Mexican Development, Hacia Afuera

Mexican ideas about development that emerged during the course of the Revolution of 1910 were actively held up in Latin America as routes towards economic and social justice during the Cárdenas presidency, thereby shaping Latin Americans’ view of the Revolution and what it stood for.  The concept of development in Latin America is generally associated with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Alliance for Progress, both because the articulation of Modernization Theory, Import Substitution Industrialization, and Dependency Theory (and their respective champions), all emerged in the postwar era.  But, as this paper demonstrates, the ideas and development projects that emerged from the Mexican Revolution and the Cárdenas government’s Política del Buen Amigo (Good Friend Policy) toward Latin America provided an important precursor to these conventional development paradigms.  By examining the reception of the expropriation of foreign-owned agricultural lands in Latin America and Mexican diplomats’ efforts to promote Mexico’s model of development in the region, this paper demonstrates the often ignored Mexican contribution to the history of inter-American development.