State, capital and “second nature:” re-territorialization in the Plan Puebla Panama*

^*I would like to thank Greg Albo, Andrew Biro, Ruth Felder, Josée Johnston, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on an early draft of this paper.

Abstract

^*I would like to thank Greg Albo, Andrew Biro, Ruth Felder, Josée Johnston, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on an early draft of this paper.

Notes

^*I would like to thank Greg Albo, Andrew Biro, Ruth Felder, Josée Johnston, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on an early draft of this paper.

¹See Estados Unidos Mexicanos, Presidencia de la Republica, Plan Puebla Panama (Mexico D.F: Coordinacion del Plan Puebla Panama, 2002).

²See Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996); John Gerard Ruggie, “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations,” International Organizations, 47, 1993.

³For a useful survey of approaches to globalization and territoriality, see Neil Brenner “Globalisation as Reterritorialization: The Rescaling of Urban Governance in the European Union,” Urban Studies, 36, 3, 1999.

⁴See Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

⁵See Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, Globalization in Question (Cambridge: Polity, 1995).

⁶Gary Gereffi and Paul Evans “Transnational Corporations, Dependent Development and State Policy in the Semi-Periphery: A Comparison of Brazil and Mexico,” Latin American Research Review, 16, 3, 1981.

⁷See Neil Brenner, “Global, Fragmented, Hierarchical: Henri Lefebvre's Geographies of Globalization,” Public Culture, 10, 1, 1997; Neil Brenner, “Between Fixity and Motion: Accumulation, Territorial Organization and Historical Geography of Spatial Scales,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 16, 5, 1998; Neil Brenner, “The Urban Question as a Scale Question: Reflection on Henri Lefebvre, Urban Theory and the Politics of Scale,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24, 2, 2000.

⁸Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, trans. Martin Nicolaus (New York: Penguin, 1973), p. 534.

⁹ Ibid., p. 539.

¹⁰See Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson Smith (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1999); David Harvey, The Urban Experience (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1989); David Harvey, Spaces of Capital (New York: Routledge, 2001).

¹¹Lefebvre, op. cit., p. 219.

¹² Ibid., p. 109.

¹³An important insight of various Marxist approaches to the state is their regard for the latter's role in momentarily resolving capitalist contradictions. Here, the state can resolve the crisis by creating income and expanding credit, ensuring the reproduction and the socialization of the costs of production, particularly in research, development, and infrastructure (see James O'Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973]; and Andrew Glynn and Bob Sutcliffe, British Capitalism, Workers and Profits Squeeze [London: Penguin Books, 1973]). These roles have been accounted for in several interpretations of the Mexican state and its relative autonomy from the different capitalist fractions (see Nora Hamilton, The Limits of State Autonomy: Post-Revolutionary Mexico [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982]; E.V.K. Fitzgerald, “The Financial Contraints on Relative Autonomy: The State and Capital Accumulation in Mexico,” in C. Tortin and C. Anglade, eds., State and Capital Accumulation in Latin America [Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg, 1988]). Despite the insightful contributions of these analyses of the state – particularly in its role in creating infrastructure – the reconfiguration of social space that this infrastructure creates is taken for granted. In other words, these approaches do not explain how the intervention of the state, through infrastructural projects, for example, creates, organizes, and reproduces different socio-spatial political scales such as the nation and the region to give internal coherence to capitalist development.

¹⁴Brenner, 1998, op. cit., p. 465.

¹⁵A faction within the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) in Zedillo's administration developed this document. See Enrique Dávila, Georgina Kessel, and Santiago Levy, “El Sur También Existe: un Ensayo sobre el Desarrollo Regional de México,” Agenda Estadística del INEGI (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, Geografia e Informatica, 2000).

¹⁶Andres Barreda, “Geoeconomia y Geopolitica del Plan Puebla Panama” in Memorias del Foro Tapachula (Mexico: CIEPAC, 2000), p. 32.

¹⁷See Estados Unidos Mexicanos, Presidencia de la Republica, op. cit.

¹⁸Ciro Perez Silva y Luis Bofil “Se impulsará la iniciativa mesoamericana dentro del PPP,” La Jornada, June 27, 2002.

Figure 1. Source: Comision Tecnica de la Inicicative de Integracion Vial y Subgrupo de Apoyo Institucional, Informe sobre Inversiones y Financiamiento de la Red Internacional de Carreteras Mesoamericanas, Mexico, 2002.

¹⁹“El Salvador: El Salvador y Guatemala construyen nueva carretera,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, July 13, 2002.

²⁰“Dry Canal Awaiting Legislation – Guatemala,” Business News Americas, May 7, 2002.

²¹“Mexico anuncia Inversion en Honduras y Nicaragua,” Deutsche Presses-Agentur, June 2, 2002.

²²“Crean Bolsa de US $4,000 millones para financiar el Plan Puebla Panama,” El Economista, July 21, 2002.

²³Several historical precedents of this region's infrastructural projects can be seen during late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1853 the Mexican president Santa Anna signed a treaty with the US that allowed for the construction of a road and a railroad in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec so that American troops could move freely (See Camara de Diputados LVII Legislatura, “Rememoracion de la Firma del Tratado Guadalupe Hidalgo: Reflexiones sobre la Soberania Nacional,” Memoria del Instituto de Investigaciones Legislativas Mexico, Febrero, 1998). Also, Mexican President Porfirio Diaz (1876–1910) carried out the construction of railroads in this region in alliance with foreign capital such as the British firm Pearson and Son Limited. After the Mexican revolution, the US became interested in controlling Southern Mexico, particularly the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and hence fostered infrastructural investment after World War II. One of these infrastructural projects was the construction of an American air base in Ixtepec Oaxaca, and the transismic highway to facilitate the mobility of US military vehicles during Mexican President Miguel Aleman's administration (1946–1952). In Central America, on the other hand, US had its strategic position secured through the Panama Canal (see John Mason Hart, Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002]). Although this trend towards infrastructural development has been continuous in the region, the Plan Puebla Panama represents a distinct form of infrastructural development. In this Plan, foreign firms and the US state are not the only interests involved in infrastructure development. The Mexican state and Mexican capital's interest are central to the modelling and the implementation of these infrastructural projects and are part of a regional restructuring process that gives physical and social coherence to the development of capitalism in Southern Mexico and Central America.

²⁴It is worth noting that parts of the region were formerly a single political unit during and after the Spanish colonization until 1823. This, however, was a different form of regionalism since this implied mainly the formation of joint political institutions rather than the creation of concrete projects such as infrastructure to accelerate the turn over of capital.

²⁵Harvey, 2001 op. cit., p. 328.

²⁶According to Marx, capitalists do not undertake this investment because it is difficult for them to realize the road's value. This realization of value refers to the capitalist's ability to sell “the road in such a way that both the necessary and the surplus labor are realized, or in such a way that it obtains out of the general fund of profits a sufficiently large share to make it the same as if it had created surplus value” (Marx, op. cit., p. 532).

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 531–533.

²⁸See Brenner, 2000, op. cit.; Russell Janzen, “Reconsidering the Politics of Nature: Henri Lefebvre and the Production of Space,” CNS, 13, 2, 2002; Kevin Cox, “The Difference that Scale Makes,” Political Geography, 15, 8, 1996.

²⁹Erik Swyngedouw “Excluding the Other: The Production of Scale and Scaled Politics” in Roger Lee and Jane Wills, eds., Geographies of Economies (New York: Arnold: 1997).

³⁰The total amount of money channeled to the plan is US $4017.70 million. While only US $16.5 million are directed towards sustainable development, US $3420.60 million are being spent on highways and railroad construction.(Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Presidencia de la Republica, op. cit.)

³¹Roberto Gonzalez Amador “Programa de $80 millones para Sur-Sureste,” La Jornada, January 5, 2001.

³²Benedicte Bull, Political Structures and Sustainable Development: A Case from the Costa Rican Tourism Industry (Oslo: Centre for Development and Environment, 1996); Isidro Morales, “NAFTA: The Institutionalisation of Economic Openness and the Configuration of Mexican Geo-economic Spaces,” Third World Quarterly, 20, 5, 2002.

³³Grupo Pulsar covers a variety of firms in different sectors. The firms comprised in PULSAR Group are: Seminis, producer and distributor of hybrid seeds; DNAP holding, engaged in biotechnology research; Agrosem, developer of agricultural technology; Empap and Aluprint, packing manufacturers; Cigarrera La Moderna, a cigar company; Seguros Comercial America, an insurance company; Vector, a brokerage house; Contec Mexicana, a construction company; and Omega, a real estate company. International Paper company is a manufacturer of paper, packing material and forest products (engineered wood and lumber). TRIBASA and ICA are construction companies that belong to Grupo Rubio.

³⁴Roberto Madrazo Pintado, a member of this family, is the former Governor of Tabasco and current President of the PRI.

³⁵ACERCA, Plan Puebla Panama: Battle Over the Future of Southern Mexico and Central America, Mexico, 2001.

³⁶TRIBASA, Press Release, January 19, 2000, June 1, 2000.

³⁷ICA Press Release, January, 2001.

³⁸Armando Guzman “Denuncias em Tabasco al Proyecto de Fox,” Proceso Sur, October 27, 2001.

³⁹Ramon Ver Herrera “El Istmo de Tehuantepec no esta a la venta-Marcos,” La Jornada, February 26, 2001.

⁴⁰Marcelo Raimon “Trafico de Influencias en su plan energetico,” Proceso, June 2, 2001.

⁴¹About 75 percent of Mexicans above the age of five who speak an indigenous language are located in the Southern Mexican region. In Central America, on the other hand, there are 7 million indigenous people, and 80 percent of them have settled in Guatemala (See Gustavo Castro Soto, “Plan Puebla Panama: Diagnostico de Capitulo Mexico. Region Sur Sureste,” in Chiapas al Dia, No. 243, 2001).

⁴²For a broader analysis of the environmental damage caused by the Plan Puebla Panama in Southern Mexico and Central America, see Asesores del Consejo de Organizaciones de Médicos y Parteras Indígenas Tradicionales de Chiapas, el Compitch, Declaracion Final de la II Semana por la Diversidad Biologica y Cultural (San Cristóbal de Las Casas, 2002); Neil Harvey, “Globalization and Resistance in post-Cold War Mexico: Citizenship, Difference and Biodiversity conflicts in Chiapas,” Third World Quarterly, 22, 6, 2001.

⁴³Guzman, op. cit.

⁴⁴Ivan Restrepo ¿Un libramiento para la destruccion?” La Jornada, August 20, 2001.

⁴⁵John Bellamy Foster “Marx and the Environment” Monthly Review, 47, 3, 1995, p. 112.

⁴⁶Marx, op. cit., p. 283.

⁴⁷See Foster, op. cit.; David Harvey “The Nature of Environment: The Dialectics of Social and Environmental Change,” in Leo Panitch and Ralph Miliband, eds., Socialist Register 1993 (London: Merlin, 1993); James O'Connor, Natural Causes: Essays on Ecological Marxism (New York, Guilford, 1998).

⁴⁸Ignacio Juarez Galindo “Edil de San Francisco Mixtla inicia la tala de arboles para ampliar vialidades,” La Jornada de Oriente, January 11, 2002.

⁴⁹According to Victor Montejo, this tradition originates from the teachings of the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Mayans. In the Mayan Genesis, plants and animals are created before human beings, where the former assist in the creation of the latter. In this process, the plant life and the animals helped to collect food to nurture the first human beings. This explains the respect and appreciation that Mayans have toward the trees and animals for which they pray and perform rituals every Mayan New Year. This in turn results in a dialectical and tri-dimensional understanding of the world based on the relationship among humans, nature, and the supernatural world (Victor Montejo, “The Road to Heaven: Jakaltek-Maya Belief, Religion and the Ecology,” in Jhon Grim, ed., Indigenous Tradition and the Ecology: the Interbeing of Cosmology and Community (Cambridge: Harvard Divinity School, 2001)

⁵⁰Several indigenous organizations as well as other civil associations have participated in three large forums of information and analysis regarding the PPP and have formulated alternatives to this regional project. These forums have taken place in Tapachula, Chiapas and Xela, Guatemala. The most recent social forum against the PPP was organized in Managua, Nicaragua in July 2002. The participants of these forums have also released several declarations that show their discontent with the PPP such as “Porque el Pueblo es Primero. No al PPP” (Because the People is First. No to the PPP).

⁵¹Wendy Call, “PPP Focus Moves South as Mexican Loses Momentum,” PPP Spotlight, Americas Policy, 2003, pp. 1–4.

⁵²Miguel Pickard “El gobierno Mexicano Frente al PPP: Se Busca Una Nueva Estrategia ante el Rechazo Popular,” Informe Politico, Programa de las Americas (Silver City: Interhemispheric Resource Center, March, 2003), p. 3.

⁵³Brenner, 1997, op. cit., p. 138.

⁵⁴State's policies of disintermediation and securitization of finance have encouraged the mobility of financial flows. The former refers to the absence of intermediation to obtain bank credit. Securitization refers to the increase in the creation and trade of negotiable securities due to financial innovation, high liquidity, facility in their trading, and avoidance of governmental regulation. For all these reasons, securities have become more profitable than loans (Philip Cerny, “The Political Economy of International Finance,” in Philip Cerny, ed., Finance and World Politics [Vermont: Edward Elger, 1993], pp. 4–9). In Mexico, the new regulatory framework for financial groups has facilitated the mobility of financial capital. This new regulation opened up the possibility for financial groups to own industrial firms such as real estate and banking services such as brokerage houses and insurance companies. In this way, financial capital can speculate with real estate, production and public debt in Mexico, and the mobility of these financial groups' speculative capital to regions that guarantee the conditions of realization of their monetary claims to future production is facilitated.

⁵⁵Julio Aranda, Luciano Campos, Jesusa Cervantes, Guillermo Correa, Verónica Espinosa, Alejandro Gutiérrez, “Las maquiladoras: el espejismo desaparece,” Proceso, January 20, 2002. Foreign investment in the garment industry has settled in those Mexican states that are part of the PPP initiative. About 78 percent in the Mexican textile industry can be found in the state of Mexico, Puebla, Jalisco, Guanajuato and Yucatan whereas only 10 percent of this industry has stayed in the North. In the town of Tehuacan Puebla alone, there are 400 textile maquiladoras (see Bancomext, Mexican Textile and Apparel Show, Mexico City: March 2000). Also, according to the Maquila Solidarity Network, 45 of the maquila investment projected by the year 2005 will be outside the Northern Mexican states (see Maquila Solidarity Network, Lecciones Aprendidas de las Maquilas de Mexico, Toronto, 2001). Moreover, Mexican state policies are directly promoting maquila investment in the region. For instance, the Mexican state directed 17 million pesos to subsidize the construction of a maquiladora in San Cristobal de las Casa Chiapas called Transtextil International (see Miguel Pickard, op. cit.).

⁵⁶Brenner, 1998, op. cit., p. 265.

⁵⁷Harvey, 2001, Spaces of Capital, op. cit., p. 328.