toward a more articulated and perfect version of it. Moreover, interpretations of violence are translated into discourse, actions, and institutions that either incentivize or halt it, rather than simply justifying it. Consequently, we should analyze how and to what extent institutions, activities, and discourses tend to stop violence and how they may facilitate it. Among the cases mentioned above in Latin America, Mexico stands out in the region as the only country that had managed to maintain social cohesion and keep violence out of the center of the country’s national political life for seventy years. In addition, it has been the only country in the region that, even while facing violent actions, has overcome them, maintaining a stable political center. After a decade of revolution (1910–1920), which cost over two million lives, Mexico constructed a discursive and institutional patrimonial camp that allowed for a determined and negotiated group of democratic freedoms (Arteaga & Arzuaga, 2018). The foundations of this discourse hearken back to the mass politics that guaranteed the fulfillment of social demands through a paternalistic, authoritarian state that functioned as society’s mainstay of conciliation, organization, and material development (Córdova, 1973). Other Latin American countries have articulated similar systems—such as corporatism in Brazil (Baiocchi, 2006) or the hacienda in Colombia (Tognato, 2018). However, they could not prevent recurring intra-state wars, coups d’état, or bloodthirsty military dictatorships. In the meantime, the strength of

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Mexican patrimonialism has generated solidarities that have guaranteed the country’s political stability for seven decades. As Mario Vargas Llosa, the Nobel laureate Peruvian author, warned: The perfect dictatorship is not communism. It is not the USSR. It is not Fidel Castro. The perfect dictatorship is Mexico. It is a hidden dictatorship. It has the characteristics of a dictatorship: the permanence, not of a man, but a party. Moreover, a party that is immovable […] that grants enough space for criticism […] confirming that it is a democratic state […] The Mexican dictatorship is so much so that all Latin American dictatorships since as far as I can remember have attempted to create something equivalent to the PRI. (Krauze & Paz, 1991, p. 160)

With this statement, he underscored the ability of the patrimonial regime to organize an authoritarian system with clear institutionalized rules that guaranteed its continuity in time and that had even been capable of opening incipient democratic channels. Mexican patrimonialism constructed solidarities based on traditional sectorial, corporate, and clientelist models that regulated power relations. They established the symbolic weight of the presidential office as the center of national politics and unity (Balandier, 1994; Magaloni, 2006). The presidency guaranteed the social order through customary institutionalized norms modeled on the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) (Langston, 2017; Duverger, 1957). In the late twentieth century critical journalists, opposition intellectuals, civil associations, unions, social movements, and liberal and left-wing political parties began to shape a civil sphere that eroded Mexican patrimonialism (Alonso & Gómez, 1991; Molinar, 1991). As a result, the demand for citizen participation and the claim for the construction of ever more democratic political institutions started to generate a tense relationship, becoming embroiled in the characteristic practices of the patrimonial camp. This context was instrumental in shaping a democratic transition characterized by a series of institutional changes in the regulation of access to power, which allowed for limited political competition among political parties and the creation of independent civil associations, albeit within the virtually intact structures of the hegemonic and patrimonial regime. Consequently, there was no clear boundary that allowed a distinction between democratic institutions and practices and those of a more patrimonial nature (Arteaga & Arzuaga, 2018).

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Toward the end of the twentieth century, this intertwining of authoritarian and democratic practices had to confront the violent eruption of guerilla movements and two political assassinations, unprecedented in the country’s recent history. In less than eight months, an insurgent movement headed by the EZLN, along with the assassination of the PRI’s presidential candidate and the secretary-general of the party, brought Mexico’s political stability into question, both inside and outside the country. At that moment, the authoritarian and democratic camps interpreted violence as challenging both the patrimonial order and the nascent democracy. They interpreted guerilla activity and the assassinations as symptoms of political disintegration, much like those experienced in Central American countries in the 1970s and 1980s, or as precursors to social confrontations akin to those in Peru and Colombia. The authoritarian and democratic camps even described the guerrilla movements and the assassinations as signs of a military coup d’état like those that had occurred in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. What kept Mexico from descending into violence, as was often the case in other Latin American countries? Further, how was it possible that the tense relationship between consolidated patrimonial and incipient democratic practices managed to carry on in a functional (even if edgy) manner, without the country ending up in a military coup d’état or civil war? Despite a sizeable indigenous rebellion and the assassination of two key actors in the hegemonic party regime, the country managed to sustain— not without complications and much debate—some margin of institutional maneuvering. At this point, an analysis becomes salient insofar that it allows us to establish how a worn-out authoritarian system and weak democratic institutionalism managed to avert the collapse of the country’s social and political civility. Through in-depth analysis of the Mexican case, I unravel the complex intertwining among violence, moral models of civil inclusion, and the solidarity that characterizes the patrimonial, corporate, or clientelist spheres in the countries of the Latin American region. This book demonstrates that interpretations of violence emanating from a patrimonial and democratic horizon did not lead to a social polarization that caused Mexico to become fractured. On the contrary, the moral stances, emotional commitments, and sense of social and patrimonial order had competed with the democratic order but nevertheless managed to establish nodes of interconnection that guaranteed the continuity of the two horizons. In other words, the competition over the interpretation of violence from different worlds of meaning and moral models do

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not necessarily end up canceling each other out but rather establish forms of communication that remain in constant tension. This competitive tension can lead to the survival of civil society and its democratic institutions, in parallel with an authoritarian order such as the patrimonial system. Exploring this paradox confronted by Latin American countries helps us to rethink existing theories of democracy and social change. The Mexican case is particularly compelling because it allows us to explore democratic transition processes in spaces where the old authoritarian rules are not yet entirely dead, and new civil practices are not yet fully born, but where both establish a functional balance in the face of significant violent actions. It sheds light not only on other cases in Latin America but also in different contexts where it is possible to find continuing disputes and the intertwining of authoritarian and democratic horizons in the face of serious acts of violence. This book posits analytical questions and offers approaches that allow for understanding similar dynamics in many other political spaces; for example, in those countries that have experienced crisis and faced political violence during the transition from an authoritarian to a democratic regime. Moreover, it also helps to reveal how authoritarian logic can emerge in countries deemed as democratic when situations of violence are triggered. This book’s central argument is straightforward, namely, that it is possible to interpret violence in multiple ways, as an opportunity to consolidate codes, democratic institutions, and civil inclusion, as well as a warning call presaging the re-establishment of authoritarian institutions and regulations. The intertwining of both interpretations and the disputes they engender in defining the meaning of violence allows us to better understand interpretations of order and social change and how attributing a particular semantics to violence imprints a specific weight to justify or reject it. Accordingly, this book explores how different positions articulate and compete to interpret violence, giving rise to interdependent relations from which nodes of tension and non-tension emerge, encouraging functional dependencies. These positions emerge from the various social spheres that make up modern societies, such as the state, the economy, science, religion, and civil society. These spheres have been shaped over time and operate through moral orders, specific forms of solidarity, and principles of social inclusion and exclusion. Alexander (2006) has argued that non-civil spheres such as the economy, the state, the family, and religion appeal to such causes as political or economic cooperation and competition, the dynamics of affectionate and

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intimate family relations, and spiritual transcendence. They further possess moral structures based on sectorial values and principles, particular and non-universal, based on transcendental beliefs, race, status, gender, party affiliation, or social status. In contrast, the civil sphere is a realm of solidarity that maintains abstract-universal models connected to the ideals of solidarity and freedom, mobilizing criteria for inclusion and appealing to norms of democratic participation. The civil sphere transcends the particularities of the specific membership categories of non-civil spheres. Non-­ civil spheres and the civil sphere are in constant interaction, establishing mutual relationships that modify their respective boundaries. Through an analysis of how social actors in different spheres interpret violence and engage in competition over its meaning, this book illuminates the processes of competition and coupling between the civil sphere and non-civil spheres. This book further offers an interpretation of violence that is different from, on the one hand, modernization theory, which considers political violence the result of the persistent, ancestral, non-civil rifts that have long plagued Latin American societies. On the other hand, it also distances itself from an interpretation of violence as the result of neoliberal economics and democracy (Arias & Goldstein, 2010; Silva & Rossi, 2018; Wilson & Bayón, 2017), which have fractured the traditional organization of class and sector-based politics (Davis, 2010; Gago, 2017) in favor of the free market, individual rights, and procedural democracy (Goldstein, 2003; Kiely, 2017). In other words, these interpretations consider that armed uprisings, military coups d’état, and political assassinations are the consequence of dysfunctional processes among social spheres, driven by the process of liberal and, then, neoliberal, modernization. However, both of these approaches have overlooked how discourses and narratives of violence are actually constructed. They are therefore generally unable to account for the fact that violence is a highly structured symbolic world that influences the lives and deaths of people. In the rare cases that such symbolism is taken seriously, it is characterized as a reservoir of ideological rhetorical resources from which political elites and subordinate groups draw upon to compete over the meaning of violence (Paley, 2002). However, as I demonstrate in this book, the competition and intertwining of different social spheres in the interpretation of violence cannot be reduced to mere rhetoric or an ideological instrument. Instead, it alludes to worlds of meaning linked to particular perceptions of morality, solidarity, and social order. Violence is read through these worlds

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of signification, and through them, the supposed motives, relationships, and institutions linked to the producers of violence are judged. The following chapter elaborates, in analytical terms, how the civil democratic sphere and the non-civil patrimonial sphere are reconfigured when they confront and mingle in the face of political and social violence. The focus is on understanding this meaning-making process. In addition, Chap. 2 examines the ways in which the semantics of violence—utilitarian and normative—respond to a stable signification structure. The utilitarian nature of violence is considered legitimate (pure) when people believe that it seeks to impose rules and institutions that will regulate personal or group ends and interests. Conversely, violence is considered illegitimate (impure) when people believe that it seeks to impose relationships and institutions at the mercy of those ends and interests. When the semantics of violence are analyzed, we can understand how the patrimonial and civil camps decline the semantic evaluation of violence through the binary discourses assigned by the symbolic mechanisms of inclusion and social solidarity. Chapter 3 looks at the relationship between the patrimonial and civil camps in the specific case of Mexico. It takes the reader on a historical journey through the cultural practices and patrimonial institutions constructed in the mid-twentieth century. The chapter focuses on the change processes in the spheres of the state and the economy, and the competition and intertwining of customary rules and the expansion of the social sphere. The aim is to show how these changes generated a series of tensions in Mexico’s social and institutional life during the second half of the 1990s. These tensions had initiated a widespread debate on the effects of the country’s modernization, the liberalization of the market, and the prevalence of a system ruled by a patrimonial structure with its center of gravity firmly situated in the office of the president. The guerilla revolt in Chiapas and the assassinations of two prominent regime politicians were translated in symbolic terms as the condensation of the joint social tensions accumulated by the neoliberal project, patrimonial authoritarianism, and the challenges and achievements of the civil sphere. Chapter 4 examines how, according to the civil camp, the Zapatista rebellion was not justified as a fitting way to ameliorate the conditions of exploitation and poverty among the indigenous populations of Mexico. Still, the civil camp believed that indigenous peoples were compelled to resort to violence as a final recourse to make themselves heard. In this sense, it deemed the armed revolt inevitable and legitimate. Thus, the

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EZLN was considered a movement that expressed a long-standing demand for civil repair. Furthermore, from this camp, there were assurances that the indigenous struggle reflected not only the aspirations for justice and democracy among broad sectors of the population but also the criticism of the neoliberal policies implemented in the country. The government was called upon to accelerate the democratic transition process, dismantle the authoritarian regime, and stop the market liberalization project that the technocracy in power supposedly managed. According to the patrimonial camp, the rebellion was instigated by foreigners, “violence professionals,” or “dark forces” that sought to destabilize and halt economic development. Voices within the patrimonial camp argued that groups inside the federal government and the PRI, who wished to alter the patrimonial regime’s customary rules and patronage relations, were financing the EZLN. They stated that, from within the government, the “technocrats”—agents of the neoliberal and democratic reforms—had been challenged by the “traditional politicians” who defended the authoritarian codes and institutions. The patrimonial camp demanded the then-president enforce the customary order within the group in power, halt the democratic transition process, and attend to the adverse effects of the market liberalization process. Chapters 5 and 6 analyze respectively how the assassinations of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta and the PRI’s secretary-­ general, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, altered the symbolic weight and the customary rules of the patrimonial regime; they also elaborate how the civil camp interpreted these deaths as a consequence of conflicts within the group in power. The civil camp asserted that the inner struggles between technocrats and politicians had fractured the government. The former defended the democratic transition, market liberalization, and separating the PRI from the state. The latter sought to guarantee the continuity of the patrimonial regime. This inner struggle within the political class in power meant, for the civil camp, that the customary rules and regulations were strained. Thus, it was necessary to transition to democracy, dismantle the political regime, and contain the more pernicious social effects of neoliberal practices. The patrimonial camp also argued that the death of the PRI’s presidential candidate and secretary-general reflected a rupture within the political group in power. However, it accused the technocrats of suspending the customary political rules without constructing a functional network of democratic codes and institutions. The technocrats had bet on changing

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the regime without considering that the country could only function by adhering to authoritarian rules. According to this interpretative camp, the neoliberal technocracy had plunged the country into chaos. Thus, both the assassinations of the PRI politicians and the Zapatista revolt were proof that an authoritarian order was required to re-establish political stability. This camp demanded the restoration of customary rules and regulations, postponing the democratic transition and attending to the negative consequences of economic liberalization. The competition between the two camps for the symbolic control of violence not only generated a dispute between different worlds of solidarity and social inclusion; it also fostered interpretative linkages that intertwined to explain how to confront violence, though with distinct horizons of meaning. The first intertwining brought the two camps together in the idea that violence had resulted from years of economic modernization and neoliberal policies. Moreover, economic modernization and neoliberal policies were considered responsible for profoundly altering the patrimonial rules and regulations and the incipient democratic institutions. Consequently, both camps proposed a redirection of the neoliberal economic project. However, while the patrimonial camp suggested re-­ establishing customary institutions, the civil camp proposed increasing and reinforcing democracy. A second intertwining was activated when considering potential ways to overcome the violence. For both the patrimonial and the civil camps, the presidential office represented the central point of the dispute. Some of the civil camp’s discourses defended the need to sustain (up to a point) the symbolic weight of the presidency, to guarantee a peace accord in Chiapas, and to devise a non-violent institutional path toward democracy. In contrast, some of the patrimonial camp’s discourses assumed that the violence in 1994 had ultimately fractured authoritarianism and that it was necessary to recover the lost peace and gradually access democracy. Thus, the symbolic strength of the presidential office should be sustained, acting as a guardian of democratic development and keeping the potential violent reactions of the more authoritarian sectors of the regime under control. Chapter 7 examines how landscapes of civility and authoritarianism are constantly rewritten. It underscores the relevance of an in-depth look at the transition processes from authoritarian to democratic societies, with symbolic narratives and referents operating as vital transitional cores. It is suggested that future work on violence understand that it is impossible to resolve violence only through public policies aimed at its alleged causes,

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such as inequality or poverty. It is also necessary to account for the meaning-­making processes that form the basis for a society’s forms of social inclusion and solidarity in the face of violence. The reconstruction of these tension-laden processes of intertwining and competition between the patrimonial and the civil camps requires a methodological strategy that is, first, centered in the historical reconstruction of the authoritarian regime in Mexico from its beginning to its 1994 assassination crisis. Such a strategy allows me to uncover the widespread sentiment that the Zapatista revolt and the political assassination of important figures in the PRI had fractured the unwritten rules of the post-­ revolutionary regime. We can perceive this feeling of crisis in the chronicles, opinions, criticism, and stances of the media active at that time. In those discursive spaces, the media construct messages translating the violent situations through generalized codes, using narrative evaluations and descriptions. The mass media represent a form of situated knowledge, and they reveal a great deal about how life and collectivities imagine themselves (Gupta, 2015). In Mexico, opinion columns comprise the medium through which the political class communicates among themselves and with the population (Adler-Lomnitz et  al., 2004). According to Adler-­ Lomnitz and Melnik (2000), political events in Mexico are interpreted symbolically, beyond their instrumental dimensions. As Adler-Lomnitz et al. (1993) suggest, media discourses, editorials, and chronicles work as exegetic mechanisms to decode political messages within Mexican society. For the analysis developed in this book, mass media are vital in reconstructing the appeals to both increase and narrow down the manufacturing of patrimonial and civil social solidarity and to understand the tension-laden intertwining that prevented the country from falling into chaos. Using mass media as data sources, I observed that the demands, opinions, and declarations of political and social actors, as well as journalists, were not only ideological expressions or strategic rhetorical resources, but also meaningful assertions that sought to signify violence at a specific moment and, thus, to demand the amplification or the narrowing down of patrimonial and civil solidarity. Accordingly, I reviewed and analyzed national media discourses on the Zapatista uprising and the political assassinations. Along with a team of research assistants, I collected articles and columns from the Reforma, La Jornada, El Universal, El Sol de México, and Excélsior newspapers. The Zapatista uprising was commented on and

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analyzed in 404 texts, Colosio’s assassination in 303 texts, and Ruiz Massieu’s death in 378 texts. We also sampled the political analysis magazines Proceso and Vuelta y Nexos, as well as the newscasts of the Televisa and TVazteca television networks.1 For each of the analyzed cases, the information from the news articles and columns was collected and systematized, starting from the day the violent events erupted and ending when the commentary concerning the violence disappeared and other events captured the public’s attention. We interpreted and analyzed each column and news item with the following questions in mind. What motives were attributed to those who had engaged in violence? What relationship networks did they attribute to the Zapatistas or those suspected of inciting the assassinations of Colosio and Ruiz Massieu? We also looked for the institutional basis of the perpetrators and the types of institutions they wished to impose. The purpose was to observe the efforts exerted by different voices in the media to control the meaning of the violence, assigning to its perpetrators the attributes, relationships, and institutions considered as pure or impure by the patrimonial and civil camps, in both their utilitarian and normative semantics. In this sense, as part of the communicative institutions of the civil sphere, the mass media were vital in invoking the codes that competed to signify the violence and the demands of civil and patrimonial repair. At that moment, the role of the media was central in guaranteeing a space for communication among actors with different solidarity horizons, simultaneously contributing to preserving a space for dialogue and dispute that prevented the unleashing of an unstoppable spiral of violence in the country. The social drama depicted throughout the pages of this book allows for a focus on stances of social actors from distinct signification camps in the face of unexpected events such as the acts of violence described above. In this drama, it is also possible to observe how specific forms of action against violence are defined through reforms within the economic and 1  Gimena Bertoni reviewed the newspaper archives in the National Newspaper Archive of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) and the Newspaper Archive of the Lerdo de Tejada Library of the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público). I am grateful for Laura Neftaly López Pérez’s work in organizing and developing the information and the precise and diligent work of Danny Daniel Mollericona Alfaro. All were grantees of the aides’ support program for Level III researchers in the National System of Researchers of the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores del Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología de México).

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political spheres, accepting the collective demands for civil repair, and, in some cases, patrimonial repair. In this way, the violence activated a network of cultural meanings composed of thoughts, sentiments, and institutions attempting to exorcise violence from the country’s social life.

reFerences Adler-Lomnitz, L., & Melnik, A. (2000). Chile’s Political Culture and Parties: An Anthropological Explanation. University of Notre Dame Press Adler-Lomnitz, L., Lomnitz, C., & Adler, I. (1993). El fondo de la forma: Actos públicos de la campaña presidencial del Partido Revolucionario Institucional, México 1988. In D. Nohlen (Ed.), Elecciones y sistemas de partidos en América Latina (pp. 223–266). IIDH/Centro de Asesoría y Promoción Electoral Adler-Lomnitz, L., Salazar, R., & Adler, I. (2004). Simbolismo y ritual en la política mexicana. Siglo XXI Alexander, J. (2006). The Civil Sphere. Oxford University Press Alonso, J., & Gómez, S. (1991). Insurgencia democrática: las elecciones locales. Universidad de Guadalajara Arias, E., & Goldstein, D. (2010). Violent Pluralism: Understanding the New Democracies of Latin America. In E.  Arias & D.  Goldstein (Eds.), Violent Democracies in Latin America (pp. 1–34). Duke University Press Arteaga, N., & Arzuaga, J. (2018). The Civil Sphere in Mexico: Between Democracy and Authoritarianism. In J. Alexander & C. Tognato (Eds.), The Civil Sphere in Latin America (pp. 19–38). Cambridge University Press Baiocchi, G. (2006). The Civilizing Force of Social Movements: Corporate and Liberal Codes in Brazil’s Public Sphere. Sociological Theory, 24(4), 285–311. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-­9558.2006.00292.x Balandier, G. (1994). El poder en escenas. Paidós Córdova, A. (1973). La ideología de la Revolución Mexicana: la formación del nuevo régimen. Ediciones Era Davis, D. (2010). The Political and Economic Origins of Violence and Insecurity in Contemporary Latin America: Past Trajectories and Futures Prospects. In E.  Arias & D.  Goldstein (Eds.), Violent Democracies in Latin America (pp. 35–64). Duke University Press Duverger, M. (1957). Los partidos políticos. Fondo de Cultura Económica Gago, V. (2017). Neoliberalism from Below. Popular Pragmatics & Baroque Economics. Duke University Press Goldstein, D. (2003). “In Our Own Hands”: Lynching Justice and the Law in Bolivia. American Ethnologists, 30(1), 22–43. https://doi.org/10.1525/ ae.2003.30.1.22

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Gupta, A. (2015). Fronteras borrosas: el discurso de la corrupción, la cultura de la política y el estado imaginado. In P. Abrams, Gupta A., & T. Mitchell (Eds.), Antropología del Estado (pp. 71–144). Fondo de Cultura Económica Kiely, R. (2017). From Authoritarian Liberalism to Economic Technocracy: Neoliberalism, Politics and ‘De-democratization’. Critical Sociology, 43(4–5), 725–745. https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920516668386 Krauze, E., & Paz, O. (Eds.). (1991). La experiencia de la libertad 1: hacia la sociedad abierta. Vuelta Langston, J. (2017). Democratization and Authoritarian Party Survival. Oxford University Press Magaloni, B. (2006). Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico. Cambridge University Press Molinar, M. (1991). El tiempo de la legitimidad: autoritarismo y democracia en México. Cal y Arena Paley, J. (2002). Toward an Anthropology of Democracy. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31, 469–496. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.31. 040402.085453 Silva, E., & Rossi, E. (2018). Reshaping the Political Arena in Latin America: From Resisting Neoliberalism to the Second Incorporation. University of Pittsburgh Press Tognato, C. (2018). The Civil Life of the University: Enacting Dissent and Resistance on a Colombian Campus. In J. Alexander & C. Tognato (Eds.), The Civil Sphere in Latin America. Cambridge University Press Wilson, J., & Bayón, M. (2017). The Nature of Post-neoliberalism: Building Bio-­ socialism in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Geoforum, 81, 55–65. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.01.014

CHAPTER 2

The Civil Sphere

In twentieth-century Mexico, violence remained under control for more than seventy years thanks to solid, symbolic patrimonial and institutional camps built into an authoritarian structure that guaranteed the fulfillment of social demands through a paternalistic state that organized the society into a corporate and clientelist system suppressing civil liberties. This scenario allowed for a gradual increase in the demand for more expansive spaces of democratic participation, leading the country in a process of incremental change. As a result, the patrimonial camp became tensely intertwined with a nascent civil camp. Nevertheless, toward the end of the twentieth century, violence escalated in the country, instantiated in an indigenous revolt and the assassination of two prominent politicians. These instances of violence were evaluated as the actions of social actors either seeking to increase their power, intending to secure the continuity of patrimonial institutions, or wishing to accelerate the crystallization of democratic principles. In this sense, the violence was simultaneously interpreted as a strategy for achieving particular ends and interests and as an action inspired by civil values and norms. This chapter presents the analytical framework that allows us to understand the structure of the civil and patrimonial camps, their modulation of the utilitarian or normative nature of violence, and how the camps impute the causes, motives, relations, and institutions of violence.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Arteaga Botello, Semantics of Violence, Cultural Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94695-1_2

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The Civil Sphere and Its Institutions The civil sphere is an active symbolic structure of meanings and emotions (Alexander et al., 2019), defining a realm of values and institutions that simultaneously generates social criticism and democratic integration (Alexander, 2006). The basis for this sphere consists of solidarity with and feelings toward others who are unknown to us but whom we respect on the grounds of a shared secular faith. The origin of this faith is the universalization of solidarity and democratic social inclusion principles, in contrast to those produced by the market, the family, religion, or the state (Alexander & Tognato, 2018). Nevertheless, since it is an institutional-­ cultural arena in which individual rights and collective obligations are intertwined (Alexander, 2006; Farge, 1994; Jacobs, 1996), there is constant tension over the universal meaning of democratic inclusion and solidarity. The civil sphere is also an idealized community formed by free and autonomous individuals with mutual obligations (Kivisto & Sciortino, 2015), which guarantees the emergence of a common language defining who deserves consideration for democratic social inclusion and who deserves to be excluded (Mast, 2019). As Alexander points out, just as “there is no developed religion that does not divide the world into the saved and the damned, there is no civil discourse that does not conceptualize the world into those who deserve inclusion and those who do not” (2006, p.  55). Attachments to class, race, gender, work activity, educational level, or religious/spiritual belief act as criteria for judging how close people are to the ideals of free and autonomous human beings, attributing to them the characteristics of civil virtues and purity or anti-­ civil vices and impurity (Kivisto & Sciortino, 2019; Alexander, 2006; Smith, 2020). If in democratic societies it is possible to confront political and social actors, it is precisely because the same attributes of purity and impurity can be relationally imposed. According to Alexander (2006), the binary discourse that allows for social inclusion and solidarity manifests at three levels. The first concerns the motives of social actors, the second describes the nature of the social relations among these actors, and the third refers to the types of institutions they establish. A social actor with civil and democratic motives is autonomous, rational, reasonable, and realistic; in contrast, an actor with anti-democratic or anti-civil motives is not autonomous and may seem irrational and distorted. At the level of relations, the links among actors

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are civil if they are open, trustful, critical, honorable, and altruistic; in contrast, anti-civil relationships are secretive and suspicious, deferential, self-interested, or deceitful. Finally, institutions are categorized as civil if they are lawful, fair, inclusive, and impersonal, and as anti-civil if they are arbitrary, hierarchical, and benefit a particular person or group. In sum, individuals, groups, and demands are characterized as civil and democratic—or anti-civil and anti-democratic—based on the degree to which their motives, relations, and institutions are interpreted within the framework of the binary relations between civil purity and impurity. A society’s institutional and legal scaffolding translates civil membership and solidarity into concrete terms (Enroth & Henriksson, 2019). Institutions transform attributions of civil purity or impurity into sanctions, inclusion and exclusion mechanisms, and defined rewards and punishments. The civil sphere has two primary types of institutions: communicative and regulative (Alexander, 2006). Communicative institutions structure feelings into discourse and messages that translate the binary codes through which motives, relations, and institutions are judged and categorized into specific descriptions and evaluations (Luengo & Ihlebaek, 2019). The civil sphere’s regulative institutions articulate the mechanisms of civil membership and solidarity defined in the communicative institutions in organizational terms to establish operationally achievable objectives, guidelines, and regulations for the development of social life. Both types of institutions mobilize the ideals of solidarity into norms and rules to reward and punish what a society judges to be civil and anti-civil. Communicative Institutions Public opinion, mass media, polls, and civil associations comprise some of the communicative institutions of the civil sphere. The first is a symbolic representation that crystalizes what is “public” in the collective imagination as if it were a structure of feelings. Civil sphere actors appeal to public opinion as a regulative ideal for the discourse of civil society (Alexander, 2006). Who is democratic? Who has violated public morals? Which institutions are incapable of generating the dynamics of inclusion and solidarity? These questions are posed in the arena of public opinion, which “mediates between the broad binaries of civil society discourse and the institutional domains of social life. Public opinion is the sea within which

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we swim, the structure that gives us the feeling of democratic life” (Alexander, 2006, p. 75). Mass media may be fictional or factual. Novels, films, and television series comprise the former, and they are a cathartic medium for understanding civil life: that which characterizes what is pure and impure in social life (Arteaga, 2018). Although the objective underlying works of fiction is to produce entertainment rather than knowledge (Turner, 1988), their scenarios and plots are posed in aesthetic terms to create public opinion around different issues, giving voice to the aspirations of civil society or authoritarian social models, or underscoring the dangers of state ideology (Arteaga & Arzuaga, 2015). Factual media include newspapers, television newscasts, and digital information media. The news places social actors into scenarios in which they are judged based on their motives, relationships, and institutions, thus allocating to them attributes of civil virtue or vice. They present the news as factual and objective (Lin, 2019). The public interprets the news as authentic or inauthentic, assuming that social actors’ civil or anti-civil descriptions are either truthful or false. Polls play a central role as a communicative institution of the civil sphere by representing how public opinion conceives of different themes and social actors. Survey results generate the feeling that popular opinion can be measured and expressed in numbers (Mast, 2006). They also allow us to sketch out the asymmetries of positions in society. Poll results are regularly judged as an “objective” expression of the sentiments of a collectivity. According to Alexander (2006), polls reveal public opinion as well as construct it, subverting society’s attitudes. However, the questions posed in polls only reflect the system of purity and impurity already contained in civil discourses and narratives (Choi, 2019). Pollsters “are formulating questions, not about the public’s opinion in an open-ended sense, but about what the public wants to know about a situation that has already been communicatively constructed about the binaries of the civil sphere” (Alexander, 2006, p. 87). Finally, civil associations are organized outside of the church, the family, or corporations to express specific postures on issues considered of interest to the public. As Alexander (2006) points out, what characterizes civil associations is their communicative intention about facts deemed relevant to civil society, such as government policy that addresses poverty or generates the social inclusion of different groups, the sale of specific products to certain population sectors, such as alcohol or tobacco, the defense of wildlife reserves, the promotion of habits like recycling waste at home,

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or the protection of people’s economic interests through consumer protection. These associations translate the binary civil codes into specific claims and demands for the defense of rights, defying particular value systems, or calling for unity and solidarity in the face of an event considered socially traumatic. Civil associations sometimes emerge as or become social movements. Civil sphere theory defines the latter as expressions that translate social demands into civil discourse (Luengo, 2018). Accordingly, social movements have a moral and affective dimension regarding collective action (Alexander, 2006). This dimension allows for the mobilization of resources and the definition of the objectives of a social movement. Presenting their demands in civil terms, social movements express their postures before the state. The civil sphere’s communicative and regulative institutions attempt to precipitate changes in laws, public policies, and institutions. Thus, they see themselves as actors that “represent” society, wielding a language that speaks directly to the regulative institutions that expand social inclusion. Regulative Institutions The regulative institutions of the civil sphere crystallize communicative disputes in terms of social rules and regulations (Shimizu, 2019). They must not, however, be mistaken for state institutions (Kivisto & Sciortino, 2019). A state institution is not a civil-sphere institution because it is an association that formally and explicitly exerts social control through its legal authority. It may even resort to violence (Tognato, 2019). Different associations, such as ministries, secretariats, commissions, legislative and judicial spaces, and public forces, including the police and the military, shape a state. As Alexander (2006) has asserted, the state is characterized by its hierarchical, formal, and impersonal bureaucratic association. Following Weber (1979), the bureaucratic association of the modern state guarantees the implementation of governmental decisions thanks to their capacity to coordinate tasks and define objectives. However, Weber himself (1979) warned that the top of this structure of rules and bureaucracy falls under the control and direction of forces external to the state: a non-­ bureaucratic power that permanently seeks to make bureaucracy operate in its interests. For Alexander (2006), civil power is that which regulates the bureaucratic order of the state. In contrast to the social power of

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political, business, or ecclesiastic elites, civil power decides who must occupy the highest non-bureaucratic place in the state. It is, thus: solidarity translated into government control. […] To the degree that there is an independent civil sphere, the people “speak,” not only through the communicative institutions that provide cultural authority but through regulative institutions as well. The civil community regulates access to state power. To do so, it constitutes a new and different kind of power of its own. To the degree that society is democratic, to that degree regulative institutions are the gatekeepers of political power. It is civil power that opens and closes the gate. (Alexander, 2006, p. 110)

Civil power constantly confronts social power through the institutions that regulate the vote, political parties, electoral campaigns, public office, and the law. All these are instantiations of civil power in the face of social power (Thumala, 2018; Villegas, 2019). One of the most powerful regulative mechanisms in democracies consists of the electoral campaigns that culminate with citizen voting. When casting their votes, members of a society condense their feelings about political and social life into a specific moment. As Mast (2019) has suggested, in such campaigns, state institutions are placed into the foreground, supervised, guided, and even questioned through civil associations, mass media, and legal institutions. In electoral campaigns, political parties express their positions as ideally accessible and oriented toward the common good. Alexander (2006) argues that they attempt to translate social disparities and tensions into discourse and messages that aim to reconstruct state power. Thus, through voting, one candidate is chosen and not another, with the public believing that this act will translate their vision of the public good into reality. As Alexander (2011) explains, political parties and their candidates categorize their adversaries as civil or anti-civil, capable or incapable of occupying the highest offices of the state bureaucracy. Consequently, political parties tend to emphasize the possibility that if their opponents reach power, the result will be establishing authoritarian, hierarchical, and exclusionary institutions that are incapable of adhering to the regulations of public office. The idea of office as an institution that regulates the civil sphere is central to democratic public life because “It institutionalizes a universalistic understanding of organizational authority” (Alexander, 2006, p. 133). Those who access power through political campaigns and the vote are then subjected to the control mechanisms of civil power. The

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consequences include possible moral penalties or administrative and penal punishment for those who do not comply with the duties and frameworks of their office. Finally, the law as a regulative institution of the civil sphere works as a coercive mechanism and safeguards rights and obligations. It is situated between the actual behavior of actors in a specific space and time and the sphere of universal values (Habermas, 1996). “For these reasons, the law can be a highly significant boundary mechanism for civil society, crystallizing universalistic solidarity by clarifying its application to particular and contingent situations,” Alexander (2006, p. 153) asserts. Of course, the more differentiated a specific society is, the more the law will be subjected to interpretation. The translation of universal solidarity into the force of law involves both social and civil power. However, in contrast to public opinion, the consequences of debates concerning the law are moral and symbolic as well as material and economic. Civil and Non-civil Spheres: Boundary Relations The universal solidarity to which the civil sphere aspires is never fully achieved, so its institutions never manage to completely crystallize the integration it promotes. As I have mentioned, they introduce discourses and institutions that define a civil “us” and an anti-civil “them.” However, non-civil spheres constantly penetrate the civil sphere, incorporating partial and particularistic solidarity functions and virtues (Villegas, 2021). At their boundaries, the civil sphere and non-civil spheres generate exchanges in both moral and institutional terms. Non-civil spheres are characterized by introducing primordial qualities such as language, race, sex, social class, gender, or ethnicity into the civil sphere, which may essentialize individuals (Kivisto & Sciortino, 2019). These boundary relations characterize real civil societies. They offer an analytical lens through which to understand the complexity of the construction of social exclusion, as well as civil repair. The spatial, temporal, and functional differentiation of non-civil spheres allow for an understanding of the dynamics of the civil sphere in concrete terms. First, societies judge people as pure or impure based on their assigned place in the social structure (Villegas, 2021). Second, territorial and regional markers help to attribute civil or anti-civil characteristics to a particular population group, generating a geographic dichotomization of civil virtue and vice. Third, time allows specific social sectors to be attributed with civil purity and impurity characteristics in the past, which are

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assumed to remain in the present and will remain in the future (Binder, 2021). Accordingly, those who arguably do not share the temporal qualities shared by a society are excluded. Finally, the functional differentiation inside of non-civil spheres cultivates material resources and guidelines that produce ideals of cultural authority that are sometimes translated to the civil sphere, affecting the fabric of social solidarity. Space, time, and function are analytically separable distinctions that in reality are intertwined, allowing us to appreciate the dialectical relationships between the civil sphere and non-civil spheres. We can interpret the boundary relations among spheres as facilitating inputs, destructive intrusions, or civil repairs. For example, the material resources, normative ideals, and cultural authority produced by non-civil spheres may act as mechanisms facilitating a broader solidarity and civil life. In other cases, these same resources, ideals, and guidelines may be considered harmful intrusions that affect civil solidarity and inclusion (Alexander, 2006). When this occurs, claims for civil repair are produced, which demand the reinstatement of the universalist principles of inclusion and social solidarity. The boundary relations among spheres of social life are constructed in a society’s particular and historical context, taking into account space and time specificities and, above all, the creation of non-civil and civil spheres.

The Patrimonial Camp If the civil sphere is the realm of universal aspirations and associations that often critique non-civil spheres (Alexander & Tognato, 2018), we can say it is present to a greater or lesser degree in modern societies—even in contexts where its autonomy has been put at risk by non-civil spheres. In Latin America, civil aspirations linked to democratization have faced difficult times since the postcolonial period. Civil institutions have been almost totally suppressed by coups d’état or left- and right-wing populist authoritarian regimes. However, these aspirations have somehow paved the path toward the democracy that the region has built throughout its history. With great difficulty, the civil sphere’s communicative and regulative institutions have become consolidated, forcibly coexisting with authoritarian dynamics that seek to restrict solidarity and membership. The civil sphere’s hardships in Latin America can be addressed as a permanent deficit of civility that prevents the development of democracy or as a masquerade used as an ideology in service of specific political and economic interests. The argument developed thus far allows us to state that

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democracy is always “a work in progress,” amid the tensions in the civil sphere between forms of universal solidarity, inclusion, and membership on the one hand and, on the other hand, demands of a particularistic and exclusive nature generated in the state’s hierarchical spheres, the economy, religion, or the family. Alexander (2015) notes that this competition produces “partial” civil spheres, in which conflicting interests may undermine the development of democratic institutions. The conflict between purity and impurity, between civil and uncivil, may be structured with different codes than those of civil discourse. Authoritarianism produces partial civil spheres that depend on the presence of non-civil codes and institutions. For Khosrokhavar (2015), there are three distinct types of authoritarianism.1 One is totalitarian; it is the most oppressive and rigid, based on the autocratic power of a single individual or group, generating a system that suppresses freedom in almost all aspects of civil life, counteracting protest or social demand. When facing this type of authoritarianism, the civil sphere is reduced to practically nothing. The only way to guarantee space for civil expression is through widespread revolutionary or reformist movements. There is also an intolerant form of authoritarianism, defined as a rigid and oppressive system based on a high degree of intolerance toward the autonomy of civil society, prohibiting and repressing protest when considered necessary. Intolerant authoritarianism allows for the existence of opposition political parties. Still, it holds over them a regulative system that may enable their entrance to, or exit from, the political system. Moreover, it relegates these opposition parties to the status of a structural minority, thus rendering them incapable of becoming a representative political force. In this type of system, there is an informal contract between civil society and the state: the former may have access to some social justice in exchange for lack of freedom. Nevertheless, not all doors are closed, and social actors are not denied the capacity to mobilize, even if always under the dominant group or party rules. Finally, discretionary authoritarianism is defined as a state that does not entirely suppress society’s capacity for autonomy. There is some freedom of opinion in the press, there is tolerance for opposition parties and non-­ governmental associations, but there is also discretionary control over the judicial system and electoral processes—thus guaranteeing itself the space 1  We thank Luz Angela Cardona for his special attention to specifically naming these different types of authoritarianism that Khosrokhavar (2015, 2019) merely describes.

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to commit electoral fraud. However, in this type of authoritarianism, civil society retains some capacity for collective action; it can engage in protest and demand various rights. The three authoritarian systems operate within non-civil codes that create specific signification camps. For example, Palmer (2019) has identified the overlapping of ancestral and Western codes with the communist revolution in China’s case. Lee (2019) has elaborated how Korea interwove the values of Confucianism, development codes, and family with those of the civil sphere. In the case of Hong Kong, Junker and Chan (2019) have analyzed the competition between the codes of Chinese nationalism, Western democracy, and localism, which imbues the territory with a unique national identity. Baiocchi (2006, 2012) has demonstrated how in Brazil, civil discourse has constantly confronted corporate discourses and institutions that perceive dependency, tutelage, and clientelism as positive forms of relationships in political and social camps. Tognato (2011) and Tognato & Cuellar (2013) have suggested that in Colombia, democratic discourse permanently competes with that of the hacienda, which evaluates the harmonious relationship between the “master” and the subordinate peon as positive. Kivisto and Sciortino (2019) warn that these types of cultural codes constitute an external intrusion into the civil sphere, an alternative symbolic structure of impersonal solidarity that generates multiple memberships expressed through discourses and institutions. In Mexico’s case, a patrimonial camp that deploys non-civil codes has become tensely entangled with the discursive civil camp of Mexican society (Arzuaga & Arteaga, 2019; Arteaga & Arzuaga, 2018; Arteaga, 2019; Arteaga, 2021; Levy, 2020). The patrimonial code legitimates the possibility for political and social leaders to maneuver—from within the customary regulations—with significant autonomy to negotiate outside the law. This situation produces a bureaucracy that perceives state administration as an instrument for obtaining personal benefits (Adler-Lomnitz et  al., 2004; Falcón, 2015, p. 590; Zaid, 2019). As a result, political leaders may engage in corruption with some legal immunity, use their power in an authoritarian and discretionary way, and cultivate patronage relationships. Such activity has not led to a total absence of rules. As Weber (1979) has suggested, patrimonial regimes operate on principles rooted in tradition but within a legal order characterized by complex laws, a differentiated bureaucratic system, and specialized political leaders. This type of regime encourages a significant degree of autonomy, and political leaders acknowledge the existence of a legal framework they cannot violate so openly.

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If political leaders do not acknowledge the legal and customary limits and the rules they must follow, it may discredit the patrimonial norm in the eyes of the governed. The violation of a patrimonial rule affects its honor and integrity, contaminating the offices leaders occupy. When leaders cannot control their passions or desires and lose a sense of the limits that exist with regard to discretionary actions, they will appear before the governed as unfit or, worse still, judged to have lost their sense of political order. In a patrimonial regime, behavior guided by passions is perceived negatively, in contrast to self-control and sobriety. An excessive display of social relations or wealth can be seen as polluting compared to a low-key, discreet, and modest profile. Finally, the inability to distinguish between legal and customary rules is overlooked when the difference is judged to be positive (Arteaga & Arzuaga, 2018). As Meyer (1976, p. 243) has suggested, in the case of Mexico, “the President of the Republic has been the key political figure that condenses the patrimonial power of the political system and symbolically incarnates the center of Mexican politics.” Civil codes and discourses assign a more positive value to autonomous and free action than dependent and manipulated action (Alexander, 2006). Open, critical, and honest relationships conflict with secretive, discretionary, and strategic relationships, and institutions bound to inclusive and impersonal rules contrast with discretionary, exclusionary, and customized institutions. As for patrimonial discourses, authority, self-control, and sobriety are valued positively, while actions motivated exclusively by the law, desire, passion, and frivolity are seen as polluted. Principles of reciprocity, trust, deference, discretion, and a measured style must regulate relationships, instead of disloyalty, criticism, discourtesy, and excess (Arteaga & Arzuaga, 2018). In contrast to institutions governed by personality and arbitrariness in exercising power, institutions regulated by customary law are valued positively. As Stack (2019) has suggested, political and social actors adopt stances from both discourses and create interconnections between the two codes. The tense competition and intertwining between the patrimonial and civil camps are instantiated in specific moments of social life, including corruption scandals, social mobilizations, demands for political inclusion and exclusion, as well as moments of economic crisis. The eruption of violence is particularly relevant because it points to a faultline in the legitimacy of the social order. Violence unleashes signification processes to re-­establish a horizon of legitimacy and acknowledge the breach generated

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by the violence. This is where we can most clearly see how the alternatives for the social and cultural legitimization of the patrimonial and civil camps compete. At the same time, it is also possible to appreciate the construction of bridges for communication between the two signification camps. Thus, violence becomes a collective experience that focuses on the workings of the tense intertwining between the patrimonial and civil camps.

Patrimonial and Civil Structures: The Meaning of Violence Rebellions, revolts, revolutions, and military coups regularly harm people using physical force. This does not mean there is always agreement concerning the illegitimate, incorrect, or inappropriate use of violence. Interpretations of violence express different ideas about solidarity, identity, and a collective sense of belonging (Wagner-Pacifici, 1986; Alexander, 2004; Wagner-Pacifici & Tavory, 2019; Cooke, 2019). On the one hand, violence may be read as an action that seeks to call attention to feelings of frustration, fear, or disenfranchisement (Stack & Alexander, 2019). On the other hand, a different interpretation sees violence as a resource used by persons or social groups to achieve power and economic benefit. When this is the case, violence seems to be guided by the satisfaction of personal or group interests. Even if the violence can be justified, it is always ominous (Arteaga & Arzuaga, 2019), because it is considered threatening and dangerous to the social order (Bornhauser, 2006), but at the same time capable of changing this order (Conde, 2006). This ambivalent nature of violence makes it censurable even by those who legitimize it as a necessary means to address feelings of injustice, fear, or disenfranchisement in the name of altruistic values and principles of solidarity, altruism, and generosity. However, even those who endorse it as a necessary recourse inherent to the realpolitik consider violence to be a last resort. The ominous character of violence leads to interpreting it as a means to crystallize regulative and universalizing values and principles or as a strategic action to satisfy personal or group ends. In societies that have experienced profound incidents of violence, these semantics of violence respond to a stable signification structure (Michaud, 1978; Chandhoke, 2015). On the one hand, the utilitarian nature of violence is considered legitimate (pure) when people believe it seeks to

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impose rules and institutions that will regulate personal or group ends and interests. On the other hand, it is considered illegitimate (impure) when people believe it seeks to impose relationships and institutions at the mercy of said ends and interests. For the civil camp, the normative nature of violence is valued as legitimate (pure) when deemed as inspired by transcendent and universalizing values and ideas. The normative character of violence is illegitimate (impure) when it is seen as inspired by particularistic values and ideals. In contrast, for the patrimonial camp, the normative nature of violence is valued as legitimate (pure) when judged as inspired by corporate and sectorial values and ideals. The normative character of violence is considered illegitimate (impure) when it is viewed as inspired by transcendent and universalizing values and standards. These semantics of violence are a crucial component in analyzing the construction of its signification structure. When the semantics of violence are analyzed, we can understand how the patrimonial and civil camps decline the semantic evaluation of violence through binary discourses and how patrimonial and civil camps assign inclusion and solidarity to perpetrators and victims. In Mexico, the 1910 Revolution lasted over ten years. The patrimonial regime considered it a fundamentally violent deed of such purity that it forged the country’s unity and political identity. However, it was never free from tensions. As Krauze and Paz (1991) has suggested, the 1910 Revolution gave the country a simultaneous mestizo and indigenous face. It achieved what no other Latin American revolution could: the identification and connection of Mexican society with its ancient past. Outside of this historical event, any other violence has been judged as the expression of interests alien to society or inspired by values foreign to the country’s national identity. For this reason, any social or political movement since then that has called for violence has done so in the name of the 1910 revolutionary principles. Thus, the semantics of violence remained relatively stable for an extended period and became activated through the patrimonial and civil signification structures at a crucial moment in Mexican history. In both the civil and patrimonial camps, the utilitarian and normative semantics of violence are cultural structures of meaning that allow us to answer the following questions: Who is attached to the patrimonial and civil codes? Who has fractured the patrimonial and civil morality? How is it possible that patrimonial and civil institutions, each in their own way, have not guaranteed the mechanisms for inclusion and social solidarity? Is

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it necessary to implement a radical change and move toward democracy or to reinforce authoritarian patrimonial institutions? Each camp has answered these questions, demanding the modification of patrimonial and civil boundaries, as well as those linked to other spheres such as the state or the economy (Schreiber, 2007; Tognato, 2010), to repair the causes of violence and guarantee either the continuity of the old institutions or the creation of new ones (Kane, 2019). The patrimonial camp ascribes a pure utilitarian value to violence when it considers that violence as motivated by sectorial and corporate interests, thus aspiring to uphold the rules of the game that allow for relationships based on commitment, customary equity, and institutions that operate through custom and habit. In contrast, the patrimonial camp ascribes an impure utilitarian value to violence when it judges the violence as motivated by personal and group interests seeking to impose relationships based on competition and inequity and institutions with arbitrary and prescriptive criteria. Further, the patrimonial camp assigns violence a pure normative value when it deems the violence motivated by customary principles and values, which generate legitimate relations of reciprocity, trust, and deference, and institutions regulated by tradition. In contrast, the patrimonial camp assigns an impure normative value to violence when it sees that violence as motivated by individualistic or collectivist values that uphold asymmetrical relations, based on distrust, criticism, and constantly innovating and changing institutions (see Table 2.1). The civil camp ascribes to violence a pure utilitarian value when it considers that violence an action motivated by the interests of individuals and groups seeking to establish rules of coexistence that guarantee competition, equity, and fairness, inclusive and impersonal institutions. In contrast, it ascribes an impure utilitarian value to violence when it judges the violence as motivated by sectorial and corporate interests seeking to establish relations that will guarantee compromise and inequity, as well as arbitrary, exclusionary, and personalist institutions. Further, the civil camp assigns violence a pure normative value when it deems the violence as motivated by the aim to establish universalizing civil principles and values that will guarantee open, critical, and trustful relations, as well as institutions that work under the rule of law, in an impersonal and inclusive manner. In contrast, the civil camp assigns an impure normative value to violence when it considers the violence upholds particularistic, non-civil values that impose secretive, deferent, and conspiratorial relations, as well

Patrimonial camp Sectorial/corporate interests Personal/group interests Customary values and principles Individual/collectivist values and principles

Pure utilitarian Impure utilitarian

Pure normative Impure normative

Semantic evaluation Basis of motives

Table 2.1  Patrimonial semantics of violence

Reciprocal/trusting/deferential Asymmetrical/distrusting/critical

Committed/equitable Competitive/unequal

Nature of relations

Custom/habit Arbitrariness/ prescription Tradition Innovation/variation

Basis of institutions

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as institutions that work in an arbitrary, hierarchical, and personal way (see Table 2.2). The civil and patrimonial camps both perceive violence as representing simultaneously a threat and an opportunity for guaranteeing continuity. When attempting to control the meaning of violence, each camp holds certain actors responsible and warns others about the motives, relations, and the institutions they mean to establish. Each camp also holds the dynamics of the economic and state spheres and their specific social and cultural change processes responsible for generating the conditions for the emergence of violence. Insofar as the civil and patrimonial camps establish a differential system for the signification of violence, they enter into a competition. Nevertheless, violence can generate confrontations of meaning and the intertwining of significations characterized by their permanent tension. Thus, for example, the patrimonial and civil camps can agree that violence is a threat to society insofar as it aims to create arbitrary, personalistic, and factious institutions. This alignment allows for a common framework for the patrimonial and civil camps to criticize violence, although the codes of each camp point to distinct horizons of interpretation. This kind of tight intertwining may explain why violence does not necessarily produce processes of polarization between two competing camps of meaning, instead of allowing for the construction of partial articulation horizons, which are, in this case, civil and patrimonial. Nevertheless, we can only understand the competition and tight intertwining within the signification of violence in concrete situations. It is necessary to reconstruct an account of the contexts of interpretation for the discourses of the patrimonial and civil camps. To understand the creation of these significations, the next chapter reconstructs the emergence and crisis conditions of the Mexican patrimonial system and the expansion of the civil sphere and its institutions. The aim is to explain how the patrimonial regime moved from intolerant to discretionary authoritarianism. The chapter analyzes how the Mexican civil sphere gradually expanded its communicative institutions, and shows how polls were progressively introduced as vehicles of representation for Mexican society through public opinion. It also examines the development of the civil sphere’s regulative institutions, paying particular attention to the strengthening of the political party system and how, in the last two decades of the twentieth century, such a system became the arena that guaranteed the construction of civil power, albeit not without the obstacles imposed by the patrimonial regime and the acts of violence that are the subject of this book. The struggle to

Civil camp

Impure normative

Secretive/deferential/ conspiratorial

Open/critical/trustful

Universalist civil values and principles Particularistic non-civil values and principles

Pure normative

Competitive/equitable

Nature of relations

Compromising/unequal

Personal/group interests

Basis of motives

Impure utilitarian Sectorial/corporate interests

Pure utilitarian

Semantic evaluation

Table 2.2  Civil semantics of violence

Arbitrariness/personality/ hierarchy

Fairness/inclusivity/ impersonality Arbitrariness/exclusion/ personality Law/impersonality/inclusivity

Basis of institutions

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enforce the vote undoubtedly represented one of the main points of social conflict at the end of the last century. This analysis allows for an understanding of the context of the dispute to control the meaning of the Zapatista uprising and the assassination of the PRI’s presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, and the secretary-general of the same party, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu. In other words, the following chapter helps us understand the conditions that contextualized the disputes on the semantics of violence from the civil and patrimonial camps.

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CHAPTER 3

The Mexican Civil Sphere and the Patrimonial Code

The first crystallization of Mexican patrimonialism occurred under the dictatorial regime established by Porfirio Díaz toward the end of the nineteenth century (1880–1910). As stated by Falcón (2015), this regime launched a series of clear rules that allowed for the development of the first national system with a clientelist network and corporate negotiation. However, the Diaz regime developed into totalitarian authoritarianism, linking the legitimacy of power to the dictator’s person and not to his office (Aguilar, 1993). When the social pressures against the regime increased, the legitimacy of the dictator and the presidency quickly eroded. In the early twentieth century, the demand for land by an impoverished peasantry (Womack, 2017), the claim for better working conditions in the nascent national industry (Hart, 1987), as well as the demand for actual mechanisms of political representation (Zapata, 2004), ultimately debilitated Diaz’s dictatorship. The 1910 Revolution in Mexico articulated the social demands that had accumulated for years, many of which were enshrined as political and social rights in the 1917 Constitution. However, the post-revolutionary constitutional framework was not able to regulate the change and transfer of power between the leaders of the armed movement and, above all, to communicate fully the political demands of society (Langston, 2017). As Aguilar (1993) has suggested, for more than twenty years, revolutionary leaders were tasked with creating an institutionalized political apparatus that would update and innovate the Diaz dictatorship’s political and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Arteaga Botello, Semantics of Violence, Cultural Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94695-1_3

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cultural structures under a democratic institutional guise that was, ultimately, authoritarian. In contrast to Diaz’s dictatorship, the post-­ revolutionary regime did not limit the legitimacy of power to a person but to the office. The separation of the person who occupied the presidency from the presidential institution (Meyer, 1993) established, up to a point, the first morals and ethics for an office of a fundamentally non-civil nature. This process was not easy. As Beezley (2007) has pointed out, once the 1917 Constitution was signed and Venustiano Carranza’s government had been dismantled, the winning generals—Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles—faced a complicated context: the rebellion of Francisco Villa, the Catholic opposition, agrarian revolts inspired by Zapata’s legacy, as well as powers from the old regime, and revolutionary generals who did not feel included in the new political order. Beezley (2007) further explains that, between 1920 and 1930, violence was endemic throughout the country, characterized by continuous military uprisings led by warlords and peasant groups that were constantly confronting the white guards,1 at the same time as Cristeros and the army engaged in combat in the western part of the country.2 Notwithstanding these obstacles, Álvaro Obregón (1920–1924) managed to control the military and form a government, imposing a series of agrarian reforms to consolidate his power. Calles (1924–1928) widely reinforced this strategy. Thanks to the revocation of a constitutional reform that forbade the president’s re-election, General Obregón ran for office again in 1928 (Buchenau, 2011). He won the election, but he was assassinated before taking office (Weis, 2016). After the death of Obregón, the constitutional provision forbidding re-election was reinstated, but Calles took control of power not by occupying the presidency but instead by abrogating the function “Maximum Leader” (Jefe Máximo) of the revolutionary heritage. For that purpose, he drew upon the National Revolutionary Party (PNR), founded in 1929, with Calles himself as the head of it (Buchenau, 2006). In this period—known as the Maximato—the PNR brought together the national and local leaders of the revolution to define the unwritten rules of presidential succession. With this political mechanism under his control, Calles was able to exert 1  The “white guards” were armed groups established by landowners to defend their properties against peasant and indigenous people who staked claims upon the land. 2  The Cristero War was an armed conflict that lasted from 1924 to 1929, which confronted the government with peasant, secular, and presbyter groups that opposed the Ley Calles (Calles Law) designed to regulate religious cults in the country (Meyer, 1973).

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significant influence on the presidential office—and, in good measure, a large part of national political life—until the appointment of General Lázaro Cárdenas as a candidate for the PNR, and later president of the republic. During the Cárdenas government, from 1934 to 1940, the regime consolidated the separation of the person from the presidential office. To achieve this, Cárdenas exiled Calles to the United States, not without first extensively organizing peasants and workers through the party that was the successor to the PNR, The Mexican Revolutionary Party (PMR) (Meyer, 1993; Hernández, 1994). Corporate organizations came hand in hand with a series of social and economic reforms that benefitted broad sectors of the population (Magrini, 2019). These mass politics (Córdova, 1974) guaranteed the consolidation of the patrimonial regime for Cárdenas through an informal contract between society and the government: in exchange for satisfying the demands of the population and providing a corporate outlet for representation, there existed respect for the presidential figure and his decisions, no matter how authoritarian they were (Zabludovsky, 1989). In this way, virtually total obedience was demanded from communication media, civil associations, and opposition political parties. Elections remained under state control, and the interpretation of the law and the constitution was subject to the president’s discretionary power and the political structure of governors and judges appointed by the executive. In other words, the civil sphere’s communicative and regulative institutions (such as opposition political parties, newspapers, and the judicial system) were under the control of a profoundly authoritarian apparatus that was intolerant of civil society’s autonomy, characteristic of intolerant authoritarianism. The mass politics of the Cardenas government were the Mexican version of similar processes experienced in other Latin American countries during the same period, particularly in Brazil, Argentina, and Ecuador (Mudde & Rovira, 2019). However, in contrast to the rest of the region’s populist experiences, Cardenas institutionalized power transmission between groups within the PRM and continued when this party changed its name to Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) (Weldon, 1997; Knight, 1992). If the president was the axis of the regime’s operation, the PRI operated as a disciplined political apparatus. Throughout the six years of his regime, the president—as a de facto leader—governed the chambers of the deputies and the senators (Nacif, 2004). Such symbolic power, as Balandier (1994) suggests, resulted in a dramatic perception among Mexicans concerning the problem of social order, shaping their political

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and civil practices. Thus, while the PRI guaranteed institutionalism over time, the figure of the president of the republic was the gravitational axis that condensed order, incarnating the centralization of political power and becoming the signification source for the symbolic framework of national politics. This scenario gave rise to the ideology of the 1910 Revolution. In this nationalist discourse, the president in office vindicated the institutionalization of the demands of the revolution through organizing the masses into a corporate and clientelist system (Córdova, 1973). The role of the president, which evoked the charismatic ideal of the former revolutionary warlord, was to guarantee the satisfaction of popular needs through authoritarian but paternalistic rule of society, where the state was the apex of the nation’s material organization and development. According to the rules of this patrimonial regime, the president in office and his political group could take over the political and institutional structure for themselves. Krauze (1996) has suggested that the regime’s economic and political forces revolved around the presidential figure, like the planets around the sun. The meta-constitutional attributions of the president allowed him to conduct direct negotiations with social actors regarding issues of taxation, public expenses, credits, work, education, mining, and religion, among others (Meyer, 1993). To a certain extent, this ability to negotiate directly extended to social demands and protests. One of the president’s functions was appointing his successor, who would immediately become the official party candidate. All the president’s power would vanish as soon as he left office, and the force of his post was transmitted to the new leader. When he left office, the ex-president had to keep silent and take on the responsibility for the problems the new president would face (Weldon, 1997).3 Even though each president had the power to name a successor, the PRI functioned as a consultation space that allowed different groups to express their preferences concerning possible candidates and their political projects (Cosío, 1975; Langston, 2001). The party was also a mechanism for the corporate mediation of the demands and needs of different groups and social classes. As González Casanova (1967) has pointed out, in the most solid times of the patrimonial regime, Mexico was a country with no citizens as such. Social demands 3  As ex-president Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952–1958) pointed out: once you leave the office, the first duty is to respect the one in charge and show absolute discipline.

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were made under the guise of pleas and petitions. Non-conformity was expressed through godfathers, defenders, Tatas (protective “fathers” of the community), and coyotes (informal negotiators between people and the authorities). These names reflect the stereotypes of both “good” and “bad” mediators. At the forefront of society was a politically organized structure of government (with its patrimonial presidential system, its party, and its unions), as well as other non-civil institutions such as the Catholic Church, the family, and communities. Therefore, what prevailed was a group of solidarities based on sectorial ideals and characterized by restricted inclusion of the citizenry. In the 1960s and 1970s, peasant, union, and student movements, and other middle-class groups, defied the authoritarian regime. Each pressured the state to fulfill their social demands, such as the call for greater participation in political life through democratic representation mechanisms (Hernández, 1994). Among other things, those who mobilized also demanded union democracy, land distribution, the freedom to organize, and free and clean elections at the level of municipal governments. To justify these demands, they referenced individual and societal values that had gradually become distanced from the restricted framework of specific interests and state power, characterized by authoritarianism. The regime was also criticized through reduced, marginal, and marginalized critical newspapers,4 political statements by actors with moral legitimacy,5 guerilla  In the 1970s, Proceso magazine played a central role as a forum for criticizing the authoritarian system of the PRI. It was founded in 1976 by journalists Julio Scherer, Miguel Ángel Granados, and Armando Ponce, among others. With a national circulation, the magazine was established after the government pressured Excélsior, also a national newspaper, to change its critical stance regarding government affairs. After the founding of Proceso, many journalists left Excélsior and in the following years, they would become figures that questioned the regime, such as Carlos Monsiváis. In that same year, poet Octavio Paz, who was the director of “Plural,” Excélsior’s weekly cultural publication, founded the magazine Vuelta. Although certain weekly journals and magazines were sometimes critical of the government, this was not the case for radio or television (either through the private consortium Televisa or Imevisión, a parastatal company). Furthermore, most other newspapers also refused to criticize the government for any reason (Murphy, 1995). 5  During these years, entrepreneurs, especially in the north of the country, expressed a series of criticisms directed at the governments of Luis Echeverría Álvarez and José López Portillo, whom they accused, to a greater or lesser extent, of being populist, blocking political reforms, and slowing down the country’s economic development. The criticism became stronger outside this sector, until it involved groups from the Catholic Church, the urban middle classes, students, and media, each present in different public spaces (Luna et al., 1985). 4

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groups,6 novels or films,7 and whispers and jokes among the public. Thus, as Loaeza (2013) has argued, the decade of the 1970s signified the first moral and political crisis the PRI regime had faced, after more than thirty years of operating almost seamlessly. The regime responded with violent repression while simultaneously realigning presidential power with societal demands (Schmidt, 1986). During the government of Luis Echeverría (1970–1976), the regime espoused a discourse that exalted the supposed “virtues of the people,” in an attempt to renew the values and principles of the 1910 Revolution (Rojas, 2015). However, critics warned that these actions aimed at strengthening the clientelist and corporate system, rather than guaranteeing quality of life for marginalized sectors of the population (Kiddle & Muñoz, 2010). In this sense, critics of the government accused Echeveria of an attempt to strengthen social inclusion based on particularistic adscription principles and not civil universalist ideals. There was also an accusation that populist politics exalted a cult of the person who occupied the presidency to the office’s detriment, which was seen as polluting the figure of the president. Echeverria’s government was characterized by censorship of free expression, political repression, a “dirty war” against the guerilla movements, 6  Among the revolutionary groups that appeared during the 1970s and 1980s were the September 23 Communist League (Liga Comunista 23 de septiembre), the People’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias del Pueblo), Popular Unity (Unión Popular), the Revolutionary Front of Socialist Action (Frente Revolucionario de Acción Socialista), the Armed Communists League (Liga de Comunistas Armados), Revolutionary Civic Association (Asociación Cívica Revolucionaria), the Revolutionary Armed Movement (Movimiento Armado Revolucionario), the People’s Unity Worker and Peasant Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Obrero Campesino Unión del Pueblo), the Party of the Poor (Partido de los Pobres), and the National Liberation Forces (Fuerzas de Liberación Nacional). Their presence represented a constant critique of the regime’s authoritarian system. The “dirty war” the government had unleashed against these groups left in its wake many deaths and disappearances. In 1978, president López Portillo issued an amnesty law, embraced by many members of these armed political groups. 7  Some of the films that criticize the PRI regime include: La sombra del caudillo (Julio Bracho, 1956); Distinto Amanecer (Julio Bracho, 1968); Ante el cadáver de un líder (Alejandro Galindo, 1974); Calzonzín, Inspector (Alfonso Arau, 1974); Las fuerzas vivas (Luis Alcoriza, 1975); Canoa (Felipe Cazals, 1976); Las poquianchis (Felipe Cazals, 1976); Cuartelazo (Alberto Isaac, 1977), and El año de la peste (Felipe Cazals, 1979). A few outstanding novels are the following: La sombra del caudillo (Martín Luis Guzmán, 1929), Acomodaticio: novela de un político de convicciones (Gregorio López y Fuentes, 1943) and El gran solitario de palacio (René Avilés Fabila, 1970).

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and an increase in the regime’s ability to block the nascent efforts to build independent and critical press unions, and clear democratic rules of the game. There was such pressure that his successor, José López Portillo (1976–1982), had been the only candidate in the elections. This lack of contenders further delegitimized the institution of the vote as a mechanism for creating civil power. The opposition political parties had denounced the elections as a farce by refusing to compete, which made the polluted nature of the country’s profoundly authoritarian political system evident. During the first years of José López Portillo’s administration, the economy experienced a moment of splendor thanks to an increase in international oil prices. This allowed the regime to link its populist discourse with direct actions to satisfy different social demands (Sanderson, 1983). The administration made the most of the economic dynamics by accompanying them with political reform destined to allow for the entrance of opposition parties into the Chamber of Deputies. Through the concept of proportional representation, it sought to open up spaces for expressing social unrest—and the possibility of some civil power; however, at the same time, it consistently secured the institutional mechanisms needed to stop the opposition from defying the political system’s power and, mainly, to prevent it from becoming a viable political alternative (Rodríguez, 2010). Despite its limitations, this political reform was the first institutional framework for regulating the participation of political parties (Levitsky & Way, 2010). In a way, it was a facilitating input that, despite its limitations, made mechanisms for the representation of civil power feasible. At the end of López Portillo’s regime, the bubble of oil prices deflated. As a result, the contracted external debt reached unsustainable levels, and public spending exhausted the government’s financial capacity. Such capacity was shaken by one of the most profound crises the country had ever experienced. The government accused bank owners of being responsible for the crisis (Davis, 1993; Giménez, 1983; Marois, 2008). Using the president’s meta-constitutional powers, López Portillo nationalized banks as a form of civil repair that was questioned widely, not just by those directly affected by the nationalization. However, the appointment of Miguel de la Madrid as president (1982–1988) was a sign that the economic crisis might be solved differently: through a new, more technical form of governmental action distanced from the traditional political groups (Arroyo, 2019). This situation gave rise to what was later known

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as the “passive revolution” that moved the country toward neoliberalism (Morton, 2003), based on widespread structural reforms, the thinning out of the state, and aggressive privatization of the economy (Ramírez, 1995). As Philip (1998) has argued, the so-called technocrats designed the new, neoliberal system without considering any democratic reforms. Although for some, this neoliberal turn meant abandoning the revolutionary project that had reached its zenith during the Cardenas government (Cordera & Tello, 1982), for others (Olson, 1985), it was a necessary change to bring the new dynamics of capitalist accumulation at a global scale into the country. Both stances reflected the fact that the boundaries regulating the relationship between the state and the market were changing. Those who saw the end of the post-revolutionary regime with nostalgia believed the market was polluting the state’s functioning. At the same time, for the neoliberals in government, the state had deeply tainted the country’s capacity for economic development. These profound economic changes did not imply leaving behind the old revolutionary discourse, nor did they alter the cult of the presidential figure as the center of politics and national unity. However, it was apparent that the neoliberal policies somehow undermined the regime’s political legitimacy, since it was not able to respond, as it used to, to the demands of the corporate groups inserted into the PRI’s structure, much less those of the general population (Sheppard, 2011). This lack of continuity between the political discourse and the economic model was clearly expressed in the first criticisms of the regime through elections (Loaeza, 1995). It was in the municipalities located at the north of the country, with greater levels of urbanization and education (Lawrence, 1992; Craig & Cornelius, 1995), that the PRI started losing elections for mayors and local deputies (Gómez, 1990; Molinar, 1991; Guillén, 1992; Gómez, 1997). The shifting vote in the north contributed to creating a geographical dichotomization concerning the purity and impurity of national politics. On the one hand, the country’s northern region was cataloged as a space of civic virtue, democratic and open, in contrast to the south, characterized as traditional and linked to the corporate structures of the PRI. On the other hand, the northern region was cataloged as a space polluted by anti-Mexican political customs, denying patrimonial rules and seeking to appear like the United States, in contrast with the south, characterized as respectful of the patrimonial rules inherited from revolutionary nationalism. However, the country was changing. The PRI continued to lose

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support, election after election: in the 1984 elections to choose federal deputies, this party reached its lowest share of the vote to date: 64 percent (Molinar, 1991). Moreover, by the late 1980s, 2 percent of the 2000 municipalities in Mexico were governed by parties other than the PRI (Merino, 2003). In the end, the reform prompted years back by López Portillo had allowed for a legal basis through which specific civil power enclaves would settle in local spaces and electoral districts. Each election was experienced as a deed in which opposition parties faced and revealed the legal and illegal gaps that the PRI had implemented to avoid respecting the vote (Martínez, 1985; Alonso & Gómez, 1991). The electoral codes were structured in such a way that state governments had control over electoral processes, therefore taking on a simultaneous role as participants and judges (Aziz, 1994; Gómez, 1997). The complex system that operated to achieve electoral fraud was certainly working well, and the PRI had resources that came directly from different government areas (Molinar, 1991). Even so, victories for the opposition parties in local areas were attained thanks to the growth of increasingly critical local mass media, autonomous civil associations, and political parties with significant regional force. Their momentum ensured that the ballots were respected, not only in the polls but also in legal cases. Even though all these local successes did not weaken the regime, they allowed the public to realize that through widespread citizen participation, competitive campaigns could develop, in which codes could become effective mediums for civil power. Thus, the door was opened to pollute and attribute civil vices to the PRI and the government in electoral campaigns. Although the regime did not set aside its authoritarian practices, it shifted toward what Khosrokhavar (2015) calls discretional authoritarianism, not suppressing society’s ability for autonomy entirely, allowing for some freedom of opinion, tolerating opposition parties and non-governmental organizations up to a point, but still seeking by all possible means, albeit with increasing difficulty, to control the electoral process. In the 1980s, the PRI experienced not only its first electoral defeats, but also its most significant internal dissent.8 Shortly before Miguel de la Madrid started the process to name his successor, a militant group, headed by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of the general Lázaro Cárdenas, renounced 8  There was dissent inside of the PRI before the 1980s, but it did not lead to the creation of visible opposition that would generate a schism inside the party, or an opposing electoral force.

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the official party when it realized the PRI no longer provided a mediation mechanism for their demands or a consultation space to influence the next president’s appointment (Magaloni, 2006). This dissidence fostered harsh criticism of neoliberal politics and proposed the alternative of returning to the old, post-revolutionary project (Borjas, 2003; Garrido, 1993). The dissidents ended up creating a coalition with left and right-wing parties headed by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas to confront the PRI candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari. As Rodríguez (2010) has asserted, the 1987 election ended up confronting two national projects: one was state-led, populist, and authoritarian, and the other was neoliberal, technocratic, and no less authoritarian. In this sense, the competition was between two non-civil codes and discourses—that of the state and that of the market—both of which were particularistic and sectorial. Both enabled facilitating inputs. On the one hand, the populists believed it would be possible to create solidary citizenship by radicalizing the country’s democratization process through community-­based organization and horizontal relations. On the other hand, neoliberals believed the market would, in time, strengthen the construction of rational individuals, capable of not only generating competitive economies but also of building democratic participation links. Revolutionaries and technocrats ended up openly confronting each other through the regulative institutions that open and shut the doors of political power: political campaigns, their political parties, and the vote. The 1988 presidential run was the first highly competitive election at the federal level that the PRI had faced in its entire history (Peritore & Galve-Peritore, 1993). The state had widespread control of the electoral institutions and the economic resources to support the official candidate, as well as the necessary structure to alter the results (Cantú, 2019). It thus exercised all its means for political coercion and its authoritarian culture in its most straightforward form (Adler-Lomnitz et al., 2004; Adler-Lomnitz & Melnik, 2000). Salinas de Gortari faced Cárdenas as the candidate of the National Democratic Front (FDN) and Manuel de Jesús Clouthier del Rincón, of the National Action Party (PAN). The campaign process was characterized by unequal access to the communication media and resources for the opposition. A limited number of critical media, headed by the newspaper La Jornada, made a significant effort to provide reportage on the work of the opposition parties. In its stead, television closed ranks in favor of the official candidate, mobilizing all its power. The opposition worked widely in cities and communities in all the country, constantly

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reinforcing the idea that the only path toward democracy was expelling the PRI from the government (Domínguez & McCann, 1996). In this sense, although the communicative institutions of the civil sphere were limited, they operated with an ability never seen before. It seemed as if they could be translated into civil power. On July 6, 1988, election day, the opposition parties of some news agencies—especially abroad—documented stolen ballot boxes, modifications to the electoral register, collective voting mobilized by the PRI’s corporate groups, the expulsion of representatives of opposition parties from voting booths, and actual threats to voters, among other coercive strategies. When the ballots started arriving to the electoral authorities, headed by the Interior Secretary, the FDN candidate seemed to be ahead in the race. These potential results concerned President de la Madrid, and he ordered the vote counting to cease (Cantú, 2019). His decision, dubbed a “system crash,” awakened some and confirmed for others the suspicion that enormous fraud was occurring, altering the results in favor of Salinas de Gortari. With this measure, President de la Madrid took control of the electoral system, leaving the parties and the communication media without the possibility to supervise the counting of the ballots and preventing electoral decisions from being translated into civil power. Salinas de Gortari received 50 percent of the votes, Cárdenas, 31 percent, and Clouthier, 17 percent. The protests were immediate. At first, the FDN and the PAN established mobilization strategies against the fraud, but their differences led them to become at odds with one another. The social protests gradually weakened until they vanished (Gómez, 1990). Carlos Salinas de Gortari was sworn in as president a few months later. The 1988 election meant the end of a cycle for the authoritarian patrimonial system, but not its absolute end. The presidential figure had been eroded, and the official party had seen a decline in its internal ability to negotiate its conflicts. Various media were becoming more critical, especially newspapers and radio, and alongside, the demand for more democracy was growing mainly in local spaces. Although the 1988 electoral results disappointed those who wished to participate in the nation’s political life, there was an expansion of the values and principles that allowed for social criticism and democratic integration: a civil code that spoke and moved before the patrimonial code; a civil code that acquired a significant force to judge the actions of its rulers, either in terms of civil virtue or as an expression of the civil impurity of the old authoritarian regime. Over forty years—thanks

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to the expansion of civil society—the regime had been transformed from a firmly structured authoritarian system to one that presented fissures.

Economic Liberalization and Authoritarianism During the Salinas de Gortari government, the state and economic spheres experienced a radical transformation, some of which had been incubated during the administration of Miguel de la Madrid. What is perhaps most relevant for this book is to emphasize how the logics and principles of technocratic and market-oriented operation became criteria for generating solidarity, cohesion, and membership in civil society. In political terms, the Salinas de Gortari government maintained some control of the civil sphere’s communicative institutions and an authoritarian tutelage over the regulative institutions. However, the patrimonial presidential regime could not entirely suppress civil society’s capacity for autonomy and criticism, nor was it able to control all the newspapers or the actions of the opposition parties. President Salinas de Gortari took office on December 1, 1988, in a context of discredit, not only of his person but of the set of political rules of the regime (Sauer, 1992). He took office amid protest by the opposition parties in the Chamber of Deputies—something never seen before in Mexico’s history—with claims that there had been widespread electoral fraud. Although the presidents of Mexico had never been elected as an expression of civil power, instead appointed by the president in office and working to legitimize a hegemonic party, the 1988 electoral race had allowed for a glimpse of the possibility that widespread social mobilization could place someone outside of the PRI in the presidency. Disappointment in that year’s election thoroughly polluted the office and the figure of the president, underscoring the more anti-democratic elements of the Mexican political system. Well aware of this situation, Salinas de Gortari’s first actions aimed at setting in motion the functions and logic of a patrimonial state sphere. The goal was to impose principles of order and authority that were both legal and customary through political settlements with specific actors, as well as to implement social and administrative control mechanisms— including the use of violence if necessary. Soon after he took the oath of office, Salinas de Gortari met with the leaders of PAN to negotiate a democratic and economic reforms scheme in exchange for the party’s acknowledgment of his government. This agreement allowed both actors to

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progress in their joint work in different areas of the country’s economic and political life. However, it was not free from conflict, disagreement, and tension. Further, the new president installed a group of collaborators known for their technical background and its commitment to free-market principles. Most of Salinas de Gortari’s cabinet had completed graduate studies in the United States, studying or specializing in economics, and they soon became known as a group of “neoliberal technocrats” (Lindau, 1996; Concepción, 2005), an epithet that would be used from then on as a form of pollution when referring to the country’s national political life.9 At the same time, he named traditional politicians with a markedly authoritarian profile to the cabinet.10 With a cabinet now comprised of both technocrats and traditional politicians, Salinas de Gortari hurried to show the type of order and authority he wished to impose on the country’s political and administrative space, to help dissipate the polluting attributions with which he had assumed power. He then ordered a series of arrests: union leaders that were considered corrupt, powerful drug traffickers and entrepreneurs, and police involved in political crimes. The newspapers widely reported these detentions. These reports worked as performances or dramatizations seeking to purify the president’s image through coverage of how he had “exorcised” powerful figures considered to represent civil vice.11 9  Salinas de Gortari appointed Pedro Aspe Armella to the Ministry of Finance, who had completed his PhD studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As head of the Mexico City Department (now the Mexico City Government), he named Manuel Camacho Solís, who had studied at Princeton. Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, was put in charge of the presidency of the PRI. José Jaime Serra Puche and Ernesto Zedillo, both Yale graduates, were named, respectively, Minsters of Commerce, and Planning and Programming, while José María Córdoba Montoya, who studied at Stanford, was named head of the Office of the President. 10  Manuel Bartlett, Carlos Hank, and Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios oversaw the Ministries of Education, Tourism, and the Interior, respectively. Barrios had a military background and had worked for many years as the director of Mexico’s political intelligence system and the secret police—a repression apparatus against both political and armed leftist movements. Many civil society organizations denounced him as being responsible for the “dirty war” during the 1960s and 1970s (Finkel, 2012). 11  In January 1989, the Mexican Army detained Joaquín Hernández Galicia, alias “La Quina,” head of the union of the parastatal Mexican Oil (Pemex), affiliated with the PRI. Even though it was argued that his detention occurred because he had committed some crimes, such as carrying illegal weapons, public opinion suggested that Salinas de Gortari had taken revenge on the oil leader because he had supported Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas with union

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The government and the official party (PRI) also sought to demonstrate moral authority, acknowledging the triumph of an opposition party in state elections. On July 2, 1989, Baja California became the first state governed by the PAN (López, 2001). However, the government also revealed its authoritarian side. The Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), born from the forces that had created the FDN, suffered attacks by the Salinas de Gortari regime, which operated with all its strength and fraudulent resources to win the election in Michoacán, where the PRD had been highly likely to win. Thus, the government displayed its differential treatment of various groups in the political opposition (Lucardi, 2016), and the type of democratic project it wished to implement. In contrast to the PAN, the PRD intended to walk back much of the economic liberalization that had started in the country in the early 1980s, to strengthen state intervention in the economy and promote social inclusion policies. In symbolic terms, the PRD depicted itself as the heir of the 1910 Revolution’s values (McDonald, 1993). It demanded a reduction in the country’s democratization and worked to push back the government’s “neoliberal” policies. The PRD’s constant mention of a “forgotten past” that should be reestablished contributed to the construction of a temporary dichotomization concerning what was pure and what was impure: the PRD represented an authoritarian and traditional essence, while the PRI and the PAN showed themselves to be democratic and modern. For the new government, the economy certainly embodied primordial characteristics as triggers of democratic life: it funded rational individuals, set the basis for fair competition, and offered the conditions for generating agreements. Accordingly, it established new criteria for productivity, interest, and earning, making the economy efficient and developing new operational hierarchies. However, these criteria were implemented through the intervention of patrimonial codes and institutions. In August 1989, the Economic Stability and Growth Pact (PECE/Pacto de Estabilidad y Crecimiento Económico) was signed by entrepreneurs and workers, resources (Rodríguez-Padilla & Vargas, 1996). One month later, entrepreneur Eduardo Legorreta, ex-director of the Mexican Stock Exchange, was detained, accused of being responsible for the 1987 financial crash (Edel & Edel, 1988). In April, the Salinista government pressured the leader of the National Education Workers’ Union to resign his charge (Arriaga, 2015). In that same month, drug trafficker Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo was arrested (Lupsha, 1991). In June, José Antonio Zorrilla Pérez, ex-director of the Federal Department of Security, was imprisoned, accused of the assassination of journalist Manuel Buendía in 1984 (Freije, 2015).

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peasant and grassroots leaders, all adherents of the PRI’s corporate structure. This move allowed the government to intervene in the economy, guaranteeing control over prices, salaries, and the exchange rate against the dollar.12 The acceleration of the privatization of state businesses that had started during the previous presidential period (referred to as a sexenio because it is a six-year period) was key in transforming the economic sphere (Hoshino, 1996; Clifton, 2000). The state was to limited in power because it profaned the spaces of society and the market.13 The argument put forth was that the sales of previously nationalized businesses answered the need to make the state administration efficient and to reduce public expenditures (Ramírez, 1995; Tovar, 1997). There was a declaration that the state was no longer the best actor to guarantee the country’s development; instead, it was the market that could do so (La Porta & López-de-Silanes, 1999). The privatization was part of a widespread program to stabilize the country, based on macroeconomic performance and growth (Unal & Navarro, 1999). The sale of state-owned enterprises was developed to reconstruct the relationship between the economy and the state. The government’s goal was to increase social welfare through the market. However, the privatizations were accompanied by employee layoffs, changes in collective work contracts, and instability in the labor force. While the government accentuated policies for the liberalization, privatization, and structural reformation of the economy, in his first days in office, Salinas de Gortari issued the National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL) (Yaschine, 1999). The program aimed at attending to the 12  The pact achieved a noticeable reduction in inflation, continuous stabilization of the economy, and an increase in the available resources for productive investment; moreover, it set the basis for the modernization of the country’s economy, that is, the opening of the markets (Álvarez & Mendoza, 1993). Almost simultaneously with the signing of the PECE, the government announced it had achieved an agreement to refinance the country’s external debt with the creditor banks, which meant the reduction of the amount of the debt and a guarantee of obtaining new credit. The refinancing of the debt represented the peak of the government’s political propaganda, since it allowed for the reactivation of the economy, which grew by 3 percent in the following year (Aspe, 1992). 13  The country’s main airlines were sold to private organizations, including Aeroméxico (1988) and Mexicana de Aviación (1990), as were the enterprise Teléfonos de México (1990), the national bank (1990), which José López Portillo had expropriated almost a decade before, Altos Hornos de México (1991), Fertilizantes de México (1992), the Instituto Mexicano de la Televisión (1993), and Ferrocarriles Nacionales (1994), to name a few.

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economic and infrastructure needs of the poorest and most marginalized groups in urban, rural, and indigenous areas (Moreno-Brid et al., 2009). The purpose was to involve the community—under a shared responsibility scheme—in the construction and acquisition of its own public services, hospitals, and schools, as well as roads, paths, water, and power structure. At the same time, the program promoted public kitchens and food supply networks (Medrano, 2013). As Soria (1993) has stated, the program also had the resources to nurture small-scale production that would create jobs. PRONASOL became the government’s central policy, widely promoted in communication media as the “Solidarity Program” or simply “Solidarity” (Haenn, 2004). Solidarity (Solidaridad in Spanish) was conceived as the production of goods and services created by communities and the government, in the context of the market’s efficiency and interest. The idea was to build solidarity restricted to the economic sphere. The strategy was intended to face “in some measure, the gaps left open by the government’s adjustment and economic deterioration, in both rural and urban areas” (Ordóñez, 2003, p. 106). In centering its operation on the shared responsibility between communities and the authorities, they meant to, in some way, reproduce the practices of civil society associations to redirect them in political terms in favor of the regime (Fox & Hernández, 1992). Solidarity also had a foot in the political sphere. It sought to legitimize the new government “based on the popular estimation of the government through the community’s consensus” (Chávez & Rodríguez, 1998, p. 400), substituting for the patrimonial regime’s old corporate structure. In some cases, this led to the interpretation of Solidarity as fundamentally an electoral program, aimed at winning votes and not alleviating poverty (Veltmeyer, 1997). As some studies have shown (Yaschine, 1999), Solidarity did not reach the most impoverished communities of the rural and urban areas. Consequently, it was cataloged as a mechanism to modernize the regime’s “populism” (Morton, 2011), aimed at reproducing the political system’s clientelist and authoritarian structure under a different guise (Díaz-Cayeros & Magaloni, 2003; Castañeda & Pfutze, 2015). However, some scholars (Fox & Hernández, 1992) assert that the participation structures generated the conditions for the demands to the government to move from being understood as a clientelist favor to a citizen’s right. The government of Salinas de Gortari not only made changes in the state and economic spheres; it was also forced to provide an outlet for the social pressure demanding more democracy. In his swearing-in as

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president, Salinas de Gortari publicly acknowledged that the times of “showcase multi-party politics” were over and that the PRI was facing a different political context (Zamitiz, 2010). Accordingly, there were interventions into the institutions that regulated the vote and political parties. In 1990, together with the PAN, they implemented reforms to generate impartial institutions and lend credibility to electoral results (Gómez, 1992). These reforms included approval of the Federal Code for Institutions and Procedures (COFIPE), which allowed, on the one hand, for the amplification of the proportional representation of the parties, but, on the other hand, introduced a governability clause to guarantee the PRI would have control of the legislature. The most important part of the reform was the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), which organized and supervised elections (Peschard, 1993). This institution would include the participation of political parties and citizens in a General Council. It also initiated a technical and organizational professionalization process through a career in civil service. However, the IFE’s higher- and medium-range technical positions were filled by consultants and civil servants with a clear party history with the PRI or from higher spheres of political power (Alcocer & Morales, 1991). Accordingly, as García Bartolo (2011) has pointed out, the opposition parties were disappointed with the configuration of the IFE.14 Notwithstanding these flaws, the reform allowed for improvement in some of the mechanisms for the election of grassroots representatives. The government of Salinas de Gortari put into operation another regulative institution aimed at guaranteeing the defense of human rights. In 1990, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), established in 1989 as a General Management entity within the Secretariat of the Interior, was created by presidential decree. Jorge Carpizo MacGregor— former rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) became the head of the commission. The CNDH responded to the elaborated demands of civil society associations, especially those that emerged to defend the lives of communities, detained social and political leaders, victims of torture, and those who had disappeared because of their ideals or activism. It also represented a response to the abuses of judicial authorities and bureaucratic structures, generally guided by principles of exclusion and marginalization of vulnerable sectors of society. 14  While these reforms were approved, one more was implemented, allowing, for the first time in the history of the regime, a representative assembly for Mexico City.

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The reforms in the sphere of the state, the economy, and public assistance for the most impoverished populations helped to disseminate the idea that the person occupying the presidency was a strong, committed man who had control over the reins of the country’s political, economic, and social power. This perception crystallized into widespread support; by 1989, 66 percent of the population supported the Salinas de Gortari regime, and in 1990, his approval rate reached 71 percent (Domínguez & McCann, 1995). This support guaranteed enough legitimacy so the PRI could be confident entering the intermediate federal elections in 1991, in which deputies and senators would be elected. In contrast to the political deterioration the PRI had experienced in the previous presidential election, the party managed to garner 65 percent of the votes in the intermediate elections, facing a PAN that barely received 17 percent and a PRD that only managed to obtain 8 percent of the votes—while the rest of the parties did not reach more than 5 percent. Although some argued the PRI called upon all of the political infrastructure, governmental resources, Solidarity committees, fraudulent practices, and the popularity of Salinas de Gortari to win the election, polls showed— as Domínguez and McCann (1995) have suggested—that citizens expressed a high level of trust in the ability of the government and the PRI to maintain the country’s economic and political stability. With the newly found support garnered in the ballot boxes, Salinas de Gortari presented his political vision for social liberalism at the PRI’s national assembly, which took place on March 2, 1992. On the one hand, his ideological stance reflected loyalty to the Mexican liberal project of the nineteenth century and, on the other hand, it embraced the ideals of the 1910 Revolution. From the former, he took up the struggle against all kinds of status, servitude, and anarchy to free the country from immobility and isolation from the world, thus guaranteeing the nation’s entry into industrialization (Méndez, 1994). From the revolutionary vision, he constructed the struggle against monopoly, the secularization of society, and the aspirations toward social justice. A proposal was introduced to “reform the Revolution,” to precipitate the necessary changes to move the country toward globalization and, at the same time, to hold on to the ideals of justice of the 1910 Revolution (Holloway, 1994). However, the code of social liberalism was anchored in the patrimonial code. The term “liberal” referred only to the need to liberalize the national market to connect it with global markets. In the meantime, the mention of “social” issues prioritized the idea of “social justice,” that is, mechanisms for corporate,

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clientelist, and patronage negotiation of the government and its official party. Social liberalism sought to reform the state and the economy to foster a society “in which life’s liberties and material conditions, economic liberties, and social solidarity, the moral value of the individual and […] the moral value of the community, are articulated and complemented” (Aguilar, 1994, p. 209). Salinas de Gortari’s proposal reflected the belief that the country’s development was only possible through the capitalist market and the institutions that made possible exchange, commerce, and the circulation of goods and money. On the shoulders of this economic freedom, it would be possible to establish links of solidarity and inclusive membership, attributions of citizenship, and forms of democratic political participation based on the idea of a moral community. According to this perspective, solidarity and social justice could only be maintained thanks to the purifying nature of market relations, which would allow for the gradual evolution of self-disciplined, responsible, rational, and free citizens who would not need the state to deploy their abilities as economic and political actors. Within this ideological framework, throughout 1992, the government initiated other changes that generated widespread public debate. It re-­ established diplomatic relations with the Vatican, also reinstating the civil rights of the Catholic Church, which had been suspended by the Reformation laws in the mid-nineteenth century that allowed the confiscation of ecclesiastic property (Blancarte, 1993). Article 27 of the Constitution, which, since 1917, had guaranteed the distribution of land among peasant communities based on the concept of the ejido—collectively worked lands that could neither be disposed of nor become small-­ scale property—was reformed. This reform put an end to the agrarian distribution that began after the end of the 1910 Revolution and which was one of the peasant demands during this armed conflict (Warman, 1994). Even though the reform was controversial and generated widespread discussion, according to a January 1992 poll by Nexos magazine, most of the population approved granting ejido owners property rights over their lands, so they could keep them as ejidos, turn them into small-­ scale properties, or dispose of them.15 Finally, at the end of 1992, the president of the republic announced the realization of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and the United States,  See: “Reformas al artículo 27 constitucional” (1992).

15

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which would take effect on January 1, 1994. This agreement signaled that the country was on the path toward development and progress.

A Growing Civil Sphere While the Salinas de Gortari government was relatively successful in restoring order and authority—both legal and customary, the civil sphere’s communicative institutions expanded. They constituted a site for the questioning and pollution of institutions, discourse and the patrimonial code, electoral fraud, the adverse effects of economic liberalization, NAFTA, the Solidarity program, and the Article 27 constitutional reform. Radio and newspapers, media through which journalists and columnists expressed their opinions, commented on poll results, and gave accounts of the different social movements that called for the satisfaction of specific demands and access to citizen rights, gained greater autonomy during this period. Newspapers and radio experienced a similar development as that of the economic sphere: the liberalization and decentralization of political power (Sánchez, 1988). The state gave up its control over communication (Esteinou, 1991), which led to a private, highly commodified communication system, engendering the free flow of information (Esteinou, 2000; Bohmann, 1989). Radio experienced a decentralization process; programs with a regional influence appeared, competing with the centralist communication dynamics linked to federal power (Fernández, 1992). Newspapers experienced a similar process: many local newspapers that questioned regional power structures became consolidated. National newspapers such as La Jornada, Reforma, and El Universal introduced civic-minded journalism, aiming at political criticism, backing social movements, or giving opposition political actors a voice (Hughes, 2006; Murphy, 1995). As Peschard (2000) has suggested, during those years, a critical space was gradually forming.16 However, TV companies such as Televisa or Imevision (recently privatized and transformed into TV Azteca) held fast to their 16  This expansion was not free from difficulties, as demonstrated by the example of the film industry. Films such as Rojo Amanecer (Ripstein, 1990), which, in its own way, dramatizes the Tlatelolco Massacre of 1968, were initially censored by the government, until pressure by film producers, intellectuals, and civil society compelled the government of Salinas de Gortari to authorize their screening. The pressure was such that the film La sombra del caudillo (Bracho, 1960) was shown for the first time. In the meantime, the government was financing films such as El Bulto (Retes, 1991), which depicted a democratic country filled

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support for the government and worked tirelessly to depict Salinas de Gortari as a leader who was changing the country’s economic and democratic life (Mejía, 1991; Orozco & Medina, 2000; Trejo, 1994). The opening up of autonomous and critical media also fostered the development of opinion polls as ideal sites for national political discussion (Ai Camp, 1996; Trejo, 1995).17 Different companies and universities, including the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the University of Guadalajara, conducted opinion surveys to measure government performance, the results of the economic modernization process (job creation, inflation reduction), and public policies such as PRONASOL, or to chart the acceptance of specific measures such as PECE. The results from these surveys were linked to the image of the president and his party, especially during elections (Buendía, 1996). Deep down, these works aimed at examining the resilience of Mexican authoritarianism during the country’s economic transformation process (Dominguez & McCann, 1996). The polls regarding presidential performance reflected how the citizenry judged the country’s most important authority figure, thought to guarantee order, stability, and change (Villarreal, 1999; Lindau, 1996; Ai Camp, 2010). Thus, polls also became a medium for judging the actions of other authorities. Based on such polls, it was possible to observe how “Mexican citizens have pressured elites to democratize the political regime and in doing so have become actors on the nation’s public stage. In addition, the changed attitudes and behavior of Mexicans have induced elites to change their strategies and behavior” (Domínguez & McCann, 1996, p. 50). Polls became a mechanism for expressing the demands of civil society, coupled with social movements that expressed disagreement with the economic reforms or the political paralysis of the Salinas de Gortari regime. Comprised mainly of impoverished urban sectors and the middle classes (Davis, 1990; Shefner & Walton, 1993), social movements grew into with liberties that contrasted with the authoritarian and repressive Mexico of the 1970s, to show the political and economic success of the Salinas regime. 17  In the sexenio of Salinas de Gortari, political humor was a key element of popular opinion. As Schmidt (1996) has elaborated, during his government, the president was the object of a wide repertoire of jokes, perhaps like no other president in the country’s history. The jokes around the figure of Salinas de Gortari focused on questioning the concentration of power in his person, his role in the expansion of corruption, and his responsibility for committing electoral fraud.

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diversified political expressions that allowed for the consolidation of the participation rights of large population sectors, especially in the 1980s and 1990s (Eckstein, 1990; Carrier, 1989). The demands of these social movements often undermined the PRI’s ability to engage in clientelist and patrimonial negotiations. As Davis (1990) has asserted, during that period, the social mobilizations showcased the limits of corporatism in an environment in which the state had gradually fewer resources to respond to citizen demands. Most of these movements focused on demands for housing, urban and transportation services, and compelling the authorities to democratize the citizen participation structures through the creation of civil associations (Fox & Hernández, 1992). At the same time, there was also a rebirth of peasant mobilizations (Redclift, 1988; García de León, 1995). In addition, social movements became compulsory interlocutors of local, state, and federal administrations (Núñez, 1990). However, as Davis (1994) and Durand and Smith (1996) have argued, the presence of social movements in Mexico did not necessarily lead to an expansion of the country’s democratic structures and institutions; on the contrary, such movements often led to the retrenchment of authoritarian patrimonialism. However, the emergence of social movements, together with independent newspapers and critical public opinion, contributed to the consolidation of the civil sphere’s communicative institutions. These institutions represented a path toward crystallizing the stances, passions, and interests of social actors who accepted themselves as part of a society, speaking in its name collectively. They allowed for the structuring of feelings in discourses that translated the binary codes of civil life into specific descriptions and evaluations of the meanings underpinning the transformation of the state and the economy, the persistence of patrimonial practices and those of the PRI regime, as well as the state of the democracy and its possible horizons for expansion. The expansion of the civil sphere’s institutions and the reconfiguration of patrimonial practices came with a significant increase in political violence. Even though reforms helped guarantee the vote and the operation of a party system, each municipal, state, or federal election during the Salinas de Gortari regime saw considerable conflict and violence (Cornelius, 1994).18 The political violence extended beyond the scope of the elections 18  As the PRD stated, from the start of the sexenio and up to 1993, the count of dead militants rose to at least 250, all of them as the result of electoral or post-electoral struggles over

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themselves: peasant and indigenous leaders were assassinated, and peasant and indigenous organizations were systematically harassed and attacked by police, the military, and paramilitary structures.19 Further, the economic liberalization process contributed to strengthening organized crime and the propagation of the violence linked to this activity (Shelley, 2001; Andreas, 1999). At the beginning of the 1990s, groups linked to drug trafficking acquired unprecedented influence (Del Ponte, 1999; Winer, 2001). As Astorga (1995) has pointed out, criminal groups linked to drug trafficking developed very closely with and from the state in Mexico. The state generated rules of the game that allowed drug trafficking to function with some autonomy. However, economic liberalization and the fading of the state allowed these rules to become relativized, propitiating and increasing violent confrontations among criminal groups, even though the state did not entirely lose control over drug trafficking.20 Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo’s death on May 23, 1993 engendered the feeling that the violence of drug trafficking had reached worrisome levels.21 Posadas was assassinated in the airport of Guadalajara when processes characterized by irregularities and fraud (Laurell, 1992). According to a report by Zamarripa et al. (1994), in the five years of the Salinas de Gortari government, 89 cases of violence were recorded in the context of electoral battles, mainly because of the presence of actions dedicated to altering the results when the vote did not favor the PRI.  The most emblematic cases took place in the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán, Estado de México, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Nayarit, Puebla, Veracruz, Chiapas, Hidalgo, Tabasco, Sinaloa, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. The government announced that the violence was generated by the opposition parties’ inability to win the elections democratically, while the opposition held that the fraudulent acts and political intimidation on the part of the government and the official party ended up as a breeding ground for the violence to skyrocket. 19  Between 1989 and 1992, the Miguel Antonio Pro Human Rights Center documented 279 assassinations of peasant and indigenous leaders. Over this same period, they recorded 8032 violations against peasant organizations and communities, 1349 arbitrary arrests, 166 cases of torture, and 203 assassinations. Perhaps one of the most significant events occurred in 1991, when 700 police officers violently attacked an indigenous caravan in Chiapas. Several of those interventions, which sometimes included military personnel, were linked to the power mobilized by the regional caciques who—as Ferreyra and Segura (2000) have suggested—wanted to claim or insure large extensions of land or greater political power. 20  Cities such as Guadalajara, Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and Matamoros, among others, became areas where there were continuous confrontations between criminal bands or groups and public security forces. 21  The cardinal was an important figure not only in the Catholic hierarchy, as the vice-­ president of the Mexican Episcopate Conference, as well as of the Latin American Episcopate Council; he had also played a pivotal role in the restitution of the relations between Mexico

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he was on his way to pick up Girolamo Prigione, the Vatican´s Apostolic Nuncio. According to the authorities from the federal government, the cardinal died in the crossfire during an exchange between two rival drug trafficking groups. For ecclesiastic authorities, the death of the cardinal was a state crime perpetrated by military and police forces. The Catholic Church issued a communiqué through the Episcopate’s Social Pastoral Commission, in which it stated that “drug trafficking has been bought or become associated with a significant number of public officials and the military” (González, 1996, p. 86). Although public opinion had shared this view for several years, as González (1996) has noted, it was significant that the Church would actually publish such a diagnosis, namely, that it would not be possible to contain the violence without transforming the country’s political apparatus. The Mexican Catholic Church thus joined social associations, newspapers, and radio in the accusations concerning the links between the government and criminal groups and their shared responsibility for the escalating violence. A series of criticisms leveled at the government emerged, but, as time passed, they lost strength. They did not condense into concrete semantics on violence, as in 1994 with the Zapatista National Liberation Army’s (EZLN) uprising and the assassinations of Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, the PRI’s candidate for the presidency, and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, secretary-general of the same party.

At the End of the Sexenio The reforms in the state and economic spheres, the expansion of the civil sphere, and the persistence of customary and authoritarian rules during the first half of the 1990s generated a series of tensions in the country’s social and institutional life. These tensions crystallized in debates over the effects of a technocratic view of government, market liberalization, the privatization of public enterprises, the end of the agricultural land distribution, and the prevalence of a system governed by a patrimonial structure, whose center of gravity was the president of the republic. Debates from both sides took place in newspapers and radio, and polls worked as a thermometer to measure citizen opinions on an issue and evaluate the administration’s performance. In Mexican society, different groups that and the Vatican. He promoted the canonization of the martyrs from the Cristero war, and a shrine dedicated to them.

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felt the state and economic transformation, or on the contrary, the paralysis in the change of the political system and the delay in democratic reforms, affected interests, identities, solidarity, and horizons of social inclusion, while simultaneously facilitating violence. It was also the case that when political parties managed to condense collective aspirations, they created spaces for civil and regional power, with civil society organizing competitive political campaigns and defending their vote. The Zapatista uprising and the assassination of the PRI’s presidential candidate and secretary-general evidenced all these tensions in a particularly significant way. They became a sort of social drama through which society read itself while establishing judgments oriented at understanding and signifying it. The causes of violence were read within the framework of actions performed by the government during the five years of the Salinas de Gortari presidency and the things it stopped doing or prevented from being accomplished. Efforts to redefine the logic of the non-civil spheres of the state and the economy and the reinforcement of patrimonial presidentialism that propelled the Salinas de Gortari regime and its ideology were interpreted both as destructive intrusions and as inputs that facilitated civil life. The reform undertaken by the state implied a bureaucratic organization oriented by a series of technocratic regulations. The patrimonial regime reinforced the logic of the official party’s force, authority, and power, and the coercive control of certain social groups; in the economy, the regime imposed mechanisms for hierarchization, efficiency, and productivity. The civil sphere evaluated these non-civil logics as actions that sought to either purify or pollute political and social institutions or, alternatively, as bearers of universal values or group interests. Thus, the two stances were in favor or against the moral projects condensed for the construction of society.

The Semantics of Violence in Mexico The emergence of the EZLN and the assassinations of PRI presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, and the party’s secretary-­ general, Francisco Ruiz Massieu, were signified as expressing the effects and resistance to changes that, for some, implied the civil transformation of the country and, for others, represented the breakdown of the old patrimonial order and its forms of social solidarity and inclusion. These violent deeds opened a debate over signifying their causes, actors, and possible solutions by the Mexican patrimonial and civil camps.

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The patrimonial and civil spheres translated the violent events that had emerged in 1994 as a result of the so-called neoliberal economic and political modernization process consolidated during the Salinas de Gortari government. The two camps concluded that modernization had transformed the patrimonial and civil norms and rules, which generated the conditions for the emergence of violence. Thus, both the patrimonial and civil camps saw the violence as a necessary and sometimes inevitable means to confront the effects of neoliberalism. However, they differed in their delineation of the possible culprits of the violence. On the one hand, the patrimonial and civil camps pointed at the technocrats, accusing them of establishing a new authoritarian regime to take their neoliberal project to its ultimate consequences. On the other hand, the old political elites were blamed for wishing to re-establish the battered patrimonial regime. Finally, some voices pointed to specific civil society sectors using violence to accelerate the democratic transition. Although the patrimonial and civil camps pointed to the same actors, motives, and causes of the violence, they placed the exact causes, personalities, and motives within a different signification structure. Each camp interpreted the role of those affiliated to the patrimonial and civil codes, or those accused of fracturing either camp’s morals, differently. There is no doubt that the violence put both the continuity of the patrimonial regime and the strengthening of the nascent democracy at risk; both camps attempted to show they could guarantee their respective mechanisms for social integration and cohesion. However, when we analyze the semantics of the violence of both the Zapatista uprising and the deaths of Colosio Murrieta and Ruiz Massieu, we can understand how the patrimonial and civil camps declined the semantic evaluations of violence through the binary discourses that assigned civil membership, social inclusion, and solidarity. The patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence considered the Zapatista uprising and the assassinations of Colosio Murrieta and Ruiz Massieu pure and legitimate when financed by politicians, corporations, or social sectors seeking to overturn the country’s modernization process, maintain patrimonial negotiation relations, and sustain the coercive force of the president (see Table 3.1). In contrast, when the assumption was that the personal interests of politicians, technocrats, drug traffickers, and even foreign governments were behind the EZLN and the deaths of the prominent PRI members, they saw the violence as impure and illegitimate. These groups had made the most of the erosion of the

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Table 3.1  Patrimonial interpretations of violence Semantic evaluation Patrimonial Pure camp utilitarian

Impure utilitarian

Pure normative

Impure normative

Motives

Relations

Institutions

Sectorial and corporate political interests

Based on negotiation

Personal interests of politicians, technocrats, drug lords, or even foreign governments 1910 Revolution’s ideologies propelled by politicians, labor unions, and sectorial groups

Based on force and coercion

Embodying the coercive force of the presidential institution Personal and factious

Neoliberal or socialist ideology neoliberal propelled by technocrats, scholars, journalists, and priests

Based on individual and social competence or class struggle

Based on sectorial corporate and clientelist referents

Politically organized as an expression of the symbolic force of the president’s position Arbitrary and hierarchical

patrimonial structures due to modernization, imposing force and coercion to control the country’s institutions, and especially to dismantle presidential power. Thus, according to the patrimonial, utilitarian gaze, the only way to stop both pure and impure violence was to reverse the country’s modernization processes and encourage Salinas de Gortari to enforce the coercive powers of his office, even if it led to the suppression of nascent democratic institutions and practices. On the one hand, the patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of the violence believed the Zapatista violence, and the deaths of Colosio Murrieta and Ruiz Massieu, were pure and legitimate because the 1910 Revolution’s ideological principles had inspired these events. Revolutionary principles allowed for the maintenance of solidarities and justice based on sectorial and corporate ideals, while simultaneously enabling the institutions to revolve around the presidential figure as the symbolic center of unity and national politics. On the other hand, the patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence judged the

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indigenous uprising and the deaths of the PRI politicians impure and illegitimate because the neoliberal and socialist ideologies promoted by technocrats, intellectuals, academics, journalists, and even priests had inspired these acts of violence. According to this interpretation, the objective of these ideologies was to build relationships based on individual competition or the struggles of classes and institutions operating hierarchically and arbitrarily. Thus, the patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence evaluated the violence as both pure and impure, believing the only way to stop it was for Salinas de Gortari to utilize gravitational weight of the presidential office as a symbolic referent for the country’s political and social cohesion. According to the civil declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence (See Table  3.2), the Zapatista uprising, and Colosio Murrieta and Ruiz Massieu’s assassinations were pure and legitimate when the social actors (peasants, indigenous peoples, laborers, workers, marginalized urban groups) sought to establish relationships based on negotiating their interests through trustful criteria of competence, and institutions operating through fair, inclusive, and equitable regulation mechanisms. In contrast, they believed violence was impure and illegitimate when the personal Table 3.2  Civil interpretations of violence

Civil camp

Semantic evaluation

Motives

Pure utilitarian

Indigenous laborers, students, and marginalized urban group interests

Impure utilitarian

Pure normative Impure normative

Relations

Based on regulated negotiation by reliable competence criteria Personal interests of Based on politicians, technocrats, drug competence, traffickers, and even foreign collaboration, and governments individualism Democratic values and Based on open and principles propelled by civil reliable criticism society Patrimonial socialist and Based on loyalty, neoliberal values and deference, and principles propelled by conspiracy regime politicians, technocrats, guerrilla members, and theologians

Institutions Fair, inclusive, and equitable regulative media Personal, exclusive and hierarchical Impersonal and inclusive Arbitrary and hierarchical

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interests of politicians, technocrats, and drug traffickers seeking to establish competency relations based on criteria of disloyalty, collaboration, and individualism, taking advantage of the processes of neoliberal modernization and the erosion of the patrimonial regime, were behind the EZLN and the deaths of the prominent PRI members. Moreover, according to this interpretation, these personal interests were meant to profile personal, discriminatory, and hierarchical institutions. Thus, the utilitarian civil gaze evaluated the violence as both pure and impure and believed the only way to stop it was halting the effects of the neoliberal modernization process and establishing norms and institutions to regulate the interests of citizens, groups, and corporate sectors. The civil declination of the normative semantics of violence interpreted the Zapatista uprising and the Colosio Murrieta and Ruiz Massieu assassinations as pure and legitimate because civil society had activated them and the democratic principles and values intended to build social relations based on criticism, open and trustful, as well as impersonal and inclusive institutions, ruled by the law, inspired them. However, on the other hand, they considered the violence impure and illegitimate because they believed patrimonial, neoliberal, and socialist principles, set forth either by the old politicians of the regime, technocrats, or guerillas and liberation theologians, had inspired the EZLN and the deaths of the PRI politicians. According to this perspective, both groups sought to establish relationships based on loyalty, deference, and conspiracy or to consolidate the free market and competition as forms of social relations and institutions that operate arbitrarily. Therefore, the civil declination of the normative semantics of violence reflected the belief that the only way to stop the violence, either pure or impure, was accelerating the democratic transition and leaving behind the neoliberal and patrimonial principles and values. The competition between the patrimonial and the civil camps over the signification and control of violence confronted two distinct projects of citizen solidarity and inclusion. First, the patrimonial camp argued that Mexico needed to sustain and reinforce its patrimonial institutions in the face of violence. According to this camp, the country was not ready for democracy, and the 1994 eruption of political violence provided clear evidence. For this reason, they call for the reinforcement of the coercive and symbolic force of the presidential office as a referent for the country’s political unity. On the other hand, the civil camp suggested that to exit the spiral of violence, access to democracy, translated as a series of rules for citizen coexistence and ideals of solidarity and civil inclusion, should be

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accelerated. Furthermore, according to this camp, dismantling the patrimonial system should be hastened since it had shown it was incapable of guaranteeing the country’s unity. Therefore, to end the patrimonial regime, it was necessary to significantly weaken the material and symbolic force of the presidential office. For the patrimonial and civil camps, the presidential figure was the center around which a large part of the dispute on the meaning of violence revolved and created tension. However, some voices in the patrimonial and civil camps interpreted the gravitational axis of the presidential office as indispensable to guarantee the regime’s political stability and, paradoxically, as a critical piece of the design for a peaceful transition to democracy. Some voices within the civil camp believed the presidency’s symbolic weight was not necessarily a destructive intrusion of the civil order but rather a facilitating input for democratic institutions. For some agents in the patrimonial camp, it was undoubtedly unavoidable that the country would transit to democracy in the future; hence, the symbolic strength of the president was, up to a point, needed to supervise the process of building democratic institutions, practices, and solidarity. As we will see in the following chapters, the patrimonial and civil camps did not just define a competition for the meaning of the violence; they also intertwined meanings from culturally different horizons.

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CHAPTER 4

The Indigenous Revolt

This chapter analyzes how the patrimonial and civil camps fought over the meaning of the Zapatista uprising and how both horizons of meaning pointed at causes, possible persons responsible for the revolt, and the path toward re-establishing order and ensuring better living conditions for indigenous peoples. The dispute over the signification of the Zapatista violence unfolded as a drama in two acts. The first act began with the Zapatista National Liberation Army’s (EZLN) insurrection and the state’s military response. It ended with the president’s proposal to seek alternatives for dialogue with the insurgents. During this act, some voices suggested that people foreign to the indigenous communities had financed and headed the EZLN. In the meantime, others asserted that the uprising was an expression of indigenous aspirations toward social justice and democracy. The second act started when the president declared a unilateral ceasefire and named a peace commission, ending with the EZLN willing to enter into dialogue with the government. This process was interpreted as an opportunity to rewrite the norms of the post-revolution regime and as a sign of the acceleration in the country’s democratic transition. Thus, the patrimonial and civil camps declined the semantic evaluations of the violence into binary discourses that assigned civil membership, inclusion, and solidarity for indigenous peoples, guerilla members, and civil and political authorities.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Arteaga Botello, Semantics of Violence, Cultural Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94695-1_4

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First Act: The Zapatista Revolt President Salinas de Gortari ended 1993 with what he saw as good news. The US Congress had approved the North American Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, the United States, and Canada, which would come into effect on January 1, 1994. The second piece of good news was that Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta became his successor for the August 21, 1994, elections,1 initiating the presidential succession cycle. Salinas de Gortari had used the attributions of his office to appoint the person who would take his place for the following six years.2 At the public announcement of his candidacy, Colosio Murrieta declared that he represented the generation for change that Salinas de Gortari had spearheaded. As Colosio Murrieta stated, the president was “responsible for the great reforms in the country to the point that he reformed the Mexican Revolution.” When he defined his profile, Colosio Murrieta pointed out he was an example of the “hard work culture” of those who had advanced thanks to their work and not their family relations or links with power.3 With this speech, Colosio Murrieta attempted to show that although his nomination as a candidate resulted from the rules of the patrimonial regime, he had made a place for himself through his own merits, which meant he belonged to a generation based on principles considered pure by the civil camp: an autonomous person forging open, critical, and lawful relationships. Deep down, however, Colosio Murrieta acknowledged his nomination had occurred due to the regime’s rules of the game. Colosio Murrieta’s appointment bothered the Head of the Department of the Federal District, Camacho Solis, who made his disagreement with the appointment a matter of public record when he openly refused to congratulate Colosio Murrieta. Historically, the election of a president’s successor generated friction within the political class. However, the regime politically rewarded those not appointed as presidential candidates as long as they accepted their defeat and openly supported the nominated candidate. Salinas de Gortari did not follow this rule, and abstained from penalizing Camacho Solis’s behavior, instead naming him the foreign secretary. 1  Previously, Colosio Murrieta was representative, senator, and party president for the PRI (1988–1992), as well as Social Development Secretary (1992–1993). 2  Treasury Secretary Pedro Aspe Armella, and Head of the Department of the Federal District Manuel Camacho Solís were out of the presidential race. 3  See: IVCAPE24 (2012).

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The political class did not consider Camacho Solis’s critical posture, and his appointment as foreign secretary were serious issues. According to those in power, the country was firmly headed toward another win for the PRI in the presidential election. The start of 1994 would turn everything on its head. On January 1, 1994, at around midnight, an indigenous armed group, many of them wearing ski masks, took hold of several towns in Chiapas.4 In San Cristóbal de las Casas, Subcomandante Marcos read what he called the Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.5 In this declaration, the EZLN sketched out a country forged by the confrontation between the social forces of civil virtue—qualified as pure—and those of civil vice, considered impure. The former had struggled in favor of independence in 1810, against the US (1846) and French (1862) invasions, and had started the 1910 Revolution. According to the EZLN, the same people were “dying of hunger and curable diseases” but, above all, did not have the right to “freely and democratically elect their authorities.” Further, the people who went against independence, sold half of the country’s territory to the United States, and attempted to install a foreign emperor during the French intervention represented the forces of civil vice. For the EZLN, these forces had set the stage for a “more than 70-year dictatorship headed by the PRI.” The EZLN assumed the role of an armed movement representing Mexicans who incarnated civil virtues. Appealing to an article in the 1917 Constitution that synthesized the aspirations of the 1910 Revolution, it claimed in the declaration that “the people at all times have the inalienable right to alter or modify the shape of their government.” Thus, the EZLN warned, the armed uprising “adhered to constitutional rights and hoisted the banner of justice and freedom.” In this sense, the EZLN claimed legitimacy for its declaration of war against the Mexican Army, a “pillar of the dictatorship” under the command of its “top and illegitimate leader, Carlos Salinas de Gortari.” The EZLN declaration asked for the support of society to endorse “this plan of the Mexican people in their struggle for work, land, housing, food, health, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice, and peace.” 4  These incursions left twenty-four police officers dead. The rebels placed dynamite and detonators near the town of Comitán, and they kidnapped the ex-governor of Chiapas, Absalón Castellanos Dominguez. 5  See Enlace Zapatista (1994).

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In the EZLN’s words, the plan could be implemented by establishing a “free and democratic government.” For this reason, they promised that each time the EZLN liberated a community, it would allow the “liberated peoples to elect their administrative authorities freely and democratically.” The declaration ended by inviting the country’s judicial and legislative powers to join their struggle and restore the “legality and stability of the Nation by deposing the dictator.” In the days following the declaration, the government reacted to the revolt by attacking indigenous communities and urging the rebels to lay down their arms. Samuel Ruiz, the Bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas, accused the Mexican Army of executing, harassing, and torturing civilians (J.  C. Robles, 1994a). President Salinas de Gortari sent Jorge Carpizo, head of the National Human Rights Commission, to deal with the alleged military excesses in Chiapas. The government announced it would only halt the military offensive if the members of the EZLN surrendered unconditionally. The EZLN rejected the government’s proposal, arguing that it offered the rebels no political guarantees and did not resolve the issues of indigenous poverty and exclusion. In turn, Bishop Ruiz pointed out that the government’s proposal was not reasonable or feasible for resolving the conflict. He suggested that the government instead propose an amnesty law. After six days of the uprising, Salinas de Gortari sent a message to the country regarding the confrontation.6 In his speech, he assigned patrimonial virtues and vices to the insurgents based on their supposed ethnic and geographic origin. For the president, the indigenous peoples of Chiapas possessed the attributes of patrimonial virtues such as deference, respect, and submission to authority: they were peaceful, respectful of authority, hard-working, and they always collaborated with the government even though they had been “poor and marginalized for decades.” However, he warned that “outsiders,” alien to the indigenous peoples of Chiapas and outright foreigners, had unleashed violence in the region. Thus, the president assigned the attributes of patrimonial impurity to the foreigners because they were disrespectful of the presidential figure and the customary rules and norms. They were “professionals of violence,” Salinas de Gortari claimed, who had been rejected by the indigenous peoples because they knew the foreigners were “against Mexico.” Furthermore, he declared: “There is no indigenous uprising; they are people who 6

 See Aristegui Noticias (2013).

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threaten the peace and democracy Mexican had been building for so many years.” In this way, Salinas de Gortari offered those who had participated in the “violence because of their condition of poverty, deceit or desperation dignified treatment, respect for their human rights and a pardon if they lay down their weapons.” Thus, even though the president’s speech underscored dialogue and acknowledged the dignity and human rights of the indigenous peoples, suggesting they had the attributes of purity of the civil camp, at the same time, he highlighted that they had rebelled either because of their ignorance or because they had been deceived. According to a poll published by the newspaper Reforma the next day, 70 percent of respondents favored a peaceful solution in Chiapas, and 60 percent claimed the EZLN’s violence was a response to the poverty and structural violence experienced by the indigenous peoples. More than 48 percent criticized the actions of the Mexican Army (Cervantes, 1994a). Therefore, in the eyes of public opinion, the Zapatista movement was a reasonable and justified response by indigenous peoples to the political and economic violence they were suffering, so they urged the government to stop the actions of the army and aim its efforts at solving the social problems of indigenous communities. The critical postures taken against the government, bomb explosions in different parts of the country, tensions with the Catholic Church, as well as the call issued by civil associations to hold a national demonstration for peace, pressured the government of Salinas de Gortari to suggest the creation of a commission for dialogue with the EZLN. Bishop Ruiz, who also pledged to mediate the conflict, immediately supported this initiative (Mejido, 1994a). Thus, only eight days after the Zapatista revolt started, the government went from questioning the legitimacy and authenticity of the indigenous uprising to acknowledging its legitimate and authentic nature. Defying Patrimonialism The patrimonial camp interpreted the Zapatista armed uprising as resulting from the presence of social actors external to the indigenous communities that were manipulating them in favor of their own interests. For this camp, poverty and ignorance prevented the indigenous peoples from rationally articulating their demands, much less organizing an armed uprising. According to this interpretation, external actors made the most of this by organizing an armed uprising (Krauze, 1994). As a specialist in

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Mexican indigenous groups pointed out: “There are indigenous people tired of oppression in the revolt, but they are not the leaders” (Benítez, 1994b). Consequently, the interpretation from the patrimonial declination of the utilitarian and normative semantics concerning the EZLN raised several questions. Who had fractured patrimonial morals? How was it possible that the patrimonial institutions had not guaranteed mechanisms for social inclusion and solidarity? Moreover, in this context, how was it possible to halt the EZLN violence? In this way, for the two semantics in the patrimonial declination, the armed rebels had the motives, objectives, and means to establish rules for coexistence seeking to undermine the customary and patrimonial rules that had guaranteed the country’s political stability. The declination of utilitarian semantics considered the EZLN violence impure and illegitimate because political and organized crime interests were behind it, seeking to control the institutions making the most of the erosion of patrimonial structures through modernization. An interpretation within this declination suggested that the movement was precipitated and financed by the old PRI structures that sought to regain the privilege they had lost through the economic and political modernization process. In yet another interpretation, personal and group interests sought to impose their will beyond the patrimonial system. In the meantime, the patrimonial declination of normative semantics noted that the violence was impure or illegitimate because it was motivated by collectivist principles and values that endorsed non-reciprocal, distrustful, and critical relationships and institutions not based on tradition or sectorial and corporate agreements. Thus, for this interpretative declination, the EZLN was driven by ideologies that promoted constructing a society based on class struggle. Based on such an interpretation, the Zapatista rebellion was likely inspired by the principles and values of revolutionary socialism and liberation theology.7 Group Interests The patrimonial camp claimed the Zapatista violence was illegitimate because those heading the revolt were likely actors from outside the 7  Some interviews with indigenous insurgents in the conflict zone fed into these positions. The newspaper Excélsior published an interview with a member of the EZLN named Mariano who stated that “for more than 10 years, we’ve been preparing to eliminate capitalism and a long period of ignorance and poverty” (Berdejo, 1994a, 1994b).

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community, motivated by their ambition for economic power to satisfy their group or personal interests. The list included old politicians from the regime, opposition leaders, drug traffickers, professional guerilla fighters, mercenaries, and foreign entrepreneurs and governments. They were sometimes imagined as acting independently, but at other times, in coordination with each other. According to the utilitarian signification of violence, the actors had the impure attributes of the patrimonial camp: they were disloyal and inflexible concerning presidential authority—a referent for national identity—and the political regime’s customary rules. The objective was to undermine the regime’s effort to mediate social demands and establish negotiation mechanisms through force and coercion. This interpretive declination suggested that to face the insurgents, national or foreign, the president should restore order by applying the full force of the state, and clarifying the importance of all political actors that upheld the rules of the patrimonial game. As for the old politicians behind the EZLN, the patrimonial camp accused them of taking advantage of the precariousness of indigenous communities to convince them to take up arms. By inciting the indigenous peoples to express their demands for social justice through violence, the old politicians aimed at destabilizing the government to win back the privileges they had lost through the political and economic modernization process. Using violence, these politicians questioned what the patrimonial regime considered its most outstanding achievement of the past seven decades: the country’s peace and social stability. Thus, in this interpretation, the old politicians were assigned the impure attributes of the patrimonial camp, due to their disdain for the regime’s customary norms and the disloyalty they had shown toward the president’s authority, a vital piece of the post-revolutionary political picture. For example, the newspaper El Sol de México reported that the “federal government officials who feed arms to the guerilla are taking advantage of the misfortunes of the indigenous peoples’ experience. They are the old politicians who were displaced by the Harvard technocrats” (Noriega, 1994a). In other words, these politicians aimed at undermining the president’s modernization project and recovering their lost power.8 A columnist from Excelsior claimed that “the hunger of indigenous peoples makes them accompany the old politicians who incite them to revolt” (J.  Labastida, 1994c). A column in Reforma also warned: 8

 See articles by Chao (1994), Rentería (1994b), Barragán (1994b), and De Buen (1994).

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There are interest groups harmed by the reform politics of [Carlos Salinas de Gortari] behind the revolt. Therefore, the rebellion must be stopped, with respect for human rights [since] the objective of the EZLN is not military, but political: to create political uncertainty and economic instability. (J. Sánchez, 1994d)

In a column published by Excélsior, we can read the following comment: “The rebels are not alone; there is someone behind them seeking to blackmail power and remain unpunished” (Loret de Mola, 1994a, p. 17). The comment implies that the groups displaced by modernization meant to impose in the country a Central American-style guerrilla war to engage in politics. A column in El Sol de México similarly argued that the guerillas were “the result of a contagion of the way of doing politics and solving problems in Central America” (Fonseca, 1994). In this sense, they accused the old PRI politicians of using violence as a political negotiation strategy foreign to the customary rules and institutions established in the country. While the objective was to take back lost power, this declination suggested that the old politicians had decided to leave the patrimonial game and impose other rules in what could be considered a political game of chess. The patrimonial declination of utilitarian semantics also judged Zapatismo as illegitimate because Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, leaders of the PRD, were behind the movement. According to this declination, these two figures were motivated by their hunger for power. Therefore, they had financed the EZLN to guarantee an armed wing to pressure the government politically (D’Estrabau, 1994a). A column in El Sol de México pointed out that “the EZLN is a creation of the PRD, of Cuauhtémoc and Porfirio who pull the strings of Subcomandante Marcos” (D’Estrabau, 1994b). This narrative attempted to demonstrate that PRD leaders, who had been PRI militants, sought to again erode the rules of the post-revolutionary political regime as they did in 1987, when they opposed the appointment of Salinas de Gortari as the presidential candidate. For this interpretative declination, since they left the PRI, both Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and Porfirio Muñoz Ledo embodied the impure attributes of the patrimonial camp; they were disloyal and critical of presidential power. In addition, they had broken with the traditional rules of the post-revolutionary regime, particularly those regulating succession, all to achieve power and satisfy their personal and group interests. In the patrimonial declination of utilitarian semantics, the Zapatista violence was also considered illegitimate. Behind the uprising were drug

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traffickers wishing to expand the territory under their control to gain more economic resources; for this reason, they had financed the indigenous uprising.9 This move represented the first step toward establishing a parallel power solid enough to challenge the regime. The traffickers knew the presidential figure was an important referent for political unity and national cohesion, which is why they declared war directly against Salinas de Gortari to disrupt the patrimonial regime. As a columnist from Excélsior suggested: What happened in Chiapas is a synchronized action with the participation of over a thousand well-armed elements. Their communiqué demands the resignation of the federal government, but they are operated by the drugs lords and masters, who are seeking to destabilize the institutions. (J. Labastida, 1994c)

This interpretative declination speculated that drug traffickers had used the indigenous peoples, inciting them to violence and making the most of their precarious conditions to destabilize the regime’s institutions. Accordingly, it was evident that the Zapatista leaders lacked the attributes of purity of the patrimonial camp, such as sincerity, reciprocity, and deference regarding indigenous traditions. In contrast, drug traffickers, through deceit, disloyalty, and abuse, sought to benefit from depriving indigenous peoples to satisfy their greed for money. A column in El Sol de México proclaimed: [T]here is poverty in Chiapas, and the indigenous peoples are oppressed, but this is not enough to create a guerilla that requires money. This money comes from drug traffickers. Thus, the indigenous peoples are being used as cannon fodder by drug traffickers. (Gutiérrez, 1994a)

The patrimonial declination of utilitarian semantics also judged the Zapatista movement as illegitimate because it had the support of foreign professional guerilla fighters moved by an obsession with power. These fighters used violence to negotiate with political authorities to gain money and power. According to this interpretation, the professional guerillas had deceived the indigenous peoples by showing them they could express their 9  See, for example, J.  C. Robles (1994b), Cervantes (1994b), Loret de Mola (1994b), Bueno (1994b), M.  Robles (1994), E.  González (1994b), and “El abogado del pueblo” (1994a).

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demands through violence. One of the things that made this manipulation evident was the fact that the indigenous peoples had taken up arms when, historically, they had expressed their demands peacefully, creating self-­ defense communities (J. Labastida, 1994d; Martre 1994). In this interpretation, the most apparent sign of manipulation highlighted the fact that the leaders of the movement were white men, while the troops receiving the orders were indigenous (Rentería, 1994a). Thus, indigenous people were not leading the “guerrillas”; in fact, as a column in Excélsior asserted, they were “under the orders of commanders who have deified Sandino and Che” (Loret de Mola, 1994a, p. 17). By pointing out that it was white men who headed the movement, the patrimonial camp sought to demonstrate the impure nature of these leaders: they were alien to the traditional forms of negotiation that indigenous communities had established with the post-revolutionary regime. Another indication of their impurity was that they did not speak Spanish. While one part of the EZLN spoke German, English, French, and Spanish fluently and covered their faces, others spoke: “as if reciting, and did not cover their faces” (Berdejo, 1994d). This declination argued that people who hide their faces behind ski masks are not honest because they cannot be physically located, they do not have a name, and there is no way of knowing their history and the political interests that move them. This lack of information was an obstacle to straightforward negotiation within the rules of the post-revolutionary regime, in which reciprocity and deference to authority have a positive value. When they hid behind masks, the guerillas showed disrespect, disloyalty, and discourtesy to the authorities, embodying attributes the patrimonial camp considered impure.10 A column in El Sol de México pointed out that it was necessary to acknowledge “that there is inequality and poverty in Chiapas, but also ill intentions and dishonesty from professional guerilla fighters and people from the clergy” (J. C. Robles, 1994a). In Reforma, a columnist warned that the Zapatista revolt was “the violence of the poor and the socially and politically humiliated, responding to silent structural violence imposed 10  In the following years, one of the government’s objectives was to give Subcomandante Marcos a face, a name, and a history, to help establish the political group with which he was linked. They alleged his name was Rafael Sebastían Guillén, hailing from a family of outstanding PRI militants from the state of Tamaulipas. Some believed Subcomandante Marcos was not a man, but a woman behaving as a man, “a tomboy, because she’s smooth-faced, like the tomboys from the Red Brigades in Germany” (Paniagua García, 1994), who operated directly in Mexico together with the Colombian guerilla forces (Paniagua Arredondo, 1994b).

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upon societies by the economy and politics. Therefore, the indigenous revolt cannot be justified, but it can be understood” (Barahona, 1994). This interpretation suggested the EZLN could not be a truly popular movement, “since in the 1991 local elections 88% of the indigenous peoples and peasants voted for the PRI” (F.  Moreno, 1994). It was hardly credible that the indigenous peoples had organized a revolution when, just three years before, they had widely supported the PRI. Thus, the guerillas and Catholic theologians had deceived the indigenous peoples, using them as military assets to achieve their political objectives and ends. For other voices from within this utilitarian declination, the EZLN violence was illegitimate because old politicians from the regime, Central American guerillas, and co-aligned left-wing groups were behind it. The first were motivated by recovering their lost canonries, the second by influencing national politics, and the third by their anti-globalism (H. Delgado, 1994). This interpretation highlighted the supposed intention of these actors to create, at the cost of death among the indigenous peoples, spaces of power that would allow the indigenous to access political and economic resources. This declination denounced that the leaders of the guerilla forces were self-interested and ambitious politicians that belonged to the PRI, with attributes of impurity of the patrimonial camp, led by the interests of their group outside the clientelist and sectorial mechanisms of corporatism. Such an interpretation was evident in a column in El Sol de México: “[T]he indigenous peoples were deceived by the skillful minds of PRI members who resent Colosio’s appointment, ex-­ guerrilla fighters from Guatemala, together with left-wing groups who do not want [Mexico] to enter the Free Trade Agreement with the United States” (Chao, 1994). This declination further suggested the EZLN was illegitimate because foreign entrepreneurs and governments financed the revolt to prevent Mexico’s entry into NAFTA. Therefore, these actors were not only motivated by debilitating the rules of the regime, but they also represented a threat to the country’s integrity and sovereignty. They were enemies of the nation that, by defying presidential authority, were questioning the national identity crystallized in the person of the president, who also incarnated the institutionalization of social demands and operated as the center of national politics and unity. A columnist from El Universal claimed: “The EZLN has been financed by the money and arms of American entrepreneurs to prevent the country from achieving its full development by

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becoming part of the most significant market and economy in the world” (Borrell, 1994a). The supposed objective of these foreign groups was to condemn the country to regression and backwardness (De la Garza, 1994a). Some alleged that US multimillionaire Ross Perot and US unions had supplied large amounts of money to arm the Chiapas guerillas and pressure the US Congress into not ratifying NAFTA (Haas, 1994). According to this interpretative declination, foreign groups sought to destabilize the country to prevent NAFTA from affecting their economic interests. These actors were seen as impure figures within the patrimonial field since they were moved by self-interest and an ambition that had no respect for the rules of national political tradition. Some columnists speculated that Israel and the Middle East had financed the indigenous revolt with the same purpose: to stop NAFTA and Mexico’s development (Berdejo, 1994d). In Excélsior, a few columnists reported that certain countries had created an alliance of “foreign powers” to justify a military invasion and take over Chiapas (Del Río, 1994). Some pointed directly at the CIA and the FBI, saying they were ready to invade the country (Sayago, 1994). Others even accused foreign forces of financing and manipulating the EZLN. As a columnist from Excélsior commented: North Korea, Cuba, and Chinese Maoism are behind the EZLN. Together with Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Muñoz Ledo, and the PRD, and influenced by Peru’s Shining Path, [they are all] working together with South American drug traffickers—especially Colombian traffickers—who have equipped them and instructed them in Leninist-Marxism to end Salinas de Gortari’s project for economic and political transformation. (Paniagua Arredondo, 1994a)

This patrimonial declination outlined the need for the president to leave no doubt about the regime’s power, authority, and capacity to uphold order and the political control of the country, in the face of the threat represented by the foreign and national actors behind the EZLN. The president should use his powers to repress the armed uprising (D’Estrabau, 1994a), and “not leave any foreign mercenary alive because they use the indigenous peoples to satisfy their miserable interests” (Urostegui, 1994). According to this interpretation, if the EZLN declared war on the army and the president, they should be eliminated by the full force of the law (Michelena, 1994). Salinas de Gortari should not offer

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amnesty to the rebels since they had started a war and they should pay for it (Rentería, 1994c). Ideological Manipulation The patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence accused the Zapatistas of illegitimacy because guerilla fighters and followers of liberation theology backed it, motivated by their dogmas, indoctrinating the monolingual, miserable, and ignorant indigenous communities. The objective was to convince the indigenous peoples that violence was the only path to end their marginalization. Moreover, according to this declination, the Zapatista actors had the impure attributes of the patrimonial camp; they spread ideas opposed to the discourse of revolutionary nationalism, in which the president had incarnated the institutionalization of the demands of the 1910 Revolution through a corporate and clientelist system. Thus, the violence promoted by guerillas and liberation theologists could be framed as an expression alien to so-called national values. By alleging that guerillas and Catholic theologians had successfully spread their ideas among indigenous communities, this declination suggested that the poverty and ignorance these communities lived in rendered them incapable of expressing a critical position in the face of indoctrination (C.  Rodríguez, 1994b; Todd, 1994). Furthermore, the indigenous peoples were incapable of expressing their demands in proper Spanish (Vallarta, 1994a; “Entrevista. Eloy Cantú Segovia,” 1994). Thus, this interpretative declination asserted that guerilla fighters and theologians had spread their dogmas among illiterate indigenous peoples (J.  Labastida, 1994c; Martre, 1994), so they would take up arms but ignore what they were fighting against (Anda, 1994). Such an argument underscored that indigenous peoples were incapable of thinking for themselves, dependent, irrational, and ignorant, all of which were attributes of patrimonial impurity that justified the exclusion of marginalized groups from political decisions. According to this interpretation, the guerilla leaders used the indigenous peoples as “cannon fodder” (Rentería, 1994a; M.  Moya, 1994b). Liberation theology catechists and the guerillas had convinced the indigenous that, as Karl Marx believed, “violence is the midwife of history” (Tirado, 1994). However, none of the guerilla leaders had been straightforward with the indigenous peoples because violence would only bring about a war whose ravages they would later have to manage (Guzmán, 1994). Unfortunately, according to this interpretative declination, the war

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would collapse the government’s work in Chiapas in the last few years. As an Excélsior column explained: [T]he peasants had understood the government was finally supporting them. The government already offered patience, understanding, and tolerance to the poor, humiliated, and ignorant. The government was finally offering an apparent charity when the dead ideology of Marxism came to spoil everything. (Paniagua Arredondo, 1994b, p. 5)

The normative patrimonial declination evaluated the Zapatista revolt as illegitimate and saw two possible ways of coping with indigenous violence. On the one hand, the conditions that propitiated the ideological and religious indoctrination could be ameliorated. In this sense, they had to dispossess the indigenous peoples from the primordial characteristics that kept them outside the patrimonial model of virtue, namely, being respectful and deferent before authority, capable of working and obeying. This interpretative declination suggested it was necessary to forbid the sale and consumption of alcohol by indigenous peoples and, instead, teach them a trade that was productive for society (Benítez, 1994a). Further, it was indispensable to provide them with a solid educational basis. A columnist from La Jornada pointed out that “the problem amongst indigenous peoples is the lack of education and the intervention of the different churches amongst the indigenous peoples” (Gordillo, 1994). If offered education, in fact, the indigenous peoples would understand the benefits of NAFTA (C. Rodríguez, 1994b). Therefore, based on this interpretative perspective, indigenous peoples could only participate in politics if they were educated enough to reason, make decisions based on patrimonial principles and values, and thus avoid deception. Accordingly, the president should demonstrate his intention to place the indigenous peoples “on the bus of progress and development” (Salomón, 1994), ending the conditions of structural and political violence that kept them under submission.11 On the other hand, the state’s paternalistic nature could be activated before the indigenous communities. First, it was necessary to show the indigenous people who joined the guerilla forces that they were wrong, convincing them that violence would lead nowhere (Ávila, 1994). Second, it was necessary to halt the military intervention—especially the bombings 11  See, for example, Cabrera (1994a, 1994b), Blanco (1994a), Granados (1994a), L. García (1994g), G. García (1994a), and De la Peña (1994b).

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in communities—to protect the indigenous civilian population (L. García, 1994h). Third, a discussion table headed personally by the president should be established (Vega, 1994a). For this interpretative gaze, Salinas de Gortari could demonstrate that he might choose to use military violence legally against the insurgents but, instead, he was willing to engage in dialogue (A.  Díaz, 1994a). To do so, he would have to restrain the groups within the government who sought to repress the rebels and seek a negotiated solution to the war (Nava, 1994; J.  J. González, 1994d). From this position, the president should activate decidedly the pure elements of the patrimonial code: a discretionary and benevolent application of the law to the indigenous peoples who had broken it by mistake, and reinforce that reciprocity, trust, and deference toward authority were more critical for the regime than the punishment of the rebels. The Civil Character of the Indigenous Violence The civil camp interpreted the armed Zapatista uprising as a necessary response to the margination and exploitation of indigenous peoples. For this camp, the conditions of poverty and domination the indigenous peoples suffered had reached a point in which the only way out was armed violence. This generated a reading from the camp of utilitarian and normative semantics around the EZLN to identify the following: Who had fractured civil morals? How was it possible that civil institutions did not guarantee mechanisms of social inclusion and solidarity for indigenous peoples? And perhaps most importantly, in this context, how could the EZLN’s violence be stopped? According to the civil camp, those who had decided to take up arms had the motives, objectives, and means to establish civil rules of coexistence that would guarantee competence, equity, and fair, inclusive, and impersonal institutions. For the utilitarian semantics of the civil framework, this led to two interpretations: the first considered that the movement expressed the aspirations of the indigenous peoples to establish fair and adequate negotiation rules before the regime; the second suggested the president was behind the indigenous mobilization, seeking to destabilize the country and stop democratic progress through the EZLN. On the one hand, the civil declination of normative semantics suggested the indigenous rebellion sought to establish universalizing civil principles and values to guarantee open, critical, and trustful relationships, as well as institutions that worked impersonally and inclusively under the rule of law. On the other hand, however, there was also

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the suggestion that the rebellion was possibly driven by patrimonial, neoliberal, and socialist principles and values.  esistance in the Face of Exclusion and Domination R The civil declination of utilitarian semantics considered the Zapatista uprising legitimate because it was a natural response to the historical conditions of social domination and exclusion in Chiapas. According to this reading, these conditions generated processes of inequality,12 misery and exploitation,13 discrimination and injustice,14 a lack of democracy and political freedoms,15 as well as local cacicazgos.16 Therefore, the indigenous peoples themselves were behind the EZLN violence, motivated by seeking changes in the structural violence perpetrated against them and establishing more symmetrically regulated relationships between the different social groups.17 From this position, the violence was considered a valuable and justified means to which the indigenous peoples had resorted, aiming at halting the domination and social exclusion they were suffering. As a columnist from El Universal stated: “We can condemn the violence of the EZLN and the indigenous peoples, but we cannot condemn the violence of the caciques and the groups of power in Chiapas. It has been called ancestral, so the current government can attempt to avoid its responsibility” (R. Moya, 1994a). This declination saw the indigenous rebels as actors with the attributes of civil purity: they were autonomous figures who, through deliberative processes and in a condition of freedom, opted for violence in the face of the structural violence they had been suffering. As a column in La Jornada noted: “[T]he causes are in the violence of all kinds exercised by the government and the desperation of organized civil society” (P.  Gómez,  Bueno (1994a), R. Moreno (1994a), Suárez (1994a), and Bartolomé (1994).  Noriega (1994a), Herrera (1994a), Ávila (1994), R. Calvillo (1994b), Pradilla (1994), and Kraus (1994). 14  Tenorio (1994) and Cazés (1994). 15  D’Estrabau (1994a), Aziz (1994a), Bolaños (1994b), Cremoux (1994a), Tovar (1994) and Del Castillo (1994a). 16   J.  J. González (1994f), Montemayor (1994), Stavenhagen (1994a), R.  Delgado (1994b), Olimon (1994b), Castillo (1994a), Álvarez (1994), J. González (1994d), Jardon (1994b), M. R. Montenegro (1994b), Enríquez (1994), Rabassa (1994) and García de León (1994). The “cacique” is a person who exercises authoritarian and paternalistic political power in the life of a community or territory. Cacicazgos are the territories that caciques command. 17  Zamarripa (1994), J.  A. Ortiz (1994b), C.  González (1994c) and “Guerrilla temporal” (1994). 12 13

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1994a). According to this interpretative declination, the context of exploitation pushed the indigenous peoples to organize autonomously without help from external actors (Rentería, 1994e). In this regard, a columnist from Excélsior pointed out: [T]he uprising cannot be seen as the product of foreign or alien hands, much less of professionals of violence. They are not deceived indigenous people. No agitator’s discourse can take root if there is social well-being and respect for human and political rights. (Del Castillo, 1994b)

A column from El Sol de México expressed the same opinion: “[P]overty is responsible [for the indigenous uprising]; it is the product of an imbalance in national development” (M.  A. Orozco, 1994a). Consequently, this interpretative declination criticized the positions that claimed external social actors had used the peasant communities to further their own interests. According to this interpretation, whoever denied the autonomy and critical capacity of the indigenous peoples was attempting to contaminate the movement to justify military repression. A columnist from La Jornada stated that “in society, there is extreme dissatisfaction because of poverty, the deterioration of the environment, and authoritarianism, but the government is contaminating the [Zapatista] movement to repress it” (Aguayo, 1994a). However, as a column in Reforma warned, “[M]isery, exploitation, and injustice have detonated the indigenous revolts and not foreigners or dark hands” (López, 1994). In other words, the indigenous peoples could understand their situation critically and had, as a consequence, decided to take up arms to demand better living conditions. This gaze saw them as autonomous, rational actors capable of deliberation concerning how to build institutions that were inclusive, equitable, and governed by rules. The same interpretative declination argued that the neoliberal modernization process promoted by Salinas de Gortari had triggered unrest among the indigenous peoples.18 In this interpretation, the rebellion articulated the disillusionment of those marginalized and excluded by the country’s economic change,19 especially the neoliberal policies imposed by the federal government.20 Ultimately, neoliberal policies had altered the  J. C. Robles (1994a), Arizpe (1994), and Bustamante (1994).  D. Orozco (1994b), C. Fuentes (1994a), and Faesler (1994a). 20  Vázquez (1994), Herrera (1994b), Conchello (1994), Méndez (1994a), Montes (1994a, 1994b), and Gershenson (1994). 18 19

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ancestral forms of indigenous life linked to communal ownership of the land.21 The peasants were sure the government would not apply the law to defend them or protect their lands and interests (Salazar, 1994). The utilitarian declination read the Zapatista revolt as an expression of the exhaustion of institutional channels to solve social conflicts. As a columnist from La Jornada asserted, “[T]he revolt is the result of peasant distrust. This is what started the rebellion because there is no longer any trust in having legal support against the expropriation of lands, political domination, and exploitation” (O.  Rodríguez, 1994c). This interpretation stressed the capacity of indigenous peoples to analyze their own reality, and the problems and effects of the neoliberal project on land ownership. Thus, according to this declination, the elements of civil purity allowed them to become organized to face the conditions of domination that subjugated them. The civil declination of utilitarian semantics also considered the Zapatista revolt legitimate because it was a response to the domination by the PRI the indigenous peoples in Chiapas had suffered for years (Bátiz, 1994b; H.  Labastida, 1994a). Therefore, “[T]he Chiapas uprising was how the indigenous judged over seventy years of a so-called revolutionary PRI government, who were now playing the sorcerer’s apprentices of neoliberalism” (De Juambelz, 1994). The indigenous peoples had taken up arms to defend themselves against this power. Their organizational response was justified because they lived as if they were in the US state of Alabama in the 1950s.22 Therefore, violence was the only recourse for defending themselves (De la Peña, 1994a). If, in Chiapas, people lived in apartheid, this interpretative declination emphasized that violence was justified. This interpretation posited violence as the only way out of a space of exclusion and racial discrimination fostered by the PRI governments (P.  Gómez, 1994b); the Zapatista revolt was the result of social actors mobilizing with the attributes of civil purity. It was proof of an awakening concerning historic and recent exploitation. The indigenous peoples freely and autonomously decided to use violence to present a reasonable and realistic political project that could satisfy their demands for social justice. To stop the potential spiral of violence, the civil declination that legitimized the Zapatista movement demanded a stop to the bombings conducted by the Mexican Army (Ortega, 1994a); instead, the army should create a dialogue team to engage with the EZLN and establish a peace  Castillo (1994b), Del Castillo (1994a), G. García (1994a), and Hernández (1994b).  Vázquez (1994), Knochenhauer (1994a) and Restrepo (1994).

21 22

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agreement (Stavenhagen, 1994b). According to this position, this team should include not only the EZLN but a significant number of actors, directly and indirectly involved in the conflict, such as the Evangelical and Catholic Churches, political parties, and peasant associations, and even business owners and traders (F. Díaz, 1994b). The objective should be, the Reforma declared, “stopping the war in Chiapas because violence is ethically inadmissible since it situates the population at a disadvantage, above all the indigenous population” (Granados, 1994b). This interpretative perspective highlighted all political actors as civilians, acknowledging their autonomy and ability to offer reasonable and realistic arguments about achieving peace. It also suggested that these actors could establish open, critical, sincere, and trustful relationships and build institutions governed by inclusive and equitable rules. For this declination, all the political and social actors possessed these civil attributes. At the same time, however, the civil declination of utilitarian semantics considered the Zapatista revolt illegitimate, accusing Salinas de Gortari of financing the EZLN. According to this interpretation, the head of state had financed the indigenous rebels to destroy the rules of the regime and create a new Maximato, as General Elías Calles had done in the 1920s. According to this declination, Salinas de Gortari intended to create a political crisis to justify declaring a state of emergency and cancel the elections, opening the possibility of prolonging his government indefinitely (Rivera, 1994). Ultimately, Salinas de Gortari was a direct threat to democratic transition. As a columnist from the newspaper El Universal noted: We do not know if the government committed an act of prudence or complicity in the emergence of the EZLN since they knew what was happening in Chiapas and did nothing. On the contrary, it was all done so Salinas could declare a state of emergency in the country, canceling the elections and prolonging his presidency beyond six years. (Medina, 1994)

According to this interpretative declination, based on such claims, the president represented the impure values of the civil camp. He was a figure moved by passion, self-interest, and greed for power. Because of this, he had incited an armed conspiracy that sought to generate confusion and fear. Consequently, the president would be able to prolong his power indefinitely and establish institutions around himself, with followers that were loyal to his person and not to the presidential office. According to this interpretation, violence had been the president’s most effective

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resource for reaching this objective since he could justify merging his person with the attributes of the office, as General Calles had done during the Maximato period between 1928 and 1934, arguing this would guarantee the country’s peace and stability.  Democratic Project A The civil declination of normative semantics considered the Zapatista violence illegitimate because those behind it were guerillas and Catholic theologians motivated by political ideologies, seeking to unleash a socialist revolution through the indoctrination of poor and ignorant indigenous groups. This declination noted it was easy for guerillas and liberation theologians to impose their allegedly dogmatic and, thus, irrational and distorted ideology on the indigenous communities mired in economic and cultural deprivation. In essence, the guerillas and theologians were fanatics who promoted class struggle and the establishment of an authoritarian state. They judged the indigenous peoples as passive, dependent, and irrational actors, easy to deceive. According to this interpretative positioning, the indigenous people needed education and decent jobs to stop the revolutionary violence. In contrast, at other times, the civil declination of normative semantics noted Zapatismo was legitimate because indigenous people motivated by the ideals of democracy and social justice were at the helm. Their objective was to achieve better living conditions, and thus the violence was inspired by values that promoted social inclusion and different forms of civil repair. This position highlighted the alleged indigenous autonomy and creativity, able to propose a clear, rationally based, and realistic political project for a country mired in poverty and authoritarianism. It also stressed the indigenous ability to generate deliberative and critical relations (considered attributes of purity within the civil camp), which would foster an armed group that would fight to establish inclusive and impersonal institutions operating under clear and fair rules. From this interpretative declination, the Zapatista mobilization became a cultural revolution against authoritarianism and neoliberalism. This interpretation further suggested voting en masse against the PRI in the next presidential elections to end the war and to cement the Zapatista program. However, the civil declination of normative semantics considered the Zapatista violence illegitimate when interpreted as the result of the ideological and religious indoctrination of guerillas and clergy members in indigenous communities. On the one hand, its proponents accused the

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Catholic Church of spreading liberation theology23 and Evangelical pastors of disseminating civil resistance practices among indigenous peoples (Berdejo, 1994d). Thus, the religious foundations of the movement’s leaders were underscored, characterizing the Zapatista revolt as the product of moral frameworks based on transcendental beliefs and dogmas administered by ecclesiastic authorities. However, on the other hand, this declination denounced that these were non-civil attributes of a religious nature and, therefore, destructive intrusions into civil institutions. The civil declination of normative semantics further claimed that professional guerillas had propagated the ideas of Marx and Guevara among the communities in Chiapas.24 This interpretation implied that some guerilla fighters were actual “makers of violence and experts in terror” from South America, Central America, and even the Basque separatist movement Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA).25 Political dogmas in the Zapatista uprising were considered impure by civil camp standards because they were irrational and closed interpretations of the world, resistant to criticism and highly emotionally charged. As a result, Zapatismo had a distorted vision of the country’s social and political reality. This civil declination acknowledged that indigenous poverty and oppression were fertile ground for guerillas and liberation theologians to spread their political and religious ideas.26 Thus, the indigenous peoples were actors dispossessed of autonomy and critical ability, incapable of organizing themselves and coming up with a political project, due to the poverty they had suffered. As El Sol de México explained: “The poverty, rights violations, and inequality are there, but that does not activate a guerilla; for that, you need an ideology, and economic, military, and organizational resources” (Ling, 1994). For Nobel Prize Literature Laureate Octavio Paz: the revolt was a predetermined military action produced by rural poverty and the domination of a region where modernity came late and badly. Discrimination is evident, but their leaders are castaways from the 23  Cabrera (1994c), Rascón (1994), Rentería (1994a), Loret de Mola (1994b), Pazos (1994), Basave (1994) and Jardí (1994). See also Loaeza (1994). 24  A.  Díaz, 1994b, C.  Rodríguez (1994b), Oria (1994) and “EZNL, grupo extremista” (1994). 25  J. J. González (1994g, 1994h), R. Aviles (1994b), Ochoa (1994), y Cinta (1994). 26  Peña (1994a), Aguilar (1994b), Benitez (1994a), Ramírez (1994), G. Fuentes (1994b), G. Salinas (1994a) y G. García (1994e).

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r­ evolutionary ideologies of the twentieth century: they are neither Indians nor peasants. (Paz, 1994)

Zapatista violence was thus illegitimate, an ideological anomaly produced by the modernization process. The accelerated transformations in Mexico had generated social conflicts derived from the discrepancy between the new and the old, between the modern and the traditional. This phenomenon caused society to lose its way and its course, allowing for the return of traditional forms of thought combined with social utopias that sought to change everything. As a columnist asserted, at that moment, “we were vacuumed into the past we wished to escape” (Aguilar, 1994a). Therefore, the Zapatista movement was considered the result of the pressure produced by a systemic externality. This pressure led the movement to seek idealized forms of coexistence in the past to overturn a situation it considered unbearable in the present. This interpretation assigned the Zapatista actors the impure attributions of the civil camp, noting they were incapable of facing their reality reasonably, setting their political projects in a supposedly bucolic past. In contrast to this interpretation, the civil declination of the normative semantics claimed Zapatismo was legitimate because democratic values and principles had inspired it. The revolt was based on civil motives: it was autonomous, embodied a specific project for improving society, and was not merely a knee-jerk reaction to sustained structural violence. Further, the aim was to build a society based on open, critical, and deliberative relations, with institutions governed by inclusive rules and laws. This camp argued the ideals of the Zapatista revolt dovetailed with the framework of peasant and indigenous movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that demanded the application of law and invoked justice with the “Constitution in their hands.”27 A column in Reforma declared: The motives [of the Zapatista uprising] are democracy and the political transformation of the country. That there be free elections and that people in ‘liberated’ communities can freely elect their authorities. It is a revolt like those from the past century [nineteenth] in which, with the Constitutions in their hands, they called for the re-establishment of the meaning of the laws. (Crespo, 1994a)

27  R.  Delgado (1994a), J.  C. Robles (1994a), “No a los violentos” (1994) and Bátiz (1994a).

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This interpretation questioned the accusation that foreign forces and people alien to the indigenous communities had financed and manipulated the Zapatista uprising to satisfy personal and group interests.28 They claimed no indigenous person was monolingual; on the contrary, the indigenous could politically express their demands for equality and justice and denounce the racism, exploitation, and domination they were suffering, articulating their legal and political claims in both Spanish and their own tongues.29 From this position, the indigenous peoples’ civil attributes were highlighted: they were capable of critically and autonomously and reasonably articulating their needs, constantly invoking the law. This civil declination consistently declared that the indigenous movement had built a complex and profound structure in the communities of Chiapas. The indigenous peoples had decided to prepare themselves politically to demand their rights through violence, showing they had morally parted ways with a government pretending ineffectually to lead them into the “first world.”30 Thus, it was a fully anti-PRI and profoundly democratic movement. This interpretation attempted to emphasize the attributes of civil purity of the indigenous communities, always capable of generating open, direct, and deliberative political and social organizations. As a columnist from La Jornada stated: [T]he violence expresses the moral rupture of society and the bad government who intended to or believed, it could take us to the first world. When we entered it, we did so with indigenous peoples who contrasted with modern Mexico. (Linares, 1994a)

This camp declared the indigenous peoples capable of identifying those responsible for the structural violence they had suffered: technocrats, the official party, and the president of the republic, who refused to strengthen democratic institutions and consolidate a regime of “guided democracy.”31 According to a column in La Jornada, the Zapatista uprising was “a 28  As a political analyst pointed out, the only “foreigners” in Chiapas “were, in any case, the indigenous peoples themselves who had been excluded from the country’s development and their rights as Mexicans” (F. Díaz, 1994a). 29  L. García (1994d), Zamora (1994), and Villoro (1994). 30  Hernández (1994a), Linares (1994a), Fabela (1994), and Luviano (1994). 31  M.  López-Portillo (1994b), Loret de Mola (1994a), L.  Sánchez (1994a), R.  Aviles (1994a), Sodi (1994), Aziz (1994b), Sodi de la Tijera (1994a), Bendesky (1994), A. Sánchez (1994c), and Maya (1994).

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­olitical rebellion against authoritarianism, impunity, and corruption” p (Sodi de la Tijera, 1994a). For a columnist from El Sol de México, it was the consequence “of the inequality, the oppression, the lack of opportunities, corruption and, above all, the lack of democratic institutions” (Ojeda, 1994). The civil declination’s normative semantics considered the Zapatista revolt legitimate because it demonstrated that revolutionary violence could generate essential changes in the Mexican political system (O. Rodríguez, 1994d). The indigenous peoples had democratic aspirations, principles, and values that the political system did not guarantee.32 This interpretation emphasized the alleged civil ability of the indigenous peoples to articulate their specific demands for inclusion, legality, and equality under the universalizing solidarity principles that prevailed among a large part of the country’s citizens. Thus, the argument follows, the indigenous peoples were aware that, sometimes, it was necessary to stand outside the law to confront a system that systematically breaks the law.33 As a columnist from La Jornada explained: There is consensus in pointing out that violence does not solve problems. The rebels are outside the law, but the economic violence, exploitation, and domination exerted upon the indigenous peoples are also outside the law. For this reason, Mexicans understand the reason for the revolt. (V. Flores, 1994a)

This civil declination pointed to the fact that there was social sympathy for the Zapatista movement in the polls; a column from La Jornada noted: “[The support in the polls] is because [the EZLN] proclaims the need to overcome a system based on oppression, fraud, and corruption” (Blancarte, 1994b). For this position, the Zapatista insurrection represented the final crisis of the so-called “perfect dictatorship” the PRI had established after the 1910 Revolution (Ferrer, 1994a). Using historical references from the revolution, this interpretative declination indicated that the “new” Zapatistas faced a new dictator personified in Salinas de Gortari, just as the “old” Zapatistas had confronted dictator Porfirio Díaz (Olea, 1994b; Martre, 1994). The new Zapatistas defied the technocrats, just as the old

 Saxe-Fernández (1994), Garavito (1994), and J. Fernández (1994a).  V. Flores (1994a), Warman (1994), and Ovalle (1994).

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Zapatistas had defied the “scientists” almost a hundred years before.34 In this sense, a columnist from El Universal commented: “[T]his is the rebellion of the Indians against the yuppies” (S. Rodríguez, 1994a). This interpretative declination drew a map of the Zapatista conflict, attributing elements of civil impurity to the president, characterized by his authoritarianism and his defense of arbitrary, hierarchical, and exclusionary institutions. In contrast, indigenous peoples possessed the attributes of civil purity since they could nurture a democratic project that aspired to construct impersonal, equitable, and inclusive institutions. Thus, the Zapatista uprising was interpreted as a cultural rebellion emphasizing the importance of the strength of the “underdogs” and the demand for more democracy, free and fair elections, and an end to the neoliberal oligarchy.35 Furthermore, this civil declination interpreted the indigenous uprising as a lesson for all Mexicans (R. Garrido, 1994; Jardí, 1994). As a columnist from La Jornada suggested, the Zapatista rebellion “is a lesson in dignity for all Mexicans: to stand and fight for dignity and claim their rights. It expresses the need to claim a profound democratic change” (L.  J. Garrido, 1994a). A column in Reforma read as follows: “[P]overty, misery, and structural violence are the cause of the rebellion, but the EZLN is the detonator. The mask the revolutionaries wear condenses the heroism of the political leaders of the country” (T. Calvillo, 1994). The civil declination of the normative semantics considered Zapatismo legitimate, and the way to support the heroism of the Zapatista insurgents fell upon the country’s citizens, invited to vote en masse against the PRI in the next federal elections. According to this position, the population should express its will to end the PRI regime on the day of the elections. This interpretation suggested that to do so, it was first necessary to defend the voting process to prevent any attempt at electoral fraud on the part of the government; second, they should dismantle authoritarian neoliberalism; and third, they should end the power system that had remained unchanged since the mid-twentieth century.36 This interpretative 34  The group of reformers of the state and the economy during Diaz’s dictatorship (1880–1910) were called “scientists.” Their vision for society was based on the perspective of positivist thought developed by French sociologist August Comte in the first half of the nineteenth century. 35  Arenas (1994), S. García (1994c), P. Gómez (1994c), Huchim (1994), Rascón (1994), and Vicent (1994). 36  Meyer (1994a, 1994c), Breñal (1994), Suárez (1994b), A.  Aviles (1994), Krieger (1994), Rentería (1994d), Zebadúa (1994), Merino (1994a), V. Flores (1994b), Nolasco

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­ eclination issued a call to activate two of the most potent regulative d mechanisms of democracy: electoral campaigns and the citizens’ vote. As regulative institutions of the civil sphere, they represented the means to reconstruct state power. A column from La Jornada subscribed to the need to consider that “the EZLN’s project is national since it seeks freedom and democracy in a country where these two things do not exist” (Garavito, 1994). This interpretative declination corroborated the civil purity of Zapatismo since it translated the situation of economic and political disenfranchisement within a specific region into civil codes that aimed at universality for the rest of Mexican society. Another column from the same newspaper implied “reestablishing the republic and advancing toward a democratic transition right now” (Ortega, 1994b). Another columnist from La Jornada noted that this was the only possible way to remove “neoliberalism and ‘criollo’ oppression toward the indigenous peoples” (Miguel, 1994).

Second Act: The Dialogue Proposal On the ninth day after the armed uprising, the Mexican Army declared that it had taken back control of the towns and villages seized by the EZLN. However, bombs were still exploding in several cities across the country. At that moment, the president decided to remove his Secretary of the Interior, substituting him with Jorge Carpizo, head of the National Human Rights Commission.37 Furthermore, President Salinas de Gortari had decided to name Manuel Camacho Solís as the peace commissioner for Chiapas. The EZLN announced a ceasefire in response as long as the government offered security conditions to establish a dialogue for peace. As early as January 12, the confrontation scenario had begun to wane. Salinas de Gortari announced the government would start a unilateral ceasefire and propose amnesty for the rebels “as a message of conciliation, peace, and respect for human rights.” In the meantime, a peace demonstration took place in Mexico City, with 100,000 participants (Berdejo, 1994d). Then, the EZLN announced it would institute conditions for the (1994), Woldenberg (1994a), Benítez (1994b), Gilly (1994a), Blancarte (1994a), J. Sánchez (1994e), M.  González (1994a), M.  Moya (1994b), Aziz (1994a, 1994b) and Crespo (1994b). See also Cordera and Woldenberg (1994) and Gilly (1994b). 37  The Secretary of the Interior was Patrocinio González Garrido, who had also been the governor of Chiapas (Félix, 1994; C. Gómez, 1994).

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dialogue and acknowledged Bishop Samuel Ruiz as its mediator. Through the voice of the Vatican Nuncio, Jerónimo Prigione, the Mexican Episcopate, immediately responded that the Catholic Church supported the bishop. Manuel Camacho Solis asserted that the EZLN was “a political, military and ideological reality.” In the context of this scenario, on January 17, the EZLN announced its commitment to negotiate and reach peace. Manuel Camacho Solis immediately acknowledged that the Zapatista movement was Mexican, originating in Chiapas, stressing that asking “the indigenous peoples for forgiveness” was imperative because of the abuses that had been committed against them. The government’s willingness to engage in dialogue implied they no longer saw the guerillas as foreign, alien to the communities, and enemies of the nation, but as people motivated by ideals of change and demands for social justice. Similarly, they no longer saw the indigenous peoples as ignorant and manipulated but as autonomous citizens capable of expressing their needs and grievances. Thus, only two weeks after the Zapatista revolt started, there was hope for peace. However, from then on, the patrimonial and civil camps competed to control the meaning of the president’s decisions and the insurgents’ responses but, above all, to understand the impact of the Zapatista revolt on the post-revolutionary regime and the democratic transition. Accordingly, the patrimonial and civil camps engaged in a dispute concerning whether the country should follow a path that implied revamping the regime’s customary institutions or, alternatively, accelerating the transition to democracy. The Future of Patrimonialism When the president announced that there should be dialogue with the EZLN, the patrimonial camp interpreted Salinas de Gortari’s decision as a step toward re-establishing peace and sustaining the rules of the post-­ revolutionary regime.38 According to this camp, the president had behaved according to the attributes of patrimonialism: he had utilized moderate force and was attentive to the fair demand by the rebels to quickly negotiate a peace agreement. The regime’s patrimonial tradition applauded the president’s decision,39 evoking the charismatic referents of the old revolutionary warlord in his role of the guarantor of popular demands. Once the  Bolaños (1994a), Borrell (1994b), and Vallarta (1994b).  Meyer (1994b), Stephens (1994b), and H. Labastida (1994b).

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patrimonial camp accepted the Zapatista movement as a legitimate interlocutor, the main goal was understanding the meaning of their decision and its possible effects. In this sense, it was no longer of interest to point out the possible causes of the indigenous revolt but rather to perform a hermeneutics of the presidential decision. The patrimonial declination interpreted the utilitarian and normative semantics regarding Salinas de Gortari’s peace proposal, posing the following questions: Now, who would be the holder of patrimonial morals? How would the patrimonial institutions guarantee mechanisms for inclusion and solidarity, considering the violence unleashed by the EZLN? And finally, how was it possible to re-establish peace in Chiapas through patrimonial institutions? The declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence considered the president’s dialogue proposal legitimate, noting it was an action motivated by sectorial and corporate interests to sustain the game’s rules that allowed for relationships based on commitment, customary equity, and institutions operating according to custom and habit. Two interpretations were developed: the first suggested that the president had imposed his decisions on the belligerent and militarist old politicians and the neoliberal technocrats of the regime; the second noted the possibility that Manuel Camacho Solis’s designation as a peace commissioner could lead to him substituting for Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta as the PRI’s presidential candidate, thus altering the patrimonial regime’s unwritten rules. The declination of normative semantics considered Salinas de Gortari’s dialogue proposal legitimate, arguing it was an action motivated by customary principles and values, which legitimated relations of reciprocity, trust, and deference, as well as institutions regulated by tradition. From this perspective, the appointment of new cabinet members and the peace commissioner prioritized the norms of dialogue, concession, and deference while simultaneously attending to the satisfaction of popular needs through paternalistic rule. Thus, together with the president, the state appeared as the mainstay for the nation’s material organization and development.  he Presidency’s Material Strength T This utilitarian declination evaluated the president’s decision as legitimate because it showed that he, above all others, could handle the crisis unleashed by the Zapatista uprising (C. Rodríguez, 1994b). This interpretative declination suggested Salinas de Gortari’s motivation was to impose

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his authority as a figure condensing the political system’s power and incarnating the center of Mexican politics, as he had done at the beginning of his term, detaining prominent political, union, and entrepreneurial figures involved in criminal activities.40 According to this interpretation, the president had always maintained control over the country’s events. However, as a columnist from Excélsior pointed out, “[W]ith the changes in the cabinet, the president has shown he is not a cornered, fearful [figure of] authority. He is an intellectually and psychologically balanced man” (Blanco, 1994b). According to this interpretation, with these decisions, the president meant to curb the intentions of old politicians and neoliberal technocrats to wage a war of extermination against the insurgents. Thus, the president took upon himself the attributes of patrimonial purity because he was activating the president’s figure to represent national unity above any other political force. Thus, he put into action its gravitational strength to reactivate the patrimonial camp. Also, this patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence observed centrifugal forces within the regime that needed to be contained. As a column in El Sol de México suggested: The cabinet of Carlos Salinas de Gortari is fractured into two positions, those who demand a firm hand and another that asks for a negotiated solution. The former is represented by the technocrat apparatus and the old politicians, while the other [is represented] by a new generation of politicians who are sure that negotiation and political dialogue are essential to end the conflict. (Noriega, 1994b)

Therefore, the president was urged to deepen the dialogue toward a negotiated end to the conflict and not let those who sought a heavy hand against the rebels prevail. In this sense, the president should empower the new generation of Mexican politicians who believed dialogue was the path toward peace (G.  López-Portillo, 1994a). According to this position, Jorge Carpizo and Manuel Camacho Solis stood at the head of a new generation of politicians willing to engage in dialogue. As this interpretative declination suggested, these politicians had the attributes of patrimonial purity because they controlled their passions, sought to uphold a sense of political order, and were capable of distinguishing between legal and customary rules, resorting to the latter only  Berdejo (1994b), J. Labastida (1994e), and Peña (1994b).

40

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when they believed them to be fairer, more inclusive, and more equitable. Moreover, this generation maintained its loyalty and deference toward the republic’s president. In the meantime, the old politicians could not understand the need for the patrimonial camp to be more flexible in negotiating with the rebels; according to this interpretation, the old politicians did not seem to respond to presidential authority because they had become impregnated with the impure attributes of patrimonialism: they questioned the loyalty and deference owed, for six years, to the person holding the presidential office and to his decisions.  he Symbolic Force of the Presidency T Changes made to the cabinet were interpreted as an example that showed both the old-fashioned politicians and neoliberal technocrats were losing the game (Ferrer, 1994b; Cremoux, 1994b). The president’s cabinet appointments ensured that “the president’s will is to lead the country toward progress and modernity” (De la Garza, 1994b). Furthermore, with his decisions, the president instantiated the charismatic ideals of an old revolutionary warlord, capable of satisfying the needs of the people through a paternalistic rule of society. Thus, the normative declination believed that “the president’s appointments aim to build a path for peace in Chiapas” (R.  Garrido, 1994). As a columnist from Excélsior noted, “[T]he cabinet changes announce the implementation of a twist in state policy. It moves away from repression and seeks interlocutors capable of generating dialogue.”41 According to this interpretation, the designation of Jorge Carpizo as Secretary of the Interior was intended to offer a civil and non-military tenor to the government’s actions in Chiapas. His appointment aimed at realizing a “human vision and a lawful operator” (J.  Cabrera, 1994c, p.  15) for the office in charge of national politics. These characteristics were adjusted to the patrimonial attributes of purity, since, apparently, Carpizo knew how to move inside the complex law factory, within the Mexican differentiated bureaucratic system, and among political leaders, acknowledging the existence of a legal framework that could not be violated so openly and discretionally. The appointment of Manuel Camacho Solis as peace commissioner for Chiapas was interpreted in a similar fashion: he was always open to dialogue, and as an official, he had the 41  R.  Moreno (1994b, p.  6). See also: Peñaloza (1994), I.  Salinas (1994b), Bolaños (1994b), and Berdejo (1994c).

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president’s complete trust.42 Several different columns in El Sol de México interpreted Camacho Solis’s appointment as “a success in leading the conflict on the path of negotiation” (see, for example, Vega, 1994b). Moreover, Camacho Solis possessed the patrimonial virtue that valued dialogue and closeness to the presidential office, ensuring that the negotiations with the EZLN had the president’s seal of approval. This declination saw Camacho Solis as an expert in generating agreements, settling disputes inside of the patrimonial field, and facing civil society demands. In other words, as we can read in Excélsior, “Camacho Solis is the most political politician to be found in the system, arranger per excellence of the reformist generation [from Salinas’ regime]” (R. Moreno, 1994b, p.  6). Furthermore, Camacho Solis could negotiate with both groups if the EZLN had been financed by the regime’s old politicians or technocrats. According to this interpretation, Camacho Solis was designated peace operator because he was the only person prepared to conciliate the different interests inside the “revolutionary family” that had possibly financed the EZLN (Lozada, 1994). By pointing this out, Camacho Solis’s attributes of patrimonial purity were highlighted: he was a person who knew how to maneuver within the customary norms, his behavior was sober, and he valued the relations of reciprocity and deference, always adhering to a measured style, without excess or frivolity. However, Camacho Solis’s appointment brought a series of rumors that he might substitute Colosio Murrieta as the PRI presidential candidate.43 The patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence judged Salinas de Gortari’s decision to name Camacho Solis commissioner legitimate because it eroded the power of the regime’s old politicians. According to this interpretation, there were worried faces in the PRI because Camacho Solis’s appointment announced the beginning of the end for Colosio Murrieta, who represented the PRI’s old interests (L. Sánchez, 1994b). As a columnist from El Sol de México stated: “[T]he dinosaurs [the old politicians] are mourning in the PRI because Manuel Camacho Solis may end up as the presidential candidate” (Noriega, 1994c).

42  J. J. González (1994e), R. Garrido (1994), Cabañas (1994), Gutiérrez (1994b), Vallarta (1994b), Bejar (1994), Olimon (1994a), and Olea (1994a). 43  D’Estrabau (1994c, 1994d, 1994e), L.  García (1994h, 1994i), Calvillo (1994a), Barragán (1994a), Knochenhauer (1994b), Arreola (1994), Cabrera (1994d), and Mejido (1994b).

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A column in El Sol de México even pointed out “there were rumors Manuel Camacho Solís would substitute for Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta as the PRI’s candidate in the following days or run as an independent candidate with full support from the president” (Mejido, 1994c). There were comments implying that even if the president was not considering substituting for Colosio Murrieta with Camacho Solis, he was nevertheless considered a “backup candidate” if Colosio suffered an attack, an accident, fell ill, or did not arise in the polls (Loret de Mola, 1994c). This interpretative declination argued that Colosio Murrieta was not the right PRI candidate to rule the country (J. C. Robles, 1994a). His public interventions were conspiratorial, he could not manage to say anything coherent about Chiapas, and he spoke about a country that did not exist (R. Aviles, 1994b). In addition, his discourse was hollow, and his language was inappropriate for the new political conditions (L. Sánchez, 1994b). This interpretative declination assigned Colosio Murrieta the impure attributes of the patrimonial sphere, claiming that he neither was capable of activating the charismatic referents of the old revolutionary warlords, nor was he skilled in interpreting the new political order and confronting emergencies that required innovative responses within the patrimonial camp. Among these rumors, some voices noted Camacho Solis was not playing a central role in resolving the conflict and that he was only a peace liaison, not a pivotal actor in establishing legal and binding agreements between the EZLN and the state.44 However, there was a constant question about whether Camacho Solis’s appointment put the PRI’s unity at risk by generating confusion about the president’s succession among its militants (J. J. González, 1994i).45 This interpretative declination implied that if Camacho Solis substituted for Colosio Murrieta, the rules and principles of presidential succession would be at risk, seriously compromising the country’s political stability. Furthermore, this interpretation argued that, even though one of the attributions of the current president was appointing his successor, there was a series of rules about this ability that 44  J. J. González (1994a), Urostegui (1994), G. F. Montenegro (1994a), and Knochenhauer (1994a). 45  Of course, some analysts also believed prominent EZLN leaders were foreigners. For example, a political columnist wrote that Camacho Solis would not have to learn the Tzotzil tongue to negotiate for peace in Chiapas, but instead brush up on his English and French because the Zapatista leaders were educated at Yale, Harvard, and the Sorbonne (Muñoz de Baena, 1994).

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could not be altered, including the rule that once the president chose a successor, he could not remove him. The Future of Democracy The civil camp interpreted the president’s decision to change his cabinet and open the door to dialogue as legitimate since by doing so, he was acknowledging the social and autonomous nature of the Zapatista movement. In the civil declination of the utilitarian and normative interpretations of violence, this opinion generated an understanding of the president’s proposal for dialogue. The two semantics posed the following questions: Who could support civil morals in the country once there was peace? How could the civil institutions possibly guarantee vital inclusion and solidarity mechanisms to prevent future armed uprisings? Above all, how could the demands of the EZLN and Salinas de Gortari’s peace proposal be incorporated civilly? The civil declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence interpreted the first approaches to dialogue as actions motivated by personal and group interests to establish coexistence rules that would guarantee competition, equity, and fair, inclusive, and impersonal institutions. This interpretation considered the president’s decision appropriate and pertinent because it acknowledged the demands of the indigenous peoples, and the indigenous believed in the will of the government to reach a peace agreement. The president’s decision also allowed some voices from the utilitarian civil declination to consider violence as a legitimate and even necessary means to accelerate the democratic transition process. In contrast, the normative civil declination of violence saw the approaches to dialogue as, on the one hand, pertinent because they set the basis for establishing principles and values that might guarantee open, critical, and trustful relationships, as well as institutions that operated based on the rule of law. In this sense, it called upon the president to open a broad debate on the meaning of democracy in Mexico, even inviting him to dismantle the symbolic and normative basis of the patrimonial presidency. At the same time, the civil declination of normative semantics considered violence illegitimate because it was inspired by particularistic, non-civil principles and values that imposed secretive, deferent, and conspiratorial relations and institutions that functioned in an arbitrary, hierarchical, and personal way. Any type of violence, including that perpetrated by the EZLN, was not legitimate for building a democratic country.

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 oward an Agreement Between Peers T The civil declination of utilitarian semantics considered Salinas de Gortari’s decision favorable. They applauded the start of dialogue with the EZLN and celebrated the appointment of a peace commissioner. This interpretative declination acknowledged that the actors involved in the conflict were motivated by their interest in achieving peace and building an institutional fabric that would help establish a regulated framework for coexistence. These actors possessed attributes the civil camp considered pure since they had started behaving rationally, controlling their passions, and appealing to the establishment of open, trustful, and friendly relationships. As a columnist from Excélsior pointed out, “[T]he indigenous peoples have made themselves heard, the government has acknowledged its mistakes, so each actor seems to be gradually acknowledging the others” (De la Peña, 1994c, p. 8). According to this declination, the president’s changes tacitly acknowledged the strength and legitimacy of the Zapatista movement.46 For this declination, it was essential to consider the Zapatista movement an authentic revolt mobilized by indigenous peoples and Mexicans because it placed Zapatismo as a legitimate actor in the civil field. To achieve peace quickly, Carpizo and Camacho Solis should consistently reinforce that the EZLN was headed and constituted by Mexicans and not foreigners.47 As a column in La Jornada explained, “[T]he cabinet changes will be adequate if they manage to change the logic of the government’s discourse. The guerillas are not foreigners, but nationals who are struggling for justice” (Aguayo, 1994b). This interpretative field called upon governmental officials to adhere to legality.48 The civil declination of the utilitarian semantics that considered the Zapatista uprising legitimate argued that the EZLN had accomplished important things by resorting to violence. The indigenous peoples who, motivated by the conditions of poverty and marginality in which they lived, had accomplished their purpose: to change the structure of Salinas de Gortari’s government and to underscore everything that was not working in the country. As a columnist from El Universal suggested, “[T]he 46  R. Moreno (1994b), S. García (1994f), R. Flores (1994), Rentería (1994f), Granados (1994c), T. Calvillo (1994), Baroja (1994), Aziz (1994a), and Lerdo de Tejada (1994). 47  Aguayo (1994b) and L. J. Garrido (1994a, 1994b). 48  This civil declination also argued that Salinas de Gortari’s cabinet changes represented a strategy for buying time since the government had shown it could not face the EZLN militarily (Loret de Mola, 1994d). From this perspective, betting on dialogue resulted from the government’s military defeat, not from its will to define a peace agreement.

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Zapatista revolt already has its first accomplishment, which is a change in the structure of Salinas’ government to rearrange what has been wrong” (Jardon, 1994a). In a similar vein, a columnist from La Jornada stated that “we do not know the cause of the uprising, but we do know its effect: the transformation of the Mexican politic life” (Morales, 1994). In this sense, violence had demonstrated its power, changing the president’s actions and revealing the weakness of Salinas de Gortari’s project (Aguayo, 1994c; N.  Fernández, 1994b). Thus, the EZLN was Latin America’s “most efficient guerilla” (C. Ortiz, 1994a). As a column in La Jornada read: [T]he Zapatista movement is the most efficient guerilla in the continent because, in less than a week, it shed light on neoliberalism and oppression, it caused changes in the cabinet, it planted the need for change throughout the country. In addition, it shed light on oppression, corruption, the interests behind the nation’s economic and political policies. (Linares, 1994b)

According to this civil declination, the EZLN made evident the economic project’s failure, sensitizing public opinion about the vast inequalities in the country and the need to attend to the less protected groups in society.49 In this way, Zapatismo transformed the idea of Mexico’s social and political structure so that “in the future, nothing will ever be the same” (Barragán, 1994b). Further, this declination understood the violence as an action with civil attributes because it opened the authoritarian system, compelling the president to make strategic changes to widen democracy. However, above all, the violence showed the polluting nature of neoliberalism, in the measure in which it was likened to poverty and greed, while simultaneously holding it responsible for increasing social inequality. Moreover, according to this declination, neoliberalism generated conspiratorial and exclusive institutions, combined with the authoritarianism of patrimonial institutions.  he Opportunity for Democracy T The civil declination of normative semantics considered the Zapatista uprising legitimate, arguing that the Mexican political system should be transformed radically to guarantee the changes the EZLN was 49  J. A. García (1994b), El abogado del Pueblo (1994b), Loret de Mola (1994a), Stephens (1994a), and R. Delgado (1994a).

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promoting.50 As a columnist from Excélsior claimed, “[T]he president has the opportunity to demystify the ‘president-king-emperor-God’ and transform the country into a real and worthy democracy” (Mora, 1994, p. 5). A piece in La Jornada declared, “[T]he changes point to a shift in the president’s strategy, but they must go further to guarantee a change in the operational logic of the Mexican political system” (Merino, 1994b). For this declination, such a comment implied that if the presidency wanted to demonstrate the democratic will, it would have to instantiate the ideals of civil purity, emptying the presidential office of its symbolic and material weight to stop being perceived as the center of the country’s politics and unity. In contrast, the civil declination of normative semantics considered the Zapatista uprising illegitimate, pointing out that no democratic institution would be viable if it did not leave behind the idea of violence as a legitimate means for constructing democratic institutions (P. Gómez, 1994d; Méndez, 1994b; J. Labastida, 1994e). In this interpretation, violence was civilly impure since it was marked by passion and irrationality. It could only produce a society characterized by antagonism, suspicion, conspiration, and calculation, and institutions that operated in an exclusive and authoritarian way. Therefore, according to this declination, it was necessary to start a widespread debate in mass media to discuss “the kind of democracy we wish to build, where the ideas of guerilla or [government] repression are not predominant” (Zaid, 1994). In this way, it was essential to condemn the supposed virtues of guerilla violence to construct the future of democracy.

Patrimonialism and Democracy In the first days of January, 1994, the competition between the patrimonial and civil camps for control of the meaning of the Zapatista revolt took place in a context in which the government was constantly pointing out that people alien to the indigenous communities had caused the revolt. The patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence considered the Zapatista uprising illegitimate because it was driven by the interests of politicians, technocrats, drug traffickers, and even foreign governments. These groups had taken advantage of the poverty and marginalization of indigenous communities to either get back their lost  Herrera (1994c), Woldenberg (1994b), Sodi de la Tijera (1994b), and Faesler (1994b).

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privileges or control the political institutions by force. In a different formulation, the patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence claimed that the Zapatista violence was illegitimate because it was inspired by the socialist ideologies promoted by guerillas and catechists affiliated with liberation theology. According to these two interpretations, the only way to stop Zapatista violence was to mitigate the effects of the country’s economic modernization process, with Salinas de Gortari enforcing the coercive ability of his office and activating its symbolic weight as a referent for cohesion and social order. The civil declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence judged the Zapatista uprising as legitimate when considering the indigenous peoples sought to establish fair, inclusive, and equitable relations in the face of the conditions of marginalization, poverty, and domination under which they lived. In contrast, the violence was illegitimate if Salinas de Gortari was behind the EZLN, aiming to generate the necessary political instability to suspend the presidential elections and end the weakened democratic institutionalism. For both interpretations, the Zapatista revolt could only end if the effects of the country’s economic modernization process were attenuated and democratic norms and institutions were established that would regulate the interests of citizens and social groups and sectors. The civil declination of the normative semantics of violence considered the Zapatista uprising legitimate when it emphasized that democratic principles and values had inspired the rebels. In contrast, the violence was illegitimate if the EZLN had been encouraged by socialist principles and behavior, promoted by guerillas and catechists affiliated with liberation theology. Thus, for the civil declination of the normative semantics of violence, the only way to stop the Zapatista revolt was to accelerate the democratic transition. However, some people inside the civil camp saw violence as an illegitimate and inadequate means to consolidate power. Simultaneously, others claimed the Zapatista revolt showed that violence as a medium was legitimate and necessary to promote further democratic changes. For each of these declinations, the actors involved as participants in the social drama of the indigenous revolt represented different roles. Sometimes, the old politicians of the system appeared as the aggressors and in others they were instead victims of the economic and technocratic modernization process. Some interpretative declinations saw the EZLN’s leaders as heroes, while others viewed them as sinister figures dedicated to propagating violence throughout the American continent. In some

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interpretations, indigenous peoples appeared as the puppets of national or foreign interests, while in other interpretations, they appeared as the bearers of a clear and decisive democratic process. With regard to the technocrats, some interpretative declinations sketched them as the great transformers of the country. In contrast, others held them responsible for impoverishing the population and for the democratic sclerosis that hindered its progress. Sometimes, the interpretations implied that the technocrats and the old system politicians were being challenged, and at other moments, these actors were simply part of the power system. Despite the broad spectrum of dramatic roles that each of the actors on the scene could play, the different patrimonial and civil declinations became intertwined when they highlighted that it was necessary to modify the boundary relations among the spheres of the state, the civil world, and the economy. The patrimonial and civil camps acknowledged that the poverty, marginalization, and domination relations the indigenous peoples had experienced were factors that influenced the emergence of the Zapatista revolt. Some believed these conditions were so unbearable that they had pushed the indigenous peoples toward armed rebellion; others posited that these conditions had propitiated an environment that favored political manipulation by interest groups, ideologies, and dogmas. Yet others believed the indigenous peoples’ precariousness had ultimately rendered democratic life precarious as well, undermining the post-­ revolutionary regime’s legitimacy. Thus, the patrimonial and civil camps coincided in the idea that there was a need to implement changes in the country’s economic modernization process, generating social protection mechanisms to prevent furthering the precarious conditions of the indigenous peoples. However, once the government of Salinas de Gortari acknowledged the EZLN as a legitimate actor by naming a peace commission, both the patrimonial and civil camps stopped debating the supposed origins of the violence. Instead, they focused on interpreting the presidential decision and its possible effects on the operations of the patrimonial regime and the nascent democracy. Although some voices claimed the president’s peace proposal was a distraction to plan a definitive military attack against the EZLN, representatives from the patrimonial and civil camps applauded the decision to open a space for dialogue and to cease the military response to the Zapatista rebellion. For the patrimonial camp, the president’s political movements generated a fracture in the cultural system of the post-­ revolutionary regime. Therefore, it suggested Salinas de Gortari name

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Manuel Camacho Solis peace commissioner in Chiapas, to later take Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta’s place as the PRI presidential candidate. Those who shared this interpretation claimed Colosio Murrieta represented the most “backward” forces of the regime, while Camacho Solis represented a political group that was betting on negotiation and agreements. Others saw Colosio Murrieta as a figure that insured the administration’s renewal, while claiming Camacho Solis had played a secondary role as the president’s negotiator in Chiapas. This discussion led to a dispute on the future of patrimonial rules and, thus, the regime itself. In the civil field, the president’s decisions generated a dispute over whether violence was legitimate or not in constructing a more democratic society. For some, violence itself could not develop a democratic society, so it was necessary to move from arms to dialogue without falling into the logic of the regime’s customary rules. For others, the violence had shown its efficacy: the president was compelled to make changes in his cabinet, channel economic resources to Chiapas, and acknowledge the indigenous movement as authentic only two weeks after claiming it was a heteronomous movement, subject to the interests of groups alien to the indigenous communities. The competition between the patrimonial and the civil camps for the meaning and control of the Zapatista violence confronted two different projects on solidarity and citizen inclusion. First, the patrimonial camp asserted the need to protect the unwritten rules of the regime and maintain its institutions. Accordingly, it called for reinforcing the coercive and symbolic strength of the presidential office as a referent of its political unity. In contrast, the civil camp suggested accelerating the transition to democracy. According to this camp, the post-revolutionary regime had already exhausted its ability to guarantee social order and stability. However, for both the patrimonial and the civil camps, the presidential figure was central in preventing the country from losing its sense of political unity and identity. In this sense, both considered the president indispensable for guaranteeing stability and change. Accordingly, both unanimously supported the president’s decision to stop the army attacks against the EZLN and his willingness to create a peace commission. However, this decision was difficult to implement. The EZLN was a constant target for the Mexican Army, which attacked the EZLN’s military enclaves and sporadically bombed civilian communities in the Lacandon Jungle. In February, 1994, Subcomandante Marcos called upon indigenous peoples to stop isolating the movement and asked civil society

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organizations to establish a “peace barrier” around the dialogue to guarantee the EZLN’s safety and to ensure sustained development of negotiations. On February 16, the Zapatista movement announced the start of the conversation for peace. Four days later, the Zapatista delegates arrived at San Cristóbal de las Casas. At the beginning of March, the EZLN gave the government a list of demands, and the government proposed a series of modifications the following day. The dialogue and negotiations continued until March 22, when the EZLN announced it would consult its support bases about the proposals that had resulted from the dialogue. Unfortunately, everything was interrupted the following day, when the PRI’s candidate for the republic’s presidency was assassinated on the country’s northern border .

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Barragán, H. (1994a, January 10). Asecho conservador. Chiapas, el detonante. Excélsior, A7, A8. Barragán, H. (1994b, January 17). Antidemocracia. Sus costos. Excélsior, A7. Bartolomé, F. (1994, January 3). Templo mayor. Reforma. Basave, A. (1994, January 14). Chiapas. Secuela de un estallido. Excélsior, A7. Bátiz, B. (1994a, January 5). Chiapas: buscar la paz. La Jornada, 5. Bátiz, B. (1994b, January 12). Chiapas, causa y efecto. La Jornada, 6. Bejar, F. (1994, January 13). Dos buenos pilares. El Universal, 6, 8. Bendesky, L. (1994, January 9). La selva en movimiento. La Jornada, 15. Benítez, F. (1994a, January 8). Chiapas S.O.S. La Jornada, 1, 6. Benítez, F. (1994b, January 11). Los indios. La Jornada, 1, 6. Berdejo, A. (1994a, January 3). Frentes políticos. Excélsior, A1, A30. Berdejo, A. (1994b, January 4). Frentes políticos. Excélsior, A1, A24–A25. Berdejo, A. (1994c, January 11). Frentes políticos. Excélsior, A1, A30. Berdejo, A. (1994d, January 12). Frentes políticos. Excélsior, A1, A30–A31. Blancarte, R. (1994a, January 10). Revolución política. La Jornada, 8. Blancarte, R. (1994b, January 17). El factor religioso en Chiapas. La Jornada, 1, 8. Blanco, J. (1994a, January 6). Servicio a la verdad. Excélsior, A6, A8. Blanco, J. (1994b, January 13). Buena voluntad. Cómo contener la violencia. Excélsior, A6, A8. Bolaños, L. (1994a, January 13). Sí, es levantamiento de indios. El Universal, 7–8. Bolaños, L. (1994b, January 15). Amenazas de ‘fuerzas oscuras’. El Universal, 7, 10. Borrell, E. (1994a, January 10). Lo del Sureste. Por qué, para qué. Excélsior, A6, A8. Borrell, E. (1994b, January 17). La paz. Anhelo generalizado. Excélsior, A6, A18. Breñal, V.  M. (1994, January 13). Contradicciones. Chiapas y el PECE. Excélsior, A5, A20. Bueno, M. (1994a, January 4). ¡Paren el derroche! Excélsior, A5, A27. Bueno, M. (1994b, January 18). Causas y efectos. Excélsior, A5, A22. Bustamante, J. A. (1994, January 10). Referencia a la del sur. Excélsior, A6, A8. Cabañas, P. (1994, January 13). Carpizo y la apertura. El Sol de México, A5, A16. Cabrera, J. (1994a, January 3). Crónica del poder. Chiapas: ominoso inicio de año. El Sol de México, A1, A15. Cabrera, J. (1994b, January 7). Crónica del poder. Chiapas, tumba de la estabilidad. El Sol de México, A1 y A13. Cabrera, J. (1994c, January 10). Crónica del poder. Rumores, crisis en el Gabinete. El Sol de México, A1, A15. Cabrera, J. (1994d, January 13). A otra cosa mariposa. El Sol de México, A5. Calvillo, R. (1994a, January 10). Alzamiento armado. Sangre, fuego y gran pobreza. Excélsior, A6, A14. Calvillo, R. (1994b, January 17). Insurrección. Llegó la hora del diálogo. Excélsior, A6. Calvillo, T. (1994, January 16). Chiapas: un lenguaje común. Reforma.

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Castillo, H. (1994a, January 7). Solidaridad con Chiapas. El Universal, 6. Castillo, H. (1994b, January 14). Fracaso. El Universal, 6. Cazés, D. (1994, January 15). Chiapas y los indios: visión y propuestas de otra época. La Jornada, 13. Cervantes, R. (1994a, January 7). El problema chiapaneco. El Sol de México, A5, A16. Cervantes, J. (1994b, January 7). Encuesta. Apoya el 74% solución pacífica. Reforma. Chao, G. (1994, January 13). En Chiapas todo fue una sucia maniobra política. El Sol de México, A1, A19. Cinta, F. (1994, January 13). Diálogo y concertación, el camino. Política, no violencia. Excélsior, A5, A21. Conchello, J. A. (1994, January 13). Acabar con la pobreza, no con los pobres. El Universal, 6. Cordera, R., & Woldenberg, J. (1994). Al Cierre. Nexos, 68, iv–v. Cremoux, R. (1994a, January 4). Urgen respuestas adecuadas. Excélsior, A7–A8. Cremoux, R. (1994b, January 18). Carlos Salinas. ¿Dónde están sus colaboradores? Excélsior, A7–A8. Crespo, J. A. (1994a, January 3). Chiapas: otra vez la guerrilla. Reforma. Crespo, J. A. (1994b, January 17). Chiapas: crisis de claridad. Reforma. D’Estrabau, G. (1994a, January 3). Juego de palabras. El Sol de México, A1, A15. D’Estrabau, G. (1994b, January 5). Juego de palabras. El Sol de México, A1, A15. D’Estrabau, G. (1994c, January 6). Juego de palabras. El Sol de México, A1, A18. D’Estrabau, G. (1994d, January 12). Juego de palabras. El Sol de México, A1, A15. D’Estrabau, G. (1994e, January 17). Juego de palabras. El Sol de México, A1, A13. De Buen, N. (1994, January 9). Chiapas, por supuesto. La Jornada, 9. De Juambelz, H. (1994, January 11). Pobres pero modernos. El Sol de México, A4, A16. De la Garza, H. (1994a, January 4). Al vuelo. Lo de Chiapas. El Sol de México, A4, A16. De la Garza, H. (1994b, January 13). Cambios en el Gabinete. El Sol de México, A4. De la Peña, S. (1994a, January 4). Alzamiento chiapaneco. Excélsior, A7–A8. De la Peña, S. (1994b, January 11). Del TLC a lo chiapaneco. Juegos peligrosos. Excélsior, A7, A9. De la Peña, S. (1994c, January 18). Nada es igual. Los usos de la revuelta. Excélsior, A7–A8. Del Castillo, E. (1994a, January 4). Reflexiones de un infierno. Excélsior, A5, A19. Del Castillo, E. (1994b, January 11). Desarrollo equitativo. Excélsior, A5, A18. Del Río, S. (1994, January 8). Acercamientos. Excélsior, A5, A12. Delgado, H. (1994, January 5). EZLN: pueblo memorioso. El Universal, 7, 8. Delgado, R. (1994a, January 8). Riesgo de ruptura. Reforma. Delgado, R. (1994b, January 15). La hora de las definiciones. Reforma. Díaz, F. (1994a, January 8). Las criadas de doña Idolina. Reforma.

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Díaz, F. (1994b, January 17). Con el rumbo perdido. Reforma. Díaz, A. (1994a, January 8). No culpen solamente a la pobreza. El Sol de México, A4, A16. Díaz, A. (1994b, January 15). La misión. El Sol de México, A4, A16. El Abogado del Pueblo. (1994a, January 5). Rostros ocultos. Reforma. El Abogado del Pueblo. (1994b, January 10). Líderes inhumanos. Reforma. Enlace Zapatista. (1994). Primera Declaración de la Selva Lacandona. Enlace Zapatista. https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/1994/01/01/ primera-­declaracion-­de-­la-­selva-­lacandona/. Enríquez, J. (1994, January 20). Interinato chiapaneco. El Universal, 2, 8. Entrevista. Eloy Cantú Segovia. Quiere guerrilla mantener poder en la zona. (1994, January 10). Reforma. EZLN, grupo extremista. (1994, January 8). Excélsior, A6. Fabela, G. (1994, January 13). Democracia, única vía. El Universal, 7–8. Faesler, J. (1994a, January 5). Marginación y democracia. Reforma. Faesler, J. (1994b, January 19). Cuidado con los debates falsos. Reforma. Félix, J. E. (1994, January 6). Que regrese el patrocinio. El Universal, 2, 8. Fernández, J. (1994a, January 14). Ideología, zapatismo, política. La Jornada, 16. Fernández, N. (1994b, January 13). La rebelión y la democracia. La Jornada, 27. Ferrer, M. A. (1994a, January 3). Definición certera, pero tardía. El Universal, 2, 8. Ferrer, M. A. (1994b, January 17). Un solo jugador. El Universal, 2, 17. Flores, R. (1994, January 16). Chiapas. No a la guerra. Excélsior, A1, A26. Flores, V. (1994a, January 8). Chiapas: política y moral. La Jornada, 1, 36. Flores, V. (1994b, January 14). Las lecciones de Chiapas. La Jornada, 21. Fonseca, F. (1994, January 6). Año Nuevo: guerrilla. El Sol de México, A4, A16. Fuentes, C. (1994a, January 7). Chiapas, donde hasta las piedras gritan. La Jornada, 1, 8. Fuentes, G. (1994b, January 8). Entre pactos te veas…. El Sol de México, A5, A16. Garavito, R. A. (1994, January 13). Los zapatistas y la modernidad. La Jornada, 25. García, G. (1994a, January 7). La solución, en Los Pinos. Excélsior, A1, A11. García, G. (1994e, January 14). Dilema nacional. Excélsior, A1, A20–A21. García de León, A. (1994, January 11). Chiapas: sólo el pasado es infinito/I. La Jornada, 1, 18. García, J.  A. (1994b, January 17). ¿No hay mal que por bien no venga? El Universal, 7. García, S. (1994c, January 5). Los dos rostros de México. Excélsior, A1, A12. García, S. (1994f, January 15). La imagen olvidada. Excélsior, A1, A18. García, L. (1994d, January 5). Chiapas. Vencer con armas sería derrota. Excélsior, A6, A8. García, L. (1994g, January 7). Bombas. Rechazar la lógica militar. Excélsior, A6, A8. García, L. (1994h, January 12). Reconocer la razón política. Excélsior, A6, A8. García, L. (1994i, January 16). A la mitad del foro. Excélsior, A1, A18.

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Garrido, L.  J. (1994a, January 7). El agravio: la resistencia y la dignidad. La Jornada, 21. Garrido, L. J. (1994b, January 14). La masacre. La Jornada, 12. Garrido, R. (1994, January 13). Diálogo. El Sol de México, A4, A16. Gershenson, A. (1994, January 16). Chiapas, Neza, marginalidad. La Jornada, 5. Gilly, A. (1994a, January 10). Serenidad. La Jornada, 1, 14. Gilly, A. (1994b, August 1). Estas ruinas que vemos o una nueva república. Nexos. https://www.nexos.com.mx/?p=7137. Gómez, C. (1994, January 9). El derecho a la verdad. El Universal, 6, 10. Gómez, P. (1994a, January 2). Violencia y sus responsables. La Jornada, 1, 7. Gómez, P. (1994b, January 7). Programa frente a las armas. La Jornada, 6. Gómez, P. (1994c, January 14). Por un acuerdo nacional. La Jornada, 8. Gómez, P. (1994d, January 18). Amnistía, ¿para qué? La Jornada, 8. González, J. J. (1994e, January 13). De Colosio a Camacho o todo en México es Chiapas. El Sol de México, A4. González, J.  J. (1994f, January 4). Chiapas: el camino correcto. El Sol de México, A4. González, J. J. (1994g, January 6). En Chiapas: no a la represión y respeto a los Derechos Humanos. El Sol de México, A4. González, J. J. (1994h, January 10). Colosio: el tono del compromiso. El Sol de México, A4, A16. González, J.  J. (1994i, January 11). De Bucareli a Tlatelolco, pasando por la PGR. El Sol de México, A4. González, M. (1994a, January 8). Temor y esperanza. Excélsior, A7, A13. González, E. (1994b, January 13). Sureste. El factor narco. Excélsior, A7–A8. González, C. (1994c, January 14). Todos nos hemos equivocado. El Universal, 6. González, J. (1994d, January 10). El verdadero diálogo. El Universal, 6. Gordillo, E. E. (1994, January 10). Chiapas, problema ético. La Jornada, 20. Granados, M. A. (1994a, January 4). Norteamérica no, Centroamérica. Reforma. Granados, M. A. (1994b, January 5). ¿Secuestrado o prisionero? Reforma. Granados, M.  A. (1994c, January 16). Reconciliación y resurrecciones en Chiapas. Reforma. Guerrilla temporal. (1994, January 4). Excélsior, A6. Gutiérrez, L. (1994a, January 7). Chiapas, foco rojo. El Sol de México, A5, A16. Gutiérrez, L. (1994b, January 14). Camacho es el hombre. El Sol de México, A5, A16. Guzmán, M.  L. (1994, January 18). Perspectiva. Carne de cañón. Excélsior, A7–A8. Haas, A. (1994, January 13). Chiapas. Rugido de ratón. Excélsior, A7. Hernández, L. (1994a, January 4). Sublevación en la Lacandona. La Jornada, 1, 9. Hernández, L. (1994b, January 9). Chiapas: la gestación de la rebeldía. La Jornada, 19. Herrera, G. (1994a, January 4). Las armas no solucionan. El Universal, 6, 8.

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Herrera, G. (1994b, January 11). Qué los empuja a la aventura sangrienta. El Universal, 6, 8. Herrera, G. (1994c, January 18). Amnistiar es rectificar. El Universal, 6, 8. Huchim, E.  R. (1994, January 18). Chiapas: el reclamo democrático. La Jornada, 1, 10. IVCAPE24. (2012, June 12). Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, Discurso 28/ Noviembre/1993 [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ruZypJwtobY. Jardí, M. T. (1994, January 10). Apostar por vida, paz, justicia y democracia. La Jornada, 17. Jardon, E. (1994a, January 11). Tienen derecho a ser pobres. El Universal, 7–8. Jardon, E. (1994b, January 17). No sólo el aquietamiento de las armas. El Universal, 7–8. Knochenhauer, G. (1994a, January 11). Chiapas. Qué está sucediendo. Excélsior, A6, A8. Knochenhauer, G. (1994b, January 14). Camacho Solís. Un enlace solamente. Excélsior, A6, A8. Kraus, A. (1994, January 12). México: ¿por qué Chiapas? La Jornada, 19. Krauze, E. (1994, January 9). José Pérez Méndez. Reforma. Krieger, E. (1994, January 20). Pobreza extrema. Estallido de la sociedad. Excélsior, A7, A9. Labastida, H. (1994a, January 7). Rebelión de los colgados. La Jornada, 5. Labastida, H. (1994b, January 14). Camacho, Carpizo, Valadés. La Jornada, 5. Labastida, J. (1994c, January 4). Chiapas: las drogas. Excélsior, A7. Labastida, J. (1994d, January 8). Una guerrilla sorda. Excélsior, A1, A18. Labastida, J. (1994e, January 18). Magacén. Autonomía para los pueblos indios. Excélsior, A7–A8. Lerdo de Tejada, F. (1994, January 12). Chiapas: a profundizar el diálogo. Reforma. Linares, L. (1994a, January 5). Crisis moral y de gobierno. La Jornada, 8. Linares, L. (1994b, January 12). Las ondas expansivas de un conflicto. La Jornada, 8. Ling, F. (1994, January 7). El rostro de la revuelta. El Sol de México, A5, A16. Loaeza, S. (1994). Chiapas: Desafíos al Vaticano. Nexos, 68, xvii–xviii. López, F. (1994, January 8). El mito y la zanahoria. Reforma. López-Portillo, G. (1994a, January 8). Unidos, recuperemos la paz. El Universal, 8, 10. López-Portillo, M. (1994b, January 8). Chiapas, una solución impostergable. El Sol de México, A5, A16. Loret de Mola, R. (1994a, January 4). Conspiración. Excélsior, A5, A17. Loret de Mola, R. (1994b, January 6). Síndromes. Excélsior, A5, A19. Loret de Mola, R. (1994c, January 15). Saldos pírricos. Excélsior, A5, A16–A17. Loret de Mola, R. (1994d, January 18). ¿Perdón o libreto? Excélsior, A5, A22.

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Lozada, J. (1994, January 16). Estados de ánimo. El Sol de México, A4. Luviano, R. (1994, January 15). Sin ellos, difícil establecer la paz. Negociación y diálogo. Excélsior, A5, A34. Martre, G. (1994, January 11). Reflexiones chiapanecas. El Universal, 7. Maya, A. (1994, January 8). Dónde están los buenos y dónde los malos. El Universal, 7. Medina, G. (1994, January 12). ¿Fue prudencia o hubo complicidad? El Universal, 6. Mejido, M. (1994a, January 8). Alto poder. El Sol de México, A1, A21–A22. Mejido, M. (1994b, January 15). Alto poder. El Sol de México, A1, A14. Mejido, M. (1994c, January 18). Los grandes días del 94. El PRI sólo con LDC. El Sol de México, 18. Méndez, M. (1994a, January 10). Ceguera oficial. La sorpresa de enero. Excélsior, A7, A14. Méndez, M. (1994b, January 17). Huir para adelante. Actitud del gobierno. Excélsior, A7, A18. Merino, M. (1994a, January 6). Chiapas. La Jornada, 11. Merino, M. (1994b, January 13). Los cambios. La Jornada, 13. Meyer, L. (1994a, January 6). Fallaron las instituciones. Excélsior, A1, A23. Meyer, L. (1994b, January 13). Mejor tarde que demasiado tarde. Excélsior, A1, A23. Meyer, L. (1994c, January 20). Realidad mexicana color de rosa. Excélsior, A1, A20. Michelena, M. (1994, January 10). Maniqueísmo informativo. Excélsior, A7. Miguel, P. (1994, January 11). Chiapas en América. La Jornada, 11. Montemayor, C. (1994, January 11). Cambio de mentalidad y profundización de políticas sociales. Excélsior, A1–A2. Montenegro, G.  F. (1994a, January 19). Cambios correctos. El Sol de México, A4, A16. Montenegro, M.  R. (1994b, January 12). Pan, alfabeto, techo: las armas. El Universal, 7. Montes, E. (1994a, January 8). Chiapas: el fracaso neoliberal. La Jornada, 9. Montes, E. (1994b, January 15). Crisis política y alternativa democrática. La Jornada, 7. Mora, F. (1994, January 19). Misión imposible. El federalismo central. Excélsior, A5, A13, A16. Morales, R. (1994, January 10). Chiapas: reto a la inteligencia. La Jornada, 10. Moreno, R. (1994a, January 5). Levantamiento indígena. La sangre derramada. Excélsior, A6, A14. Moreno, R. (1994b, January 12). Ante el levantamiento. Sensibilidad del presidente. Excélsior, A6, A8. Moreno, F. M. (1994, January 12). El origen de la tragedia. Excélsior, A1, A16. Moya, R. (1994a, January 5). La violencia no condenada. El Universal, 7, 8. Moya, M. (1994b, January 7). Amargas lecciones deja el conflicto. Excélsior, A1, A28.

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Muñoz de Baena, G. (1994, January 18). Yo Camachiztli, amigoztli. Excélsior, A5, A22. Nava, L. (1994, January 8). Agravios. El Universal, 8, 10. No a los violentos. (1994, January 2). La Jornada, 1–2. Nolasco, M. (1994, January 7). Otra vez los indios se sublevan. La Jornada, 34. Noriega, C. (1994a, January 4). Una rebelión anunciada. El Sol de México, A4, A16. Noriega, C. (1994b, January 11). El dolor de la injusticia. El Sol de México, A4, A16. Noriega, C. (1994c, January 14). Los dinosaurios están de luto…. El Sol de México, A4, A16. Ochoa, A. (1994, January 8). Método equivocado. Las armas. Excélsior, A5, A12. Ojeda, J. (1994, January 10). Chiapas: hambre de verdad y sed de justicia. El Sol de México, A4, A16. Olea, X. (1994a, January 8). El de Chiapas es nuestro destino. El Universal, 8, 10. Olea, X. (1994b, January 15). Acto de contrición. El Universal, 7, 10. Olimon, M. (1994a, January 6). Salir de un sueño. El Universal, 7, 8. Olimon, M. (1994b, January 14). Más allá de la ‘tensa calma’. El Universal, 7–8. Oria, V. (1994, January 12). Justicia para los indígenas. El Sol de México, A4, A16. Orozco, M. A. (1994a, January 5). ¿Reforma social? El Sol de México, A5. Orozco, D. (1994b, January 7). Surgió el México bronco. El Universal, 7, 8. Ortega, J. (1994a, January 8). Democracia o barbarie. La Jornada, 17. Ortega, J. (1994b, January 15). Transición democrática. La Jornada, 9. Ortiz, C. (1994a, January 17). Aquella capacidad. Reforma. Ortiz, J. A. (1994b, January 15). Las virtudes de la adversidad. La Jornada, 10. Ovalle, I. (1994, January 5). 1994, vamos por más progreso. La Jornada, 19. Paniagua Arredondo, J. (1994a, January 6). Guerrilla contra México. Excélsior, A5, A19. Paniagua Arredondo, J. (1994b, January 8). El tumor del terrorismo. Las grandes herejías. Excélsior, A5, A12. Paniagua García, J. (1994, January 13). Acaso la lección nos sirva. ¡Los podres, primero! Excélsior, A5, A20. Paz, O. (1994, January 5). El nudo de Chiapas. La Jornada, 1, 14. Pazos, L. (1994, January 8). Subversivos. Origen, fines. Excélsior, A7, A13. Peña, R. F. (1994a, January 6). Plomo y pan. La Jornada, 1, 5. Peña, R. F. (1994b, January 13). Cese del fuego. La Jornada, 6. Peñaloza, P. (1994, January 13). Las armas del diálogo. El Universal, 7–8. Pradilla, E. (1994, January 12). Chiapas: atraso, explotación, opresión. Primera parte. La Jornada, 41. Rabassa, E. (1994, January 6). Chiapas. Entre la condena y la solución. Excélsior, A6, A8. Ramírez, L. E. (1994, January 10). Chiapas: visión de Héctor Aguilar Camín. La Jornada, 26. Rascón, M. (1994, January 4). Chiapas: ¿Cananea y Río Blanco? La Jornada, 1, 10.

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Rentería, T. (1994a, January 3). ¿Guerrilla o maquinación? Excélsior, A5, A41. Rentería, T. (1994b, January 5). Violencia que ofende. Excélsior, A5, A22. Rentería, T. (1994c, January 6). Chiapas y la ética política. Excélsior, A5, A16, A18. Rentería, T. (1994d, January 10). Diálogo, único camino. Excélsior, A5, A29. Rentería, T. (1994e, January 14). Paz y vida digna. Excélsior, A5, A23. Rentería, T. (1994f, January 17). Amnistía, ruta segura. Excélsior, A5, A33. Restrepo, I. (1994, January 17). Abatir enfermedad y pobreza. La Jornada, 1, 6. Rivera, M. A. (1994, January 4). Clase política. La Jornada, 4. Robles, J. C. (1994a, January 4). La caja negra. El Sol de México, A1, A15. Robles, J. C. (1994b, January 5). La caja negra. El Sol de México, A1, A15. Robles, M. (1994, January 11). Respuesta política. Excélsior, A1, A16. Rodríguez, O. (1994c, January 3). Rebelión. La Jornada, 1, 7. Rodríguez, O. (1994d, January 11). Contra el terrorismo. La Jornada, 17. Rodríguez, S. (1994a, January 15). Cuando todos somos indios. El Universal, 7, 10. Rodríguez, C. (1994b, January 11). ¿Indigenismo? El Sol de México, A4, A16. Salazar, L. (1994). En los bordes de la tolerancia. Nexos, 68, xiv–xvi. Salinas, G. (1994a, January 14). Por el camino de la paz. El Universal, 7–8. Salinas, I. (1994b, January 14). Cambio de escenario. El Universal, 2, 18. Salomón, C. (1994, January 14). Chiapas. Regreso al futuro. Excélsior, A5, A17. Sánchez, L. (1994a, January 7). Atalaya. Derrumbe. Excélsior, A7–A8. Sánchez, L. (1994b, January 17). Atalaya. Ilusiones del Alto Mando. Excélsior, A7, A18. Sánchez, A. (1994c, January 6). Sublevación en Chiapas. La Jornada, 8. Sánchez, J. (1994d, January 8). Los misterios de Chiapas. Reforma. Sánchez, J. (1994e, January 14). Los misterios de Chiapas II. Reforma. Saxe-Fernández, J. (1994, January 11). Trauma nacional. La punta del iceberg. Excélsior, A7–A8. Sayago, I. (1994, January 12). Violencia en Chiapas. A quién beneficia. Excélsior, A7, A11. Sodi de la Tijera, D. (1994a, January 7). Rebelión indígena en Chiapas. La Jornada, 12. Sodi de la Tijera, D. (1994b, January 16). Compromiso por la democracia. Reforma. Sodi, C. (1994, January 8). Chiapas. Reflejo del país. Excélsior, A7, A11. Stavenhagen, R. (1994a, January 4). Los miserables. La Jornada, 1, 21. Stavenhagen, R. (1994b, January 10). Sí hay salida. La Jornada, 1, 15. Stephens, M. (1994a, January 7). Estallido violento. Mensaje chiapaneco. Excélsior, A7–A8. Stephens, M. (1994b, January 17). Miseria. Mancha que crece. Excélsior, A7, A18. Suárez, L. (1994a, January 6). Los Altos chiapanecos. Las cenizas de B. Traven. Excélsior, A6, A8.

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Suárez, L. (1994b, January 13). Rebeldía india. No atribuirla a manos extrañas. Excélsior, A6–A8. Tenorio, A. (1994, January 7). Observador parlamentario. El Sol de México, A18. Tirado, M. (1994, January 6). El planeta. Latinoamérica y Chiapas. Excélsior, A5, A16. Todd, L. E. (1994, January 10). Ellos ganan, nosotros perdemos. El Universal, 7–8. Tovar, A.  V. (1994, January 6). En el Sureste. Violencia engendra violencia. Excélsior, A7, A14. Urostegui, P. (1994, January 7). Advertencia, motivo de reflexión. El Universal, 7, 8. Vallarta, J. A. (1994a, January 4). Conciliar no es debilidad. El Universal, 2, 20. Vallarta, J. A. (1994b, January 11). Cambios. El Universal, 2, 19. Vázquez, M. A. (1994, January 11). Víctimas seculares. El Universal, 7–8. Vega, D.  M. (1994a, January 8). El TLC, el EZLN y la campaña. El Sol de México, A4 y A16. Vega, D.  M. (1994b, January 15). Camacho y los candidatos. El Sol de México, A4, A16. Vicent, M. (1994, January 11). Genocidio. La Jornada, 14. Villoro, L. (1994, January 9). La vergüenza o la paz. La Jornada, 1, 14. Warman, A. (1994, January 16). Chiapas hoy. La Jornada, 1, 12–15. Woldenberg, J. (1994a, January 8). No nos acostumbremos a la guerra. La Jornada, 5. Woldenberg, J. (1994b, January 15). La esperanza. La Jornada, 1, 5. Zaid, G. (1994). Chiapas: la guerrilla posmoderna. Claves de razón práctica, 28(44), 22–34. Zamarripa, R., Moreno, D. & Cano, A. (1994, January 16). La violencia política en el sexenio. Reforma. Zamora, B. (1994, January 11). Consideraciones jurídicas de la violencia en Chiapas. Excélsior, A1–A2. Zebadúa, E. (1994, January 5). El sur. La Jornada, 7.

CHAPTER 5

A Succession Under Attack

This chapter analyzes how the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, the PRI candidate for the 1994 presidential elections, unleashed a dispute between the patrimonial and the civil camps to control the meaning of his death. It examines how the two camps attributed the causes and the people responsible for the crime, while at the same time proposing actions to re-establish political order in the country. Above all, these proposals sought to prevent social destabilization and guarantee the continuity of patrimonial or democratic institutions. In the social drama of Colosio Murrieta’s death, there are two key moments. The first is directly linked to the assassination of the presidential candidate: voices of condemnation were raised together with accusations about foreign agents inciting and financing the crime in order to destabilize the country. These voices also claimed the crime took place in a context of inner strife within the government, between the old politicians of the regime and the neoliberal technocrats. The second critical moment concerns the discussion about who should substitute for Colosio Murrieta, how to choose the new candidate, and the debate over the eventual designation of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León as the PRI candidate. The patrimonial camp interpreted Zedillo Ponce de León’s appointment simultaneously as a triumph of the old politicians and the success of neoliberal technocrats. Both positions acknowledged that the appointment sought to rewrite or revamp the regime’s institutions and customary rules. For some voices in the civil camp, Zedillo © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Arteaga Botello, Semantics of Violence, Cultural Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94695-1_5

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Ponce de León’s designation as the PRI candidate meant the patrimonial regime had emerged victorious from the crisis. In contrast, other representatives from the same camp claimed the authoritarian regime was profoundly weakened. Despite these internal differences, the civil camp believed the only way to end the country’s authoritarianism and violence was through the vote in the presidential elections. In short, the patrimonial and civil camps declined the semantic evaluations of Colosio Murrieta’s assassination and the election of Zedillo Ponce de León as the new candidate for the PRI in binary discourses that assigned memberships of inclusion and solidarity with traditional politicians, technocrats, and intellectuals, as well as with the supposed defenders of the 1910 Revolution and neoliberal ideologies.

The Candidate’s Assassination While the Zapatista uprising took place in Chiapas, voices emerged in the PRI warning that Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta was a weak candidate, unable to win the elections. Some commentators claimed Colosio Murrieta showed no leadership skills and even if he had ever possessed them, the appointment of Manuel Camacho Solis as the peace commissioner for Chiapas had overshadowed any such abilities. According to this perspective, Colosio Murrieta did not have the attributes the patrimonial camp considers pure; indeed, he could not evoke the charismatic model of the old revolutionary warlords that guaranteed the satisfaction of popular needs or the regime’s continuity. The rumor soon arose that Camacho Solis would soon take Colosio Murrieta’s place as the PRI presidential candidate. Salinas de Gortari denied the rumors and warned PRI militants: “Do not get confused! Colosio is the candidate” (Sotelo, 1994, p. 1). With this statement, the president wished to clarify that the customary rules regulating presidential succession would not be altered. Moreover, Salinas de Gortari attempted to demonstrate he had the attributes the patrimonial camp considered pure: he maintained the self-control and sobriety of his office, upheld his deference and trust for his chosen candidate, and respected the unwritten rules of the regime. However, his statements did not end the rumor that Colosio Murrieta’s days as the PRI candidate were numbered. On the contrary, the speculations intensified; they implied that the president had tacitly acknowledged there was pressure within the party

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and the government to make him substitute his chosen successor in an attempt to stop the rumors. While celebrating the 65th anniversary of the PRI’s foundation, Colosio Murrieta, the PRI candidate, made a speech that some interpreted as a rupture with Salinas de Gortari.1 Although it was common for PRI presidential candidates to “break up” discursively with their predecessors and show some autonomy, the turbulent political context implied for some that the candidate’s message pointed to a distancing between him and Salinas de Gortari. Colosio Murrieta’s message initially aimed at highlighting the virtues of the post-revolutionary regime. He celebrated the PRI as a party that had prevented national discord and chaos while at the same time precluding the establishment of a military dictatorship like those in other Latin American countries. He claimed that Mexico had experienced economic growth and propitiated social mobility for years thanks to the PRI, highlighting the importance of Mexican presidentialism as a source of political stability. With these stances, Colosio Murrieta underscored the historic virtues of the patrimonial camp. On the one hand, he confirmed that the president was the source of meaning for the symbolic fabric of national politics. On the other, the PRI operated as a disciplined political apparatus that guaranteed the regime’s institutionalism over time. Colosio Murrieta’s speech further aimed at showing that the national political context had changed.2 He posed the need to transform the PRI and the way it related to the presidential office. He acknowledged that the country had become more plural and diverse throughout the years, which compelled the PRI to face other political parties under conditions of democratic competition. In this sense, he warned that the government “will not give us the victory [in the following elections]; rather, it will come from our work, our effort, and our organization.” Therefore, it is necessary, he admonished, “to turn our great strength [as a party] into independence from the government” (CTMMexico, 2011). It seemed Colosio Murrieta was turning the relationship among the state, the PRI, and the presidential figure, which historically, the patrimonial camp had considered sacred, into an impure alliance. In this way, Colosio Murrieta  See CTMMexico (2011).  Regarding the Zapatista uprising, he exhorted PRI members to reflect upon the following: How was it possible that, being “the part of stability and social justice […] we were not sensitive to the great claims from our communities […]? We must take on this self-criticism and we must break with the practices that turned us unto a rigid organization” (CTMMexico, 2011). 1 2

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attempted to reactivate the ideology of the 1910 Revolution. He saw himself as a leader that evoked the charismatic persona of the old revolutionary warlord and appealed to the traditional discourse in which the PRI reclaimed the institutionalization of the demands of the revolution. Apparently polluting some of the sacred elements of the patrimonial camp and reclaiming the purity of the regime’s ideology at the same time, the ambivalence of Colosio Murrieta’s speech seemed to suggest a rupture between Colosio Murrieta and Salinas de Gortari that, according to some interpretations, became all too real two weeks later, with Colosio Murrieta’s assassination. On March 23, 1994, at the end of a rally, Mario Aburto Martínez allegedly killed Colosio Murrieta in the city of Tijuana (“Crónica de un magnicidio,” 1994).3 That afternoon and evening, both TV Azteca4 and Televisa5 had live coverage of the developments. The newscasters spoke about how an event of this nature had not occurred since 1928, when President-elect Álvaro Obregón was assassinated.6 The following day, the leading national newspapers published a photo in which Colosio Murrieta lay in a pool of his own blood while his security guards held him by his arms (Valadis, 1994). The newspaper El Universal published a section in which the political parties expressed their opinions about the assassination. The PAN, at the right of the national political spectrum, pointed out that “the tragic end of the candidate announced the exhaustion of the post-revolutionary system, and it was not a cyclical crisis like those the party had traditionally faced” (Bravo, 1994). From the center of the political spectrum, the PRI suggested the death of its candidate should be a moment to reflect on the need to seek national unity and trust among Mexicans (Pineda, 1994). In turn, the Cardenista National Reconstruction Front Party (PFCRN) pointed out Colosio Murrieta’s death had come at the hands of “dark forces” attempting to destabilize the country (H. Delgado, 1994). The Popular Socialist Party declared that Colosio Murrieta’s death was the result of an operation by reactionary and conservative forces that operated under the auspices of the neoliberal policies that were being imposed from 3  Mario Aburto Martínez was Colosio’s alleged killer. He was captured immediately after he shot the PRI candidate. At the time the crime was committed, he was 23 years old and worked in a maquiladora producing magnetic tape for cassettes. 4  See CastillejosReloaded (2012). 5  See Noticieros Televisa (2019). 6  See Agencia RED Noticias (2014).

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abroad and that were aimed only at debilitating the country’s sovereignty and democratic institutions (J.  Hernández, 1994). Similarly, Mexico’s Green Environmentalist Party (PVEM) stated the assassination involved actors seeking to destabilize the country, so it was necessary to reinforce the democratic institutions and attend to social deficits (Escudero, 1994). The parties located at the left of the political spectrum agreed that the most reactionary groups in the country were behind Colosio Murrieta’s death. The Worker’s Party pointed out that political figures were seeking to undermine the country’s stability with unmentionable intentions and, in this way, awaken the “México bronco” (“savage Mexico”) (F. González, 1994a). In contrast, the Revolutionary Worker’s Party (PRT) warned that the progress of the country’s democratic forces had awakened the anger of the conservative classes, so Colosio Murrieta’s death should be understood as the PRI’s political class itself sacrificing its candidate to preserve the interests of the authoritarian regime. For the PRT, the country was at a crossroads between progressing toward democracy or becoming anchored in barbarism (Alfaro, 1994). For its part, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) considered the assassination of the PRI candidate to have resulted from the confrontation between those fighting to preserve the democratic aperture and the regime’s authoritarianism, and those who were betting on an open market, but in a democratic context (Márquez, 1994). Finally, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) warned that the death of Colosio Murrieta “opened the door to the darkness of authoritarianism,” as the government would unleash a “witch hunt” against its candidate’s assassins (García Medina, 1994). In the name of the EZLN, Subcomandante Marcos established the group’s position in a communiqué that declared: “Whom did that man harm […]? We understand this crime’s message is drawing in our nation’s sky. Must more of our blood be shed? Well, we knew that. However, he did not.”7 In this way, Marcos interpreted Colosio Murrieta’s death as an act that showed the intention of the more conservative group to reinforce the more authoritarian facets of the regime, even if it meant breaking with the patrimonial camp’s customary rules by assassinating Salinas de Gortari’s heir. Thus, the question about who exactly was, or were, responsible

7

 See Enlace Zapatista (1994).

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became a recurring theme in mass media and among public opinion, awakening the conspiratorial imagination.8 During Colosio Murrieta’s memorial tribute at the PRI national headquarters, there were public expressions of anger against Salinas de Gortari and his cabinet when they stood as honor guard before the fallen candidate’s remains. Some three thousand militants shouted out various declarations: “Justice justice!” “Colosio yes, Camacho no!” “Who was it? Who was it?” “Do not archive it, let heads fall!” (Solís, 1994). The expressions of disgust and rejection of the president increased so much that he had to leave the premises in a hurry. The scene depicted a president pressured by his party’s militants to clear up Colosio Murrieta’s death, no matter who should fall, but above all, demanding that he abstain from placing Camacho Solis as the substitute candidate. Thus, since it was supposed that someone from inside the regime had ordered the assassination, the thousands of militants demanded Salinas de Gortari quickly repair what they saw as a fracture in the patrimonial order, guaranteeing that the presidential figure would continue to operate as a symbolic incarnation of the political system and national cohesion. Patrimonialism in its Labyrinth The patrimonial camp interpreted Colosio Murrieta’s assassination as proof of the fact that a crisis of mechanisms was regulating the differences and conflicts within the post-revolutionary regime. According to this interpretation, economic and political modernization had generated confusion inside the government and the PRI, over how to link the patrimonial rules and the ideology of the 1910 revolution with neoliberal practices and ideologies. Both the utilitarian and the normative semantics of the patrimonial declination raised questions about the causes leading to the patrimonial camp’s moral fracture, condensed in the death of the PRI presidential candidate. Which of the responsible parties and the victims adhered to the patrimonial codes? How was it possible that patrimonial institutions did not ensure mechanisms of inclusion and solidarity strong 8  Some of the conspiracy theories about Colosio Murrieta’s death have been depicted through films and TV series. For example, see the film Colosio: El asesinato (dir. Carlos Bolado, 2012). The TV series was called Historia de un crimen: Colosio (Netflix, 2019), as well as a Netflix documentary entitled 1994 (Netflix, 2019). The film and the TV series suggested those responsible for Colosio Murrieta’s death were among the highest spheres of power, while the documentary stated Mario Aburto Martínez acted on his own.

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enough to prevent fractures within the groups that shaped them? Furthermore, and perhaps, even more crucial: how was it possible to avoid escalating violence in the face of the president’s heir apparent and successor to the post-revolutionary political tradition? For both declinations, those who had decided to assassinate Colosio Murrieta had the motives, objectives, and mediums to undermine the rules of the national political order. Based on this series of questions, the patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics condemned the violence against Colosio Murrieta, asserting that political and organized crime interests were behind the attack and that among the confusion generated by the neoliberal reforms, such interests sought to destabilize the country for economic and political gain (Pastrana & Cuevas, 1994). Thus, on the one hand, foreign forces, old regime politicians, and even drug trafficking groups who did not want to lose their privilege were behind the assassination. However, on the other hand, groups inside the government and the PRI had decided to solve their differences through violence, setting aside the customary rules that regulated power disputes.9 In a different interpretation, the patrimonial declination of the normative semantics, which rejected the violence exercised against the PRI candidate, noted that the violence was impure or illegitimate because it was motivated by collectivist principles and values that supported non-­ reciprocal, distrustful, and critical relations, as well as institutions not based on tradition, and sectorial and corporate agreements. Furthermore, this patrimonial declination depicted Colosio Murrieta’s assassination as reprehensible because radicalized leftist or neoliberal ideologies had inspired it. Each in its own way, both ideologies had enthroned violence to impose either the dogma of the socialist state or the dogma of the free market on the nation’s political life. For this normative interpretation, it was impossible to reduce the struggle between technocrats and politicians to a simple battle of interests; it was a dispute between two national projects. 9  Regarding the narcos’ participation in Colosio Murrieta’s assassination, it was noted that this was “a business that flourishes with the destabilization of political and social institutions” (Granados, 1994c). Killing Colosio Murrieta would allow drug traffickers to operate much more easily in the country. However, this was not a relevant narrative in this particular dispute. Chapter 6 will discuss how, six months later, drug traffickers acquired significance in the interpretations of Francisco Ruiz Massieu’s assassination.

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 ark Forces and Group Interests D The patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence believed that those responsible for Colosio Murrieta’s assassination should be censured because they were “dark forces” or groups inside the regime that possessed an ambition for power and wished to replace post-revolutionary institutions with the rule of violence and coercion. These dark forces were “bad” Mexicans who operated at the margins of national interests and embodied an enormous capacity for destruction (Mejido, 1994b; C. Rodríguez, 1994). Their objective was to generate chaos and confusion as a mechanism for political negotiation. As an editorial in El Sol de México emphasized, the assassins of Colosio Murrieta were “at the margin of national interests to satisfy issues [that] mainly belong to groups or individuals. They are the same interests behind the rebellion in Chiapas, operating from the shadows against the PRI candidate and [against] Mexico” (Colosio, 1994). Similarly, a column in El Universal asserted: “The guilty parties are the forces of national and international interventionism seeking to cancel the nation’s viability” (Guerra, 1994). According to this interpretative declination, Colosio Murrieta’s assassins were the dark forces seeking to debilitate the PRI directly and, with it, Salinas de Gortari’s project.10 A column in El Universal read: “There are dangerous temptations that aim at undermining Salinas de Gortari’s political reform” (I. Salinas, 1994a). For this utilitarian declination of violence, the dark forces that threatened the country had attributes considered impure in the patrimonial camp since they were disloyal to presidential authority and alien to the customary rules. When groups inside the PRI were accused of Colosio Murrieta’s assassination, his death revealed these actors had abandoned the rules of presidential succession and opted to use violence to impose themselves by force upon the rest of the political actors.11 Thus, according to this utilitarian declination, Colosio Murrieta’s assassins had the attributes the patrimonial camp considered impure; they were moved by personal and group interests beyond the discretional use allowed by the patrimonial institutions, 10  Stavenhagen (1994), Jardí (1994a), F. Rodríguez (1994), Reyes (1994a), Jardí (1994b), Aguayo (1994), L. Hernández (1994), Mejido (1994a), Riva (1994a), De Buen (1994a), Haw et  al. (1994), Cansino (1994b, 1994c), Cabañas (1994), Aguayo (1994), Crespo (1994b), and Ibarra (1994b). 11  Jardí (1994b), Llarena y Del Rosario (1994b), and Ortíz (1994).

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and they intended to employ force and coercion as means of political negotiation.12 According to the patrimonial camp, after Colosio Murrieta’s assassination, institutions seemed to start operating in a personalized and factious manner, representing elements the patrimonial camp considered impure. As a column in La Jornada pointed out, “[T]he conspiracy against Colosio was gestated in the ‘circuit of power.’ Colosio’s assassination resulted from the fear that his eventual rule as president might put certain interests at risk” (De la Peña, 1994). Similarly, El Universal stated: “Those responsible are within the power structures whose interests have no limits” (Valadez, 1994). According to the interpretation of this utilitarian declination, Colosio Murrieta’s assassins had decided that, strategically, it was more beneficial to set aside the patrimonial regime’s customary rules and institutions and risk establishing a new fabric of relations based on violence to impose their personal and factious interests. For this interpretative stance, whether or not those responsible for the assassination were dark forces inside the PRI, the death of the official candidate altered the mechanisms and rules of coexistence of national politics, placing the country at the edge of social and political destabilization. Therefore, it was necessary to punish the intellectual instigators of Colosio Murrieta’s death according to the law and restore political order as soon as possible to confront the destructive ability of the dark forces and the inner struggles inside the groups in power. As if to reinforce this idea, a column in Excelsior stressed that “the forces that seek to go against the security and calm of Mexicans must be combatted to the full extent of the law” (Berdejo, 1994). I ntellectuals of Violence and the Ideological Dispute for the Nation The patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence believed Colosio Murrieta’s assassination was censurable. On the one hand, they thought mass media and university intellectuals were to blame since, motivated by leftist ideologies, they legitimized violence by groups such as the EZLN. The objective was clear: to promote violent revolutionary change that would destroy the institutions of the post-revolutionary 12  R. Delgado (1994b), “Sin validez cualquier pronunciamiento” (1994), “Oportuno llamado a la concordia” (1994), H. Castillo (1994a), Ortiz (1994b), Gilly (1994), P. González (1994), De la Peña (1994), C.  Castillo (1994b), O.  González (1994), Unzueta (1994), García de León (1994), and “Encuesta” (1994).

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regime. On the other hand, the patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence suggested that Colosio Murrieta’s death resulted from the confrontation between those that upheld the revolutionary nationalist ideology personified in the old PRI politicians and the neoliberal ideology the Salinista technocracy was actively promoting, with each side motivated by values and principles they considered essential to guarantee social cohesion and solidarity. By assassinating Colosio Murrieta, those responsible intended to impose their ideology as hegemonic within the post-revolutionary regime. When the patrimonial declination of normative semantics argued that Colosio Murrieta’s assassination resulted from leftist revolutionary ideas, it was declared the fault of university intellectuals and columnists inspired by the EZLN uprising, which “justified violence or aggression in politics” (Cabañas, 1994; Maldonado, 1994). According to this interpretation, such intellectuals and columnists should be held responsible for Colosio Murrieta’s assassination, a crime “they had committed with impunity” (González de la Garza, 1994). This declination saw the ideologues’ motives as expressions of bitterness, obsession with power, and madness, pushing them towards “anarchism [and] a caricature-like guerilla movement [that led to] the mobilization of the unconscious masses causing acts of terrorism and social instability (D’Estrabau, 1994, p. 20). This normative declination believed the ideologues behind Colosio Murrieta’s death possessed attributes the patrimonial camp considered impure: they were incapable of self-control within the limits established in traditional rules, and they operated based on their desires and passions, without ever considering customary principles and values. However, these ideologues were clever enough to deceive broad sectors of the population. This patrimonial camp pointed out that the intellectuals who defended the use of arms for social change were linked to academia, fascinated with “Subcomandante Marcos’ cartridge belts, the EZLN, and Bishop Samuel Ruiz’s calls ‘to war’” from the safety of their cubicles (De la Garza, 1994). Thus, this interpretative declination considered academics people who held dogmas that extolled violence as a means for social transformation, alien to the supposed national values and principles, and that also believed in class struggle. According to this normative declination, left-wing intellectuals held and defended with broad and deep arguments the idea that violence was theoretically and ethically legitimate and appropriate for driving social transformation. These arguments ultimately led the assumption that a

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person or group with mental health issues, social maladjustments, or radical political ideas had assassinated Colosio Murrieta (Michelena, 1994). According to this interpretation, the ideological arguments in favor of violence propelling and accelerating political change directly affected individuals that could be described as socially diminished, “mentally defective,” and easily manipulable, all considered impure attributes by the patrimonial camp. A columnist for Reforma even claimed: When the highly maladapted become interested in politics, they tend to be members of the most verbally violent parties or factions. It would not be at all fair to say all those affiliated with the party exhibiting the most violent rhetoric are, or should be considered, dangerous lunatics. However, it is true that there we can find the most significant proportion of [people who are] ill-adjusted to this life. If the parties and intellectuals do not moderate their violent rhetoric, it can attract dangerous people. (Lajous, 1994)

This camp further argued that when the EZLN resorted to arms, they legitimized the use of violence in politics, so no other left-wing groups were following their lead (Crespo, 1994a). A column in Excélsior read: “The responsibility lies with Marcos and the leftists who justify and make an exegesis of violence as a sort of eulogy of madness” (Paniagua, 1994). Once again, this interpretative declination linked violence to ideologies that led to overwhelming passions. Although this declination repeatedly blamed left-wing intellectuals for Colosio Murrieta’s death, it also warned that “the justification for political violence could come from radical right-­ wing groups that had civil resistance training programs ‘advised by machine-gun theologians’” (Michelena, 1994, p. 7).13 Nevertheless, other voices within the patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence asserted that the defenders of the ideologies of either the 1910 Revolution or neoliberalism, who were both in power, were behind Colosio Murrieta’s assassination. They said ideologues of the revolution shared the values and principles of the so-called 13  Inside this interpretive camp, some voices pointed out that responsibility lay not so much with the apologists for violence, but rather with the mass media that, since the first day Camacho Solis was named peace commissioner in Chiapas, suggested he would soon substitute for Colosio Murrieta as the PRI candidate, since the latter didn’t have a clear national project. Some journalists, they argued, ended up justifying the crime against Colosio Murrieta, encouraging some unstable individual or extremist group to commit the crime (H. Castillo, 1994a; Blancarte, 1994).

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old politicians, traditional figures in the regime concerned about the recent changes in the economic and political systems that had contributed to dismantling the revolutionary nationalist project. The neoliberalists promoted the values and principles of the so-called modernizing or reformist politicians. Most of them were seen as technocrats led by the president. The aim of these reformists was the country’s development, but they wanted to achieve this without radically changing the post-­ revolutionary regime.14 The patrimonial camp assigned to both traditionalists and reformers the attributes it saw as pure and impure: the purity of the traditionalists was articulated in the language of the impurity of the reformers and vice versa. When the camp interpreted Colosio Murrieta as possessing the attributes of purity of the reformist groups, they accused the old politicians from the system of being behind his death, inspired by the ideology of the 1910 Revolution and, especially, the PRI (Sánchez, 1994; Riva, 1994b). Thus, they declared the guilty parties were to be found among the PRI’s “dinosaurs,” who wished to prevent the group of President Salinas de Gortari and his transformation wing from governing and further weakening the PRI (Rubio, 1994a; Flores, 1994a). According to this declination, the old politicians sought to prevent Salinas de Gortari from altering in the slightest the organization of the masses in the PRI’s corporate and clientelist system, substituting it with the national Solidarity program. In this interpretation, Colosio Murrieta’s assassination was an attack from patrimonialism’s ideological and institutional project of the past against the patrimonial, but modernizing, ideology headed by Salinas de Gortari (Canales, 1994). According to this declination, Colosio Murrieta’s assassination was undertaken by old-style politicians who were desperate to repair the “symbolic balances fractured by the technocrats” (Cansino, 1994b). In contrast, when the patrimonial camp declared that Colosio Murrieta crystallized the virtues of purity among the traditional groups inside the regime, it accused the reformist technocrats inspired by neoliberal ideology of being responsible for his death. Their objective was to continue driving forward the process of state privatization, the liberalization of the economy, and a project that was alien to the old customary norms. According to this interpretative declination, the modernizers strengthened the political regime’s authoritarian tendencies, especially those of the  Riva (1994b), L. Hernández (1994), and Montemayor (1994).

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presidential office, to the detriment of the PRI’s institutional and normative abilities. In this reading, the PRI had stopped operating as a vehicle for political negotiation, becoming an apparatus that had no actual function. Further, Salinas de Gortari had tempered the PRI’s role as an entity that guaranteed the institutionalism of the corporate and clientelist system, allowing him to address the current needs of the people, as well as the political expectations of the members of “the revolutionary family.” As a columnist from La Jornada pointed out: “Colosio’s assassins were members of the government who do not understand the PRI was a space for political negotiation and agreements between groups, and who attempted to reduce the PRI to a planning office. Colosio tried to transform the party, which cost him his life” (Montemayor, 1994). In this interpretation, Colosio Murrieta’s project sought to re-establish the regime’s inner authority mechanisms. For this interpretative declination, Colosio Murrieta’s speech at the PRI’s 65th anniversary made public his intention to separate the party from the state to re-establish its symbolic weight. This speech alerted the technocrats who believed their neoliberal project was in danger, so they decided to assassinate the candidate. As a column from El Universal suggested: Colosio’s death attempted to eliminate the ideal of a profound political reform that would consolidate Mexico’s democratic regime, giving the economic program more social content and allowing for social well-being. With Colosio’s death, they intend to bring anarchy to the country. His assassins saw Colosio as a threat to the excessive powers of [Salinas de Gortari’s] presidential regime. (Uriostegui, 1994)

This declination implied that, in a way, Colosio Murrieta’s death was the technocrats’ response to the apparent threat that the candidate represented against the continuity of Salinas de Gortari’s project. His death had thus revealed the president’s intention to impose the country’s neoliberal economic and political dogma through violence and radically rewrite the ideology of the 1910 Revolution (Garrido, 1994a, 1994b). The patrimonial declination of normative semantics believed Colosio Murrieta’s assassination was due to the clash between two national ideological projects. When attributing the characteristics of patrimonial purity to the neoliberal modernizers, it argued the old politicians represented patrimonial impurity since they were moved by their passions, losing any

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sense of the limits of discretionary action, appearing before the governed as incapable of following the rules of authority or, even worse, judging them to have lost their sense of political order. Therefore, the old politicians were directly responsible for Colosio Murrieta’s death. In contrast, when the patrimonial declination of normative semantics pointed out that the old politicians incarnated the patrimonial virtues, they saw technocrats as the bearers of the patrimonial camp’s vices, moved by greed for power beyond the limits established by customary order, promoting relations based on techniques and not traditions, disloyal to and critical of the patrimonial rules, driving a cult of the president’s personality and not the presidential office. Consequently, they had decided to kill Colosio Murrieta. Thus, the failed PRI candidate had ceased to represent moral strength simultaneously for the reformers and the traditionalists within the patrimonial camp. By assigning the fallen candidate’s alignment to both the group of the old politicians and to the modernizers, the patrimonial camp was attempting to legitimize its continuity through reinforcing either the customary norms or the neoliberal project. The Corrosion of Civil Morals The civil camp interpreted Colosio Murrieta’s assassination as the consequence of the social effects of neoliberalism.15 This camp believed Salinas de Gortari’s neoliberal project had produced violence, both political and in the streets. Thus, Colosio Murrieta’s death was a corollary of the context of social decomposition that neoliberalism had produced (Kraus, 1994). According to the civil camp, “Colosio was a victim of the atmosphere of violence we have seen since January 1” (Aridjis, 1994). The civil declination of the utilitarian and normative semantics created narratives about Colosio Murrieta’s assassination that explained who the responsible parties were, their motivations, and the objectives and means through which they intended to erode the nascent Mexican democracy. The following questions drove the civil camp’s declination: According to the civil and patrimonial codes, who are the perpetrators and who are the victims? How was it possible that civil institutions could not produce the mechanisms to curb violence? Above all, how could the violence inside of the government be stopped without fracturing the weak democratic order? 15  Aziz (1994b), Rascón (1994), C.  Castillo (1994a, 1994b), Stavenhagen (1994), and Esteva (1994).

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According to the civil declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence, those who had decided to take up arms had the motives, objectives, and means to establish civil rules of coexistence that guaranteed competency, equity, and fair, inclusive, and impersonal institutions. This declination implied that neoliberalism had eroded the ability of politics as a means to negotiate social and political conflicts; therefore, they resorted to assassination to achieve their political objectives (Robles, 1994; P. González, 1994). The civil declination of the normative semantics of violence suggested the motive behind Colosio Murrieta’s death had been to establish particularistic principles and values guaranteeing secretive and deferent relations, as well as institutions that operated in a personal and exclusive way. For this declination, the neoliberal ideology that had enthroned individual and market competition in politics was the ideological foment underlying Colosio Murrieta’s death; in fact, neoliberal ideology undermined social organization and solidarity and led the country to violence (Méndez, 1994).  he Propagation of Violence T The civil camp and its utilitarian interpretation of violence condemned Colosio Murrieta’s assassination because it supposedly resulted from the erosion neoliberalism produced in networks of political negotiation. Furthermore, this declination believed the death of the PRI candidate was an expression of the level to which violence had become normalized. Now, mafias, politicians, and institutions were using it to impose their rules, and marginalized groups and indigenous and peasant communities used it to defend themselves. Finally, this interpretation stated why there were frequent assassinations of left-wing militants, clergy members, journalists, and entrepreneurs and why entire communities had decided to take up arms in Chiapas. As this declination noted, the violence was roaming freely among the different spaces of social life, and now, unfortunately, it had touched the official party’s candidate.16 In this sense, Colosio Murrieta’s death resulted from the authoritarian neoliberalism imposed on the political system (Cárdenas, 1994). As a column in El Universal stated: “The continuity of the authoritarian political project and the neoliberal model broke the coexistence molds and norms” (H.  Castillo, 1994b). In this interpretation, some voices suggested that after breaking these molds, the old  Granados (1994a), De la Peña (1994), and Cesarman (1994).

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­ oliticians of the regime and the drug traffickers had become allied in the p goal to assassinate Colosio Murrieta and take over the state apparatus. The old politicians and drug traffickers thus represented the impure values of the civil camp, condensed in neoliberal ideology. These figures were moved by their passion, self-interest, and greed for power. Thus, they promoted the assassination of the PRI candidate to generate confusion and fear. Concerning this precise point, a column from La Jornada noted: “Colosio’s assassination was not a coincidence, but the product of a master plan of armed destabilization from the world of drug traffickers and the old politicians seeking to take back the power the technocrats took from them” (De Buen, 1994b). Further, this interpretative declination claimed the objective behind Colosio Murrieta’s assassination was to generate a climate of uncertainty that would lead political passions to overflow, thus justifying governmental repression. Indeed, Colosio Murrieta’s assassins were people who possessed the attributes of civil impurity; they conspired to produce a social scenario marked by antagonism and suspicion, profiling the need to establish authoritarian institutions. In this sense, a columnist from Reforma pointed out: “[T]he assassination is an invitation for each person to seek or create their guilty party, to generate confusion about the responsible person, polarize the country, unleash political passion, and produce a witch hunt: the aim was to generate violence” (R. Delgado, 1994a). The interpretation thus followed: the erosion of the patrimonial regime had occurred gradually as the neoliberal reforms expanded not only in the economy but also in the political regime as a whole. As a columnist in Reforma explained: The PRI became increasingly exhausted without clearing the way for a new set of norms and procedures that would make room for the new aspirations, demands, anger, and dissatisfactions of Mexican citizens without having to take arms to satisfy them. Thus, Colosio Murrieta’s assassination expresses the loss of institutional channels to resolve political struggles peacefully. (Crespo, 1994a)

Similarly, a column in El Universal read: Colosio’s assassination is the last link to the crises of the Mexican political system. The first link was the fraudulent 1988 election. Then the emergence of the EZLN. The two events express how the regime does not have the

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majority consensus it used to have in the past […] The system is distanced from the perfect dictatorship, coming closer to the model of the blatant dictatorships in Latin America: criollo fascism, jailing the opposition, political repression, canceling citizen’s liberties. (Ferrer, 1994)

In the same reflexive tone, Excélsior declared: “He was killed by the Mexican political system based on an exacerbated presidentialism that would designate its successor without consulting [anyone], complicate the electoral process, and pitilessly manipulate the aspirations of the other candidates from the PRI” (O. González, 1994). These interpretations suggested that the limits of the authoritarian patrimonial system had been exhausted. Its members, and those of the government and the PRI, no longer recognized the system they had helped build. Furthermore, Colosio Murrieta’s assassination showed that the patrimonial system was not ready for democracy since it possessed the civil camp’s impure attributes; it was greed for power and money that moved them. At the same time, the system also embodied a naturalized suspicion and conspiratorial thinking as ways of doing politics and could only produce authoritarian, exclusive, and hierarchical institutions. In short, this system threatened the democratic transition. A column in El Sol de México warned that Colosio Murrieta’s death was “an attack against democracy, against politics and the human being, and the assassins want the ‘law of the jungle’ to come back, returning to the cave age, all this outside the legal framework and the Constitution” (Mejido, 1994a). The civil camp asserted that the system sought to sabotage the country’s democratic institutions and progressive organizations to preserve political and economic status. In an editorial, La Jornada declared Colosio Murrieta’s death an act intended to “amputate democratic life in the country, from Mexicans and each of its inhabitants. We call for unity to guarantee coexistence, defend constitutionality and peace in the country because there is a risk of turmoil and violence” (“Condena unánime,” 1994). The civil declination of utilitarian semantics that claimed Colosio Murrieta’s assassination was not justifiable, criticizing the interpretation of the patrimonial normative declination, which accused the so-called intellectuals of his death. As a columnist from Excélsior pointed out, “[I]t is not possible to blame any intellectual group or organization of the crime against Colosio” (Knochenhauer, 1994). This interpretation suggested there was no causal relation between the opinions on the violence of academics and intellectuals and pulling the trigger against a political figure

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(Gilly, 1994). According to this interpretation, those who accused violence of encouraging the ideologues behind Colosio Murrieta’s death called for censorship and the suppression of free and informed opinions.17 As a column in La Jornada stated: “What is being generated right now is a possible lynching of those who may be accused of instigating violence, of making an apology of violence. Their statements could lead to attacking freedom of speech, even at an unconscious level” (Aguayo, 1994). This declination interpreted the censorship of ideological reflections by intellectuals and journalists on violence as potentially inciting direct acts of violence as an impure civil camp posture, since it implied the suppression of open or critical positions. Instead, Colosio Murrieta’s assassination could even have been perpetrated by “a lunatic” or could have been simply “a gratuitous and irrational act of violence” (Bonilla, 1994) unrelated to ideology or political dogmas.  eftist and Neoliberal Ideologies L The civil declination of normative semantics considered Colosio Murrieta’s assassination censurable because intellectuals encouraged by left-wing revolutionary ideologies had inspired it. These intellectuals saw in the motives of the EZLN a belief that violence was the most effective way to influence the emergence of democratic institutions and the destruction of the Mexican political regime. Octavio Paz considered these individuals “intellectuals of violence,” as he baptized them, and intimated that they had inspired someone to pull the trigger that ended the life of the PRI candidate. He announced that Colosio Murrieta was [an] ominous [sign] of the state of public morals in Mexico. In the last few months, we have heard and read numerous and irresponsible apologies of violence; we have also read specious arguments that, after hypocritically condemning force, end up justifying it as the ultimate political reasoning. If we wish to stop the wave of violence threatening our country, we must end the verbal and ideological excesses many fall into. Ideological violence is the precursor to physical violence. (Noticieros Televisa, 2019)

According to Paz, the apology for violence by left-wing intellectuals had been the breeding ground that had propitiated Colosio Murrieta’s assassination. Thus, the Nobel laureate opined, the ideology that defended  Montes (1994), Ortiz (1994a), and Ibarra (1994a).

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the benefits of violence to generate political change was impregnated by the impure attributes of the civil camp; it did not encourage autonomy, or right thinking about reality, but rather a distorted view of society that led to irrational actions. Moreover, as Paz implied, the violence could only produce conspiratorial, not open or uncritical, relations. Because of this, Paz believed it was necessary to end the arguments legitimating and justifying the use of violence in ideological terms. Nexos, an influential political analysis journal, held a similar opinion. In an open letter from their editorial board, they claimed the assassination of the PRI’s candidate placed us like never before face-to-face with barbarism and violence and the radical need to condemn and dissolve it. Violence has no legitimate justification or origin. We must reject it no matter where it comes from. The crime against the PRI’s candidate […] has placed the country facing the most extraordinary commotion in recent history. Impunity is corrosive and, thus, unacceptable; the country’s moral health calls for clearing up the facts to the ultimate consequences. The unanimous condemnation of Mexican society has demanded this. We require it too. (“Carta Abierta”, 1994)

The civil declination of the normative semantics of violence censured Colosio Murrieta’s assassination because the responsible parties propagated neoliberalism, especially the new political technocracy motivated by the country’s opening to global scale markets, aiming to consolidate its neoliberal reforms within the framework of an authoritarian government. According to this perspective, neoliberal ideology exalted individuality, productivity, and interest and profit, in both the economic and the political spheres. These values normalized open competition, the excessive and uncontrolled consumption of products, self-interest, and personal achievement as the main qualities of a person, with no regard for the social effects. The civil camp considered all these attributes impure because neoliberalism produces individuals dependent on and manipulated by the market and consumption, generating obscure, discretional, and conspiratorial relations and, ultimately, exclusive and customized institutions. Thus, Colosio Murrieta’s death was interpreted as the corollary of neoliberalism’s colonization of the political sphere. As a column in La Jornada elaborated: [N]eoliberalism has gradually undermined the ideology of the Mexican Revolution, and this is expressed in the seat of power and in the PRI, which

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has shifted from being a compensation chamber for accumulated opposed interests to a mere employment agency. The unwritten rules of national political life have become broken in this party [with the country devoid of a democratic framework in which to negotiate social tensions]. (De la Peña, 1994)

In this declination, the fading of the revolutionary ideology, a national discourse in which the president vindicates the institutionalization of the 1910 demands through a corporate and clientelist system, and the emergence of a neoliberal discourse, ended patrimonialism’s moral referents for solidarity. However, according to this civil position, neoliberal values and principles were incapable of generating social and political cohesion since they ideologically justified and legitimized brutal competition among interests and political actors—even through violence. In this sense, the declination by the civil camp considered neoliberalism impure: it produced heteronomous actors trapped in market logic and manipulated by politics. According to this interpretation, such a scenario created recurrent conspiracies among exclusive groups, people, and institutions that operated based on personal interests.

The New Candidate Once Colosio Murrieta’s funeral was over, a discussion was initiated concerning the ideal profile for the new PRI candidate and the method of appointment. According to the patrimonial rules, Salinas de Gortari still possessed the power to nominate Colosio Murrieta’s substitute. Still, he was facing a context unprecedented in the country’s recent history. First, he did not have a wide array of choices, as he had months before, because the electoral law mandated that government officials who wanted to participate as candidates had to resign from their positions six months prior to the election. Second, the newspapers made suggestions for the profile of the candidate in such a way that it was often interpreted as media pressure. It is important to highlight that, as mentioned in Chap. 1, in Mexico, the opinion column represented the medium the political class used to communicate with each other, to the point that editorials and chronicles were exegetic mechanisms to decode messages among politicians. A columnist from Excélsior suggested the country needed to face political instability with a strong-armed candidate likely to follow the rules of the patrimonial system, such as Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios (Coccioli,

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1994).18 A column in El Sol de México mentioned Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, Colosio Murrieta’s campaign coordinator, described as a “bad” politician and official, but one that covered the legal requirements to be a candidate (Catón, 1994b). Some columns in Reforma mentioned Fernando Ortiz Arana, then the PRI’s secretary-general, as a possible applicant, highlighting the fact that he was loyal to the president, and he stood somewhere between Zedillo Ponce de León’s lackluster profile and the strong arm of Gutierrez Barrios. Some suggested María de Los Ángeles Moreno, president of the senate, should figure in the list of applicants (Reyes, 1994b, 1994c). A female columnist from Reforma even considered Colosio Murrieta’s widow (Loaeza, 1994b), arguing that she had demonstrated fortitude and moral presence, a valuable contribution to improving the country’s democratic institutions. The patrimonial camp warned that all these opinions could be read as a form of pressure that undermined presidential authority and jeopardized Salinas de Gortari’s political and economic project (R.  Delgado, 1994b), which ultimately crystallized resentment and strife within the PRI (Molinar, 1994b). Apart from the names tossed around in political columns, the appropriate mechanisms for appointing the new candidate were also discussed. Some voices in the patrimonial camp suggested the president had the right to follow the customary norm that allowed him to appoint his successor for the second time. At the same time, other voices argued there should be a democratic consultation inside of the PRI (Musacchio, 1994b; Wimer, 1994). Finally, representatives from the civil camp pointed out it would be impossible to democratize the PRI, since it was a state party. Accordingly, the president, as the decisive voter, should appoint someone with similar interests who would continue his economic and political project aimed at building an authoritarian democracy. One day after Colosio Murrieta’s funeral, Salinas de Gortari summoned union leaders, governors, secretaries, deputies, and senators to a meeting. As they formed a semi-circle seated around the president, Salinas de Gortari asked how he should choose Colosio Murrieta’s successor. Emilio Chuayffet, governor of the State of Mexico, pointed out that Article 159 of the PRI statutes mandated that in cases of force majeure, the party’s Executive Committee could appoint new candidates to substitute for whoever, for any extraordinary reason, could not continue with his charge. 18  Gutiérrez Barrios was a politician with a military background who acted as director of Mexico’s political intelligence system and the secret police.

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Then Salinas de Gortari asked: “Whom do you propose?” Manlio Fabio Beltrones, governor of Sonora, raised his hand and said: “I have a proposal, Mr. President. It is the proposal of a man from Sonora, like our candidate Colosio.” He stood up from the table, and he played a videotape in which they could see Colosio Murrieta appointing Zedillo Ponce de León as his campaign coordinator. After the playback had finished, the president asked if there were any other proposals. Fidel Velázquez, the historic leader of the Workers Confederation of Mexico (CTM), stated: “No, Mr. President, that is our proposal as well.” The meeting ended and Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León was appointed candidate for the PRI (García & Figueiras, 2006). Rebuilding Patrimonialism The reactions to Zedillo’s appointment unleased a debate on its implications for the PRI and the country. The patrimonial camp declared that even though the president had exercised the customary norm of choosing his successor, he had, in a way, considered the different voices within his party when he had gathered them together. It further believed that Zedillo Ponce de León was the right person for successor; there was even consensus that he represented the best option to negotiate the conflicts between the old traditional politicians and the technocrats. This opinion generated an interpretation of Zedillo Ponce de León’s candidacy and Salinas de Gortari’s role in it within the patrimonial declination of utilitarian and normative semantics. However, the patrimonial camp raised the following questions: Was the appointment of Zedillo enough to sustain and provide continuity to the patrimonial order and morals? How could the patrimonial institutions guarantee social inclusion and solidarity mechanisms after the appointment of the president’s new successor? Furthermore, how could these patrimonial institutions be revamped for the future? The patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence considered Salinas de Gortari would be acting appropriately if he meant to guarantee the persistence of sectorial and corporate interests to sustain the rules of the game based on commitment, customary equity, and institutions operating under custom and habit. This declination called for the reactivation of the attributes of strength of the customary norms to guarantee the regime’s continuity. The above implied suspending elections and controlling the regulative institutions that generated civil power, namely, legislative powers and mass media.

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The patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence considered the president’s actions correct if they were motivated by customary principles and values legitimating relations of reciprocity, trust, deference, and the institutions regulated by tradition. Thus, Salinas de Gortari needed to re-establish the symbolic referents of the presidential office. In other words, for this appointment, Salinas de Gortari had to reactivate the charismatic referents of the old revolutionary warlords, guaranteeing the satisfaction of popular needs and the different groups inside the PRI through the paternalist negotiation of social demands. Based on this interpretation, such symbolic activation of presidential power could elicit near-total obedience from mass media, civil associations, and political parties. Democratic Authoritarianism For the patrimonial declination of utilitarian semantics, exiting the crisis generated by Colosio Murrieta’s death depended on Salinas de Gortari, who could activate the material and symbolic capabilities of the office of president. Some suggested declaring a national state of emergency, thus suspending the federal election until the person or persons responsible for Colosio Murrieta’s assassination were arrested and tried. A columnist from El Sol de México put it this way: “I demand President Salinas declare a national state of emergency until they determine where the responsibility of the opposition parties lies” (D’Estrabau, 1994). Further, the president’s successor should be someone able that would re-establish order using a strong arm, capable of once again enforcing the post-­ revolutionary order. A column in El Sol de México argued that Salinas de Gortari should choose a strong man of military background as his successor, who would likely be closer to the patrimonial codes and norms of the post-­revolutionary regime, “so we can have a strong arm to conciliate, not to repress, and thus guarantee the continuity of the PRI’s system in government; the military background of a candidate would aid the national cause in the face of chaos because of the violence the country’s experiencing” (Mejido, 1994b). This position suggested Salinas de Gortari should choose someone with the attributes the patrimonial camp considers pure: someone with the ability for self-control and enough sobriety to take up office, able to establish relations regulated by the principles of reciprocity, trust, deference, and discretion, and capable of reading and discretionally applying the law and the Constitution.

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Reclaiming Authority The patrimonial declination of normative semantics believed that Salinas de Gortari’s behavior should move in a different direction. He should take up his role as the “new tlatoani, allowing us to generate and strengthen the country’s unity” (Llarena y Del Rosario, 1994a, p. 7),19 strengthening his force as the symbolic center of Mexican politics to adjudicate disagreements among different groups. According to this position, although Colosio Murrieta’s assassination was serious, it did not imply a state of war or generalized chaos. The country had institutions that would prevent authoritarianism and repression or a military coup, unlike other Latin American countries. As a columnist from Excélsior suggested: [T]he PRI’s flag bearer may change, but never the flag […] our history is intact, as are our people, the man who will lead us to the future shall be upright […] We are not on the eve of the War of Reform, the Intervention or the Empire, Madero’s assassination, or the Cristero War. Even if this was the case, Mexico has a cause to defend: the cause of justice, independence, and sovereignty. (Henestrosa, 1994)

The patrimonial declination of normative semantics trusted that the symbolic gravitational force of the presidential office would guarantee political stability and make sure the elections took place without further issues.20 As a column in La Jornada noted, “[F]irst we must stabilize the country; then, with time, open up democracy” (O. Rodríguez, 1994).21 According to this interpretation, President Salinas de Gortari possessed the “wisdom” to carry the country forward (Ayala-Pérez, 1994). However, it was necessary to prevent the initiative from falling on those who want a strong arm, those for whom the regime of President Salinas has gone too far politically, those who reject negotiation […], the same who vied for repression in Chiapas, those who are against allowing the free flow of ideas and civilized confrontation […] The Executive Branch has

19  Tlatoani is a word of pre-Hispanic, Nahuatl origin that means “a ruler elected by the nobles.” In a literal sense it translates as “he who speaks” or “he who has authority.” 20  Aguilar (1994), Basave (1994), Covián (1994), and Flores (1994b). 21  According to this declination, the way to do so was to reclaim the supposed ideas of Colosio Murrieta about renovating the patrimonial camp. As a columnist from Excélsior pointed out, “[T]he blood of Luis Donaldo Colosio will have to fertilize Mexican democracy, so that, once and for all, social justice shall arise from it” (Basave, 1994).

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the control, energy, and conviction to redirect his replacement. (Reyes, 1994a, p. 5)

In this sense, the patrimonial declination of normative semantics called upon the citizenry and political parties to unite behind the president to confront the pressure for an authoritarian regression (Michel, 1994; Lerdo de Tejada, 1994a). In exchange for this support, Salinas de Gortari should gradually eliminate the presidency’s material and symbolic meta-­ constitutional power and transit to a more democratic system. On the one hand, such a bargain implied guaranteeing democratic reform inside of the PRI to elect the new presidential candidate. On the other hand, the president was the motor of national politics, the only person able to move the country. In this way, the patrimonial camp underscored the pure characteristics attributed to the president, in particular, his charismatic abilities, like those of an old revolutionary warlord, who could guarantee satisfaction of the people’s needs and expectations, through the authoritarian, but paternalistic, management of society, in which democracy was only possible if the president promoted and guarded it. To reinforce such a position, a column in Reforma asserted: Institutions, not men, guarantee our course. It is time for the president to end the distrust of his own party that emerged from the 1988 election. The president must leave behind factional views and search for whoever can better lead the country. (Reyes, 1994a)

According to this interpretative declination, the PRI should have a more significant influence in politics to better construct true democracy (Elizondo, 1994). The PRI should become an actual political party, separate from the power of the state, but paradoxically preserve its corporate and clientelist spirit, remaining a mechanism for the mediation of the demands and needs of different groups and social classes. The PRI was the “perfect party,” with machinery capable of constant innovation without betraying its roots. As a columnist from Excélsior suggested: [T]he PRI has been a perfect party […] In the encyclopedia of politics, there is no other organization like the PRI. The Kemalist revolution fell in Turkey. There are no traces left of the Soviet ‘nomenklatura,’ and communism, like the cancan, is outdated […] Therefore, the PRI has been and will be a

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­ erfect mechanism. This reality has achieved a state of perfection. (Ayala-­ p Pérez, 1994)

The president of the republic should facilitate a “concord agreement”— like the Moncloa Pacts in Spain—to re-establish the political pact Plutarco Elías Calles had instituted in 1929 when he decided to create the PRI (Rubio, 1994b; Martín, 1994). Such a pact should include the Zapatistas in a national reconstruction project and rely on international agencies to consolidate a future transition to democracy (Molinar, 1994a; Cansino, 1994a). As a column in La Jornada noted, this was necessary “to build a national pact to open the political system so everybody can go, or we could be at the start of a greater social and political decomposition that would become irreversible” (Aziz, 1994a). The normative patrimonial declination acknowledged the PRI and the patrimonial presidency as central elements in guaranteeing order and political stability, with the potential, at some point, to foster a transition toward democracy (Molinar, 1994b). However, it would be impossible to achieve democratic development if, under the patrimonial logic, the president did not evoke the charismatic referents of the old revolutionary warlords. According to this interpretation, beyond the president, no one could open the doors to democracy; therefore, Salinas de Gortari should embody the attributes the patrimonial camp considered pure: enough authority, self-control, and sobriety to guarantee relations regulated by principles of reciprocity, trust, and deference. In what might seem a contradiction, these would be the basis to build the democratic institutions the country needed. This interpretative declination saw the death of the official candidate as an opportunity for presidential authority, with its authoritarian mandate, to operate as a non-civil input facilitating the expansion of democracy to a point in which the figure of the president would finally suppress itself as the central institution of the post-revolutionary system. Once Zedillo Ponce de León was appointed candidate, the patrimonial camp interpreted him positively, as a manifestation of the material and symbolic force of the presidential office. For the patrimonial camp, Zedillo Ponce de León’s nomination as the PRI candidate showed that Salinas de Gortari still controlled the various groups in his party and in the country. Furthermore, this camp argued Zedillo Ponce de León’s appointment was a positive sign for Salinas de Gortari’s project: he represented the continuity of Colosio Murrieta’s ideas, the preservation of the rule of law, clean elections, the continuity of the peace agreements in Chiapas, and the

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neoliberal economic model (although they noted there would be some adjustments to the latter to prevent the deepening of social inequality).22 In this sense, Zedillo Ponce de León was part of the political group closest to the president and, thus, committed to continuing his project. In short, Zedillo Ponce de León fulfilled the attributes the patrimonial camp considered positive: he was respectful and deferent towards presidential authority and the regime’s customary rules. The patrimonial camp saw Zedillo Ponce de León as an actor that could gather the old politicians and the technocrats together in a joint project that would allow for, on the one hand, the preservation of the regime and, on the other, a deliberate transition to democracy (Salomón, 1994). In fact, Zedillo Ponce de León was described as the incarnation of the charismatic referents of the old revolutionary warlord, able to bring together different political forces and articulate a straightforward project for the nation. According to a columnist from Reforma, it was necessary to acknowledge that “Zedillo must not only be a lucid technocrat and a skilled politician, but we also need a statesman with a vision for the future: we are all betting on Zedillo to be one” (Lujambio, 1994). The patrimonial camp believed the new PRI candidate promised to uphold one of the most valuable principles of the regime: the preservation of the president’s figure as a symbol of national unity, but also the lever that, at some point, would facilitate the democratic opening of the country’s institutions. Civil Alternatives The civil camp had a rather different interpretation of Salinas de Gortari’s decision to appoint Zedillo Ponce de León as the PRI’s substitute presidential candidate. In the civil declination of the utilitarian and normative semantics, this camp generated a reading guided by the following questions: Who could operate as civil support in a country marked by violent strife among the members of the post-revolutionary regime? How could civil institutions possibly guarantee powerful social inclusion and solidarity mechanisms in a context where the patrimonial institutions that gave order to the country had become fractured? Moreover, concretely, how would it be possible to transform the figure of the president and the official party from patrimonial into civil institutions?

 Lerdo de Tejada (1994b), Blanco (1994), G. Salinas (1994), and Fernández (1994).

22

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The civil declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence believed Zedillo Ponce de León’s appointment showed that Salinas de Gortari supported sectorial and corporate interests, ones that sought to establish relations that reduced inclusion and solidarity and fostered arbitrary and exclusive personalistic institutions. This declination argued that the president had, in the end, used the powers that allowed him to name his successor, which confirmed the regime was incapable of becoming democratic. The civil camp interpreted Zedillo Ponce de León’s appointment as an attempt by the political class to continue with the neoliberal project and its tutelary democracy. In contrast, for the normative semantics of the civil declination, Zedillo Ponce de León’s appointment did not further guarantee the reproduction of the patrimonial camp’s particularistic values and principles. According to this perspective, Colosio Murrieta’s death meant the symbolic death of patrimonialism, and the designation of the new candidate meant their vain efforts to resuscitate it. Authoritarian Persistence According to the civil declination of utilitarian semantics, Colosio Murrieta’s death did not immediately imply the regime’s destruction since the president of the republic was still exercising his function as a “supreme voter,” to whose decisions the PRI would have to capitulate (Reyes, 1994a; Granados, 1994b). On this very point, a columnist from Reforma wrote: [T]here is a closer view to dramaturgy than politics, which consists in looking at homicide as the beginning of the end of the Mexican political system. This is not the case. Beyond the collective expressions of rejection [of President Salinas de Gortari] at the funeral, what we have is a party that is docile before the president’s figure and whose hands are as tied as they have been since its inception. (Granados, 1994b)

For this civil declination, Zedillo’s appointment as the PRI’s substitute candidate represented the continuity of Salinas de Gortari’s authoritarian project, though he insisted on disguising it as democratic change (Fabela, 1994). According to a columnist from Reforma: [T]he PRI has obscure interests that the death of Colosio had to make evident, making the PRI respond to other claims. However, Zedillo’s election as substitute candidate has made apparent that the obscure interests are still

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there [to democratize the PRI]. The traditional presidential decisions should have been overcome, advancing towards a full-blown election conducted by its National Political Council. (Faesler, 1994)

For this declination, such a scenario was visible in the measure to which the president, through Zedillo Ponce de León’s nomination, sought to hold on to his power and to attempt to mend the PRI’s inner fractures (Aziz, 1994b). In sum, for the civil declination in its utilitarian version of violence, Zedillo’s appointment attested to the fact that the PRI would not become democratic, and the authoritarian regime had been renewed.23 A column in El Universal underscores this point: “Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León’s appointment proves once again that the PRI and the government are moving based on anti-democratic dynamics, prioritizing relations based on the corporate and clientelist negotiation mechanisms that support an authoritarian State” (Orozco, 1994). In contrast to the patrimonial camp, here, the civil camp interpreted Zedillo Ponce de León’s appointment as a sign that the harmful intrusions of non-civil spheres, with their exclusionary tendencies, would continue eroding democratic forms of civil solidarity and membership. Moreover, Zedillo Ponce de León’s appointment was dangerous to the country because, to quote a columnist from Excélsior, “the rough and wild Mexico had been awakened by the existence of a crisis in the political system and the categorical failure of the neoliberal policies imposed on the country” (Bueno, 1994). According to this interpretative stance, the Zedillo Ponce de León candidacy revealed that presidentialism was still operating freely through the power of the office, despite the crises they were facing; for this reason, they saw full, untutored democracy as a faraway reality. However, some voices in the civil declination of utilitarian semantics hoped Zedillo Ponce de León, seen as a “weak and fragile” candidate, could be defeated in the elections.24 As we can read in a column in El Universal, “Ernesto Zedillo’s [appointment] responds to the interests of Salinas de Gortari; thus, it is not a change of the relations inside of the government, the institutional profile, or in the government order” (Moya, 1994). In this sense, the civil camp’s sentence was clear: Zedillo Ponce de León represented the continuity of the country’s patrimonial system feeding undemocratic forces.  Orozco (1994), I. Salinas (1994b), H. Castillo (1994b), and Jardí (1994c).  López (1994), Cansino (1994a), and Catón (1994a, 1994c).

23 24

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According to this interpretative declination, Salinas de Gortari was not interested in strengthening democracy; he was betting on sustaining the permanence of state ideology, as well as the coercive apparatus and authoritarian democracy he had promoted during his tenure.25 Moreover, as a columnist from Excélsior pointed out, “[T]he situation could get worse and deteriorate further if certain internal political-military groups leaned toward an authoritarian path” (Saxe-Fernández, 1994). Therefore, this interpretation implied that the only way to end the regime was to hasten the democratic transition and step back from the authoritarian democracy promoted by Salinas de Gortari.26  he Symbolic Death of Patrimonialism T For the civil declination of normative semantics, Colosio Murrieta’s assassination represented a fatal wound to the country’s authoritarian political culture. According to this interpretation, historically, the official candidate’s appointment permanently transformed the chosen one into an invincible, sacred being who never got sick, did not die, did not give up. In this sense, the photograph of Colosio Murrieta that was circulated in newspapers, laying on the ground, bathed in his own blood, showed the pathos of the figure already deprived of the investiture granted by power. It was no longer magical. He was no longer the heir of a political force that had rendered him superhuman: the impudence of this photograph has reduced him to ordinary matter, a toppled man, a residue.27 (Echeverría, 1994, p. 29)

According to this interpretative declination, the assassination of the PRI’s candidate meant the authoritarian system had lost its aura. In other words, the authoritarian culture of the regime had died when Colosio Murrieta was assassinated.28 According to this interpretation, the tragic end of the PRI candidate also represented the end of a way of doing politics characterized by what the civil camp considered impure: excessive and uncontrolled ambition for power, deferential relations with authority, and customized and exclusive institutions.  Riva (1994a), De la Peña (1994), and Musacchio (1994a).  Valadez (1994), Shabot (1994), Loaeza (1994a), R. Delgado (1994a), Riva (1994a), and Aridjis (1994). 27  See also: Ortiz (1994b). 28  Garavito (1994), Stavenhagen (1994), Gershenson (1994a, 1994b), and Morales (1994). 25 26

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This interpretation implied that the official candidate’s death should be read as an opportunity for the country since it sped up the pace towards democracy, thus avoiding any attempt at political regression to authoritarianism (Woldenberg, 1994). Therefore, this civil declination saw Colosio Murrieta’s death as a symbolic input from a non-civil order of society, and the political parties should make the most of it to show the point to which the patrimonial institution of the presidency and the PRI had decayed. However, it was also important to avoid romanticizing violence as a means for social change, as many ideologues had done in their fascination with the EZLN’s uprising.29 A column in Reforma asserted, “[V]iolence as a form of political expression cannot be allowed. The EZLN’s uprising and Colosio’s death are acts that do not lead to democracy; they lead to political barbarity” (Aridjis, 1994). The normative civil declination read the violence as an impure component of civil life since it was motivated by ideological passion and irrationality; the only relations that could arise from it were based on antagonism, suspicion, and conspiracy, as well as authoritarian institutions.

Continuity and Rupture Colosio Murrieta’s assassination was unanimously condemned by virtually all of the country’s social and political actors. However, the patrimonial and civil camps started competing to control the meaning of the assassination, allowing for the construction of narratives on its connotation, the perpetrators and victims, and the effects on the post-revolutionary regime and the democratic transition. The patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence considered Colosio Murrieta’s death objectionable because it was the product of the interests of old politicians, technocrats, and even drug traffickers. These groups sought to obtain or recover their lost privileges, controlling institutions by force. However, the patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence pointed out that Colosio Murrieta’s assassination was reprehensible because it was inspired by both left-wing and neoliberal ideologies that justified violence. Each in its own way, the two ideologies had enthroned violence, whether to impose a socialist state or the free market. Each also suggested Colosio Murrieta’s assassination had resulted from the strife between the old 29  Valadez (1994), Shabot (1994), Loaeza (1994a), R.  Delgado (1994a), and Riva (1994a).

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politicians and technocrats in their race to impose their respective projects upon the nation. Thus, both patrimonial declinations believed the only way to face the crisis that had precipitated Colosio Murrieta’s death was for the president to enforce the coercive capacity of his office and activate its symbolic weight as a referent of cohesion and social order. The civil declination of utilitarian semantics judged Colosio Murrieta’s assassination as illegitimate because it had the support of interests seeking to generate political instability that would end the weak democratic institutionalism and strengthen authoritarianism in the country. It also interpreted the assassination as the result of the process of social and spiritual degradation produced by neoliberalism. The civil declination of utilitarian semantics believed neoliberalism had eroded the regime’s rules of the game. Thus, both politicians and technocrats ended up resorting to violence to reach their objectives. In contrast, the civil declination of normative semantics believed Colosio Murrieta’s death was a product of the effects of neoliberalism on society, the idea that competition was the only path to success, even if it included violence. Thus, the two declinations believed the only way to face the political crisis that had led to Colosio Murrieta’s death was to accelerate the democratic transition process and dismantle the patrimonialist regime. For this, it was essential to guarantee widespread participation in the upcoming presidential elections so a party other than the PRI could attain power. In the patrimonial and civil camps, the actors they believed to be part of the social drama around Colosio Murrieta’s death played different roles. The old politicians and the technocrats sometimes showed up as perpetrators and, at other times, as victims. Sometimes, the former or the latter were depicted as reformers of the patrimonial rules without entirely breaking with them and at other times, they appeared as patrimonialism’s most determined defenders. At some point, both camps caricatured the technocrats as severe threats to the country’s political stability. At the same time, they described the old politicians as great heroes defending a political system that had guaranteed political peace for years. Depending on what group they believed Colosio Murrieta belonged to—the old politicians or the modernizers—the attributes of patrimonial purity were assigned to the groups because they sought to either reinforce or transform the customary norms. The discussion on what the profile of the PRI’s new candidate should be and the appointment procedure led to another debate. The patrimonial camp, in its utilitarian declination, suggested the new candidate should be

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someone with a clearly authoritarian profile, as in the early stages of the patrimonial regime. In contrast, the normative declination of the patrimonial camp suggested the convenience of a more conciliatory and paternalistic profile. Despite these differences, the patrimonial camp believed the president should appoint his successor, thus preserving the country’s political order, even as some voices called for the opening of a democratic process within the PRI.  In contrast, the civil camp thought Salinas de Gortari inevitably sought to hold on to control of the succession, so it was to be expected that any candidate the president appointed would continue with what they saw as a project of authoritarian democracy and a neoliberal economic model. Once Salinas de Gortari appointed Zedillo Ponce de León as his successor, the patrimonial and civil camps stopped discussing the supposed motives and actors behind Colosio Murrieta’s assassination. Instead, the two focused on interpreting the meaning of presidential decisions and their possible effects on the operation of the patrimonial regime and the country’s nascent democracy. As a result, the patrimonial camp unanimously backed Zedillo Ponce de León’s appointment, arguing he had the best profile: he was a person who could mediate in the apparent conflict between the regime’s old politicians and the technocrats, as well as guarantee the continuity of Salinas de Gortari’s political project. According to the civil camp, however, Zedillo Ponce de León’s appointment confirmed the continuity of the economic and political authoritarian model promoted by Salinas de Gortari. The competition between the patrimonial and civil camps confronted two different projects of citizen solidarity and inclusion. First, the patrimonial camp held it was necessary to take care of the unwritten rules of the regime and hold onto its institutions. They called for a reinforcement of the coercive and symbolic force of the presidential office as a referent for political unity in the country. Second, the civil camp suggested accelerating the transition to democracy; according to this camp, the post-­ revolutionary regime had already exhausted its ability to guarantee social order and stability. Above all, it was no longer viable to negotiate political differences in the highest spheres of power. The civil camp promoted going out and voting in the upcoming elections to oust the PRI from the government. However, both the patrimonial and the civil camps believed the rules of the game had changed. For the patrimonial camp, the president had perhaps quickly corrected this change. For the civil camp, this change was more profound, and it evidenced an internal crisis in the

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patrimonial regime. However, despite the different evaluations from both camps, they shared the feeling that something had been fractured in the post-revolutionary political regime. Moreover, for both the patrimonial and the civil camps, the presidential figure was, to a large extent, the key to avoiding social instability, as well as ensuring a future democratic transition. For this reason, some voices in the civil camp agreed that the president was the key to opening democracy: only he could dismantle the office’s material and symbolic force. If the president himself could not cancel the office’s gravitational pull, the transition to democracy would not be possible. This transition, of course, did not occur. On the contrary, Salinas de Gortari investigated Colosio Murrieta’s death in a non-transparent and careless manner. He named Miguel Montes Garcia, minister of the nation’s Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN), whose expert work was plagued with omissions and the alteration of data and information. In the beginning, the court claimed Colosio Murrieta’s assassination had been a concerted operation, meaning it was a perfectly organized plot. However, by July, Montes Garcia himself stated that all evidence pointed to the fact that Mario Aburto Martínez was the material and intellectual author of the crime, solely responsible for Colosio Murrieta’s death as a lone murderer. Subsequently, Deputy Attorney General Olga Islas de González Mariscal took over the investigation. Her work started with thirty-one different lines of investigation, which, by December of 1994 numbered only fourteen. Her most significant contribution to the investigation was the discovery that unidentified people were involved in the assassination, who had spoken to Aburto Martínez at different moments in the interrogation and in his transfer to Mexico City. During the management of the case by Islas de González Mariscal, Colosio Murrieta’s assassin was sentenced to forty-two years in prison. Nevertheless, the omissions and lack of clarity during the investigation left doubts about who exactly was responsible for Colosio Murrieta’s death. Law enforcement institutions were called incompetent or, worse still, accused of colluding with political and economic group interests. In this sense, the civil camp claimed the investigation into Colosio Murrieta’s death was anti-civil, a manipulated process, conspiratorial, discretional, performed by institutions that were discretional, exclusive, and customized. A poll conducted shortly before the presidential elections revealed that most of the population believed there had been an intellectual author of the crime from among the highest levels of power (“Encuesta,” 1994). The public not only interpreted the lack of certainty about the results of

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the investigations in Colosio Murrieta’s case as a failure of law enforcement, but also highlighted the incapacity of the justice system to convince society that it was possible to repair and punish violence through the judicial system. Regarding the elections, the political campaign continued apace. The PRI mobilized their old corporate structure—unions, popular, and peasant organizations—while simultaneously employing the new client list structure provided by the Solidarity committees (Camou, 1996; Pacheco, 2003). Even though television worked as one more cog in the PRI’s electoral machinery, radio and newspapers had more autonomy and the ability for criticism (Espino, 2011). The PRI designed a campaign focused on suggesting the Zapatista revolt and Colosio Murrieta’s death were just the first glimmers of growing violence that only the PRI would be able to contain (Oppenheimer, 2003; Rivapalacio, 2003). Thus, the party attempted to generate the sentiment that the opposition parties were essentially anti-civil, particularly the PRD; accordingly, if they happened to win, there would be an increase in violence, chaos, and, of course, a generalized regression in the country’s living conditions. On July 1, 1994, the PRI candidate received 48 percent of the electoral votes, a wide margin over their primary opponents, the PAN and the PRD, who garnered 25 and 16  percent, respectively. The PRI held on to its majorities in the deputy and senatorial chambers. Thus, Salinas de Gortari’s government seemed to confirm, in the eyes of the public, the legitimacy of his government, the PRI’s power, and the viability of his economic and political project. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León landed in the office of the presidency without the doubts and questions over legitimacy his predecessor had experienced in 1988. The dialogue with the EZLN continued with ups and downs, but everything seemed to herald that the country was moving away from the past storms of violence. However, two months after the presidential elections, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, secretary-general of the PRI, was assassinated while leaving an event with his party’s deputies and senators. This assassination reopened the debate over the weight violence had acquired among groups in power and confirmed the definitive shattering of the formal and informal rules of the game within the post-revolutionary political regime, now enshrined in the figure of the official party.

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Riva, R. (1994a, March 24). Los Idus de 94. Reforma Riva, R. (1994b, March 28). La disputa por del poder. Reforma Rivapalacio, R. (2003). La prensa de los jardines. Plaza y Janés Robles, J. C. (1994, March 24). La caja negra. El Sol de México, A20 Rodríguez, C. (1994, March 26). Réquiem. El Sol de México, A4, A16 Rodríguez, F. (1994, March 25). Índice político. El Sol de México, A19 Rodríguez, O. (1994, March 31). Estabilidad y democracia. La Jornada, 7 Rubio, L. (1994a, March 27). Los dinosaurios contra la nación. Reforma Rubio, L. (1994b, April 3). Construir sobre la indignación. Reforma Salinas, G. (1994, March 25). Descanse en paz. El Universal, 7–8 Salinas, I. (1994a, March 25). Encrucijada. El Universal, 2, 8 Salinas, I. (1994b, April 1). Un auténtico ¡viva México! El Universal, 2 Salomón, C. (1994, March 25). Atentado a la democracia. No se vale. Excélsior, A5, A11 Sánchez, A. (1994, March 31). Incredulidad y violencia. La Jornada, 8 Saxe-Fernández, J. (1994, March 29). Tras el crimen. Tentaciones dictatoriales. Excélsior, A7–A8 Shabot, E. (1994, March 30). Los admiradores de la violencia. Reforma Sin validez cualquier pronunciamiento. (1994, March 28). El Universal, 6 Solís, G. (1994, March 25). ‘Colosio sí, Camacho no’. Reforma Sotelo, P. (1994, January 28). ‘Que no se hagan bolas: Colosio es el candidato’. Reforma, 1 Stavenhagen, R. (1994, March 28). Después del asesinato. La Jornada, 1, 8 Unzueta, G. (1994, March 28). El momento de la transición o del derrumbe. El Universal, 7–8 Uriostegui, P. (1994, March 25). Un crimen cobarde. El Universal, 7–8 Valadez, B. I. (1994, March 27). La nuestra, vocación pacifista. El Universal, 6, 8 Valadis, A. D. (1994, March 24). Atentados en México. Reforma Wimer, J. (1994, March 26). Sucesión abierta. La Jornada, 8 Woldenberg, J. (1994, March 26). El asesinato de Luis Donaldo Colosio. La Jornada, 1, 5

CHAPTER 6

Violence Within the Party

This chapter analyzes how the patrimonial and civil camps competed over the meaning of the assassination of the PRI’s secretary-general, Francisco Ruiz Massieu, how the two interpretative camps delineated the crime’s potential perpetrators and victims, and how they outlined the paths towards preventing political destabilization and guaranteeing the continuity of the patrimonial order without affecting the democratic transition process. The dispute over signifying Ruiz Massieu’s assassination was a political drama that involved the institutionalized apparatus for political negotiation and articulation of clientelist and corporate relations crystallized in the PRI. While the patrimonial and civil camps read Colosio Murrieta’s assassination as an attack on presidential power, they interpreted Ruiz Massieu’s assassination as a challenge to the institutional continuity of the political relations regulated through the PRI. In this sense, the crime was an attack against the customary norms institutionalized through the official party. Moreover, the death of the PRI’s secretary-general led to accusations leveled at high functionaries of the party by the solicitor general in charge of the investigation. These allegations strengthened the idea that the death of Ruiz Massieu represented the struggle between the regime’s old politicians and the neoliberal technocrats. Now, however, the fighting had moved from the presidential office to the party trenches. The disputes about who perpetrated the crime and the motives behind the death of Ruiz Massieu transcended Salinas de Gortari’s tenure. Three © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Arteaga Botello, Semantics of Violence, Cultural Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94695-1_6

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months after leaving power, the ex-president was accused of hiding information about the crimes of both Ruiz Massieu and Colosio Murrieta. In response, Salinas de Gortari started a hunger strike to demand exoneration from any judicial investigation. The patrimonial and civil camps interpreted the hunger strike and its demands as a breakdown of the code of silence ex-presidents usually impose upon themselves. Both camps believed Salinas de Gortari’s actions placed both the post-revolutionary system and the fragile democracy at risk. The ex-president abandoned the hunger strike when he was assured that he was not, and would not be, the subject of a judicial investigation. The patrimonial field interpreted Salinas de Gortari’s abandonment of the hunger strike on the one hand as a victory for the ex-president that weakened the figure of the current president, and, on the other hand, as a victory for Zedillo Ponce de León, which strengthened the presidential office. Both interpretations acknowledged that something had shifted within the postrevolutionary regime and that it was necessary to rewrite or revamp its customary institutions and rules. Some in the patrimonial camp even started pointing out the need to open more democratic channels in society. Certain voices in the civil camp noted that with his hunger strike, Salinas de Gortari had imposed his power, allowing for the establishment of a Maximato. Others claimed the authoritarian regime was profoundly weakened. Despite these differences, the civil camp believed the only way to end the violence in the patrimonial regime was to reinforce democratic institutions.

The Assassination of a Political Operator When Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León won the election, he stated it was necessary to distance the PRI from the government structure: “I want a party to strengthen independence before the state.” He promised that once he stepped in as president, he “would become a passive PRI member with the unbreakable promise to not intervene at all in its inner life” (“Los Retos de Zedillo,”, 1994; Rivera, 1994). Zedillo Ponce de León’s plan suggested the party should operate as a corporate mediation mechanism for the demands and needs of different social groups and classes, but without the president of the republic. Ignacio Pichardo Pagaza,1 the PRI’s 1  After Colosio Murrieta’s death, Fernando Ortiz Arana would only operate as the PRI’s president for two more months. Pichardo Pagaza took his place, who before appointment to the PRI, had been governor of the State of Mexico (1989–1993) and then Mexican ambassador to Spain (1993–1994).

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president, asked Zedillo Ponce de León to remove him from his office, claiming that “I am not the [PRI] president that is currently needed” (“Pichardo Pagaza denunció,”, 1994). Zedillo Ponce de León assured Pichardo Pagaza he did not need to resign since, in the following year, there would be an assembly where the necessary adjustments inside the party would be implemented. Apparently, in that assembly, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the PRI secretary-­general, took over the party’s presidency to help actualize Zedillo Ponce de León’s proposal. Ruiz Massieu was a federal deputy, and Zedillo Ponce de León had appointed him coordinator of his party’s seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Among his other functions, Ruiz Massieu participated as the PRI’s representative in the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE). Thus, Ruiz Massieu was a relevant political operator for the future government. He would oversee the PRI’s separation from the state, take Zedillo Ponce de León’s legislative proposals to the legislature, and become president’s voice in the IFE.2 Thus, Ruiz Massieu appeared to be a key politician in working towards a new government: a central player in the PRI’s transformation process and its relation to the government. However, Daniel Aguilar Treviño assassinated Ruiz Massieu on September 28, 1994 on his way out of a work meeting with PRI deputies.3 Salinas de Gortari put the country’s Deputy Attorney General Mario Ruiz Massieu, the victim’s brother, in charge of the investigation. Two days after the murder, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) reported the existence of a supposed list with the names of politicians who were to be murdered. The objective was to block the reforms Ruiz Massieu planned to implement. The PGR pointed at Deputy Manuel Muñoz Rocha as the author of that list, asking Congress to remove Muñoz Rocha from office so they could initiate penal action against him. Some PRI legislators rejected that demand, arguing that the deputy would instead apply for a leave from his office. According to this interpretative position, dismissing 2  José Francisco Ruiz Massieu studied law at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and history at the Universidad Iberoamericana. In the academic field, he was a researcher for the UNAM’s Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas and he was the director of the law department at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. In public service, he was governor of the State of Guerrero (1987–1993) and later general director of the Institute for the National Fund for Worker’s Housing (1993–1994). His personal life was linked to Salinas de Gortari’s since he had been married to his sister, Adriana. 3  A few blocks from the crime scene, a bank police officer arrested Aguilar Treviño. However, the officer had simply stopped the assassin because he was running with a firearm in his hand.

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the deputy and revoking his immunity would confirm the suspicion that there was intense strife inside the PRI, and that they were starting to address the conflict through violence. The supporters of the removal request argued it was necessary as an exemplary punishment against those within the PRI that would resort to violence. At the end of the debate, the initiative advocating for a leave application prevailed. While Muñoz Rocha’s application was in the approval process, the PGR entered the PRI’s offices under the pretext that “relevant data” on the assassination were hidden on the premises. The following day, Deputy Attorney General Mario Ruiz Massieu announced the most relevant line of investigation was in the political sphere and not the sphere of drug trafficking; accordingly, the Federal Attorney General’s Office had entered the PRI offices. In response, the PRI’s leadership asserted that the perpetrators were drug traffickers and not politicians. In the eyes of society, the investigation into Ruiz Massieu’s death was plagued with omissions. At the start of the inquiry, the investigation claimed the murder was an operation perpetrated among perfectly identified actors. One month later, the investigation revealed a wider plot. Mario Ruiz Massieu declared the structure of the official party had managed to “bend truth and justice.” He asked Zedillo Ponce de León not to allow himself to bend when he took office and to punish “the political group behind his brother’s death.” Moreover, he warned: “The demons have run loose, and they have prevailed.4” Mario Ruiz Massieu announced his resignation as deputy attorney general and self-exiled in the United States. If Colosio Murrieta’s assassination had been an affront to the figure of the president, Ruiz Massieu’s death was an assault against the disciplined political apparatus through which the president governed the Chambers of Deputies and Senators as de facto leader, guaranteeing institutionalism during the post-revolutionary regime. A discussion emerged regarding the potential consequences of the death of the PRI’s secretary-general and how to face them. Each of the resulting interpretations referred to a particular signification of the violence and suggested a series of measures for taking action. The patrimonial and civil camps competed to control the meaning of the violence against the leader of the PRI and a key piece in that party’s transformation. Each of these camps defended their solidarity production, institutions, and mechanisms for citizen inclusion and membership. 4

 See: CFEMED0MEX (2011).

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Strife Within the Institutionalized Revolution The patrimonial camp read Ruiz Massieu’s assassination as evidence that the rules regulating the differences and conflicts inside of the post-­ revolutionary regime were exhausted. In contrast to the Colosio Murrieta case, this reading argued that the political and economic modernization process had generated tensions in the official party. The singularity of Ruiz Massieu’s assassination was that it questioned the legitimacy of the apparatus that allowed for the permanence of a political class in power. This kind of “perfect dictatorship,” as Mario Vargas Llosa had called it, offered institutionalism, formality, and transparent rules for the succession of power to the members of the post-revolutionary political class. Hence, it represented a party capable of creating incipient democratic institutions, although never losing control over the mass media, the judicial system, and the legislature. The utilitarian and normative semantics of the patrimonial declination pondered the causes and effects of the fatal attack against the PRI’s secretary-­general. They asked the following questions: How do the patrimonial codes ascribe the roles of perpetrators and victims? Who has fractured the patrimonial morals crystallized in the official party and its secretary-general? How is it possible that the patrimonial institutions did not guarantee their members mechanisms for inclusion and solidarity? And, finally, should the patrimonial institutions be replaced or reinforced? The patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence that condemned Ruiz Massieu’s death believed there were actors with specific motives, objectives, and means behind the attack, who wished to impose relations and institutions in the service of personal or group ends and interests, rather than the interests of the corporate sectors and organizations. Thus, political and organized crime interests seeking to dismantle the PRI’s political machinery were the ones behind Ruiz Massieu’s assassination. One interpretation from this declination suggested the assassination was perpetrated by the regime’s old politicians, technocrats, or leftists, seeking to destabilize the PRI in exchange for economic benefit. In contrast, the patrimonial declination of normative semantics believed that Ruiz Massieu’s assassination was censurable because the people who had planned and performed the crime were inspired by motives, objectives, and means based on values and ideals considered particularistic and exclusive. According to this declination, the death of the PRI’s secretary-­ general was inspired by the radicalized ideologies of the left, neoliberals,

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or maybe even a twisted perspective of the 1910 Revolution’s ideology. Both the utilitarian and normative semantics of the patrimonial declination suggested ways to respond to the crime against Ruiz Massieu.  e-establishing the Customary Rules of Law and Order R The patrimonial declination of utilitarian semantics judged Ruiz Massieu’s assassination as censurable. They posited the existence of “dark forces” behind the crime who wished to destroy the country, fracturing legality, institutionalism, and social solidarity.5 Although this interpretative declination never specified exactly who these “dark forces” were, they were the same people who had committed other acts of violence. A column in El Sol de México argued: The death of Ruiz Massieu is an aggression against the president of the republic, the rule of law, and Mexico. Clearly, somebody is behind this destabilization plan, which began with the assassination of Cardinal Posadas, continued with the death of Luis Donaldo Colosio, and now with the assassin of the PRI’s secretary-general. (Mejido, 1994a, p. 26)

However, despite the destructive violence of these dark forces, they did not represent more than a small marginal group in national politics. Thus, the argument followed, they would not be able to stop the reforms Zedillo Ponce de León was going to push through or hinder the country’s development (Fuentes, 1994).6 However, the patrimonial camp, and its utilitarian reading of violence, also criticized the assassination because they claimed the leaders of the PRD, motivated by their ambition for power, were behind the crime. A column in El Sol de México assured that “this party was headed by leaders who are sick with power and will stop at nothing” (D’Estrabau, 1994a, p. 26). The objective of these leaders was not to expand democracy but to undermine the PRI’s ability to operate politically. Therefore, according to this interpretative declination, the leaders of the PRD had created the EZLN as their armed branch. El Sol de México proposed that “the left-­ wing is actually a group of provocateurs hiding behind the mask of the 5  Alcócer (1994a), Rentería (1994a), Chapa (1994), G. Reyes (1994), Uriostegui (1994), D’Estrabau (1994a), Avilés (1994a), López (1994a), Güitrón (1994), and Cárdenas (1994b). 6  Cabañas (1994a), Sodi de la Tijera (1994a), Uriostegui (1994), Canales (1994a), Trinidad (1994), and Faesler (1994).

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struggle for democracy and justice” (Oria, 1994). According to this line of argumentation, it was to be expected that if the government and the PRI insisted on dialoguing with the PRD leaders “as if they were humans,” the political violence would only continue to increase. Another column in El Sol de México noted that “official softness, which some see as a symptom of fear, has led insane people to take power over the country, starting by tolerating the EZLN, who is responsible for the violence the country is now experiencing” (De la Garza, 1994, p. 22). In the end, this interpretative declination called on the president to impose order in political life. In the patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence, some voices censured the assassination because they believed drug traffickers had committed the crime. However, this declination argued that drug traffickers could not act alone.7 As a columnist from El Sol de México suggested, “Ruiz Massieu’s assassins are the PRD headed by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who has colluded with the drug traffickers, together with the radical wing of his party. This is not original, and it has happened in Peru and Colombia, where drug traffickers finance radical communist groups” (D’Estrabau, 1994b, p. 21). In short, both leftist militants and drug traffickers were to blame for the assassination of the PRI’s secretary-general. For this interpretation, the left was not the left as such but rather a group of people, from within the PRI, who had broken with the patrimonial system. Thus, by joining the drug traffickers, this group embodied the very attributes the patrimonial camp considered impure: they were people whose ambitions went beyond the limits the customary institutions allowed, moved only by personal and group interests, who rejected the corporate and clientelist system, seeking to fracture presidential power through force and coercion, and to control the institutions to establish, not a democracy, but a factious and criminal state. In a different formulation, the drug traffickers had become allied with another actor: the PRI’s old politicians. Moved by their economic and political aspirations, allegedly cut short by Zedillo Ponce de León’s arrival in the government, these politicians had resorted to the armed strength of the drug cartels. As a column in Excélsior suggested: “There are people and groups who are attempting to prevent the change the country is experiencing through violence, so the criminal political groups of the system’s old politicians and the criminal drug trafficking groups have signed a pact” 7  Loret de Mola (1994a), Ávila (1994), Haas (1994a), Baroja (1994), Vázquez (1994a), and Canales (1994b).

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(Rentería, 1994b, p. 5). The objective of the criminal politicians, represented by the PRI’s old politicians, was to halt what they considered a turn to democracy emerging from the government itself and the act of treason against the patrimonial rules, as evidenced by Zedillo Ponce de León’s initiative to separate the PRI from the government.8 However, these statements lost strength when it was made public that the relationship between the PRI politicians and drug traffickers was comprised of figures with a low profile and power, such as deputy Muñoz Rocha (Fuentes, 1994). Nevertheless, the death of the PRI’s secretary-­ general revealed the emergence of what this part of the patrimonial camp called “everyday fascism.” According to a column in La Jornada, this fascism was characterized by “grey, ordinary figures with no definite personal textures, unknown public employees. The violence combines impunity and crime, politics and drug trafficking, and that constituted one of the origins of everyday fascism” (A. Sánchez, 1994, p. 7). According to this utilitarian patrimonial declination, Ruiz Massieu’s assassins were mediocre politicians moved by their ambition for power, who wished to ascend politically outside of the customary rules and institutions. The old politicians and the technocrats were not behind Ruiz Massieu’s assassination, but rather, as a columnist in La Jornada said, “just a bunch of clumsy complicities between small-time bureaucrats and small-time delinquents” (Sánchez, 1994, p. 7). The patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence suggested that to halt the country’s wave of political violence, Salinas de Gortari had to guarantee that the law would prosecute the perpetrators of the crime against Ruiz Massieu (Alcócer, 1994a; Basave, 1994b). The president had to confront the violence by reinforcing the state’s security institutions to guarantee the criminals would pay for their crimes.9 Corruption and impunity should be combatted, jailing those who used violence to achieve their economic or political ends. According to this interpretative declination, one thing that had contributed to generating a context of violence in the country was that criminals were not brought to

8  Ortiz (1994b), Rentería (1994c), García (1994d), Woldenberg (1994), Covián (1994), Sodi de la Tijera (1994b), Fabela (1994b), Vázquez (1994b), Elizondo (1994b), Olimon (1994), Avilés (1994b), Olague (1994), Knochenhauer (1994), Haas (1994b), Aviles (1994), Cabañas (1994b), and Peñaloza (1994). 9  Merino (1994), Elizondo (1994b), and Güitrón (1994).

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justice.10 For a Reforma columnist, “[W]hen the deaths of Colosio and Ruiz Massieu are not solved satisfactorily, the political groups inside the PRI believe they can assassinate and remain unpunished” (Elizondo, 1994b). Therefore, Salinas de Gortari should offer an example by solving the assassinations of Colosio Murrieta and Ruiz Massieu expeditiously and transparently; it is the only way the state can recover its authority and legitimacy, and the people will start to respect the law.11 This interpretation invited the regime to enforce the law through tradition-based principles, but using the complex legal framework and the differentiated bureaucratic system to guarantee the guilty would be punished. Some people inside this declination also suggested establishing the death penalty for those who assassinated and kidnapped politicians. A column in El Universal argued that “this was the only efficient method to confront the law of the jungle that prevails in the nation, as well as the irrational forces behind it” (Llarena y Del Rosario, 1994, p. 8). The law should be enforced, even if the left and civil society organizations accused the government of repression. As a columnist in Excélsior asserted, it was necessary to establish “a definitive and annihilating crusade against the criminal enemies of Mexico” (Michelena, 1994, p.  7). Moreover, the death penalty should be applied in the case of the EZLN because it had unleashed violence in the country (De la Garza, 1994). In this way, political actors would realize that it was better to keep their motives inside of sectorial and corporate spaces, value relations based on clientelist negotiation, and respect the presidential institution’s coercive force. The patrimonial camp considered these elements pure; they had, until recently, proven their efficiency to guarantee peace. At the same time, some voices within this declination warned Zedillo Ponce de León to be ready to enter an endless war if he chose to directly confront the drug traffickers (Sodi, 1994). Nevertheless, there was no other solution for confronting the violence occurring in the country (Loret de Mola, 1994b). Such an interpretation implied that “violence is probably the main national problem,” and it should thus be confronted directly.12 According to this posture, the patrimonial regime should use 10  Berdejo (1994), Riva (1994b), Alcócer (1994a), Rentería (1994a, 1994c), Aguilar (1994), Merino (1994), Sodi de la Tijera (1994a), Calderón (1994), Fabela (1994a), Reyes (1994a), Riojas (1994), Castellanos (1994), Rubio (1994a), Domínguez (1994), Bartolomé (1994), and Catón (1994b). 11  C. Rodríguez (1994), J. Sánchez (1994b), C. Ortiz (1994a), and Pérez-Ayala (1994). 12  Sodi de la Tijera (1994a), Enríquez (1994b), and Catón (1994a).

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the law against the persons they claimed were responsible for the violence, using one of the regime’s positive attributions, through which it was legitimate for the president to maneuver inside the customary norms, interpreting and applying the law with broad autonomy.  ld and New Patrimonial Ideas O The patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence censured Ruiz Massieu’s assassination because it resulted from ideologies that justified violence to transform society. They claimed that certain ideologues and academics, who had supported the EZLN because they thought the group could bring about a radical transformation of society through the legitimate use of violence in politics, were behind this attack. Such an interpretation invited these ideologues and academics to reflect on how their justification of violence had triggered the assassinations of Ruiz Massieu and Colosio Murrieta. In other words, they should moderate their passions and desires, and remain inside the parameters of the country’s customary principles and values. As a columnist from Excélsior put it: [I]t is time those who succumbed to the temptation of justifying violence, any kind of violence, and idealizing it, questioned themselves. It is a dangerous game to make distinctions in explaining death. In today’s Mexico, bullets no longer enliven celebrations; they make funerals. (Basave, 1994a, p. 7)

This declination argued that the left had propagated the idea that it was necessary to make the PRI “disappear” to create a democratic society. As a column in El Universal put it, “[T]he dead are us, the PRI members, as if our disappearance were the only guarantee to transform the country” (Guerra, 1994, p. 7). The verbal and ideological violence of the EZLN and the PRD against the PRI was responsible for the deaths of prominent PRI figures and the impunity of the perpetrators.13 The ideologies that justified violence exhibited attributes the patrimonial camp considered impure: they promoted principles and values based on the physical destruction of political opponents instead of corporate and sectoral negotiations. Other voices in the patrimonial declination of normative semantics condemned Ruiz Massieu’s assassination because it expressed the extremes into which the defenders of both the 1910 Revolution and neoliberal  Aviles (1994), Orozco (1994), López-Portillo (1994), and Unzueta (1994b).

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ideologies could fall. In this sense, those situated in either of those two ideological extremes were responsible for the crime, motivated by blind faith in their principles and values, aiming to turn them into reality. The former shared the regime’s values and principles, headed by those against the arrest of union leaders, the privatization of state companies and communal lands, and the country’s globalization (Sarmiento, 1994a; J. Sánchez, 1994b). The latter, led by Salinas de Gortari, promoted the values and principles of the free market, competition, and minimizing the role of the state. These reformers sought to transform the economy, but not necessarily to dismantle the post-revolutionary regime (Avilés, 1994a; Michel, 1994). Thus, the patrimonial camp assigned the attributes it considered both pure and impure to the ideologies of the 1910 Revolution and to neoliberals: the purity of one side was articulated through the impurity of the other. When the patrimonial declination of normative semantics believed Ruiz Massieu possessed the attributes of purity of the neoliberal, reformist groups, it accused the old politicians of causing his death, inspired by the ideology of the 1910 Revolution and its institutions, in particular, the PRI. The PRI was intended to prevent the group led by President Salinas de Gortari and his transforming wing from continuing to weaken the official party. However, the traditional groups became radicalized when Zedillo Ponce de León announced he would separate the PRI from the government, reduce the president’s powers, and accelerate the democratic transition.14 The “Atlacomulco group,” allegedly headed by Ignacio Pichardo Pagaza, president of the PRI and considered a defender of the more conservative positions inside the official party, was directly accused of being behind Ruiz Massieu’s death (Mejido, 1994b; Salinas, 1994b).15 The political group from Tamaulipas headed by Guillermo Garza,16 which 14  Domínguez (1994), Cárdenas (1994b), Salinas (1994a), Pascoe (1994), Dresser (1994), Enríquez (1994b), J. Sánchez (1994b), Aviles (1994), Riva (1994a), Zamarriapa (1994), Sarmiento (1994b), Fabela (1994a), Castillo (1994b), Basave (1994), Ortiz (1994c), Aziz (1994), Gómez (1994a), Unzueta (1994a), Reyes (1994b), Riva (1994a), and Rubio (1994a). 15  A group of politicians from the State of Mexico is known as the “Atlacomulco group.” It is more of a label to identify politicians from that state, than a coordinated political organization. 16  Guillermo Garza, alias “Meme Garza,” was a politician from the state of Tamaulipas who for decades stood out as a PRI political operator in local, regional, and federal elections. The opposition parties and civil society organizations considered him a specialist in electoral fraud.

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allegedly included Deputy Muñoz Rocha, was held responsible for Ruiz Massieu’s assassination, moved by its ambition for power, and its intent to undermine the PRI’s institutional abilities to resolve inner conflicts by substituting negotiations with force and coercion.17 Thus, this group of old politicians was accused of possessing attributes the patrimonial camp considered impure: they questioned the president’s authority within a system that gave him and his political group the right to make personal use of the political structure for six years. Still, they did not understand that the president’s power in office vanished as soon as he ceded it to the next ruler. In contrast, when the patrimonial declination of normative semantics declared that Ruiz Massieu crystallized the virtues of purity among the traditional groups inside the regime, they claimed the neoliberal technocrats were behind his death. According to this interpretative declination, these technocrats were motivated by upholding presidential authoritarianism. Hence, their stated objective was to erode negotiation abilities within the PRI and between that party and society. With regard to this aim, the technocrats decided to assassinate Ruiz Massieu, considered a promotor of supposed democratic reforms and a defender of the PRI’s institutional abilities. In this sense, Ruiz Massieu was a “martyr for democracy” who had defended the ideology of the “Mexican revolution.” This nationalist discourse vindicated the institutionalization of the 1910 Revolution’s demands through the organization of the masses within a corporate and clientelist system. As a column in Excélsior read, “Ruiz Massieu and Colosio Murrieta are the victims of a big democratic struggle the enemies of the current stage of the Mexican revolution and its ideologies are keen on stopping, but they will not achieve it” (Moya, 1994, p. 12). For the patrimonial declination of normative semantics, the assassination of Ruiz Massieu resulted from the confrontation of two ideological projects for the nation. When neoliberal modernizers were assigned the characteristics of patrimonial purity, the old politicians consequently represented patrimonial impurity: moved by their passions, incapable of observing the limits of customary values, and misunderstanding the meaning of political order. Accordingly, the old politicians were responsible for the crime against Ruiz Massieu. In contrast, when this declination implied that the old politicians incarnated patrimonial virtues, it saw the technocrats as bearers of the vices of the patrimonial camp, moved by the  Sodi (1994), Elizondo (1994a, 1994b), and Peñaloza (1994).

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ambition for power, encouraging relations based on technology rather than tradition, and being disloyal and critical of the patrimonial principles and values. For the PRI’s old politicians, if the party wished to survive a more democratic context, it should recover its inner cohesion and solidarity, redefine its identity, and rethink the spirit of “institutionalized revolution” that had guaranteed the country’s political order for decades. Such a course of action implied that the PRI should renew its nationalist discourse and vindicate the institutionalization of social demands, organizing the masses within a corporate and clientelist system. For the reformers, if the PRI wished to survive, it needed to introduce a strong dose of democratic practices and culture (García, 1994e). In both cases, Zedillo Ponce de León was invited to use his power and the nation’s principal member of the PRI to transform the party. Thus, the patrimonial camp asked Zedillo Ponce de León to incarnate the charismatic references of the old revolutionary warlord and to precipitate changes inside the official party. The Decomposition of Politics The civil camp read the assassination of Ruiz Massieu as the consequence of the social effects of neoliberalism. According to this camp, the neoliberal project generated structural and physical violence within all spheres of social life. Ruiz Massieu’s death resulted from this context of decomposition produced by the liberalization of the economy inside an authoritarian system. According to the civil camp, the death of Ruiz Massieu was the price society was paying to enter into modernity. In this sense, both the utilitarian and normative semantics of the civil declination wondered about the causes and effects of the assassination of Ruiz Massieu and attempted to answer the following questions: Who involved in the tragedy corresponded to authoritarian and democratic codes? Who had fractured patrimonial morals? How could mechanisms for civil inclusion and solidarity be guaranteed? And, finally, the need to think about the paths toward a transition to democracy was put into question. According to the interpretation of the civil declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence, the motives for the assassination of Ruiz Massieu were sectorial and corporate interests seeking to impose relations and institutions at the mercy of the interests of individuals and groups and not of broad sectors of the civil population. This utilitarian declination believed neoliberalism had eroded the laws of political coexistence, so the

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politicians had resorted to taking up arms to resolve their differences. For the civil declination of the normative semantics of violence, the death of Ruiz Massieu must be condemned because the instigators of the crime were inspired by motives, objectives, and means moved by values and ideals considered particularistic and exclusive. Thus, for this declination, the death of Ruiz Massieu was set within the context of a confrontation between the ideology of the 1910 Revolution and neoliberal ideology (sometimes disguised as the social liberalism Salinas de Gortari proposed). According to the civil camp, authoritarian principles and values characterized these two positions. Based on their interpretations, the two civil declinations established different paths for moving forward in the face of the crisis generated by the assassination of Ruiz Massieu. Revenge and Score-Settling The civil camp and its utilitarian interpretation of violence condemned Ruiz Massieu’s assassination because it was the result of political or criminal vengeance. Ruiz Massieu had been the governor of Guerrero, one of the country’s poorest and most violent states. This state was characterized by the historical presence of armed political groups, revolutionary groups, and criminals linked to drug trafficking. Moreover, because of his repressive policies against political leaders, Ruiz Massieu’s government was subjected to criticism and questioning by the opposition parties and civil organizations. Thus, Ruiz Massieu’s alleged assassins were guerillas, opposing politicians, or members of his party moved by retribution and aiming at compensations for the slights they had been subjected to.18 This interpretation also posed the possibility that Ruiz Massieu’s death might be linked to organized crime since during the period he was the governor, he had laundered drug trafficking money (Riva, 1994c). The drug traffickers had thus killed Ruiz Massieu as a vendetta to settle scores. Ruiz Massieu was characterized as possessing the elements the civil camp considered impure: a person moved by the ambition for money and power, who had generated conspiratorial and criminal relations, defending patrimonial institutions characterized by their authoritarianism, using them in favor of group and factious interests. 18  Cabrera (1994a), Trejo (1994), Ovalle (1994), Sodi de la Tijera (1994b), Cárdenas (1994a), Peñaloza (1994), Reyes (1994a), Aviles (1994), Quintana (1994), López (1994b), Sánchez (1994a), Rivera (1994), Gómez (1994b), Riva (1994c), Trinidad (1994), and Musacchio (1994).

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This interpretative declination further pointed to the possibility that the regime’s old politicians and mid-level officials of the governmental bureaucracy had killed Ruiz Massieu, moved by their ambition for power and a desire to pave their way upwards within political and economic decision-­making structures (Sarmiento, 1994a). Such actors represented the impure values of the civil camp: they were moved by their passions, selfishness, and greed for power. As a column in Reforma outlined: What does the assassination reveal? The authoritarian and archaic real face of Mexican politics; the erosion of the traditional arrangements and loyalty lines between influential political groups; the enormous difficulties of implementing an actual reform or modernization of the party in power (Cansino, 1994).

According to this interpretation of violence, the death of Ruiz Massieu confirmed there was an apparent confrontation between authoritarian technocrats and a group of old politicians from the patrimonial regime.19 According to a column in El Universal: [T]he assassination takes place in a context of the dispute in the clash between the technocrats in power and the members of the PRI’s old guard, the so-called dinosaurs, who are clinging to the state party scheme, and although they seem to submit to the reformist policies of the technocrats, there is acute discontent among them (Salinas, 1994a, p. 8)

Ostensibly, Ruiz Massieu was authoritarian, with modern and technocratic ideas about political power; in a sense, he condensed the duality that characterized the government of Salinas de Gortari, namely, being an authoritarian democrat (Granados, 1994a, 1994b). According to this interpretative declination, Ruiz Massieu’s assassination could be explained in great measure because this duality had reached a level of tension that exploded inside of the regime. Furthermore, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León was trapped in a similar dilemma: to encourage political modernization or to uphold the old structures (Dresser, 1994; Granados, 1994c). This declination attempted to show that the political project Ruiz Massieu and Zedillo Ponce de León embraced was not actually democratic. The two politicians possessed the impure attributes of the civil camp: they were 19  Garrido (1994), Fabela (1994a), Castillo (1994b), Aviles (1994), Dehesa (1994), Jardí (1994), Cárdenas (1994b), Ortiz (1994b), Basave (1994b), and Alcócer (1994b).

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moved by greed for power and money while simultaneously naturalizing suspicion, conspiracy, and calculation as ways to do politics; thus, they could only build authoritarian, exclusive, and anti-­democratic institutions. Based on a utilitarian interpretation of violence, the civil camp also read Ruiz Massieu’s death as an effect of the modernization process. According to this interpretation, modernization had ultimately fractured traditional morals and social solidarity (García, 1994c). Modernization was also responsible for a rupture in the political culture that caused the demands of the regime’s political groups to overflow (Elizondo, 1994a; Rubio, 1994b). As a column in Reforma explained: The assassination of Ruiz Massieu has the same perpetrator as the war in Chiapas: the social and political climate in 1994. Everything points to a struggle for power, not democracy, among the politicians marginalized from Salinas’ project, which started with the government of Miguel de la Madrid and will continue with Ernesto Zedillo. The economic model caused a rupture in the political culture and caused an overflow that found no escape valve to reduce the pressure, as in the past. The model caused social polarization and instability, just as in every nation that has undergone global economic reform. However, in Mexico, it exploded in a particularly violent way. (Riva, 1994c)

Thus, the civil declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence noted that violence was “the price to pay” for casting aside traditional society. According to this perspective, it was useless to seek out dark forces or plots behind Ruiz Massieu’s death (García, 1994a; Molinar, 1994). Instead, this interpretation believed modernization was responsible for the death of the PRI’s political leaders and the emergence of the EZLN. As El Sol de México highlighted in a column: “If today Mexico has entered an era of violence, if it has been abducted by it, it is because modernization is linked to the secular tradition predominant in our country of suppressing the lives of others” (Cabrera, 1994b, p. 7; see also García, 1994b). For this declination, the country’s entry into modernity had eroded all kinds of rules for coexistence, transforming its political actors into incarnations of civil impurity: irrational persons who promoted secretive, suspicious, deferential, and violent relations through which they built arbitrary and hierarchical institutions for the benefit of particular interests. According to this interpretation, to exit the crisis, it was necessary to improve the rules of democracy and disassemble those of the patrimonial

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order, to compensate for the effects of the modernization process. Above all, it was necessary to acknowledge that the violence had settled in society and would not disappear in the short term.20 According to Excélsior, the death of Ruiz Massieu revealed “the cloud of insecurity and violence covering the country” (Michelena, 1994, p. 7; see also Knochenhauer, 1994), in which, according to another column, “each citizen lives in terror of the violence experienced in the streets, the kidnappings and the bands of criminals that no longer respect social classes: neither the poor nor the rich” (Stephens, 1994, p.  8). A columnist in La Jornada declared that “the investigation of Ruiz Massieu’s assassination (like that of Colosio) has become lost in a dark fabric of power relations that allows us only to speculate about the possible perpetrators and their intentions” (Peña, 1994, p. 5), a sentiment contributing to the idea that the social order had ruptured.  he End of the Post-Revolutionary Regime? T According to the civil declination of the normative semantics of violence, the death of Ruiz Massieu expressed the exhaustion of the strength of the presidential office as the guarantor of national cohesion and political unity. Moreover, it seemed to have ceased to exist as a referent for the charisma of the revolutionary warlords of old and the mainstay of the nation’s organizational and material development. The PRI was also fractured as a mechanism for coordinating and negotiating political interests and decisions inside the political class in power. All these factors implied that the conventional, cultural ways of solving conflicts had eroded (Rubio, 1994a). As a columnist from Excélsior pointed out, “[T]he crime against Ruiz Massieu occurred because of the moral and cultural failures the country is suffering thanks to the expansion of neoliberalism. It is a symptom of principles that are incongruous with the roots of a country like Mexico and that fracture its traditional culture to face and solve conflicts” (Gómez, 1994b, p. 14). Further, the PRI had stopped working as a guarantor of the institutionalized revolution over time and it was becoming less able to uphold the principles of the ideology of the 1910 Revolution. This scenario resulted from neoliberalism’s normalizing qualities, such as excessive consumption, and conspiratorial and discretional relations, in which discretional and exclusive institutions embody a positive value.

 Bueno (1994), Pérez-Ayala (1994), and Reyes (1994a).

20

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Some of the voices from this civil declination believed the fracture of presidentialism had originated in Salinas de Gortari’s alleged decision to indirectly hold on to power through specific political figures (Krauze, 1994). This decision had affected the president’s symbolic force because, according to this interpretation, Salinas de Gortari wanted to merge himself with the presidential office. Salinas de Gortari had appointed Colosio Murrieta as the presidential candidate and then Ruiz Massieu as the leader of the chamber of deputies to perpetuate a “generation of change” (Krauze, 1994, p.  7). Thus, he meant to break the rule that the ex-­ president should abandon all pretension of power after leaving office. In other words, the president had attempted to substitute one authoritarian system with another by breaking the customary norms. Thus, it was necessary to open the doors to a democratic transition. For other voices in this interpretative declination, the death of Ruiz Massieu opened the chance for President Salinas the Gortari to establish a Maximato under the ideology of social liberalism,21 a custom-made ideology to impose a new mechanism for authoritarian control, centered on himself and his close group. They would substitute the old PRI’s anti-­ democratic principles with the authoritarianism of the new breed of politicians inspired by neoliberal technocracy. According to an Excélsior column: [T]he assassination of Ruiz Massieu advertises the certainty that Salinas de Gortari is starting a new stage of the Maximato, in which the top chief will point out to his puppet, President Zedillo, the lines his government must follow both in politics and the economy. (Krieger, 1994, p. 8)

In this sense, according to a column in La Jornada, for the first time in many years, Mexico’s political landscape showed “ a profound crisis of the principles and values of the Mexican revolution and an attempt to impose a different political ideology from within the group in power” (Aziz, 1994). In short, the official party’s ideological mechanisms that legitimized political arrangements had worn down, which could only mean the start of a war. As a columnist in El Universal exhorted: We are wrapped in a vortex of barbarism, where shrapnel speaks for itself. It expresses the strife between modernizers and dinosaurs who can no longer 21  Krieger (1994), Cervantes (1994), C.  Rodríguez (1994), Cabrera (1994b), Mejido (1994c), Perello (1994), Fabelo (1994), Dresser (1994), Castillo (1994a), and Crespo (1994).

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hide their ideological differences and settle them inside the PRI. An all-out war has unleashed between the two groups. (Enríquez, 1994a, p. 8)

For this interpretative declination, the people who killed Ruiz Massieu could be either the old politicians or the technocrats, moved by their excessive obsession with power, to claim the presidency of the republic and the PRI by defending their ideological principles and values. Both types of politicians possessed attributes the civil camp considered impure: moved by anti-democratic and anti-civil values and principles, creating secretive, suspicious, and conspiratorial relations, to establish arbitrary, hierarchical, and exclusive institutions for the benefit of an individual or group. Similarly, a column in Reforma suggested that “it is urgent to show we all have rights before the state, we are all subject to the law, and we must start a new process of cultural modernization in the political order to face the current scenario of violence” (Rubio, 1994a). Thus, this declination called for institutions the civil camp considered pure: those operating under the principles of the law, equity, inclusion, and impersonality. This interpretative declination believed that society stood at a crossroads: inequality or social justice, authoritarianism or democracy, repression or freedom, revolutionary nationalism or globalized identity.22 If it was necessary to dismantle the presidential system, something had to be done with the PRI; for some, it implied the disappearance of the official party, and for others, it mean reform. Those who suggested dismantling the PRI found it indispensable to reveal not only political incentives but also a political, moral framework that would coax PRI members away from violence. They further implied starting a process for the cultural and political modernization of PRI politicians (Rubio, 1994a; Sánchez, 1994a). Following this interpretation, a column in Reforma considered the need for this “ideological transformation to avoid having a permanent wake in the country” (Rubio, 1994a). It represented the only way for the current regime to stop electing its candidates in an authoritarian way and utilizing that same authoritarianism to assassinate them.23 Political violence could only end with the president’s ideological and institutional apparatus.24 Nevertheless, those who  López (1994a), Jardon (1994), and Elizondo (1994a).  De la Peña (1994), Riva (1994b), and Pazos (1994). 24  Robles (1994), García (1994d), and Montero (1994). 22 23

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supported reforming the PRI considered it necessary to generate an ideological framework for the local and national caciques (Castillo, 1994a; Loaeza, 1994). It was also necessary that this task be completed soon because, as a Reforma columnist claimed, “there are voices in the party calling for the return of authoritarian practices inspired by the deepest revolutionary nationalism” (Ortiz, 1994a).

The Ex-President’s Hunger Strike On December 1, 1994, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León was sworn in as president. In his inaugural speech, he committed to supporting the peace accord with the EZLN and to clearing up the assassinations of Colosio Murrieta and Ruiz Massieu. According to Zedillo Ponce de León, these crimes made Mexicans doubt the continuity of the country’s institutions and the enforcement of justice. He then asked District Attorney Antonio Lozano Gracia to head a commission that would do so (“500 años de México en documentos,” 1994). Days later, Lozano Gracia announced that Raúl Salinas de Gortari, the ex-president’s brother, was the intellectual author of the assassination of Ruiz Massieu. He also suggested that Carlos Salinas de Gortari might have hidden information concerning Colosio Murrieta’s death. The announcement by the Federal Attorney’s Office took place in a complex economic context, amid a profound financial crisis in the country. This crisis originated when Zedillo Ponce de León established a free-­ floating exchange rate for the peso against the dollar to confront a series of economic problems, causing the peso to lose half its value against the dollar in less than a week. Zedillo Ponce de León’s government claimed its decision would solve financial problems inherited from the previous government without holding Salinas de Gortari personally responsible. Salinas de Gortari publicly declared he was not to blame for the devaluation, and he accused the government of leaking the decision about the free-floating exchange among a group of entrepreneurs who rushed to buy dollars, precipitating the exchange disaster. He further dubbed this decision the “December mistake.” This statement broke the norm of ex-presidents remaining silent and taking on responsibility for the problems they had passed on. However, the conflict between Zedillo Ponce de León and Salinas de Gortari was to escalate profoundly. On the night of March 2, 1995, the ex-president called Channel 13’s newscast “Hechos” to announce he would start a hunger strike to demand

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that President Zedillo Ponce de León acknowledge he had not hidden any information about Colosio Murrieta’s assassination and that he was not responsible for the country’s economic crisis. He also warned: I have made up my mind to sacrifice my most valuable asset to clear up these two issues […] it is the only way to go forward, so the most valuable thing I possess, which is my life, I am willing to exchange it for the truth; from this moment on, I will start a complete fast while these issues are cleared up. (Rosa, 2009)

At the end of the call, Salinas de Gortari boarded a flight to the State of Nuevo León and traveled to the house of a female leader of the National Solidarity Program in a marginalized neighborhood.25 On March 3, the ex-president declared: “I will not be compelled to live on my knees. [With] honor, truth, and dignity, I would rather die standing in the face of the accusations and humiliations of relatives, friends, and old collaborators are suffering.” However, he added: “A moment ago, I received the request to postpone my decision for a few hours to allow for dialogue and resolve the injustices that are taking place” (AP Archive, 2015). Finally, he invited journalists to view the place in which he was fasting, which consisted of a room with a bed, two Mexican flags―one on the side table and another at the foot of the bed, a bookcase with toys, and several photographs of himself with leaders from the Solidarity Committees (AP Archive, 2015). Afterwards, he traveled to Mexico City to meet with Zedillo Ponce de León. According to the journal Proceso, present at the meeting were Pedro Aspe, Secretary of the Treasury during Salinas de Gortari’s government, as well as ex-president, Miguel de la Madrid (1982–1988), who had appointed Salinas de Gortari as his successor in 1987 (“Con su ayuno,”, 1995). Back in the neighborhood in Nuevo Leon, Salinas de Gortari announced there were “encouraging signs” pointing towards an agreement. On March 4, he suspended his hunger strike after talking with Secretary of the Agrarian Reform Arturo Warman, who assured him his demands would be met. Salinas de Gortari then reiterated his respect and support for President Zedillo Ponce de León. Days after, the Federal Attorney’s Office announced Salinas de Gortari was not, and would never be, investigated. Subsequently, the ex-president began a period of 25  The National Solidarity Program had created neighborhood committees throughout the country in order to combat poverty and marginalization See chap. 3.

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self-­exile that took him first to Boston, then to Havana, Montreal, and, finally, Dublin. Leaders, elected representatives, and ex-presidents linked to the PRI pointed out that the hunger strike did not imply a fracture within the party but rather expressed differences between the exiting and entering presidents.26 They attempted to show that Salinas de Gortari had not broken the customary rules. He still carried the patrimonial camp’s attributes of purity: controlling his passions and appearing restrained, valuing reciprocity, trust, and deference towards presidential authority. However, they reproached Salinas de Gortari for not expressing his grievances privately; they respected them but did not support them (“Guardar silencio,”, 1995; Noriega, 1995). Thus, PRI members attempted to uphold the meaning of the patrimonial political order. They acknowledged that there were differences between the current president and the ex-president. Still, they believed it necessary to adhere to customary norms, in particular, showing deference and respect for Zedillo Ponce de León, who now incarnated the centralization of political power and was the source of meaning for the symbolic fabric of national politics. The PRI governors in different states pointed out that Salinas de Gortari should avoid any improper action for an ex-ruler that might confuse Mexicans (Ramírez et  al., 1995). Accordingly, they asked the ex-president not to behave in a way that would discredit him in the eyes of society, ignoring the limits and customary rules that compelled the exiting president to avoid commenting on politics. The leader of the PRI in the Chamber of Deputies believed Salinas de Gortari should remain silent (Herrera, 1995). Ex-president José López Portillo (1976-1982) similarly pointed out that Salinas de Gortari should be prudent, serve Mexico, and “grin and bear it.”27 In this statement, López Portillo demanded Salinas de Gortari bear the criticism of his ­government and embrace the tradition of remaining silent and serving his successor (Berdejo, 1995a). In other words, according to the patrimonial camp, he should uphold the attributes of purity assigned to his position as ex-president of the republic: to unquestioningly respect whoever was occupying the presidential office, exercising complete discipline before that person. 26  “Rechazan priístas una ruptura política” (1995), Noriega (1995), Romero (1995b), and Herrera (1995) 27  Cabello (1995), “Demanda que se aclare” (1995), and “Papel de un ex presidente” (1995).

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The ex-officials from the Salinas de Gortari government, some now working in Zedillo Ponce de León’s government, invited the ex-president to remedy his attitude, supporting Zedillo Ponce de León as the president and the PRI’s moral leader (Navarreto & Ortiz, 1995). In this way, they demonstrated their acceptance of the fact that the new president was now the center of national politics and unity, evoking the charismatic referents of the old revolutionary warlords. His power should be respected because it guaranteed the satisfaction of the people’s needs through the authoritarian but paternalistic administration of society, as the mainstay of the nation’s organizational and material development. In short, the members of the PRI had issued a generalized call asking Salinas de Gortari to adhere to the unwritten rules of the regime. In their stead, the opposition parties noted Salinas de Gortari should abandon the country because he had become a threat to the regime, to democracy, and to justice systems by breaking the unwritten rules of Mexican politics. In stating this, they were acknowledging the regime had maintained its stability because the patrimonial rules and norms were respected: for six years, the president could claim the usufruct rights of the political and institutional structure, with the regime’s economic and political forces revolving around him, and ex-presidents had to come to terms with their power vanishing as soon as they left office. Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, president of the PRD and formerly a PRI member, pointed out that Salinas de Gortari had a pathological relationship with power and simply could not understand he was no longer the president (Morales, 1995a; R. Rodríguez, 1995). Muñoz Ledo thus spoke in terms of the patrimonial code, emphasizing that, in defying the new president, Salinas de Gortari was taking on the impure attributes of this code: a person who cannot control passions or desires, thus losing a sense of the political order. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940), who had first established the norms ex-presidents should follow and moral leader of the PRD (also an old PRI member), stated that the confrontation between Ponce de León and Salinas de Gortari put the country at risk (Ortiz et  al., 1995). His concern was the resurgence of the traditional power struggle between presidents and ex-presidents, which had characterized the period right after the end of the 1910 Revolution. This struggle had only ended with the creation of the PRI as a disciplined political apparatus through which the president governed the Chambers of Deputies and Senators during the six years of his tenure. The PAN accused

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the ex-president of being “sick with power.”28 Even the Mexican Episcopate Conference asked the ex-president to step out of the limelight for the country’s good (Guarneros, 1995; Tavarés, 1995) and to leave behind what it alleged was an uncontrollable obsession with power. The Presidential Office Challenged The patrimonial camp interpreted Salinas de Gortari’s hunger strike as an act of political immaturity that broke the code of silence expected among ex-presidents (Morales, 1995b). As a column in El Sol de México bluntly put it, “Salinas de Gortari broke the rules of the regime as nobody had done since Cárdenas and Elías Calles. We may be experiencing complicated times, more than those of General Lázaro Cárdenas” (Mejido, 1995b). Political columns pointed out that President Lázaro Cárdenas had imposed that rule, and by doing so, had guaranteed the nation’s political cohesion. Excélsior claimed, “[I]t is pathetic and sad to see a bright man making these mistakes, breaking the unwritten rules of the Mexican political system.”29 In this sense, they assigned to Salinas de Gortari the attributes the patrimonial camp considered impure: a person who broke the customary rules, polluting the figure of an ex-president that should be submissive before the president in office, incapable of controlling passions and desires, namely, a person who cannot acknowledge the limits of the political order because of frivolous acts, marked by excess. As a column in El Sol de México proclaimed, “Salinas de Gortari cannot stand going from being the country’s lord and master to being no one. He violated the code of succession. He is now the most unpopular man in the country” (Avilés, 1995). According to the patrimonial camp, Salinas de Gortari was a person who did not comprehend the fact that all his power vanished as soon as he left the office, and a successor was sworn into the powers of the presidential office. According to a column in El Sol de México: After learning of his brother’s arrest, Salinas de Gortari could not control himself emotionally; [the arrest] brought out his true nature, and he reacted, infringing the sacred code of the ex-presidents Lázaro Cárdenas had established when he expelled Plutarco Elías Calles. Thus, he forgot that presidential power is not shared but exercised. (Mejido, 1995a)  Romero (1995a), Palacios (1995), Mejía et al. (1995), and Hernández & Méndez (1995).  “Papel de un ex presidente” (1995); see also: Mejido (1995a), and Avilés (1995).

28 29

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A columnist in El Universal depicted Salinas de Gortari as “a power-­ mad fanatic, tumbling onto the ultimate drama of ridicule; his hunger strike has touches of a Greek drama, a family tragedy, a dynastic struggle and a fight between giants. However, as in Macbeth, it is ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’” (M. Reyes, 1995). The patrimonial camp thus believed that the ex-president had mounted a scene to erode the principles and values of reciprocity, trust, and deference towards the presidential authority, valued as pure in the patrimonial camp. Salinas de Gortari had engaged in a disproportionate show of force, imposing his will over the customary norms and acting in a way the patrimonial camp considered impure. Similarly, another column in El Universal pointed out the ex-president “committed a ridiculous absurdity in which it seems he wants to play at being Gandhi. Salinas de Gortari accused Zedillo Ponce de León of the December mistake, and this generated the rupture” (Manzanilla, 1995). Finally, according to a column in El Sol de México, “[T]he ex-president showed political immaturity by not acknowledging the presidential succession codes” (Morales, 1995c). According to this interpretative camp, Salinas de Gortari’s hunger strike put the country’s stability at risk, especially the stability of the post-­ revolutionary political regime (“Unidad y legalidad,”, 1995). Moreover, as an editorial in La Jornada made clear, “[T]he attitude of Salinas de Gortari shows the true breakdown of the structures of power that place the country at the edge of political destabilization” (“Atender el fondo, no las formas,”, 1995). Accordingly, the patrimonial camp suggested that Zedillo Ponce de León exercise the rules of his presidential power (Cárdenas, 1995a). They demanded he punish the ex-president’s brother (C. Rodríguez, 1995; Cárdenas, 1995a) and make sure Salinas de Gortari had not participated in the deaths of Colosio Murrieta and Ruiz Massieu.30 In other words, the patrimonial camp demanded the president embrace his symbolic and material power as the greatest incarnation of unity and cohesion in national politics, capable of guaranteeing political order by exhorting the judges to apply the law and the customary rules. According to a column in El Universal, Zedillo Ponce de León “must observe the rule of law and incarcerate those responsible for the crisis society has sunk into, even if that includes ex-president Salinas de Gortari” (Manzanilla, 1995). Similarly, a column in Excélsior encouraged President Zedillo 30  “Demanda que se aclare” (1995), M.  Reyes (1995), Manzanilla (1995), Pereztrejo (1995), and Arroyo (1995).

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Ponce de León to punish Salinas de Gortari, “enforcing the law, distancing himself from neoliberalism, as well as forcing the State to take back control of the economy” (Labastida, 1995). Another column noted that Salinas de Gortari incarnated “the excesses of presidentialism. Salinas cannot be exonerated if he committed a crime” (M. Reyes, 1995). This interpretation asked Zedillo Ponce de León to use his attributions, which the patrimonial camp considered positive, to take advantage of his authoritarian but paternalistic political management and situate himself as the mainstay of the nation’s material organization and development. Once Salinas de Gortari ended his hunger strike and expressed his loyalty to President Zedillo Ponce de León, the voices from the patrimonial camp claimed the latter had made fair use of the regime’s customary norms and rules. According to this reading, the presidential institution was strengthened (Avilés, 1995). A column in Excélsior pointed out that Zedillo Ponce de León “maintained the unwritten rules, by the president’s decision, which benefitted the country because there is an idea of order in the figure of Zedillo” (Berdejo, 1995b). The president had shown that he maintained control of the country (F.  Rodríguez, 1995b; González, 1995), and now he had to purge Salinas de Gortari’s allies from his government (Hernández & Méndez, 1995). As a columnist in El Sol de México suggested, “[I]t is necessary to purify the PRI, remove its bad elements, and build a new unity around the president of the republic” (Pavón et al., 1995). As for society, it should widely support Zedillo Ponce de León (“Unidad y legalidad,”, 1995). According to another column in El Sol de México, “Salinas de Gortari, who was the loser in all this, ended up strengthening the president instead of blackmailing him” (F. Rodríguez, 1995a). El Universal invited society “to gather around him [Zedillo Ponce de León], while he acts strictly adhering to the law and firmly” (Cárdenas, 1995a). Some voices in the patrimonial camp believed future democracy was inevitable; therefore, the president’s symbolic force was necessary to guide the process of constructing democratic institutions and practices, and solidarity. Between Democracy and Authoritarianism The civil camp interpreted Salinas de Gortari’s hunger strike as an unquestionable expression of strife within the group in government, one that the old patrimonial rules could no longer regulate. According to some

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columnists, this put the country at the edge of political destabilization.31 They claimed the rupture had occurred when Salinas de Gortari accused Zedillo Ponce de León of the “December mistake,” escalating when his brother Raúl was arrested, and culminating with the rumor that the expresident had hidden information on the Colosio Murrieta case (Catón, 1995c). The civil camp read the hunger strike as an act that showcased the impure character of the patrimonial regime: with politicians characterized by their secretive, discretional, and conspiratorial relations, who had forged discretional, exclusive, and personalized institutions. However, although Salinas de Gortari’s strike showed the rules of patrimonial power had been exhausted, this did not mean their end; democracy was starting to take hold. The civil camp believed something had been broken in the regulatory mechanisms of the post-revolutionary regime. As a columnist in La Jornada suggested, as soon as “Salinas refused to participate in the ritual of keeping quiet and taking full responsibility for the failures of the previous period, he either had decided to break everything, or he knew the rituals were no longer working” (Blancarte, 1995). In this sense, Salinas de Gortari had bet on imposing his will, power aspirations, and the PRI’s political class to strengthen the secretive and conspiratorial relations he had forged during his presidency, personally influence the state, and halt the democratic transition process. The civil camp considered all these actions impure. This interpretation claimed Salinas de Gortari intended to extend his government beyond his six-year period (“¡Pobre!,”, 1995). Some voices inside the civil camp argued that Salinas de Gortari could not stand the fact that he was no longer the country’s “lord and master” (Avilés, 1995; R. Moya, 1995). According to this interpretative declination, Salinas de Gortari wanted to guarantee all possible power for himself, thus reinforcing his closest group’s secretive and conspirative relations. Therefore, he could have a personal and factious influence in state elections. The civil camp considered all these attributes impure. As a columnist from El Sol de México put it, “Salinas de Gortari lost his reason because he was so drunk with power for six years. He went mad and lost his mental balance” (Carranca, 1995). “Indeed, he could not control his emotions” 31  C. Rodríguez (1995), “Atender el fondo” (1995), Alemán (1995), G. García (1995), “Críticas a Salinas” (1995), Loret de Mola (1995), Méndez (1995), and Romero (1995b).

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(F. Rodríguez, 1995a). Salinas de Gortari possessed the attributes the civil camp considered impure: he was an irrational and imprudent person who propitiated conspiratorial and suspicious relations inside an arbitrary and hierarchical state for his own benefit and that of his closest allies. Consequently, the civil camp suggested Salinas de Gortari had staged a “tragicomedy” or a “ridiculous drama” in a neighborhood that benefited from the National Solidarity Program to demand protection, influence political life, and evade the law and the moral judgment against him (Covián, 1995; Díaz, 1995). At the same time, however, this civil camp asked President Zedillo Ponce de León to refrain from resorting to the rules of presidentialism or to respond in an authoritarian way to Salinas de Gortari’s behavior. According to this interpretation, the president should act sensibly because what was at stake was the country’s fate and not just a political group (J. Sánchez, 1995). For the civil camp, the gravitational axis of the presidential office was indispensable to guaranteeing the regime’s political stability, and, paradoxically, it was a pivotal piece in the design of a transition to democracy. For some voices in the civil camp, the presidency’s symbolic weight was not necessarily a destructive intrusion in the civil order but a facilitating input for the creation of democratic institutions. When Salinas de Gortari ended his hunger strike, the civil camp constructed two interpretations concerning the meaning of the agreement reached between him and Zedillo Ponce de León. One believed the agreement was an achievement by the president that also strengthened democracy. The other saw an agreement that benefitted Salinas de Gortari and weakened the democratic transition process. In the first case, the interpretation acknowledged that Zedillo Ponce de León had resisted “the authoritarian temptations and chose not to use revenge against Salinas de Gortari. This is good for democracy” (Blancarte, 1995). The transition to democracy had won the match because it left behind the customary rules of patrimonialism and was guided by norms of civility (“México es hoy un país de paz,”, 1995; Loret de Mola, 1995). Now, the current government should distance itself from the PRI, as Zedillo Ponce de León proposed, and dismantle the “imperial presidency” to avoid any future authoritarian actions (“¿Reforma o lucha estéril?”, 1995; “El presidente y el ex presidente,”, 1995). As a columnist in La Jornada suggested, “[T]he president must move forward in dismantling the authoritarian presidency and rewrite the institutions in democratic terms” (Sodi de la Tijera, 1995). This suggestion reflects the belief within the civil camp that it was

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necessary to foster democracy to exit the tunnel of authoritarianism and, consequently, violence. According to this camp, it was necessary to hasten the dismantling of the patrimonial system because it could no longer guarantee the country’s unity and peace. Therefore, the material and symbolic strength of the presidential office should be significantly weakened to achieve this aim. Others from the civil camp pointed out that Salinas de Gortari had emerged victorious from his dispute with Zedillo Ponce de León. According to this interpretation, Salinas de Gortari had imposed his will on Zedillo Ponce de León, who opted for a bad agreement to resolve a good political fight, even though he lost legitimacy (R. Morales, 1995). According to a column in Excélsior, “Zedillo lost; he should have acted firmly, not with authoritarianism, responding with good judgment. He lost to an ex-president’s tantrum” (Cremoux, 1995). Similarly, a column in La Jornada read: “Zedillo was defeated before Salinas and was compelled not to investigate him and lay the institutions on his feet. In contrast with General Lázaro Cárdenas in the thirties, Zedillo has no political project or legitimacy” (Rascón, 1995). Such readings implied that Zedillo Ponce de León had given way to Salinas de Gortari’s pressure because he did not have a grassroots project to support him in facing the ex-president’s power. This civil interpretative camp believed Zedillo Ponce de León had allowed Salinas de Gortari to become the “maximum boss” like Calles was in his time (Catón, 1995a, 1995b). El Universal claimed that “all ex-president Salinas de Gortari needed was to threaten a hunger strike to get the Federal Attorney’s Office to declare unambiguously that there had been no coverup. This fractured President Zedillo’s power and legitimacy” (Cárdenas, 1995b). As a columnist in El Universal posited: Salinas de Gortari pushed Mexican presidentialism to the limit by exercising power personally and above the law. Salinas de Gortari turned his defeat into a victory, showing Zedillo was extremely sensitive to scandal, and the threat of a hunger strike was enough for his demands to be met. (Hernández, 1995)

According to this civil camp, patrimonialism and its authoritarian regime had been weakened, benefitting Salinas de Gortari as a person. This position implied that the weakness had precipitated a new stage of authoritarianism in the country, guided by a “strong man” or “big boss” over its patrimonial and democratic institutions. Furthermore, this civil

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camp held that Salinas de Gortari had become a figure that could amass a considerable number of political leaders to counter the presidential power. The ex-president had profound influence before the presidential office, thus taking on attributes the civil camp considered impure: moved by anti-­ democratic and irrational principles, interested in establishing conspirative, suspicious and deferential relations, and creating institutions for his own benefit.

Between the Patrimonial and the Civil Paths Ruiz Massieu’s assassination was unanimously condemned by national public opinion. A competition was triggered between the patrimonial and civil camps to control the assassination’s meaning, generating a series of narratives about the crime’s meaning and its effects on the post-­ revolutionary regime and the democratic transition. The patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence considered Ruiz Massieu’s death censurable because it was moved by the interests of old politicians, technocrats, and drug traffickers. These groups sought to obtain or recover their lost privileges, controlling the country’s institutions by force. In a different interpretation, the patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of violence claimed that Colosio Murrieta’s assassination was censurable because it was likely inspired by ideologies that justified the violence of both the left and the neoliberals, and even revolutionary nationalism. These ideologies ended up romanticizing violence up to a point that imposed a particularistic form of social inclusion and solidarity. This interpretation also suggested that Ruiz Massieu’s assassination had resulted from the strife between the old politicians and the technocrats in their race to impose their respective projects for the nation. For both patrimonial declinations, it was only possible to face the crisis generated by the death of Ruiz Massieu if the new president activated his symbolic and material strength as a referent of cohesion and social order. The civil declination of utilitarian semantics judged Ruiz Massieu’s assassination was unjustifiable because there were interests behind it that sought to generate political instability. These interests aimed at ending the weak democratic institutionalism and strengthening authoritarianism in the country. This declination also interpreted the assassination as the result of the generalized process of social decomposition neoliberalism had produced. The civil declination of utilitarian semantics believed neoliberalism had eroded the regime’s historical rules. Thus, the old politicians and

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technocrats resorted to violence to achieve their objectives and resolve their differences. According to this interpretative camp, neoliberalism had not been able to build a free and democratic citizenry, but rather one captured by extreme and uncontrolled consumerism, political manipulation, and a new form of clientelism based on the ideology of social liberalism. The civil camp considered all these elements impure. In contrast, the civil declination of the normative semantics of violence believed the death of Ruiz Massieu could be explained by the struggle between the ideology of the 1910 Revolution and neoliberal ideologies. According to this interpretation, the two positions were profoundly authoritarian. The patrimonial and the civil camps assigned distinct roles to the actors in the social drama represented by Ruiz Massieu’s death. Sometimes, the old politicians or the technocrats appeared to be responsible for the death of the PRI’s secretary-general; at other times, they were the indirect victims of his assassination. Both the old politicians and the technocrats were depicted as either modernizers or destroyers of the patrimonial rules and, on other occasions, as their staunchest defenders. Thus, they were caricatured simultaneously as severe threats to political stability and heroes who upheld political order. Depending on which group Ruiz Massieu was believed to be a part of, he was assigned patrimonial purity or impurity. Investigations into the death of Ruiz Massieu left the question concerning the intellectual authors of the crime open. Once Zedillo Ponce de León became president of the republic, the judicial apparatus accused and arrested Salinas de Gortari’s brother for the death of the PRI’s secretary-­ general. However, the same apparatus also suggested the ex-president had hidden information on Colosio Murrieta’s assassination. These allegations unleashed a political crisis that led to an economic one, which confronted both the new and the former presidents. The confrontation was radicalized when Salinas de Gortari started a hunger strike to demand that he be exempted from any investigation into Colosio Murrieta’s death and cleared of any responsibility for the country’s economic crisis. Political columns espousing the civil and patrimonial codes interpreted the hunger strike as a fracture of the regime’s unwritten rules. Each camp noted that the hunger strike affected the symbolic and material attributions of the figure of the president. The two camps perceived the hunger strike as a threat to political stability and the social order, altering the expected horizon of the behavior of other political actors. They argued that if the ex-president had abandoned the established agreements, this could be interpreted as an invitation to break different rules, generating an

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enormous uncertainty in the national political scenario. The most significant risk was that the country would regress to a time when disorder or the power of a “maximum boss” reigned. The patrimonial camp believed it was essential to uphold the president’s symbolic strength and to guarantee the regime’s continuity, allowing for the democratic transition. The presidential figure was necessary because it was the point of reference for political stability. The civil camp believed altering the customary rules opened the door to the political system’s transformation, preventing authoritarian restoration. Despite this, there were undoubtedly voices that suggested the agreement to end the hunger strike showed a weak president and an ex-president capable of controlling the country’s politics. Thus, in the patrimonial and civil camps, voices were calling to reinforce the presidential figure as a referent of political unity, suggesting that the country’s democratization was irreversible. However, to reach this democratization, the two camps believed it was necessary to uphold the principles of political order in the president’s figure. Thus, both the patrimonial and the civil camps thought the presidential figure was crucial for preventing social instability and ensuring a future democratic transition. Over the years, Salinas de Gortari did not become the new “maximum boss.” Still, he became the symbolic referent for evil within Mexican politics, not only for groups that opposed the PRI but even for a part of the PRI’s political class. In this way, he came to incarnate the representation of civil and patrimonial impurity, capable of pulling the strings of politics at will, beyond institutions, and regardless of political groups. For the PRI’s political class, Salinas de Gortari’s rebellious attitude towards Zedillo Ponce de León somehow undermined the symbolic strength of the presidential office; in 2000, the PRI lost power for the first time in its history.

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García, G. (1994b, September 30). El reto del crimen organizado. Excélsior, A1, A20 García, S. (1994c, September 29). Lecciones de violencia. Excélsior, A1, A13 García, G. (1994d, October 7). Corrupción, problema nacional. En las redes del narcotráfico. Excélsior, A1, A16 García, S. (1994e, October 6). El asesinato, una revelación. Excélsior, A1, A18, A19 García, G. (1995, March 3). El presidente y el ex presidente. Excélsior, 1, 10 Garrido, L. J. (1994, September 30). El velatorio. La Jornada, 24 Gómez, J. (1994a, October 1). Es necesario retomar los caminos de una conducta civilizada. Excélsior, A1, A14 Gómez, C. (1994b, September 29). Sucede otra vez en miércoles. Reforma González, M. (1995, March 9). Mauricio dice. ¿Y Pedro Aspe? El Sol de México, A9 Granados, M. Á. (1994a, September 29). José Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Reforma Granados, M. Á. (1994b, October 2). Crimen y castigo. Reforma Granados, M. Á. (1994c, October 3). Ruiz Massieu: ideas a tiempo. Reforma Guardar silencio, norma de los ex presidentes. (1995, March 4). La Jornada, 8 Guarneros, F. (1995, March 4). En Cuaresma, todos pueden ayunar; sería válido el de CSG: R. Godínez. El Universal, 17 Guerra, R. (1994, September 30). Queremos la verdad. El Universal, 7 Güitrón, J. (1994, October 2). Derecho familiar. El Sol de México, A11 Haas, A. (1994a, October 6). Una petición. En memoria de José Francisco. Excélsior, A7-A8 Haas, A. (1994b, October 13). Narcopolíticos. Gobierno vergonzante. Excélsior, A7 Hernández, R. (1995, March 8). Comedia de debilidades. El Universal, 7 Hernández, A., & Méndez, R. (1995, March 2). Demandan expulsar del PRI al salinismo. Reforma Herrera, I. (1995, March 4). Los ex presidentes, obligados a tener mesura: Palacios A. Excélsior, 4, 29 Jardí, M. T. (1994, October 4). El imperio de la impunidad. La Jornada, 9 Jardon, E. (1994, October 4). Los violentos. El Universal, 7, 23 Knochenhauer, G. (1994, October 7). Dos fuegos. El pueblo está en el medio. Excélsior, A6 Krauze, E. (1994, October 9). Violencia: leyenda y realidad. Reforma Krieger, E. (1994, October 3). Después del asesinato. La tercera certidumbre. Excélsior, A7-A8 Labastida, J. (1995, March 4). Rompimiento político, no cabe duda. Un chantaje. Excélsior, 1, 10 Llarena y Del Rosario, R. (1994, September 30). Protectorado de las fuerzas irracionales. El Universal, 7-8 Loaeza, S. (1994, October 10). La metamorfosis. Reforma López, M. (1994a, October 1). El sacrificio de un hombre ejemplar. El Sol de México, A5, A22

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López, J. (1994b, October 5). Intríngulis. Surrealismo con fuero. Excélsior, A5, A18 López-Portillo, G. (1994, October 7). Lo que va de mal en peor. El Universal, 7-8 Loret de Mola, R. (1994a, October 7). Piense… nuevas ‘luces’. Excélsior, A5, A8-A9 Loret de Mola, R. (1994b, October 15). Piense… Celeridad. Excélsior, A5, A17, A21 Loret de Mola, R. (1995, March 4). Piense… El ex presidente. Excélsior, 5, 12 Los Retos de Zedillo. (1994, November 27). Enfoque Manzanilla, V. (1995, March 4). ¡Vaya Gandhi! El Universal, 7, 10 Mejía, G. et al. (1995, March 3). Cuestionan ayuno. Reforma Mejido, M. (1994a, September 29). Los grandes días del 94. El Sol de México, A26 Mejido, M. (1994b, October 8). Alto poder. El Sol de México, A20 Mejido, M. (1994c, October 15). Alto poder. El Sol de México, A20 Mejido, M. (1995a, March 4). Alto poder. El Sol de México, A19. Mejido, M. (1995b, March 9). Los grandes días del 95. Las nuevas reglas. El Sol de México, A6 Méndez, M. (1995, March 6). Quién fue el culpable. Excélsior, 7 Merino, M. (1994, September 29). El círculo vicioso de la impunidad. La Jornada, 10 México es hoy un país de paz. (1995, March 5). Excélsior, 14 Michel, J. (1994, October 30). La cuota de la soberbia. El Sol de México, A5, A22 Michelena, M. (1994, October 3). Qué pasa allí. Crimen y castigo. Excélsior, A7 Molinar, J. (1994, October 3). Contra la barbarie, civilización. Reforma Montero, D. (1994, October 8). Procuración de justicia. Cultura de la legalidad. Excélsior, A5, A14 Morales, R. (1995, March 6). Temprana exoneración. La Jornada, 7 Morales, S. (1995a, March 4). México requiere nuevos consensos políticos, no rupturas: Muñoz Ledo. El Sol de México, A14 Morales, S. (1995b, March 5). Muestra Salinas inmadurez política, opina A. Dimas. El Sol de México, A15 Morales, S. (1995c, March 4). Solicitan líderes panistas objetividad y prudencia para estabilizar el país. El Sol de México, A14 Moya, M. (1994, September 29). Alto a la barbarie. Excélsior, A1, A12 Moya, R. (1995, March 6). Razones y sinrazones de Salinas. El Universal, 7 Musacchio, H. (1994, October 4). Ruiz Massieu, otro parto de los Montes. Reforma. Navarreto, A., & Ortiz, I. (1995, March 5). Le exigen dejar su actitud irresponsable. Excélsior, 1, 28 Noriega, R. (1995, March 4). Piden partidos responsabilidad a CSG al responder sobre su mandato. El Sol de México, A15 Olague, J.  J. (1994, October 6). Caso Colosio-Caso Ruiz Massieu. ¿Cuál es la diferencia? El Sol de México, A4 Olimon, M. (1994, October 5). Ni desconfianza ni escepticismo. El Universal, 6 Oria, V. (1994, September 29). Aberrante crimen político. El Sol de México, A5, A25

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Orozco, D. (1994, October 7). Todos somos detectives. El Universal, 7-8 Ortiz, C. (1994a, October 11). Las voces de las inercias. Reforma Ortiz, F. (1994b, September 29). Diálogo forzado por la tragedia. El Universal, 7 Ortiz, J. (1994c, October 2). José Francisco: recuerdos de su último compañero de banca. La Jornada, 7 Ortiz, A., Álvarez, C. & Irízar G. (1995, March 4). Ecos del ayuno. Reforma Ovalle, I. (1994, October 5). Unirnos en lo esencial. La Jornada, 16 Palacios, J. (1995, March 5). Silencio, pide el PAN a Salinas; que declare lo que sepa: PRD y PVEM. El Universal, 17 Papel de un ex presidente. (1995, March 3) Excélsior, 6 Pascoe, R. (1994, October 3). De violencia y súbditos. El Universal, 6 Pavón, S., Ramírez A., & Moreno J. (1995, March 5). Anuncia el PRI una ‘inminente’ depuración de sus cuadros. El Sol de México, A15 Pazos, L. (1994, October 13). Los descobijados. Promotores de la volencia. Excélsior, A7-A8 Peña, R. F. (1994, September 29). ¡Basta! La Jornada, 6 Peñaloza, P. (1994, October 6). Cortinas de humo. El Universal, 7-8 Perello, M. (1994, October 1). La encrucijada. Tristeza inútil. Excélsior, A7, A16 Pérez-Ayala, R. (1994, October 5). Agoreros. Todos contra Salinas. Excélsior, A7-A8 Pereztrejo, S. (1995, March 5). Exculpan los ex Subprocuradores a Carlos Salinas en el Caso Colosio. El Sol de México, A17 Pichardo Pagaza denuncia Carlos Salinas protegió a su hermano. (1994). Proceso. https://www.proceso.com.mx/186132/pichardo-­pagaza-­denuncia-­carlos-­ salinas-­protegio-­a-­su-­hermano Quintana, E. (1994, September 29). Las implicaciones financieras del crimen. Reforma Ramírez, L., Gajeda, E., & Ruiz, A. (1995, March 5). No crear más confusión, piden gobernadores al ex presidente. El Universal, 1, 14 Rascón, M. (1995, March 6). El cuento de San Bernabé. La Jornada, 8 Rechazan priístas una ruptura política (1995, March 2). Reforma Rentería, T. (1994a, September 30). Planes perversos. Excélsior, A5, A14, A20 Rentería, T. (1994b, October 7). Comentario a tiempo. Cambio con justicia. Excélsior, A5, A9, A14 Rentería, T. (1994c, October 9). Comentario a tiempo. Se exige justicia. Excélsior, A5, A32 Reyes, G. (1994, October 3). El fin de un general de civiles. El Universal, 7-8 Reyes, M. (1994a, October 1). Cosecha roja. El Universal, 6, 10 Reyes, M. (1994b, October 8). La tenebra. El Universal, 6 Reyes, M. (1995, March 4). La insoportable pérdida del poder. El Universal, 1, 12 Riojas, G. (1994, October 2). Los enemigos del país. El Universal, 6, 8 Riva, R. (1994a, September 29). Otro miércoles negro. Reforma Riva, R. (1994b, October 3). Las cloacas del sistema. Reforma

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Riva, R. (1994c, October 17). Sombras e incertidumbres. Reforma Rivera, M. Á. (1994, September 29). Clase política. La Jornada, 4 Robles, M. (1994, October 4). Estado de delito. La mancha en el cambio. Excélsior, A1, A10 Rodríguez, C. (1994, October 11). El desmoronamiento. El Sol de México, A4 Rodríguez, C. (1995, March 4). Del arca de Noé. Nueva etapa. El Sol de México, A8 Rodríguez, F. (1995a, March 5). Índice político. El Sol de México, A14 Rodríguez, F. (1995b, March 8). Índice político. El Sol de México, A6 Romero, I. (1995a, March 4). Reacción excesiva de Salinas ante especulaciones: AN. La Jornada, 8 Romero, J. (1995b, March 8). Calles sí pretendió venganza y hubo el riesgo de guerra civil. Excélsior, 1, 28 Rosa, E. (2009, March 22). telenoticias los salinas [Video]. Youtube. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNUwujv1AMk Rubio, L. (1994a, October 9). El riesgo y la oportunidad de un asesinato. Reforma Rubio, L. (1994b, October 2). La resistencia al cambio. Reforma Salinas, I. (1994a, September 30). ¿Otra vez la zozobra? El Universal, 2, 8 Salinas, I. (1994b, October 7). Los de arriba y los de abajo. El Universal, 2, 8 Sánchez, A. (1994, October 6). Fascismo cotidiano. La Jornada, 7 Sánchez, J. (1994a, October 1). Y ahora qué. Reforma Sánchez, J. (1994b, October 8). La conjura. Reforma Sánchez, J. (1995, March 4). Por el estado de derecho. Reforma Sarmiento, S. (1994a, October 4). El péndulo desaparecido. Reforma Sarmiento, S. (1994b, October 7). El hilo de la madeja. Reforma Sodi, C. (1994, October 8). Desesperanzas. Herencia de Zedillo. Excélsior, A7-A8 Sodi de la Tijera, D. (1994a, September 30). Alto a la violencia. La Jornada, 1, 10 Sodi de la Tijera, D. (1994b, October 7). No más simulación. La Jornada, 11 Sodi de la Tijera, D. (1995, March 10). Con la vara que mides… La Jornada, 8 Stephens, M. (1994, October 3). Segar la vida. Ataque a la democracia. Excélsior, A7-A8. Tavarés, M. (1995, March 5). Concluyó CSG su ayuno; sus demandas serán satisfechas. El Sol de México, A1, A16 Trejo, R. (1994, October 2). Sociedad y poder. Excélsior, A1, A40 Trinidad, Á. (1994, October 9). La rueda del poder. El Universal, 1-2 Unidad y legalidad. (1995, March 4). El Sol de México, A9 Unzueta, G. (1994a, October 3). La patria vive; el régimen muere. El Universal, 7 Unzueta, G. (1994b, October 10). Incapacidad para gobernar. El Universal, 7-8 Uriostegui, P. (1994, September 30). Otro crimen cobarde. El Universal, 7-8 Vázquez, M. A. (1994a, October 4). Otra muerte ‘por encargo’. El Universal, 7-8 Vázquez, M. A. (1994b, October 11). El narco que en todo penetra. El Universal, 7 Woldenberg, J. (1994, October 1). Contra el crimen. La Jornada, 1, 5 Zamarriapa, R. (1994, September 29). Prometía Congreso independiente. Reforma

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion

The violence Latin America experienced throughout the twentieth century, characterized by territorial strife, guerilla movements, coups d’état, and civil and military dictatorships, has largely shaped the region’s recent history. The Cold War worked as a catalyzer that often accelerated political and social tensions inside of the region’s countries. At times, it accelerated the organization of armed movements in urban and rural areas; at other moments, it drove the spirals of violence among rival political groups. It also caused the installation of military dictatorships led by regular armies, as in the cases of Chile and Argentina, or by guerilla groups, as was the case of Cuba and Nicaragua. Although the Cold War ultimately cooled off some of the tensions and conflicts in the region, the after-effects of violence left a deep mark upon the collective memory that confronts and intertwines political and social actors today. In this regional context, Mexico represented an exceptional case since the violence that erupted in the nation’s collective life did not unleash dynamics that would pave the road to a military coup or the creation of a revolutionary movement supported by the people. On the contrary, if the party did not succumb to violence, as in other Latin American experiences, it was because, after a revolution that had cost over a million deaths, the country had built a discursive and institutional patrimonial camp of a paternalistic and authoritarian nature that became a referent for national conciliation and development.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Arteaga Botello, Semantics of Violence, Cultural Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94695-1_7

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Despite its authoritarian nature, the patrimonial regime guaranteed a series of (minimal) freedoms that, over time, guaranteed enough autonomy to foster the creation and expansion of civil institutions. Steadily, the demands and claims to broaden the channels for citizen participation began to drive a democratic transition process. Political competition between political parties was gradually consolidated, and institutional paths emerged that guaranteed society’s involvement in government decision-­making. Thus, towards the end of the twentieth century, civil society’s strength openly defied the decisions legitimized by patrimonial authority. However, patrimonialism’s structures and practices did not disappear entirely and became interwoven with the nascent democratic institutions and practices. In 1994, within a context that had represented an anomaly within the regional landscape, Mexico exploded with the emergence of violence and unrest. The Zapatista National Liberation Army shattered the traditional logic of peasant and indigenous negotiations with state authorities. Afterwards came the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, the presidential candidate of the Revolutionary Institutional Party, heir to the political apparatus that had governed the country uninterrupted for over seventy years through clientelist and corporate mechanisms. Six months after this crime, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, secretary-general of the PRI, was assassinated, accentuating the feeling that traditional forms of political cohesion had become fractured. Public opinion interpreted this series of events as a sign that announced the country was heading towards chaos and social disintegration. This book has demonstrated how a worn-out authoritarian system and weakened democratic institutionalism managed to prevent the collapse of social and political civility in the face of serious violence. In Mexico, the Zapatista violence and the political assassinations were interpreted simultaneously as a chance to consolidate democratic institutions and codes, and civil inclusion, as well as a wake-up call to re-establish authoritarian institutions and norms. The dispute and intertwining between the interpretations articulated by the civil and patrimonial camps to signify the violence were declined into utilitarian and normative semantics of violence. The former interpreted the violence as strategic acts aimed at satisfying personal or group objectives, while normative semantics read the violence as mediations for crystallizing normative values or ideological principles.

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In both the patrimonial and civil camps, the utilitarian and normative semantics of violence operated as cultural structures of meaning that allowed them to answer some pointed questions: Who represents the patrimonial and civil codes? Who has fractured patrimonial and civil morals? How is it possible that the patrimonial and civil institutions have not guaranteed, each in its own way, mechanisms for social inclusion and solidarity? Is it necessary to promote a radical change towards democracy or to reinforce the authoritarian patrimonial institutions? The utilitarian and normative declinations of violence in the patrimonial and civil camps, respectively, suggested specific actions, demanding interventions into the country’s economic and political spheres and promoting forms of patrimonial and civil repair. In the face of the Zapatista revolt, the patrimonial camp demanded the unwritten rules of the regime and its institutions be upheld—notably, the reinforcement of the coercive and symbolic strength of the presidential office as the country’s referent for political unity. The civil camp, in contrast, suggested strengthening the democratic transition, acknowledging the symbolic and material strength of the presidential figure to achieve peace. The two camps believed the presidential figure was central to prevent the country from losing its sense of unity and political identity and falling into chaos. For this reason, they both fully supported the president when he decided to create a peace commission. They also agreed on the need to establish social and economic policies that would halt the supposed detrimental effects brought about by the country’s neoliberal economic and political reforms. In the face of the assassination of the PRI’s presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, the patrimonial camp underscored the need to uphold the regime’s unwritten rules and preserve its institutions to prevent violence from becoming a currency among groups inside of the PRI and the government. It called for reinforcing the coercive and symbolic strength of the presidential office and, consequently, demanded that the rest of society rally around the president. In contrast, the civil camp believed the post-revolutionary regime had depleted its ability to adjudicate political differences inside the highest spheres of power and was incapable of guaranteeing the order and cohesion of society. Therefore, according to this camp, it was necessary to accelerate the democratic transition to prevent violence from expanding as a practice and as a symbolic referent for political negotiations, and to protect the figure of the president to avoid social instability while strengthening civil institutions.

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Finally, the assassination of the PRI’s secretary-general, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, unleashed a debate inside the patrimonial camp over the need to guarantee the official party’s permanence as an institution that allowed for the continuity of the interests of political groups: a space for the negotiation of power positions in which the post-revolutionary regime attained continuity, as well as an apparatus able to articulate the demands of society in a corporate and clientelist manner. However, when ex-­ president Carlos Salinas de Gortari defied the rules of succession and the president—perceiving that he could be accused of hiding information on the assassinations of Colosio Murrietta and Ruiz Massieu—the patrimonial camp asserted that he had affected the post-revolutionary regime as a whole. In contrast, the civil camp claimed the ex-president’s actions had harmed the transition to democracy. Both the patrimonial and civil camps called for upholding the presidential figure as a referent of political unity. At the same time, they pointed out the need to establish a clear path towards the country’s democratization. The two camps believed the past rules were gradually becoming inoperative in a differentiated and democratic society. The acts of violence profoundly debilitated the authoritarian practices of the patrimonial regime at a moment in which the institutional framework of the democratic practices was not yet sufficiently solid. Thus, the patrimonial and civil camps became intricately and tensely intertwined around the presidential figure as a symbolic referent that must be upheld, but that would have to be dismantled at some point. Despite its authoritarian nature, the two camps believed that the strength of the presidential office resided in its ability to act as a mediator between the referents for patrimonial and civil inclusion and solidarity, and to prevent chaos and social fracture. Of course, radical positions inside the two camps sought to either increase the authoritarian practices of patrimonialism or accelerate the democratic transition by calling for the immediate destruction of the regime. Nevertheless, for some of the positions in the two camps, the presidential office—with its simultaneously pure and impure nature— became the vital center that would allow for incremental and measured changes in institutional landscapes and cultural practices. Another critical element in understanding the contention over the meaning of the violence, as well as the presidential figure, was the narrative of the 1910 Revolution. For a long period, this historical event was considered foundational, forging the country’s unity and political identity. For this reason, the interpretations of violence by the patrimonial and civil

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camps made constant references to the revolution to both support and criticize the violence generated by the EZLN and the political assassinations that came afterwards. Although there were different interpretations of the revolution, the patrimonial and civil camps had a shared memory over which they negotiated their disputes, which created an arena of agonistic confrontation that prevented political polarization. In short, even though the two camps competed to control the meaning of the revolutionary violence, and to translate the emergence of violence in 1994, they ended up intertwining and articulating shared landscapes of meaning. The presence of different interpretations of revolutionary violence of 1910, considered foundational to the social order, along with a political office considered the center of national unity and politics in the figure of the presidential office, operated in favor of the country’s stability. The patrimonial camp certainly expected these referents would be sustained indefinitely, with some slight changes. In the meantime, the civil camp saw the 1910 Revolution as a foundational referent, but they considered the presidency a transitional mechanism that democratic institutions should finally usurp. Despite this difference, these referents prevented the Zapatista violence and the political assassinations from triggering uncontrolled violence throughout the country. The translation in which social and political actors engaged to control the signification of violence thus generated grammars of convergence and cover-ups. This book has demonstrated that the tense relationship between patrimonial and democratic practices helped sustain each other in the 1994 eruption of violence in Mexico, thus preventing possible coups, spirals of guerrilla violence, or the propagation of armed groups. However, assuming the country is a referent for understanding how violence does not necessarily lead to political disintegration, as in other countries in the region, it is then also a key referent for understanding what happens when there is a breakdown in the narrative, symbolic, and institutional referents that embody a history of shared conflicts and agreements. The dismantling of traditional meanings that allow for largely containing the violence, combined with the presence of fragile symbolic referents to take their place, complicates the construction of a shared space for dialogue and dispute. The consequence of these dismantling processes is that they become a breeding ground for polarization and a probable increase in violence. This risk is particularly significant in contexts of weakened democratic institutionalism. In contexts of violence, if we wish to understand how the landscapes of civility and authoritarianism are constantly rewritten, we must take a

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serious look at the transition processes from authoritarian to democratic societies, with the symbolic narratives and referents operating as vital transitional cores. Future research and analyses could expand upon the development of theoretical frameworks for understanding that it is impossible to curb violence only through public policies aimed at its alleged causes, such as marginalization, inequality, inequity, or poverty. It is also necessary to account for the meaning-making processes through which society articulates its forms of social inclusion and solidarity in the face of the eruption of violence.

index

A Adler-Lomnitz, L., 11, 24, 46 Aguilar, H., 37 Aguilar, L., 55 Ai Camp, R., 57 Alcocer, J., 53 Alexander, J., 6, 16–26 Alonso, J., 4, 45 Andreas, P., 59 Anti-civil, 17, 18, 20, 21, 160, 161 motives, relationships and institutions, 16 values and principles, 185 vices, 16 Argentina, 1, 2, 5, 39, 205 Arias, E., 7 Arroyo, J., 43 Arteaga, N., 3, 4, 18, 24, 26 Arzuaga, J., 3, 4, 18, 24, 26 Assassination, 2 political assassination, 5, 7–11, 15, 32, 60–62, 64, 65 See also Colosio Murrieta, Luis Donaldo; Ruiz Massieu, Francisco

Astorga, L., 59 Authoritarian culture, 46, 156 Authoritarianism, 10, 37, 41, 48–57, 93, 96, 100, 101, 111, 128, 131, 150, 157, 158, 180, 184, 185, 192–196, 209 democratic authoritarianism, 149 discretionary authoritarianism, 23, 30, 45 intolerant authoritarianism, 23, 39 patrimonial authoritarianism, 8 presidential authoritarianism, 178 types of Authoritarianism, 23–24 Authoritarian neoliberalism, 101, 141 Authoritarian system, 4, 5, 39, 48, 156, 184, 206 Aziz, A., 45 B Baiocchi, G., 3, 24 Balandier, G., 4, 39 Bayón, M., 7

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Arteaga Botello, Semantics of Violence, Cultural Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94695-1

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212 

INDEX

Beezley, W., 38 Binder, W., 22 Blancarte, R., 55 Bohmann, K., 56 Bolivia, 1, 2 Borjas, A., 46 Bornhausser, N., 26 Brazil, 2, 3, 5, 24, 39 Buchenau, J., 38 Buendía, J., 57 C Calles, Elías Plutarco, 38, 152, 190 Cantú, F., 46, 47 Cárdenas, Cuauhtémoc, 45, 46, 84, 88, 173, 189 Cárdenas, Lázaro, 39, 45, 189, 190 Carrier, J., 58 Castañeda, P., 52 Chan, C., 24 Chandhoke, N., 26 Chávez, A., 52 Chile, 1, 2, 5, 205 Choi, J., 18 Civil associations, 4, 17–20, 39, 45, 58, 81, 149 Civil declination of the normative semantics of violence, 65, 96–102, 111–112, 144–146, 156–157, 183–186 Civil declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence, 64–65, 92–96, 110–111, 141–144, 154–156, 180–183 Civil impurity, 112 Civil life, 18, 22, 23, 58, 61, 157 Civil moral, 27, 91, 109, 140–146, 207 Civil order, 66, 157, 194

Civil power, 19–21, 30, 43, 45, 47, 48, 148 Civil purity, 92, 94, 99, 101, 102, 112 Civil repair, 9, 13, 21, 22, 43, 96, 207 Civil society, 6, 17–19, 21, 23, 24, 39, 48, 52, 53, 57, 61, 62, 65, 92, 107, 115, 175, 206 Civil solidarity/inclusion/ membership, 17, 22, 155, 179, 208 Civil Sphere Theory (CST) binary discourse of purity and impurity, 16–21 communicative institutions, 12, 17–19, 30, 47, 48, 56, 58 regulative institutions, 19–21, 102, 148 See also Alexander, J. Clifton, J., 51 Code ancestral, 24 civil, 19, 25, 27, 30, 47, 62, 102, 140, 197, 207 Confucianism, 24 non-civil, 23, 24, 46 patrimonial, 24, 27, 30, 47, 50, 54, 56, 62, 91, 132, 140, 149, 171, 189, 197, 207 Colombia, 1, 3, 5, 24, 173 Colosio Murrieta, Luis Donaldo, 127–161 Concepción, L., 49 Conde, A., 26 Cooke, M., 26 Cordera, R., 44 Córdova, A., 3, 39 Cornelius, W., 44, 58 Cosío, D., 40 Coup d’état, 1–8, 22, 26, 150, 205, 209 Craig, A., 44 Cuellar, S., 24

 INDEX 

D Davis, D., 7, 43, 57, 58 Del Ponte, C., 59 Díaz-Cayeros, A., 52 Díaz, Porfirio, 37, 100 Domínguez, J., 47, 54, 57 Durand, V., 58 Duverger, M., 4 E Eckstein, S., 58 Economic sphere, 6, 8, 23, 28, 48, 51, 52, 54, 56, 60, 61, 114 Ecuador, 1, 2, 39 El Salvador, 1 Enroth, H., 17 Esteinou, J., 56 F Falcón, R., 24, 37 Farge, A., 16 Fernández, F., 56 Fox, J., 52, 58 G Gago, V., 7 Galve-Peritore, A., 46 García de León, A., 58 García, M., 53 Garrido, J., 46 Giménez, G., 43 Goldstein, D., 7 Gómez, S., 4, 44, 45, 47, 53 González, M., 60 González, P., 40 Guatemala, 1, 87 Guerrilla, 5, 84, 86, 87, 209 Guillén, T., 44 Gupta, A., 11

213

H Habermas, J., 21 Haenn, N., 52 Hart, J., 37 Henriksson, M., 17 Hernández, A., 39, 41 Hernández, J., 58 Hernández, L., 52 Holloway, J., 54 Hoshino, T., 51 Hughes, S., 56 I Ihlebaek, K., 17 Indigenous revolt/mobilization/ rebellion, see Zapatista Army for National Liberation J Jacobs, R., 16 Junker, A., 24 K Kane, A., 28 Khosrokhavar, F., 23 Kiddle, A., 42 Kiely, R., 7 Kivisto, P., 16, 19, 21, 24 Knight, A., 39 Krauze, E., 4 L Langston, J., 4, 37, 40 La Porta, R., 51 Lawrence, P., 44 Lee, 24 Levistky, S., 43 Levy, E., 24 Lin, K., 18

214 

INDEX

Lindau, J., 49, 57 Loaeza, S., 42, 44 López, C., 50 López-de-Silanes, F., 51 Lucardi, A., 50 Luengo, M., 17, 19 M MacDonald, J., 50 Magaloni, B., 4, 46, 52 Magrini, A., 39 Marois, T., 43 Martínez, C., 45 Mast, J., 16, 18, 20 McCann, J., 47, 54, 57 Medina, D., 57 Medrano, A., 52 Mejía, F., 57 Melnik, A., 11, 46 Méndez, J., 54 Merino, M., 45 Mexican political system, 48, 100, 111, 112, 142, 143, 154, 190 Meyer, L., 25, 38–40 Michaud, Y., 26 Modernization, 8, 62, 63, 82–84, 98, 181–183, 185 economic, 10, 57, 62, 82, 83, 113, 114, 132, 171 liberal, 7 neoliberal, 7, 65, 93 political, 62, 82, 83, 132, 171, 181, 185 theory, 7 Molinar, M., 4, 44, 45 Morales, R., 53 Moreno-Brid, J., 52 Morton, A., 44, 52 Mudde, C., 39 Muñoz, R., 42 Murphy, P., 56

N Nacif, B., 39 Navarro, M., 51 Nicaragua, 1, 205 Non-civil spheres, 6, 7, 21, 22, 61, 155 Núñez, O., 58 O Obregón, Álvaro, 38–39, 130 Olson, W., 44 Ordóñez, G., 52 Orozco, G., 57 P Paley, J., 7 Palmer, D., 24 Paraguay, 1, 2 Patrimonial declination of the normative semantics of the violence, 63–64, 89–91, 106–109, 140, 150–153, 176–179 Patrimonial declination of the utilitarian semantics of violence, 62–63, 82–89, 104–106, 134–135, 149–150, 172–176 Patrimonial impurity, 80, 89, 139, 178, 198 Patrimonialism, 58, 103–109, 112–116, 132–140, 146, 148–154, 156–158, 194, 195, 206, 208 Mexican patrimonialism, 4, 37 Patrimonial morals, 82, 104, 171, 179 Patrimonial order, 5, 61, 132, 148, 167, 182–183 Patrimonial purity, 105, 107, 139, 158, 178, 197 Patrimonial repair, 12, 13

 INDEX 

Patrimonial sphere, 8, 108 Paz, O., 4, 27 Peritore, P., 46 Peru, 1, 5, 173 Peschard, J., 53, 56 Pfutze, T., 52 Philip, G., 44 Polarization, 5, 30, 182, 209 Political operator, see Ruiz Massieu, Francisco Political reform, 43, 134, 139, 207 Political sphere, 13, 52, 145, 170, 207 Political violence, 6, 7, 58, 65, 90, 137, 173, 174, 185 Post-revolutionary regime, 11, 38, 44, 84, 86, 103, 114, 115, 129, 132, 135–136, 138, 149, 153, 157, 159, 168, 171, 177, 183–186, 193, 196, 208 President presidential candidate (see Colosio Murrieta, Luis Donaldo) presidential figure (symbolic center), 39, 40, 44, 47, 63, 66, 80, 85, 115, 129, 132, 160, 198 presidentialism, 61, 129, 143, 155, 184, 192, 194, 195 presidential succession rules/codes, 38, 78, 108, 128, 134, 191 R Ramírez, M., 44, 51 Redclift, M., 58 Rodríguez, F., 52 Rodríguez, O., 43, 46 Rojas, E., 42 Rossi, E., 7 Rovira, C., 39 Ruiz Massieu, Francisco, 167–198

215

S Salinas de Gortari, Carlos, 45–66, 84, 85, 88, 91, 93, 95, 100, 102–105, 107, 109–111, 113, 114, 128–132, 134, 138–140, 159–161, 167–169, 174, 175, 177, 180–182, 184, 197, 198, 208 administration, 48–56 hunger strike, 183–196 and the new candidate, 146–157 and the Zapatista Revolt, 78–81 Sánchez, E., 56 Sanderson, S., 43 Sauer, F., 48 Schmidt, S., 42 Schreiber, D., 28 Sciortino, G., 16, 19, 21, 24 Shefner, J., 57 Shelley, L., 59 Sheppard, R., 44 Shimizu, M., 19 Silva, E., 7 Smith, M., 58 Smith, P., 16 Social change, 6, 136, 157 Social drama, 12, 61, 113, 127, 158, 197 Social justice, 23, 54, 55, 77, 83, 94, 96, 103, 185 Social liberalism, 54, 55, 180, 184, 197 See also Salinas de Gortari, Carlos Social movements, 4, 19, 56–58 Social order, 3, 4, 7, 25, 26, 39, 113, 115, 158, 159, 183, 196, 197, 209 Social spheres, 6, 7 Soria, V., 52 Spiral of violence, 1, 12, 65, 94 Stack, T., 25, 26

216 

INDEX

State sphere, 6, 8, 28, 30, 48, 52, 54, 60, 61, 114 Structural violence, 81, 86, 92, 99, 101 T Tavori, I., 26 Tello, C., 44 Thumala, M., 20 Tognato, C., 3, 16, 19, 22, 24, 28 Tovar, R., 51 Trejo, R., 57 Turner, V., 18 U Unal, H., 51 Uruguay, 1, 2 V Vargas Llosa, Mario, 4, 171 Veltmeyer, H., 52 Venezuela, 1, 3 Villarreal, A., 57 Villegas, C., 20, 21

W Wagner-Pacifici, R., 26 Walton, J., 57 Warman, A., 55 Way, L., 43 Weber, M., 19, 24 Weis, R., 38 Weldon, J., 39, 40 Wilson, J., 7 Winer, T., 59 Womack, J., 37 Y Yaschine, I., 51, 52 Z Zabludovsky, G., 39 Zaid, G., 24 Zamitiz, H., 53 Zapata, F., 37 Zapatista Army for National Liberation, 2, 5, 9, 60–62, 65, 77–116, 131, 135–137, 142, 144, 157, 161, 172, 173, 175, 176, 182, 186, 209