From passive revolution to silent revolution: Class forces and the production of state, space and scale in modern Mexico

Abstract

This article draws on Antonio Gramsci’s key concepts of passive revolution and hegemony to explore how specific scalar and spatial configurations have been historically produced in Mexico, within the conditions of worldwide capitalist development. It argues that passive revolution—understood as the state-led reorganisation of social relations that seeks to maintain or restore class domination—can be seen as a recurring theme of Mexican history in the 20th century. In order to make this case, the author examines the Mexican Revolution and elaborates the case for labelling it as a ‘passive revolution’. Following this, the contradictory character of Mexico’s development trajectory is explored, and the resulting restructuring of the economy along neoliberal lines is interpreted as a second phase of passive revolution. Through an analysis of changing state formation and the spaces and scales associated with it, the article thereby highlights the key antinomies of capitalist development that have augured the recurrence of passive revolutions.