The End of Agrarian Reform in Mexico by Billie DeWalt and Martha Rees, with Arthur Murphy, Center for U.S.- Mexican Studies, University of Califor- nia, San Diego, 76 pp., $10 (paper). In 1990 and 1991, the Mexican government passed a series of mea- sures effectively ending the agrari- an reform whose origins lay in Emiliano Zapata's famous dictum: "The land belongs to those who work it." The principal mechanism of the abolition of land redistribu- tion was the reform of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution which had been the legal basis of the old system. The Salinas reforms end peasant entitlement to land and essentially privatize the ejido. The Ejido Reform Research Pro- ject of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies was established to trace the consequences of the momentous changes in the Mexican country- side flowing from this reform. The End of Agrarian Reform in Mexico is the third in the series Transfor- mation of Rural Mexico, published by the Project. DeWalt and Rees discuss the nature of the ejido, the decision-making structures, ambi- guities of land titles, and conflict- resolution structures. They detail all the negatives of the old system: the ubiquity of boundary disputes, the nature of intra-ejido conflicts, the general exclusion of women from the decision-making process, and the frequent domination of eji- dos by local political bosses, or powerful individuals within the ejido structure. They also discuss the land market which, despite the regulations and laws which prohib- ited it, flourished in an informal manner. They emphasize the gen- eral lack of support given to ejidos by governmental financial struc- tures, and the bind ejidatarios found themselves in when they faced well-heeled, capital-intensive competition from the private sec- tor. DeWalt and Rees pretty much accept the Salinas reforms as a fait accompli, and end each section of their monograph with a small list of recommendations to Mexican policymakers, the gist of which is "not so fast." Despite its minimally critical perspective, there is a wealth of accessible information here for non-specialists with an interest in the current turbulence in rural Mexico. Rebellion in Chiapas by Neil Harvey, with additional essays by Luis Herndndez Navarro and Jef- frey W. Rubin, Center for U.S.-Mexi- can Studies, University of California, San Diego, 62 pp., $7 (paper). This fifth brief volume in the Transformation of Rural Mexico series is an analysis of the most dramatic of the political explosions occasioned-most immediately-- by the ongoing political-economic changes in the countryside. Harvey locates the Zapatista rebellion in the multiple context of current global restructuring, the rural changes catalogued by earlier monographs in this series, and the long tradition of Mexican peasant uprisings. He offers a lucid critical discussion of agrarian moderniza- tion and its accompanying political reforms, the dramatic modifications in rural land-tenure systems, and the recent process of peasant politi- cal organizing. Free-market reforms, says Harvey, have exclud- ed Chiapas peasants from many markets, and brought about a feel- ing of abandonment by the state. The rebellion therefore signals a crisis of legitimation both for the process of economic liberalization, and for the state and its targeted social programs. This volume also includes two shorter essays, one by Luis Hemrnn- dez-a frequent NACLA contribu- tor-which provides additional background analysis, much of it culled from first-hand experience with the coffee growers of the Chi- apas region. In a comparison with the COCEI movement of Juchitin, Jeffrey Rubin assesses the likeli- hood that the Zapatistas might become powerful enough on a regional level to become pro-peas- ant mediators in disputes with the federal government. The California-Mexico Connection edited by Abraham F. Lowenthal and Katrina Burgess, Stanford University Press, 1993, 364 pp., $45 (cloth), $16.95 (paper). Political science tends to use the nation-state as its building block of analysis. Modern capitalist devel- opment has meant, however, that national borders are becoming ever more permeable, and economic and social relations are taking on a dis- tinctly transnational cast. Lowen- thal and Burgess' collection of inci- sive case studies of the relationship between California and Mexico explores this fertile theoretical ground. California's Mexico connection has intensified over the past 20 years. One Californian in five today is of Mexican heritage. Immigra- tion from Mexico--of a more per- manent character than in earlier decades-continues unabated. Cali- fornia is Mexico's second-largest trading partner (after Texas), and the two region's economies are increasingly linked through the transnational production networks of U.S.-based firms. This proximity is, of course, fraught with tensions. As the Cali- fomian economy has taken a nose- dive, anti-immigrant sentiment in the state has blossomed. This has potentially disastrous conse- quences. As Jorge Castafieda argues in one of the volume's best essays, California is becoming "dedemocratized," as a small, privi- leged Anglo minority determines the fate of a largely poor, disen- franchised Latino population. The authors in this volume try to untan- gle the myths that fuel the anti- immigrant backlash, and, from a variety of perspectives, show how the Mexico-California connection can benefit both regions.
