De-nationalizing state elites in Mexico

De-nationalizing state elites in Mexico

Elites negotiate and redefine the terms under which global and national organizations, institutions and actors re-articulate. In particular, national elites can resist pressure or, more or less willingly (depending on the ideologies and strategies they espouse), adapt and give in to the requests and requirements of the increasingly greater power of global financial and trading organizations controlling the most important and cherished resources around the world. In the process they de-nationalize state agencies even if that means reforming legal procedures and institutions to fit the needs of global or regional processes of integration.

In this way, Mexican state and corporate elites trade away a whole range of policy capacities and institutions in exchange for different rewards: market, financial resources and technology in the case of corporate elites and a greater participation in regional or global policy networks in the case of state elites.

This paper will focus on Mexican state elites and the process whereby they give up state capacities in order to make their way into global policy and corporate networks and, consequently, have access the social capital they entail.

I pursue the following strategy: First, I identify state elites in charge of public agencies tightly interlocked to global agencies such as the Central Bank (Banco de México), the Ministry of Finance, CNBV (Banking and Securities Commission) and other so-called autonomous agencies depending directly from the executive branch; second, I follow the trajectories of these public officers and, in particular, participation in supranational public or private policy agencies (including TT), as well as in corporate boards of transnational corporations. And, third, I examine the ideological orientation of these elites, their academic backgrounds and links to policy and epistemic communities.