Entrepreneurs and Politics in Twentieth-Century Mexico

Based on six years of research, including interviews with leading Mexican entrepreneurial and political leaders and the assessment of hitherto unavailable materials, this work focuses on the complex political relationship between the Mexican state and leading businessmen from the 1920s to the present. Analyzing nearly 3000 biographies to compare Mexico's two leading competitors for political power, the author uses a humanistic approach to test a number of assumptions about the relationship between the business community and the state and provides new insights into the existence of a power elite, the exchange between economic and political leaders, the self-image of Mexican entrepreneurs, the position of family-controlled firms, and the influence of capitalists on the decision-making process. Camp also provides detailed information on the ownership of Mexico's top 200 firms, including names of stockholders, board members, and managers.

Roderic Ai Camp is Philip M. McKenna Professor of the Pacific Rim at Claremont McKenna College and serves on the Advisory Board of the Mexican Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution. His books include Politics in Mexico (OUP 2006) and The Metamorphosis of Leadership in a Democratic Mexico (OUP 2010).