Date of Award

2013-01-01

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

History

Advisor(s)

Samuel Brunk

Abstract

"Routes of Compromise" studies the creation and function of the government bureaucracy that built motor roads and highways, and the everyday impact of those roadways on public life in Mexico. It covers roughly thirty years of construction efforts from 1920 to the early 1950s as foreign and domestic actors, working at the transnational, national, state, and local levels, established a series of policy and investment programs that became the primary model for infrastructure development in Mexico during the mid-twentieth century. Road building offers a unique perspective to the study of Mexican state formation, underscoring how the national government sought to forge public consensus around economic modernization through political compromises that ceded power to state governors and also responded to the particular demands of local communities interested in access to regional motor travel. The field engineers and construction brigades tasked with the technical aspects of this work represented one part of a larger collection of agencies, specialists, politicians, laborers, contractors, and everyday citizens who collaborated on, contested, and ultimately built Mexico's motor road network. This work is a social history of this bureaucracy in Mexico with special attention paid to the evolution of its organizational structure at the state and local levels.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

214 pages

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Michael K. Bess

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