NAFTA and rural Mexico: An analysis of ejido communities

Many debates have focused on whether NAFTA has provided advantages for rural Mexico, such as destitute populations like the ejidatarios. This thesis analyzes institutions and actors and haw they affect the distribution of resources in order to better understand NAFTA's effects on ejido communities. Using rational choice and historical institutionalism, the text examines how personal networks or alliances created between the rural and political elite have asymmetrically allocated benefits through agricultural institutions prior to and during NAFTA. These alliances negatively affected the development of ejido communities, causing their agricultural incomes to decrease and many to remain in poverty. Yet, ejidatarios also formed their own personal networks to manipulate agrarian structures to acquire gains. In the context of NAFTA, reliance on these past relationships and state assistance influenced their ability to modernize and become competitive agricultural producers.