Politics, Identity, and Mexico’s Indigenous Rights Movements (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics) - Hardcover

Eisenstadt, Todd A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 110700120X ISBN 13: 9781107001206

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Drawing on an original survey of more than 5,000 respondents, this book argues that, contrary to claims by the 1994 Zapatista insurgency, indigenous and non-indigenous respondents in southern Mexico have been united by socioeconomic conditions and land tenure institutions as well as by ethnic identity. It concludes that - contrary to many analyses of Chiapas's 1994 indigenous rebellion - external influences can trump ideology in framing social movements. Rural Chiapas's prevalent communitarian attitudes resulted partly from external land tenure institutions, rather than from indigenous identities alone. The book further points to recent indigenous rights movements in neighboring Oaxaca, Mexico, as examples of bottom-up multicultural institutions that might be emulated in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.

About this title

Book Description:

Drawing on original survey data, this book argues that, contrary to claims by the 1994 Zapatista insurgency, indigenous and non-indigenous respondents in southern Mexico are united by socioeconomic conditions and land tenure institutions as well as by ethnic identity. After comparing recent indigenous autonomy movements in neighboring Oaxaca state, the book concludes that institutional influences can trump leaders´ ideological frames in mobilizing social movements.

About the Author:

Todd A. Eisenstadt is Associate Professor of Government at the American University, where he also serves as chair of the department. He is the author of Courting Democracy in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2004) and has published dozens of articles and book chapters and co-authored or edited several books on democratization, identity and social movements, public opinion, political parties and electoral campaigns, mainly in Latin America. Professor Eisenstadt has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) and El Colegio de México in Mexico City, the Latin American Social Science Faculty (FLACSO) in Quito, Ecuador and the Center for US-Mexican Studies of the University of California, San Diego. Research for this book was funded in part by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and an American University Faculty Development grant. His work has also been funded by the Fulbright Commission, the National Security Education Program, the International Rotary Foundation and the Ford Foundation, among others.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 110700120X
• ISBN 13: 9781107001206
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 226