The missing notion of “the public”: Patrimonialism and social struggle. Social democratization and political forms in Puebla

Abstract

This paper deals with two sets of ideas searching for the relations between them. First of all, it grasps some arguments from the broad discussion about public life democratization which took place in South America, mainly in Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, during the most vigorous popular and indigenous mobilizations and uprisings. Then, it contrasts those ideas with what in Mexico has been called “democratic transition”. We propose the notion of “patrimonialism” as a key to understand some specific features of the Mexican political life; we discuss the apparent absence of a political notion of “the public”, however the existence of a lot of state institutions.