Based on extensive fieldwork and a wide variety of US and Mexican academic, government and journalistic sources, this book analyzes the critical institutions and policy issues that will determine whether and how the Mexican government can modernize the economy and retain political legitimacy.

Perspectives on the Mexican crisis; the nature of Mexican statecraft; presidential politics - Lopez Portillo and De la Madrid; federal bureaucracy and the administrative reform project; PRI and the political reform projects; interest group politics and government-business relations; political parties and electoral politics; conclusion - the politics of economic transformation.