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{{infobox
| nameofpractice = Caciquismo
| flagemoji = 🇲🇽
| definition = The exercise of political, economic and social influence with measures of control and co-optation
| location = Mexico
| imagemap = Mexico map.png
| clusters = [[:Category: Patron-client networks|Patron-client networks]] – [[:Category: Co-optation| Co-optation]] – [[:Category: Control| Control]]
| categories = [[:Category: Mexico|Mexico]] – [[:Category: North America| North America]] – [[:Category: Central America| Central America]] – [[:Category: Latin America| Latin America]] – [[:Category: Brokerage| Brokerage]] – [[:Category: Patronage| Patronage]] – [[:Category: Coercion| Coercion]]
| authorofpiece = Fausto Carbajal Glass
| authorinstitution = Department of Security and Crime Science, University College London, UK
| authorwebsite =
}}
<big>'''By Fausto Carbajal Glass, Department of Security and Crime Science, University College London, UK'''</big>
[[Category: Patron-client networks]]
[[Category: Co-optation]]
[[Category: Control]]
[[Category: Mexico]]
[[Category: North America]]
[[Category: Central America]]
[[Category: Latin America]]
[[Category: Brokerage]]
[[Category: Patronage]]
[[Category: Coercion]]
[[Category: Entry]]
[[Category: 2019 entry]]
{| class="wikitable"
|-
|style="font-size:1.1em;"| ''Caciquismo'' refers to the exercise of political, economic and social influence in a geographic area, based on informal control and co-optation mechanisms. It is a widespread phenomenon in Latin American countries, probably as the result of pre-Columbian power hierarchies and a shared colonial past. The Spanish crown kept the indigenous social structures so that ''caciques'' remained political chiefs (Hobsbawm 1971: 90). Since the 19th century, the term evolved to denote those individuals – predominantly men – who exercised power to the point of consolidating subnational regimes (O’Donnell 2004: 183). In Mexico, ''caciquismo'' still refers to a person that exerts influence in public affairs in a geographic area, starting at the local level of municipality, the lowest politico-administrative unit in Mexico preceding state and federal authorities (Ugalde 1973: 124). Until present-day, ''caciquismo'' has been a distinctive trait in the Mexican state-making process as it has been a source of para-institutional power of social and political control (Pansters 2012:25). The ''caciques'' have influenced, if not shaped, most major transformations of the twentieth-century Mexico, such as the 1910 revolution, as well as the early 21st century democratization process and the contemporary security crisis.
|}
In the late 1890s and early 1900s, president Porfirio Díaz managed to align his presidency with both the formal and informal power brokers (Krauze 1998:10). During the ''Porfiriato'', as this period is commonly known, ''caciques'' became an oligarchic network that produced a new breed of magnates, for it gathered landowners, industrials, merchants, and lenders into a single network that appeased the Mexican society and maintained power (Meyer 2000). Although the Revolution ousted Díaz in 1911 after a 35-year dictatorship, ''caciquismo'' has survived the civil war. Once the revolution´s political and social turmoil ended in the 1930s, and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ‘routinized’ the post-revolutionary regime in the 1940s, ''caciquismo'' was yet again a fundamental way to bring about peace and effective governance to the country. The ''cacique'' became once again the informal intermediary that connected local politics to the national political project (Meyer 2000).

In essence, the post-revolutionary regime was characterized by a single-party government; a centralized authority of the president; a corporatist pact among the party, interest groups, and bureaucratic leaders; and a clientelist pyramid composed of political officials and local powerbrokers – ''caciques'' – to enhance state capacity in remote areas (McAdam et al 2001:294). Through this period, ''caciques'' were selected, controlled, and funded by the central government. They were responsible, on the one hand, for providing solid electoral results and, on the other, for maintaining peace and order in their stronghold (''ibid.'').

''Caciques'' would ensure electoral support of the population in exchange for access to public benefits and state resources. Such practices became known as ''clientelismo'', whereby the ''cacique'' became the patron and the population its client (O’Donnell 2004: 182). In this sense, ''caciquismo'' is a paternalistic relationship where a local magnate holds power on the basis of influence over those who put themselves under his protection (Hobsbawm 1971: 57). This informal institution is similar to the [[padrino system]] in the Philippines (Pak-Nung and Joyce 2018:380-382). Both systems presume co-optation practices based on distribution of goods, services, employment or political positions. ''Caciquismo'' reinforces itself by a collective attitude of social consent and cooperation. Although ''caciquismo'' is an undemocratic way to concentrate power, paradoxically, it has been also a mechanism of serving democratic needs and power re-distribution, albeit discretional and arbitrary. The way ''caciques'' mediate relations between citizens and the state also resembles the [[dalali]] brokers in India who alleviate complexity for the federal authorities (Martin 2018:211-213).

To maintain peace in remote areas, the federal government endowed ''caciques'' with control over the public order with the help of the military (Benítez, 2017). In other cases, ''caciques'' would exert control primarily through the engagement of private militias or paramilitaries that quickly supress any uprising (Maldonado 2013: 48). Even nowadays, local landowners-cum-patrons-cum-politicians treat the municipal police forces as private armies (Felbab-Brown 2013:14).

''Caciques'' were empowered to compensate for the defects and insufficiencies of the national government, but their influence spread to the detriment of municipal level institutions. Their informal power undermined the effectiveness of law enforcement that exacerbates Mexico´s ongoing security and violence crisis, even more so in association with the criminal underworld becoming increasingly fragmented, diverse, and localised (Carbajal-Glass, 2019). The coercive nature of ''caciquismo'' is inevitably coupled with repression and impunity (Pansters, 2012:25). In its darkest aspects, ''caciquismo'' shares similarities with the Indian [[Goonda Raj]] (Michelutti 2018: 383-385) and the Russian [[krysha]] (Zabyelina and Buzhor 2018: 256-259).

In 2000, the centre-right National Action Party (PAN), the main opposition party at the time, ousted the PRI, thus ending its federal hegemony of over 70 years. The political changes associated with the democratization “undermined the pyramidal composition of power structures (i.e. single-party government and centralized authority of the president) meaning the loss of social control” (Villarreal 207: 484). In this new context, ''caciques'' adopted a more competitive approach. The democratization made even more evident that ''caciquismo'' was in reality a subsystem operating within the context of a national polity and economy (Anderson and Cockcroft 1972: 12). The dissolution of the centralized top-down one-party structures gave more autonomy to local state and municipal authorities often controlled by the ''caciques'' themselves (Maldonado 2013: 52). The democratization and the redistribution of power gave way to a ''‘federalización caciquista’'' (''cacique''-like federalization), as was predicted years before (Castillo-Peraza 1995).

''Caciquismo'' operates on the basis of multiple elements of coercion, co-optation, patronage, and consensual interaction between patrons and clients. Its core is best grasped by related concepts of corporatism, patrimonialism, clientelism, and personalism (Powell 2012). With deep historical and political roots, ''caciquismo'' is ubiquitous in Mexico. It will be interesting to study how this informal institution evolves under increasing democratization, deep security challenges, and a lack of institutional design at the local level.

==References==

Anderson, Bo, and James D. Cockroft. 1972. ‘Control and Co-optation in Mexican Politics’, in J.D. Cockroft, A.G. Frank, and D.L. Johnson, Eds. ''Dependence and Underdevelopment: Latin America’s Political Economy''. New York: Doubleday

Benítez-Manaut, R. 2017. ‘Seguridad interior: otro dilema del 2017’, “Revista Nexos”, 30 January, https://seguridad.nexos.com.mx/?p=31

Carbajal-Glass, F. 2019. ‘The Mexican National Guard: Challenges, Opportunities and Fundamental Questions’, ''The Informer'', https://shoc.rusi.org/informer/mexican-national-guard-challenges-opportunities-and-fundamental-questions

Castillo-Peraza, C. 1995. ‘La yugoslavización del PRI’, ''Diario Reforma'', 2 February

Felbab-Brown, V. 2013. ‘Peña Nieto´s Piñata: The Promise and Pitfalls of Mexico´s New Secuity Policy against Organized Crime’, ''The Brookings Institution'', 1-30

Hobsbawm, E. 1971. ''Primitive Rebels''. London: Brown Book Group

Krauze, E. 1998. ''Mexico: Biography of Power; A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996.'' New York: Harper

Maldonado-Aranda, S. 2013. ‘Stories of Drug Trafficking in Rural Mexico: Territories, Drugs and Cartels in Michoacán’, ''European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies'', 94: 43-66

Martin, N. 2018. ‘Dalali’, in A. Ledeneva (Ed.), ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 2''. London: UCL Press: 211-213

McAdam, D.; Tarrow, S.; and Tilly, C. 2001. ''Dynamics of Contention''. New York: Cambridge University Press

Michelutti, L. 2018. ‘[[Mafia Raj]]/Goonda Raj’, in A. Ledeneva (Ed.), ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 2''. London: UCL Press: 383-385

O’Donnell, G. 2004. ‘Cuatro temas para una agenda de debate’, in PNUD, ''La democracia en América Latina: el debate conceptual.'' Nueva York: PNUD

Pak-Nung, W. & Joyce, K. 2018. ‘Padrino system/balimbing’, in A. Ledeneva (Ed.), ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 2''. London: UCL Press: 380-382

Pansters, W (ed.). 2012. ''Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the Centaur.'' California: Stanford University Press

Powell, K. 2012. ‘Political Practice, Everyday Violence, and Electoral Processes During the Neoliberal Period in Mexico’, in W. Panters (ed.), ''Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the Centaur.'' California: Stanford University Press

Ugalde, A. 1973. ‘Contemporary Mexico: from to PRI, political leader-ship in a Zapotec Village’, in R. Kern (Ed.), ''The Caciques: Oligarchical Politics and the System of Caciquismo in the Luso-Hispanic World.'' Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press

Zabyelina, Y. & Buzhor, A. 2018. ‘Krysha’, in A. Ledeneva (Ed.), ''Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 2.'' London: UCL Press: 256-259

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