Mexico: constitutional reform and recentralization of financing and public policies, the federal corporatization of the fourth transformation

Abstract

Objectives: To analyze the recentralization of the constitutional reform of the 2018-2024 six-year term, by defining the success factors in the approval and the results in the implementation. Methodology: A bibliographic and hemerographic synthesis based on the three theoretical elements of federal corporatization. Results: It shows that Mexico, as the longest-standing case of federal corporatization, reached the radicalism of the three aforementioned elements. First, the social discourse of the ruling hegemony, beyond the partisan operation, has become social pressure from the majorities that reproduce it, complemented by repression of dissident minorities. Second, the regulation of intergovernmental relations based on the nation project was minimal, returning to the celebration of intergovernmental agreements that specify financial transfers directed to adapted bilateralism. Third, the ideological and operational invasion of specific strategic sectors bypassed federal performance, establishing direct relations between the National Executive and its political clienteles. Conclusions: The contradiction to the very essence of the fourth transformation is pointed out, with three levels of failure: partial reform (non-structural), unfinished reform (without implementation) and the reform that excludes rather than universalizes subsidies.