Centeno turns this fascinating story to good analytical account, and there is recurrent and well-balanced reference to both Russian and Eastern Europe and East Asia; the book is relevant not only to Latin and North Americanists but to all students of comparative politics, especially those interested in the recent wave of democratic transitions and market reforms. -Joe Foweraker, Political Studies This book is a significant contribution to our understanding of Mexican politics, and to the comparative exploration of the changes wrought throughout the region in the 1980s and the 1990s. It provides essential insights that are fundamental to explaining Mexico’s political process in the last decade and will assist students in understanding where this political model is headed throughout the end of the century. -Roderic Ai Camp, Journal of Developing Areas In this book Miguel Centeno describes and analyzes, as no one else has, Mexico’s post-1970 state transformation…Centeno’s book provides a basis for understanding both Mexico’s current political crisis and possibly its resolution.
-Susan Eckstein, Social Forces [This book] sheds light on a much-lauded case of successful economic reform and provides valuable quantitative material to complement the prevailing sociological work on Mexico…Centeno’s literature review of the relationship between democracy and the market is intelligent, comprehensive, nuanced, and up-to-date. In addition to bringing elite studies back into the sociology of Mexico, he also raises meaningful questions about the longer-term political implications of Salinas’s tenure. As such, this book lays a solid and necessary foundation for future work on Mexico. -Diane E. Davis, Contemporary Sociology An important study …that seeks to explain the people, organization, and ideology that lay behind …the Salinas period. Exceptionally strong in its explanation of the political identity of the Salinistas… -Judith Gentleman, American Political Science Review An outstanding case study of the vital problem of political and economic restructuring many societies are facing today, the work is significant for the understanding it provides of the Mexican case and in revealing lessons applicable to other regimes. Meticulously researched, systematically organized and well-written, the book contains a wealth of data. -Choice (Outstanding Academic Book 1994)
