Hegemony, Counterhegemony, and Everyday Politics in Mexico

• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Date: 01 November 2020
• Author: Richard Stahler-Sholk
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19859368
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

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https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X19859368

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 235, Vol. 47 No. 6, November 2020, 130–172

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19859368

© 2019 Latin American Perspectives

Book Reviews

Hegemony, Counterhegemony, and Everyday Politics

in Mexico

by

Richard Stahler-Sholk

Subcommander Marcos The Zapatistas’ Dignified Rage: Final Public Speeches of

Subcommander Marcos. Edited by Nicholas Henck; translated by Henry Gales.

Chico, CA: AK Press, 2018.

Mariana Mora Kuxlejal Politics: Indigenous Autonomy, Race, and Decolonizing

Research in Zapatista Communities. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018.

Randal Sheppard A Persistent Revolution: History, Nationalism, and Politics in

Mexico since 1968. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2016.

The July 1, 2018, election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) as pres-

ident by a 30-point margin over his nearest rival was heralded by his enthusi-

asts as the “Fourth Transformation” of Mexico (following independence from

Spain in 1821, the liberal reforms of Benito Juárez in the 1850s–1860s, and the

1910 Revolution). The president-elect took office on December 1, 2018, with

what critics called a folklorized ceremony in which he received an indigenous

ritual cleansing with incense and a wooden staff of leadership, a moment that

raised both expectations and doubts about whether the future would match the

hyperbole and symbolism (Carlsen, 2018; Sheridan, 2018). Leaving aside

AMLO’s ego, understanding this moment requires a critical reading of Mexican

history and a decolonial gaze. The three works reviewed here offer valuable

insights toward that analysis.

Randal Sheppard’s A Persistent Revolution: History, Nationalism, and Politics in

Mexico since 1968 focuses on the period that could be considered the beginning

of the decline of the fabled “perfect dictatorship,” the 71-year hegemonic dom-

inant-party rule of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional

Revolutionary Party—PRI) from 1929 to 2000. The contemporary period that

Sheppard considers begins with the October 2, 1968, Tlatelolco student mas-

sacre, proceeding through the neoliberal restructuring of the 1980s, the elec-

toral fraud of 1988, the Zapatista rebellion of 1994, and the administrations of

the Partido Acción Nacional (National Action Party—PAN) under Presidents

Vicente Fox (2000–2006) and Felipe Calderón (2006–2012) and ending with the

2012 election of President Enrique Peña Nieto and the return of the “PRI 2.0.”

This is neither an institutional history of the Mexican state nor a review of the

Richard Stahler-Sholk is a professor of political science at Eastern Michigan University and an

associate editor of Latin American Perspectives.

859368LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X19859368Latin American PerspectivesStahler-Sholk / Book Review

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