Mexican democratization may trigger de-Westernization and weaken NAFTA.

Evidence

Mexico’s pro-Western stance was, as of 1995, untested by democratization. The New Year’s Day revolt of a few thousand well-organized and externally supported guerrillas in Chiapas was not, in itself, an indication of substantial resistance to North Americanization. The sympathetic response it engendered, however, among Mexican intellectuals, journalists, and other shapers of public opinion suggested that North Americanization in general and NAFTA in particular could encounter increasing resistance from Mexican elites and the public. President Salinas very consciously gave economic reform and Westernization priority over political reform and democratization. Both economic development and the increasing involvement with the United States, however, will strengthen forces promoting a real democratization of the Mexican political system. The key question for the future of Mexico is: To what extent will modernization and democratization stimulate de-Westernization, producing its withdrawal from or the drastic weakening of NAFTA and parallel changes in the policies imposed on Mexico by its Western-oriented elites of the 1980s and 1990s? Is Mexico’s North Americanization compatible with its democratization? — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 410

Categorization

• QUESTION: Huntington asks whether modernization and democratization in non-Western societies systematically stimulate de-Westernization - worth chasing the evidence for this claim decades later.
• XREF: Connects to the general tension between modernization theory and cultural persistence that structures Huntingtons whole argument.