Weekly Report - 15 September 2011 (WR-11-37)

MEXICO | The elite’s origins. Immediately after the Mexican Revolution all Mexican presidents were revolutionary generals. That changed in 1946 when Miguel Alemán Valdés, the son of a general, became modern Mexico’s first civilian president. From him until President Carlos Salinas (who took office in 1988), all Mexican presidents were law graduates from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Unam). Salinas was an Unam economics graduate. His successor, Ernesto Zedillo (1994 to 2000), was a graduate from the Politécnico, while the first Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) president, Vicente Fox (2000 to 2006) was a mature graduate in marketing from the Universidad Iberoamericana. The current president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, is a graduate from the Escuela Libre de Derecho. What is interesting is that Calderón has made a habit of appointing economics graduates from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (Itam), most of whom have also got second degrees from US universities, to his cabinet. Both of his new cabinet appointees, Meade and Chertorivski, are Itam economics graduates. So is the governor of the Banco de México, Agustín Carstens. The Itam has long specialised in public policy. Rival economics schools such as the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey which focuses on training businessmen, and the Unam, which is still more than slightly Marxist, are now less influential politically.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 313 words.

Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article

Not a Subscriber?

Choose from one of the following options

• Subscribe
• Sign up for a one-time, 14-day trial