Reforming the State in Mexico

Mexico's great political challenge of the early 21st century, already being grappled with during President Vicente Fox's administration, is how to reform the state while also enhancing its democracy and bolstering its international trade position. The end of Mexico's seven decades of dominance by a single party has opened the doors to heightened party competition, which makes consensus difficult to achieve and reform correspondingly slow. This is the subject of Kellogg's conference on Nov. 18-19, titled, "Reforming the State in Mexico: The Challenge after Fox and NAFTA."

The conference is co-sponsored with generous funding from The Coca-Cola Company. It will gather scholars as well as policy practitioners to assess the reforms that Mexico has achieved so far, analyze the current reform agenda and consider the prospects for further change. Panels will examine political and economic circumstances in general and with a specific focus on sectors like the judiciary, finance and agriculture. The two days of discussion are expected to yield an edited volume of revised papers in both English and Spanish.

CHAIR: Christopher Welna

Conference Overview (in pdf format)

Conference Program (with links to papers in pdf format)