Voices of Mexico no. 51
Our Voice
This year both the United States and Mexico will hold presidential elections only four months apart. Undoubtedly, they will be particularly important for the positioning of both countries with regard to our bilateral relations in the twenty-first century. In contrast to previous races, this year’s Mexican elections are especially interesting for U.S. political analysts and actors alike because perhaps for the first time the results are not a foregone conclusion. There is no telling who the winner will be; even the most recent opinion polls contradict each other. While uncertainty is one of the characteristics of living in a democracy, it is also relatively new to Mexican political culture. This is the reason for the great expectation and interest in following the campaigns on the part of the public in both Mexico and the United States.
In the United States, the campaigns are now taking shape and centering on the candidates’ personalities: Al Gore, the “new Democrat,” and George Bush, the “centrist Republican.” From the Mexican perspective —and even in the opinion of much of the U.S. public— the two show only slight ideological differences and their proposals tend to overlap. In Mexico, the ideological spectrum is much broader and the candidates do represent different political options: Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas is on the left; Francisco Labastida, in the center; and Vicente Fox, on the right. This makes today’s real competition for power much more interesting in terms of the changes that it might bring.
Editorial
Our Voice
Paz Consuelo Márquez Padilla
Interviews
Mexico’s Relations with the
United States and Canada
How Four Presidential
Hopefuls Would Improve Them
Politics
Mexican-U.S. Relations
A Presidential Campaign Issue
Alejandro Becerra Gelóver
The 2000 Elections
And the Mexican Transition
César Cansino
Mexican Political Cycles
And Complex Cohabitation
Isidro H. Cisneros
Society
The Challenges of
Demographic Aging in Mexico
Rodolfo Tuirán
History
The Cristero
Collective Imagination
Alvaro Ruiz Abreu
The St. Patrick’s Battalion
The Irish Soldiers of Mexico
Jaime Fogarty
United States Affairs
Reflections on Twentieth-Century
U.S. Immigration Policy
Mónica Verea Campos
The Interventionist Deterrent
“Americanism” and Foreign Policy
José Luis Valdés-Ugalde
The 2000 U.S. Elections
Patricia de los Ríos
Canadian Issues
Canada and Foreign Direct Investment
In North America
Elisa Dávalos
Museums
Lots More than Mummies in
El Carmen Museum
Jaime Abundis
Ecology
The European-U.S. Dispute
On Climate Change
Edit Antal
Literature
Mexico’s New Poetry
Fernando Fernández and Eduardo Vázquez
Eduardo Hurtado
In Memoriam
Fernando Benítez
Journalist and Man of Letters
Elsie Montiel
Reviews
Anita Brenner. A Mind of Her Own
Ricardo Pérez Montfort
Album de zoología
Hugo A. Espinoza Rubio
The Splendor of Mexico
San Angel
The Garden of the Valley of Mexico
Jaime Abundis
Contemporary San Angel
From the Twentieth to the Twenty-first Century
María García Lascuráin
A Walk by Summer Chalets
And Cultural Venues
Jaime Abundis
Art and Culture
Carlos Torres
A Lesson in Humility
Yuriria Iturriaga
The Only Guest
Luis González de Alba
The New Mexican Cinema
Four Directors Put Their Vision
Of the Country on Camera
Mario Pacheco Székely