The Rise of Neoliberalism in Mexico: from a Developmental to a Competition State

Abstract

Internalizing globalization is about how people are changing their domestic political worlds in the context of growing complex interactions – economic, social, and political – across national borders. Globalization itself is in turn reshaped by and through local conditions and domestic political objectives; it is not just imposed from outside. It starts from the competing goals of peo- ple in everyday politics and economics – especially over the meaning and character of the ‘general welfare’, as the Preamble to the United States Constitution terms it – and seeps into the deepest nooks and crannies of everyday life. International and domestic politics are therefore not two sepa- rate arenas, but parts of an interpenetrated set of webs of politics and gover- nance that increasingly cut across and entangle the nations of the world, summoning forth and molding the actions of ordinary people. Globalization affects how giant corporations and small firms alike go about their business; how politicians and bureaucrats build (and rebuild) coalitions and generate public policies; how people work and get paid; how consumers decide what to buy, or whether they have the resources to participate in consumer soci- ety at all; and how people in general get to know and understand a rapidly changing world.