Kicking away the countermovement? Neoliberal resilience in Mexican context

ABSTRACT

Scholars in the field of development have recently begun to highlight the demise of neoliberal hegemony. Still, testimonies of emerging economies that are struggling to move on from embedded neoliberal strategies and institutions have also surfaced across the globe. By analysing the recent conflict that the Mexican state experienced when trying to revert market-oriented reforms in its energy sector, this paper aims to contribute to the literature on neoliberal resilience and the literature on Polanyian dynamics beyond the Global North. Accordingly, through a Polanyian perspective, the paper highlights how a recent constitutional lock-in of competition policies have thus far stifled intended protective countermovements by the Mexican state.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberal resilience
• development
• Polanyi
• Mexico
• political economy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Walid Tijerina

Dr Walid Tijerina is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in Mexico. He obtained his PhD in Politics at the University of York, UK. He was a Visiting Researcher at the University of Texas at Austin’s LLILAS Benson Centre in 2016. His book Industrial Development in Mexico: Policy Transformation from Below was published in Routledge’s Studies in Latin American Development.