Mexico: The Impact of the 1968 Student Protest on Echeverría's Reformism

Abstract

A great many of the political initiatives of Mexico's President Echeverría were responses to stimuli generated directly by the university community's behavior during the 1968 student government crisis. Prior to this 1968 confrontation, student activism had a marginal “nuisance effect”; since then, however, it has risen to political prominence in Mexico.The following discussion focuses on establishing a casual relationship between student protest and Echeverría's reformism. It will begin with a possible framework for the student protest movement within the national political context in terms of structural-functional concepts. To that part pertains also the section dealing with protagonists' tactics in the confrontation—i.e., principal student measures to organize, communicate demands and mobilize support, and the government countermeasures aimed at discrediting the students' protest and reducing the effectiveness of their dissent. Issues concerning the link between the 1968 events and the reform policies of the Echeverría administration will be noted.