Mexico in Transition: Neoliberal Globalism, the State and Civil Society

by Gordon Laxer (series_editor), Gerardo Otero (Editor)

Mexico in Transition provides a wide-ranging, empirical and up-to-date survey of the multiple impacts neoliberal policies have had in practice in Mexico over twenty years, and the specific impacts of the NAFTA Agreement. The volume covers a wide terrain, including the effects of globalization on peasants; the impact of neoliberalism on wages, trade unions, and specifically women workers; the emergence of new social movements El Barzón and the Zapatistas (EZLN); how the environment, especially biodiversity, has become a target for colonization by transnational corporations; the political issue of migration to the United States; and the complicated intersections of economic and political liberalization.

Mexico in Transition provides rich concrete evidence of what happens to the different sectors of an economy, its people, and natural resources, as the profound change of direction that neoliberal policy represents takes hold. It also describes and explains the diverse forms of resistance and challenge that different civil-society groups of those affected are now offering to a model the downsides of which are becoming increasingly manifest.

288 pages, Paperback

First published December 17, 2004

About the author

Gordon Laxer is the founding Director and former head of Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Parkland is a non-corporate, research institute that does public policy research to serve the public interest. When the Conservatives ruled Alberta, the Globe and Mail called Parkland Alberta’s ‘unofficial opposition’. Parkland’s mission has been to change the political culture of Alberta. Gordon is delighted that Rachel Notley, a former student, is now Alberta’s premier.

Gordon is a Political Economist and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta. He is the author of After the Sands. Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians (Douglas & McIntyre http://www.douglas-mcintyre.com/book/...). After the Sands has met critical acclaim, winning the Errol Sharpe book award and was a finalist for the John W. Dafoe non-fiction book award. After the Sands reached number five among current affairs best-selling books across Canada.

Gordon is an author or editor of five other books, including Open for Business: The Roots of Foreign Ownership in Canada (Oxford University Press), which received the John Porter Award for best book written about Canada. He has published over 40 refereed journal articles, book chapters and reports.

Gordon is a socially-engaged, public intellectual. His op eds have been published in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Edmonton Journal, the Calgary Herald, the Montreal Gazette, the Vancouver Sun, the Province (Vancouver), the Winnipeg Free Press, the Victoria Times Colonist, the Hill Times, the Saint John Chronicle Herald, the St. John’s Telegram, Canadian Dimension, and other publications. He has been interviewed on venues such as the CBC’s The Current, As it Happens, and the House. He was on the board of the Council of Canadians from 2004 to 2009.