Week Fifteen
From the Lost Decade to NAFTA
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I. The Lost Decade(s), 1970s-80s

A. The Seventies: Limits of the Miracle

- Armed guerrilla groups + youth counterculture (Avándaro, 1971)
- Luis Echeverría (1970-76) + José López Portillo (1976-82)

industrial slowdown + increased social spending
peso devaluation, 1976
borrowing off future oil revenues (1977-81)
farm and consumer subsidies/credit
bureaucratic corruption
capital flight leads to bank nationalization, 1982

B. The Eighties: The "Lost Decade"

- Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988)

anti-corruption
1982: debt default + IMF "structural adjustment"
1984-87, fall of the peso against the dollar:

150:1 in 1984
380:1 in 1985
800:1 in 1986
from 950:1 to 2300:1 in 1987 alone!!

- 1985, Mexico City earthquake: 8K dead, $4b. in damage
- 1988 elections: Carlos Salinas de Gortari vs. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas

II. NAFTA negotiations 1992-94

- Article 27 of Constitution amended:

ejidos can be privately sold or rented
owned by corporations
no longer guaranteed

- Privatization of govt.' holdings, 85% by 1992 (Carlos Slim, Telmex)
- Pre-election spending spree by Salinas, based on foreign investment
- NAFTA approved by U.S. Nov. 1993, goes into effect Jan. 1, 1994

III. Zapatistas in Chiapas, Jan 1994

- Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN)
- Subcomandante Marcos / Delegado Cero
- Bishop Samuel Ruiz

IV. 1994: the PRI's "annus horribilis"

- March: Assassination of PRI presidential candidate Colosio
- August: Election of Pres. Ernesto Zedillo
- September: Assassination of PRI secretary general
- December: Mexican Peso Crisis