ATENCINGO REVISITED - POLITICAL CLASS FORMATION AND ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING IN MEXICO SUGAR-INDUSTRY

Sugarcane growers have had a close relationship to the state since the 1940s when a series of decrees established a heavy state intervention in the sugar industry, which then became highly regulated. Growers be came loyal to the state in exchange for low but secure incomes and oth er social guarantees. After the introduction of economic liberalism in Mexico during the mid-1980s (called ''neoliberalism'' in Mexico), the sugar industry became largely de-regulated, and sugar mills were repr ivatized. This article explores the process of political class formati on in the sugarcane region of Atencingo, in the state of Puebla. Wheth er cane growers posit peasant, proletarian, or peasant-entrepreneurial demands is examined, as is the character of organizations and allianc es that direct producers have established since the 1930s (oppositiona l, popular-democratic, or bourgeois-hegemonic). This paper documents t he emergence of a peasant-entrepreneurial class and presents initial r esults from a survey questionnaire administered in 1995. Rather than o ffering an economic argument based on a narrowly defined class positio n, this explanation emphasizes the prevailing regional cultures, the f orms of state intervention, and the types of leadership-the crucial me diating determinations that explain political outcomes in Atencingo an d other regions of rural Mexico.