The Politics of Protection: Interpreting Commercial Policy in Late Bourbon and Early National Mexico

The breadth, depth, and persistence of political instability in independent Mexico have long been the object of historians\u27 attention. Mexico, writes one, experimented with monarchy, moderate constitutional republic, radical populist regime, conservative government, and liberal government; each in turn failed to produce stability. From 1824 through 1853, Mexico experienced the institutionalized disorder of manifold pronunciamientos . . . endless cabinet changes, and several lurches to the political left or right. Repeatedly invaded, blockaded, partitioned, and plunged into civil war between 1835 and 1867, Mexico was for most of its early history more a geographical expression than a political one. The present state of anarchy [has] lasted for a quarter of a century, editorialized The Economist in 1861. There is no power in Mexico .... It is not a nation. It is not a state. It is not a government at all. This was not an isolated opinion