The Emergence of the PRI in Mexico

This chapter explores the role of erosion of traditional agrarian structures on party organization in Mexico. Land privatization was extensive but not uniform in the country by the time the Partido Revolucioonario Institucional (PRI) began forming. Through agrarian census materials and archival evidence of electoral mobilization and peasant union construction, this chapter shows how the regions in the country with relatively higher levels of land privatization and where kinship-based communal councils were weak were the areas where the PRI emerged as a mass party. In areas where land privatization was weak and communal councils were strong, the party was able to establish only tenuous temporary alliances with peasants. It shows how these regional differences correspond to differences in peasants’ organizational availability, types of interests and demands, and emergence of professional politicians autonomous from their communities of origin. These differences facilitated the emergence of the PRI.