AP Comp Gov Mexico Key Terms

Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)

The political party that emerged from the Mexican Revolution to preside over an authoritarian regime that lasted until 2000

Enrique Peña Nieto

Mexico's president from 2012-2018, first PRI member to be elected president since the return of democracy in 2000

mestizos

Mexicans of mixed European and indigenous blood, who make up the vast majority of Mexico's population

Maya

Mexico's largest indigenous group, concentrated to the south of the country

Nahuatl

Mexico's second largest indigenous group, concentrated in central Mexico

Hernán Cortés

Spanish conqueror of Mexico

Cuauhtémoc

the Aztec military leader in Tenochtitlán who was defeated by Spanish conquerors within 3 years of the arrival of Cortés

criollos

Mexican-born descendants of Spaniards during the period of Spanish colonial rule

Mexican War of Independence

The 11-year conflict that resulted in Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821

latifundistas

Owners of latifundia (huge tracts of land)

caciques

Local military strongmen who generally controlled local politics in Mexico during the nineteenth century

General Antonio López de Santa Anna

Mexico's first great caudillo, who dominated its politics for three decades in the mid-nineteenth century

caudillo

National millitary strongmen who dominated Mexican politiecs in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Mexican-American War

(1846-1848) The war between the United States and Mexico in which the United States acquired one half of the Mexican territory.

War of the Castes

A massive nineteenth-century uprising of Mexico's indigenous population against the Mexican state.

Benito Juárez

The nineteenth-century Mexican president who is today considered an early proponent of a modern, secular, and democratic Mexico

Porfiro Díaz

Mexican dictator who ruled from 1876 to 1910 and was desposed by the Mexican Revolution

Mexican Revolution

The bloody conflict in Mexico between 1910 and 1917 that established the long-lived PRI regime.

Francisco Madero

the initial leader of the Mexican Revolution and a landowner who sought moderate democratic reform

Emiliano Zapata

The southern Mexican peasant leader of the revolution most associated with radical land reform

Francisco (Pancho) Villa

A northern Mexican peasant leader of the revolution who, together with Emiliano Zapata, advocated a more radical socioeconomic agenda

Venustiano Carranza

The Mexican revolutionary leader who eventually restored political order, ended the revolution's violence, and defeated the more radical challenges of Zapata and Villa

Constitution of 1917

The document established by the Mexican Revolution that continues to regulate Mexico's political regime

North American Free Trade Agreement

an agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States that liberalizes trade between the three countries, renegotiated in 2020 and replaced with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement

Vicente Fox

Mexico's president from 2000 to 2006 and the first non-PRI president in more than seven decades

Partido Accion Nacional

A conservative Catholic Mexican political party that until 2000 was the main opposition to the PRI

Francisco Labastida

The first-ever PRI candidate to lose a presidential election, he was defeated in 2000 by Vicente Fox of the PAN.

Felipe Calderón

Mexico's conservative president from 2006 to 2012; he was responsible for waging a war against drug cartels that led to a major increase in violence

José López Portillo

Mexian president from 1976 to 1982, he increased the role of the state in the economy and nationalized Mexico's banking system in an attempt to avert a national economic crisis

secretary of government

A top cabinet post that controls internal political affairs and was often a stepping-stone to the presidency under the PRI

secretary of the treasury

Mexico's most powerful economic cabinet minister

Chamber of Deputies

The lower house of Mexico's legislature.

Senate

The upper house of Mexico's legislature

Partido de la Revolución Democrática

Mexico's main party to the left

National Supreme Court of Justice

Mexico's highest court

Federal Electoral Institute

Independent agency that regulates elections in Mexico; created in 1996 to end decades of electoral fraud

municipios

county-level governments in Mexican states

patron-client relationship

Relationships in which powerful government officials deliver state services and access to power in exchange for the delivery of political support

camarillas

Vast informal networks of personal loyalty that operate as powerful political cliques.

Lázaro Cárdenas

The Mexican president from 1934 to 1940 who implemented a radical program of land reform and nationalized Mexican oil companies

Andrés Manduel López Obrador

Mexico's president since 2018, a leftist populist who claimed that he was the rightful winner that the elections of 2006 and 2012

MORENA (National Regeneration Movement)

New leftist political party formed by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a two-time presidential candidate for the PRD & current president of Mexico

Confederation of Mexican Workers

Mexico's dominant trade union confederation, which was a main pillar of the PRI's authoritarian regime

Televisa

Mexico's largest media conglomerate, which for decades enjoyed a close relationship with the PRI

Zapatista Army of National Liberalization (EZLN)

A largely Mayan rebel group that staged an uprising in 1994, demanding political reform and greater rights for Mexico's indigenous people

San Andrés Peace Accords

A 1996 agreement that promised to end the Zapatista rebel uprising but was never implemented by the PRI government

import substitution industrialization (ISI)

The political-economic model followed during the authoritarian regime of the PRI, in which the domestic economy was protected by high tariffs in order to promote industrial growth

PEMEX

Mexico's state-owned oil monopoly

Mexican Miracle

The spectacular economic growth in Mexico from the 1940s to about 1980

maquiladoras

Factories that import goods or parts to manufacture goods that are then exported

US-Mexico-Canada Agreement

the free-trade agreement that replaced NAFTA in 2020

informal sector

A sector of the economy that is not regulated or taxed by the state

Bracero Program

A World War II program that allowed millions of Mexicans to work temporarily in the United States

Immigration Reform and Control Act

U.S. immigration legislation (1986) that toughened American immigration laws while granting amnesty to many long-time undocumented workers