Global Neoliberal Crisis and Populist Passive Revolution in México

Abstract

This article aims to provide a general characterization of the populism of the 4T in Mexico from a global perspective. To achieve this, we draw on Gramsci’s concept of passive revolution to outline a generic characterization of populism as political and social movements that are part of hegemonic projects, which seek to materialize through the seizure of power at specific historical moments.

The current phase of capitalist development is considered as a referential framework, with the neoliberal path as the predominant—though not the only—mode of entrepreneurship adopted by most countries, including Mexico, and its subsequent crisis. These factors are seen as the conditions that have given rise to new forms of international populism and the 4T’s populism, both as attempts to resolve the neoliberal crisis.

After analyzing the 4T as a populist passive revolution that seeks to resolve the crisis of the neoliberal path in Mexico through the transformation of the State in a restricted sense—i.e., without productive-social transformation—it is concluded that the loss of the State’s intellectual, institutional, and financial capacities prevents it from generating the general conditions for an accumulation based on knowledge and the exploitation of the specificities of backwardness to promote social development under current historical conditions. Likewise, the concept of passive revolution must be theoretically developed to fully account for international populisms and that of the 4T in Mexico.