mexico and brazil
Mexico Key Terms:
1. Bracero Program = WWII program that allowed millions of Mexicans to work temporarily in the US
2. Felipe Calderon = 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
3. Venustiano Carranza = Mexican revolutionary leader who eventually restored political order, ended the revolution’s violence, and defeated the more radical challenges of Zapata and Villa
4. Chamber of Deputies = the lower house of Mexico’s legislature
5. Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) = Mexico’s dominant trade union confederation, which was a main pillar of the PRI’s authoritarian regime
6. Constitution of 1917 = document established by the Mexican Revolution that continues to regulate Mexico’s political regime
7. Hernan Cortes = Spanish conqueror of Mexico
8. Criollos = Mexican-born descendants of Spaniards during the period of Spanish colonial rule
9. Porfirio Diaz = Mexican dictator who ruled from 1876 to 1910 and was deposed by the Mexican Revolution
10. Federal Electoral Institute = independent agency that regulates elections in Mexico; created in 1996 to end decades of electoral fraud
11. Vicente Fox = Mexico’s president from 2000 to 2006 and the first non-PRI president in more than 7 decades
12. Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) = US immigration legislation (1986) that toughened American immigration laws while granting amnesty to many longtime undocumented workers
13. Import substitution industrialization (ISI) = 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
14. Informal sector = a sector of the economy that is not regulated or taxed by the state
15. Francisco Labastida = the first ever PRI candidate to lose a presidential election; he was defeated in 2000 by Vicente Fox of the PAN
16. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador =
17. Jose Lopez Portillo = Mexican president from 1976 to 1982; he increased the role of the state in the economy and nationalized Mexico’s banking systems in an attempt to avert a national economic crisis
18. Francisco Madero = an initial leader of the Mexican Revolution and a landowner who sought moderate democratic reform
19. Maquiladoras = factories that import goods or parts to manufacture goods that are then exported
20. Mestizos = Mexicans of mixed European and indigenous blood who make up the vast majority of Mexico’s population
21. Mexican-American War = the 1846-1848 conflict between Mexico and the United States that resulted in US acquisition of much of the current southwest of the US
22. MORENA (National Regeneration Movement) = new leftist political party formed by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a two-time presidential candidate for the PRD and current president of Mexico
23. Municipios = county-level governments in Mexican states
24. National Congress = Mexico's bicameral legislature
25. National Supreme Court of Justice = Mexico’s highest court
26. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) = trade agreement linking Mexico with the US and Canada; it went into effect in 1994 and was replaced in 2020 by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
27. Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) = conservative Catholic Mexican political party that until 2000 was the main opposition to the PRI
28. Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD) = Mexico’s main party of the left
29. Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) = political party that emerged from the Mexican Revolution to preside over an authoritarian regime that lasted until 2000
30. Patron-client relationships = relationships in which powerful government officials deliver state services and access to power in exchange for political support
31. PEMEX = Mexico’s powerful state-owned oil monopoly
32. Enrique Pena Nieto = Mexico’s president from 2012 to 2018, and the first PRI member to be elected president since the return of democracy in 2000
33. San Andres Peace Accords = a 1996 agreement that promised to end the Zapatista rebel uprising but was never implemented by the PRI government
34. Secretary of Government = a top cabinet post that controls internal political affairs and was often a stepping-stone to the presidency under the PRI
35. Secretary of the Treasury = Mexico’s most powerful economic cabinet minister
36. Senate = the upper house of Mexico’s legislature
37. Televisa = Mexico’s largest media conglomerate, which for decades enjoyed a close relationship with the PRI
38. United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) = a free-trade agreement that replaced NAFTA in 2020
39. Francisco (Pancho) Villa = Northern Mexican peasant leader of the revolution who, together with Emiliano Zapata, advocated a more radical socioeconomic agenda
40. Emiliano Zapata = southern Mexican peasant leader of the revolution most associated with radical land reform
41. Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) = largely Mayan rebel group that staged an uprising in 1994, demanding political reform and greater rights for Mexico’s indigenous people
Brazil Key Terms:
1. Bolsa Familia (Family Fund) = a Brazilian social welfare program that pays monthly stipends to families when their children receive education and healthcare
2. Bolsonaro, Jair = inaugurated as president in January 2019; a far-right military officer who was elected on a law-and-order platform
3. Bureaucratic authoritarianism = a form of authoritarian rule, common in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s (in Brazil 1964-1985), in which military leaders and civilian technocrats presided over conservative anticommunist regimes
4. Caboclo = Brazilian of mixed European and indigenous ancestry
5. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique = Brazil’s president from 1995 to 2022; he was responsible for significant economic and political reform
6. Centrao (Big Center) = a group of centrist parties and politicians that have long been the dominant power in Brazil’s badly fragmented legislature
7. Chamber of Deputies (Camara dos Deputados) = the lower house of Brazil’s legislature
8. da Silva, Luiz Inacio (Lula) = Brazil’s two-term president from 2003 to 2010 and from 2023 to the present. He is a member of the leftist Workers’ Party (PT); convicted on corruption charges in 2017
9. Estado Novo (New State) = the populist authoritarian regime of Getulio Vargas between 1937 and 1945
10. Federal Senate (Senado Federal) = the upper house of Brazil’s legislature
11. Federal Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal) = Brazil’s highest judicial body
12. Goulart, Joao = the Brazilian leftist president (1961-1964) whose removal by the military began a long period of authoritarian rule
13. Landless Workers Movement (MST) = the large Brazilian social movement that has fought for land reform
14. Liberation theology = a radical doctrine within the Catholic Church advocating that the church should act to improve the social and political power of the poor
15. Mulatto = Brazilians of mixed White and Black ancestry
16. Multiparty presidentialism = political systems, like Brazil’s that combine presidentialism and a highly fragmented legislature with many political parites
17. National Congress (Congresso Nacional) = Brazil’s legislature
18. Open-list proportional representation (PR) = Brazil’s electoral system for legislative elections; allows voters to select individual candidates instead of a party list
19. Robust federalism = a system established by Brazil’s current constitution, in which states enjoy very strong power
20. Rousseff, Dilma = Brazil’s first female president (2011-2016), who was impeached in 2016
21. Temer, Michel = Brazil’s conservative president (2016-2018), and vice president under Rousseff, who ascended to the presidency after the impeachment of Rousseff
22. Vargas, Getulio = the Brazilian populist dictator who presided over the Estado Novo (1937-1945) and was later elected to office during the Second Republic
23. Workers’ Party (PT) = Brazil’s most important leftist party, and the party of President da Silva