Artemisa Montes-Sylvan
Visiting Scholar Fall 2004
Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies (CILAS)
Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) Global Exchange Program Recipient

Area of Expertise: Political Economy

Country of Expertise: Mexico

Current Research Project: In 1982, Mexico declared its inability to service its outstanding debt to international creditors. This was the outbreak of one of the most severe crisis in the recent Latin American history, and the first step to a series of transformations that will reshape the region's economic, political and social life.

This crisis has been conventionally understood as an economic disturbance. However it concealed important institutional and political changes in the years preceding the crisis. These changes could be interpreted as an adjustment process that started with the decay of a prevailing mode of development, creating a disruption in the system that enabled the ascension of a new model.

The research emphasizes the transitional nature of the crisis and focuses in the evolution of existing institutions and the creation of new ones, outlining the characteristics of the new model of development. To assess the efficacy of this new dispensation, the research considers both continuities and changes, of the events and leading institutions, before and after the 1982 Mexican crisis.

This work applies a regulation theory framework to analyze the way in which transformations of social relations create new economic and non-economic forms, organized in structures. It relies on a regulation model to study former and subsequent patterns of behavior, performance and institutions and an accumulation model to explain production, consumption and institutions as well.

Finally, this research seeks to contribute to the analysis of the Mexican process of the 1980s under a different light, and to add to the debate on economic crisis, transitional economies and democratization process by introducing the concept of "transitional crisis" as a framework to analyze a whole integrated transformation process, which would include economic, societal and political institutions.

Project Title: Mexican crisis process from 1976 to 1992: A case of transitional crisis?

Academic Background: In 1997 Montes Sylvan completed her Master's degree in International Political Economy from the Universidad de la Américas in Mexico City. Currently, Ms. Montes Sylvan is working on her PhD in Politics at the University of Bristol in the U.K.

Selected Publications:

• Building support for policy changes in Mexico, Lincoln University, UK Conference Paper Political Studies Association, April 2004
• Book review on Sarah Babb's Managing Mexico, London, UK, Political Studies Review, January 2003