Abstract

　　PEMEX, Mexico’s state oil company, was fiercely defended against privatization proposals throughout most of Mexico’s neoliberalization process, even as hundreds of state-owned enterprises were privatized, for two major reasons. First, the state increasingly came to depend on oil income to guarantee its fiscal needs, and this allowed it to postpone a tax reform, to the benefit of economic elites. Second, the meaning of oil in Mexican political culture partially shielded the energy sector from privatization attempts. Paying attention to the state’s fiscal interests, resource nationalism, domestic elite interests, and the meaning with which economic sectors are imbued adds explanatory leverage to our understanding of neoliberalism’s variegated implementation.

　　From: Latin American Perspectives 2023 50 (2)

　　Editor: Wang Yi