Mexico's stability

[kernals12]

If you look at Mexico, they managed a remarkable amount of political stability in the 20th century. After 1935, while other Latin American nations went through communist revolutions, CIA backed coups, and civil wars, Mexico stayed under the iron heel of the PRI until 2000. How did they manage this?

Edit: After Insider brought to my attention several political crises Mexico experienced in the 1910s and 1920s, I switched it from 1911 to 1935 as the year Mexico achieved stability.

 

[trurle]

Costa Rica has a similar stability record. Basic recipe is to suffer humiliating military defeat (from external or internal parties) and later to reduce the role of militaries. Both Costa Rica and Mexico had low-profile army (or no army at all) compared to other states in region.

 

[Insider]

If you look at Mexico, they managed a remarkable amount of political stability in the 20th century. After 1911, while other Latin American nations went through communist revolutions, CIA backed coups, and civil wars, Mexico stayed under the iron heel of the PRI until 2000. How did they manage this?

Are you from some other timeline? Our Mexico suffered huge revolution between 1910 and 1920 and then Cistero War in 1927-29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristero_War
I wouldn't call it "stability" until 1935, give or take few years.
The fact that there were no revolutions later is a testament to sane government policies, that lead to huge leap in nation prosperity. It lasted to the Oil crisis of 1974.
Later in the 90's Mexico started to have problems with criminal violence -a backslash from USA's attempt to keep their lower classes under thumb ("war on drugs") and the Zapatista revolt.

 

[kernals12]

Are you from some other timeline? Our Mexico suffered huge revolution between 1910 and 1920 and then Cistero War in 1927-29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristero_War
I wouldn't call it "stability" until 1935, give or take few years.
The fact that there were no revolutions later is a testament to sane government policies, that lead to huge leap in nation prosperity. It lasted to the Oil crisis of 1974.
Later in the 90's Mexico started to have problems with criminal violence -a backslash from USA's attempt to keep their lower classes under thumb ("war on drugs") and the Zapatista revolt.

Sorry, didn't know about that, but still, that's impressive by 20th century Latin American standards. And Mexico had no huge leap in prosperity, during the 20th century, Mexico's gdp per capita was consistently around 1/3 of the US level. Mexico's former colonial master, Spain, managed to go from 30% of the US level in 1953 to 65% in 1975.

 

[Insider]

snip

1/3 of US GDP per capita in 1960 was something wholy different then 1/3 of US GDP per capita in 1990 and something different now. That is because US GDP per capita is rising.
https://www.google.pl/publicdata/ex..._pcap_cd&idim=country:USA:GBR:CAN&hl=en&dl=en

Of course you would have to adjust for inflation of USdolar but it generally means that if a country manages to keep up its parity with USA it is generally prosperous. As you can see in the chart you presented, Mexico was doing very good in keeping parity and even started to catch up. The question is rather... what cause them to stop catch up around 1984?

 

[kernals12]

The question is rather... what cause them to stop catch up around 1984?

Drop in oil prices and rise in interest rates. Read about the Latin American debt crisis.