Pan o palo? Force, Consent, and Rural Development, 1940–60

This paper provides a comparative study of the interplay between rural livelihoods, culture and politics across three states – Chihuahua, Guerrero and Veracruz – in mid-century Mexico. It seeks to weigh the balance of force and consent behind the façade of hegemonic stability that marked the period, arguing that violence was salient in both securing and contesting domination in these early years of the PRIísta state. Yet while that state oversaw a systemic transfer of resources from countryside to city, its endurance rested on more than violent practices and imaginaries. Despite the steady immiseration and political neutering of many rural populations, a degree of grudging consent also was obtained. In analyzing the blend of tactically-directed development, structural progress and cultural engineering that generated this consent, the paper hopes to move beyond the implicit Althusserian dichotomy – Mexico as either repressive state apparatus or ideological state apparatus – of previous analyses.