AP Comparative Gov: Mexico Vocab

Accommodation

informal agreement or settlement between the government and important interest groups in response to the interest groups’ concerns about policy or program benefits

Anticlericalism

Opposition to the power of CHURCHES or CLERGY in politics

Caudillos

Charismatic populist leaders, usually with a military background, who use patronage and draw upon personal loyalties to dominate a region or nation

Civil society

Refers to the space occupied by voluntary associations outside the state

Corporatist state

interest groups become an institutionalized part of the state structure

Coup d’etat

forceful, extra-constitutional action resulting in the removal of an existing government

Ejidos

Land granted by mexican government to an organized group of peasants

Indigenous groups

Population descended from the original inhabitants of the Americas, present prior to the Spanish Conquest

Maquiladoras

Factories that produce goods for export, often located along the U.S.-Mexican border

Mestizo

person of mixed white, indigenous (Amerindian), and sometimes African descent

Remittances

Funds sent by migrants working abroad to family members in their home countries

Sexenio

The six-year administration of Mexican president

State capitalism

economic system that is primarily capitalistic but in which there is some degree of government ownership of the means of production

Technocrats

Career-minded bureaucrats who administer public policy according to a technical rather than a political rationale