Reconfiguring the countryside: Power, control, and the (re)organization offarmers in west Mexico

This article examines the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreemen t (NAFTA) on Mexico's agricultural economy, with particular emphasis on the role of the government in economic restructuring aimed at privatization an d global competitiveness. Government policy and practice have sought to rev italize select agricultural sectors that have faltered with the opening of the Mexican economy. This process will be explored through the analysis of the shifting relationship between the state and local elites in the northwe st highlands of Michoacan, an area dominated by small-scale dairy fanning. Much of rural Mexico has a long history of powerful caciques (local politic al strongmen) and their patronage networks, that have arisen in the service of state interests only to be replaced when political-economic conditions change. In this instance, neoliberal reforms have resulted in the reconfigu ration of power and authority, and the emergence of new-style techno-caciqu es-well-educated political and economic entrepreneurs with nonlocal connect ions and aspirations. The case underscores the contradictions and problems with neoliberal development operationalized through what are effectively ol d institutional forms.