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What Does Democracy Look Like?

Over the past few years, Mexico has been engaged in a transition to democracy. The phrase dominates political speeches and academic analyses. It is not clear, however, even five years after the Mexican electorate ousted the long-ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party-PRI), exactly what kind of democracy the country is becoming. Liberal observers point to more transparent and autonomous electoral processes and institutions as a sign that the Mexican state is being disengaged from the grip of an authoritarian party and opening up to an increasingly active civil society. A more radical critique of the process, however, notes that despite the institutional reforms and a decrease in repression, the fundamental structures of inequality and vertical control remain untouched, making a viable democracy unlikely. As different groups within Mexican society try to position themselves to take advantage of new political opportunities or to press for redress of specific material grievances, the meaning of democratic practices has become a focal point around which social movements frame their arguments and mobilize their supporters. During this transition period, many groups have challenged the elite sector's political notions and practices by insisting that their specific cultural identities within the Mexican nation endow them with a certain degree of autonomy within their communities. The Zapatista rebellion and the still unsuccessful indigenous calls for codification of cultural rights and autonomy have been the focus of much attention in this questioning of the underlying structures of the state. Smaller groups have adopted a similar strategy in pressing their demands for a more just distribution of material goods and recognition of their rights to control their own natural resources. In this essay I examine the cases of Tepoztlkn, Morelos, and Atenco, Mexico, where activists rallied residents to oppose unwanted development projects. In the course of those protests, local governments were forced out and residents engaged in