State Intervention and Telecommunications in Mexico

Abstract

The liberalization of telecommunications in Mexico has parallels with the development of telecommunications in other countries as well as some characteristics particular t o the Mexican situation. Here I explore theoretical relationships between the state and telecommunications through an analysis of the Mexican case. As a sector, telecommunications is crucial to the insertion of the state into the international environment as well as to the exercise of political and econoniic power clomestically and internationally. This article opens with a review of the literature on telecommunications and the state before looking at the history of Mexican telecommunications policy from the perspective of its functions as a tool of state power. Telecommunications and the StateThe concept of the state has rarely heen explicitly dealt with in the literature on telecommunications. Conversely, little of the literature on the state looks at the implications of telecomiiiunications for the state. Those communication scholars who have examined this relationship include Braman (1989), who looked at the erosion of the nation-state; Mosco (1989), who discussed the state both as an instrument of capital and as a contested space; and Samarajiva (1990), who explored hegemony in the international arena. For others, however conceptions o f the state remain implicit.Implicit views of the state in telecommunications fall along a spectrum of positions, thal range from seeing the state as a monolithic entity that operates on behalf o f monopoly capital (e.g., Quibrera, 1984) to seeing the branches o f the state as inhibiting economic development through regulation (e.g., Huber, 1989; see Figure 1).In other analyses, the state is also viewed as fragmented, either intentionally, as in the ecology o f games (Dutton, 1992) and Borrego and Mody's (1989) conEc1u:ircIo Ekirrera is 21 rewarcher ;it El Colegio cle la Frontern Norte in Ciudad Juarez. Mexico, 3rd assistant professor in the Department of Conimunic;ition at the University of Texas ;it El Paso. He is a national researcher of the National Research System in Mexico. The author wishes t o thank Sandra Braman tor her numerous helpful suggestions and comments.Copyright 0 19C)j,/f)zlr7la/ ffCommunication 4 5 ( 4 ) . Autumn.