Regionalism, Regime Transformation, and PRONASOL: The Politics of the National Solidarity Programme in Four Mexican States
Political change in Mexico since the crisis of 1994 has been characterised
 by the breakdown of centralised hierarchies and the dispersion of power
 across geographical regions. We examine the changing relations between regional
 officials of the National Solidarity Programme (PRONASOL) and local PRI
 politicians in four Mexican states: Puebla, Nayarit, Tamaulipas, and Baja
 California. Although PRONASOL was dismantled after 1994, the influence
 of anti-poverty bureaucrats has varied across geographic regions, depending
 on whether they had been authorised to engage in grass-roots mobilisation
 and/or party politics under Salinas. We emphasise the importance of regional politics
 in transitions from dominant-party regimes, and the impact of conflicts within the political hierarchies of the old regime.