Politics and the Economy in Northern Mexico: Nuevo León

Abstract

Nuevo León is a relatively rich northern Mexican state, where incomes are much more equally distributed than in other parts of the country. For several years—prior to the declaration of a war on drugs by the Mexican government and the subsequent exponential increase in drug violence¹—major political conflict had been almost absent in this region. The state showed a relatively stable political situation that was reflected in a fair degree of cohesion among the different social-economic-political groups and actors. The following two chapters explain political cohesion—or the relative absence of high-intensity political conflicts—in Nuevo León in the second half of the twentieth century and first six years of the twenty-first century, and identify its main causes. Such an explanation begins with a brief account of Nuevo León’s history and a description of the state’s social, economic, and political context.