Andrew Paxman | Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (original) (raw)

Books by Andrew Paxman

Prospectus for book under contract with University of North Carolina Press. This is a narrative h... more Prospectus for book under contract with University of North Carolina Press. This is a narrative history of Mexico’s print and online media from 1988 to the present. It covers the transformation of newspapers from a largely submissive and self-censoring cohort into a mainly free institution during the 1980s and early 1990s; their 15 “years of spring,” exercising a critical voice from around 1992 until around 2007; and new efforts by the state, unnerved by frank coverage of its bloody “war on drugs,” to coopt the press as it was becoming vulnerable due to falling revenues.
The book also covers the threat posed by corrupt provincial politicians and the drug cartels, including murders of dozens of reporters, which makes Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists; the pressures-cum-opportunities of the migration of advertisers and readers to the web; and how news portals and NGOs have taken the lead in investigative journalism. It ends by evaluating how state-press relations have changed under Andrés Manuel López Obrador, president since 2018, and by gauging the media impact of Covid-19.
Comments very much welcome!
June 2020: An updated version of the outline is available on request.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

El índice e la Introducción de mi libro Los Gobernadores. Caciques del pasado y del presente (Gri... more El índice e la Introducción de mi libro Los Gobernadores. Caciques del pasado y del presente (Grijalbo, junio de 2018)

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

En busca del señor Jenkins. Dinero, poder y gringofobia en México (Debate/CIDE, 2016) es la biogr... more En busca del señor Jenkins. Dinero, poder y gringofobia en México (Debate/CIDE, 2016) es la biografía de William O. Jenkins (1878-1963), textilero, prestamista, hacendado, banquero, monopolista de cines durante la Época de Oro, amigo de caciques políticos, filántropo pionero y el empresario más controvertido de su época.

El libro está de venta en los siguientes sitios y librerías:
En México:
- Gandhi: www.gandhi.com.mx/catalogsearch/result/?q=9786073148481
- El Péndulo: http://pendulo.com/buscar/?search_string=9786073148481
- El Sótano: https://www.elsotano.com/busqueda.php?q=9786073148481
- Porrúa: https://www.porrua.mx/busqueda/isbn/9786073148481
- Amazon: www.amazon.com.mx/busca-del-se%C3%B1or-Jenkins-gringofobia/dp/6073148488/
- Fondo de Cultura Económica (todos las librerías).
En Estados Unidos:
- Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/busca-del-se%C3%B1or-Jenkins-mexicanos-ebook/dp/B01MTM8RDL/
[106]

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

The 20th anniversary edition of EL TIGRE (2021) – with a new Preface about the relationship betwe... more The 20th anniversary edition of EL TIGRE (2021) – with a new Preface about the relationship between Televisa and President López Obrador and the legacy of Azcárraga Milmo – is available at the following sites:
IN THE USA (e-book): www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EJTIEFG;
IN MEXICO (paperback): www.amazon.com.mx/El-tigre-Azc%C3%A1rraga-imperio-Televisa/dp/6073199775; (e-book): www.amazon.com.mx/El-tigre-Azc%C3%A1rraga-imperio-Televisa-ebook/dp/B00EJTIEFG/ OR www.gandhi.com.mx/catalog/product/view/id/8222604/;
IN THE UK (e-book): www.amazon.co.uk/El-tigre-Azc%C3%A1rraga-imperio-Televisa-ebook/dp/B00EJTIEFG/.

EL TIGRE: Emilio Azcárraga y su imperio Televisa is a biography of the Mexican media mogul Emilio Azcárraga Milmo (1930-1997). Founder of the giant Grupo Televisa - the world's largest Spanish-language broadcaster - Azcárraga was Latin America's answer to Rupert Murdoch. He inherited a TV & radio company and turned it into a colossus, involved in publishing, pay-TV, film, popular music, soccer, and the fine arts. He socialized with presidents and helped shape Mexico’s politics. He became the richest man in Latin America. He consistently generated controversy, through his monopolistic approach to business, his fiery and paternalistic management style, his support of the "perfect dictatorship" of long-ruling party the PRI, his extravagant lifestyle, and his incorrigible womanizing.
In EL TIGRE, Andrew Paxman and Claudia Fernández explore the turbulent life of this charismatic but secretive magnate and trace the evolution of his company, from a radio station founded by his father in 1930 to the present day. They study the traditionally symbiotic relationship between Televisa and the PRI; they examine Azcárraga's influence upon lawmaking, the church, the arts, and Mexico's relationship with the USA; and they survey the story of the telenovela, the much-exported form of soap opera with which Azcárraga turned both Televisa and U.S. network Univision into multi-billion dollar businesses.
EL TIGRE is unique as an unauthorized biography of a Mexican businessman. It reveals both the secret world of Mexican big business and the little-known humanity of a man widely regarded as an arrogant autocrat. It encourages debate about political privilege, broadcast regulation, private sector feudalism, the democratization of Mexico, and racism, classism & sexism in the media.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Chapters by Andrew Paxman

Adriana Pineda Soto & Marco Antonio Flores Zavala, coords., Los artífices de la prensa en Iberoamérica (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana/Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas), 2024

El ensayo argumenta que la apertura de la prensa mexicana bajo Salinas fue más amplia y más durad... more El ensayo argumenta que la apertura de la prensa mexicana bajo Salinas fue más amplia y más duradera que la de cualquier sexenio anterior, a pesar de la persistencia de presiones políticas y la aparente ambivalencia del régimen priista.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Rubén Arnoldo González Macías & Martin Echeverría, eds., Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico , 2024

This essay argues that the liberalising of the press experienced under President Carlos Salinas d... more This essay argues that the liberalising of the press experienced under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari was broader and longer-lasting than that of any previous sexenio, despite the persistence of political pressures and the apparent ambivalence of the regime.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Una revisión de la influencia que Televisa ha tenido sobre los gobiernos mexicanos, las legislaci... more Una revisión de la influencia que Televisa ha tenido sobre los gobiernos mexicanos, las legislaciones y los procesos electorales, desde 1997, cuando Emilio Azcárraga Jean tomó las riendas del imperio mediático tras la muerte de su padre, hasta la elección presidencial de Andrés Manuel López Obrador en 2018. Incluye la historia empresarial de Televisa durante la misma era, que consistió en una continua expansión hasta mediados del sexenio de Enrique Peña Nieto, seguida por una serie de problemas financieros, despidos y la salida como CEO del mismo Azcárraga Jean.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

A case study of press co-optation in provincial Mexico. focusing on the Puebla newspaper La Opini... more A case study of press co-optation in provincial Mexico. focusing on the Puebla newspaper La Opinión and a prominent authoritarian governor.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Uno de los feudos más importantes de la época posrevolucionaria fue el fundado por el general Max... more Uno de los feudos más importantes de la época posrevolucionaria fue el fundado por el general Maximino Ávila Camacho, gobernador de Puebla (1937-1941). El "cacicazgo avilacamachista" perduraría en ese estado hasta 1963, con vestigios evidentes hasta nuestros días. Caudillesco en sus orígenes, ya que Maximino no dudó en usar la fuerza militar para consolidar su dominio, pronto se volvió civil, con el destape de un político vitalicio como su sucesor. Protector de monopolistas, rompehuelgas a balazos, populista desvergonzado, enemigo de la prensa y la transparencia, autor intelectual de asesinatos, manipulador de un congreso de paja, autoenriquecedor, machista a ultranza y creador de un culto de la personalidad tan fuerte que sobrevivió su propia muerte por muchos años, Maximino fue la encarnación del cacique mexicano del siglo XX. No obstante, pacificó un estado asolado por el pistolerismo y fomentó un desarrollo económico arriba del promedio nacional.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Since the 1920s, the United States has always loomed large in the Latin American cultural landsca... more Since the 1920s, the United States has always loomed large in the Latin American cultural landscape. But U.S. influence upon Latin American television has been much less dominant than the casual visitor might think – and much less so than critics of “cultural imperialism” have often asserted. Looking chiefly at Mexico, where bilateral interaction has been strongest, but also at Brazil and other countries, this chapter considers key stages in the evolution of Latin American television from its outset in the early 1950s. At each step, economic and cultural forces of North and South are seen to come together, sometimes clashing but usually finding co-existence and even enriching each other.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

An analytical survey of the relationship between Televisa and the Mexican state in the era of CEO... more An analytical survey of the relationship between Televisa and the Mexican state in the era of CEO/owner Emilio Azcárraga Jean, from 1997 to 2014, including an overview of the growth of the business.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Papers by Andrew Paxman

Since 2009, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has used the term "the mafia of power" to critize ... more Since 2009, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has used the term "the mafia of power" to critize and villify a perceived alliance of business and political elites in Mexico, dominant since the era of President Carlos Salinas (1988-94). This paper explores three aspects of the “mafia of power”: the evolution of the term in AMLO's rhetoric, the potency of the term as a persuasive device, and the malleability of the rhetorical conception of “mafia” as AMLO transitioned from candidate to president in 2017-18.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

The purpose of this paper is to use Mexican census data to gauge as much as possible the impact o... more The purpose of this paper is to use Mexican census data to gauge as much as possible the impact of SIL missionary-linguists on local-level literacy, Spanish-acquisition, and material change. This is a longitudinal quantitative study, starting with the census of 1940 and ending with that of 1970. Analysis of census figures is complemented by perusal of the existing literature (personal, anthropological, historical), linguistic materials digitized by SIL and available at its website, and assistance with documents from the SIL Mexico Archive in Arizona.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

América Latina en la Historia Económica , 2021

The hostile takeover of the Banco de Comercio in 1954 made way for the era of Manuel Espinosa Ygl... more The hostile takeover of the Banco de Comercio in 1954 made way for the era of Manuel Espinosa Yglesias, who would transform the bank into Mexico’s largest. However, the episode is more historically notable for what happened behind the scenes: the first large-scale hostile takeover in Mexico; the fact that those who lost control of the bank numbered among the country’s most powerful businessmen; the illegal participation as chief purchaser of the foreign citizen William Jenkins, and, as this article argues, the state’s approval of the deal on the basis of the distinct political affiliations and relationships of the parties involved. Overall, the episode offers a case study in Mexican state-capital interdependence.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

The Anáhuac Journal (Mexico), 2020

Desde la Revolución, el Estado mexicano buscó fortalecer el principio antimonopólico establecido ... more Desde la Revolución, el Estado mexicano buscó fortalecer el principio antimonopólico establecido en la Constitución. Sin embargo, casi siempre hacía caso omiso de las nuevas reglas, prefiriendo dejar que los monopolios florecieran. Este artículo ofrece una explicación holística, pues argumenta que los monopolios persistían debido a cuatro razones básicas, dos económicas y dos políticas. Primero y más importante, la clase dirigente buscaba acuerdos con la élite empresarial, basados en una percibida necesidad mutua. Segundo, esta práctica iba acompañada, sobre todo a partir de los años cuarenta, por intercambios de favores entre políticos e industriales. Tercero, la naturaleza corporativista del partido gobernante favorecía relaciones con un número limitado de interlocutores. Cuarto, el estilo personalista del presidencialismo mexicano favorecía relaciones directas con magnates. Para ilustrar cómo operaban estos factores, se presentan dos estudios de caso: (i) el monopolio de exhibición de cine de William Jenkins en los años cuarenta y cincuenta; (ii) el monopolio televisivo de la familia Azcárraga entre 1955 y 1993.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina (EIAL), 2019

This introduction to a dossier on State-media relations across five Latin American countries surv... more This introduction to a dossier on State-media relations across five Latin American countries surveys general trends in regional television and print media since the 1980s. It argues that (a) governments and larger media outlets tended to preserve their interdependence during democratization; (b) this symbiosis diminished under the region's leftwing "pink tide" as of around 2000; (c) the last ten years or so have seen something of a return to interdependence, partly because media have had greater need of government ad spend and presidents have shown renewed interest in coopting media. But the new symbiosis is more complex and variegated than the old, due chiefly to the strengthening of democratic institutions, the persistence of an ample generation of critical journalists, and the proliferation of independent news portals. The introduction then summarizes the dossier's articles on newspapers in Brazil from Cardoso to Bolsonaro; the media in post-war El Salvador; human rights reporting in the Argentine daily Clarín; the concentration of broadcast TV in Colombia; and the role of foreign correspondents in Mexico.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Al morir Emilio Azcárraga Milmo "El Tigre" en 1997, la revista Proceso emitió un veredicto resona... more Al morir Emilio Azcárraga Milmo "El Tigre" en 1997, la revista Proceso emitió un veredicto resonante: “El legado de Azcárraga: un país menor de edad”. Para poner a prueba este juicio, considero la influencia de Televisa entre 1972 y 1997 en cuatro ámbitos: (i) la cultura cotidiana de los mexicanos, observada en los valores transmitidos a los televidentes y reflejados por ellos; (ii) la cultura política de México, es decir, la medida de la democratización; (iii) el desarrollo económico del país; (iv) el alcance y la reputación del país en el escenario internacional.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Adriana Pineda Soto & Marco Antonio Flores Zavala, coords., Los artífices de la prensa en Iberoamérica (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana/Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas), 2024

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Rubén Arnoldo González Macías & Martin Echeverría, eds., Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico , 2024

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

América Latina en la Historia Económica , 2021

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

The Anáhuac Journal (Mexico), 2020

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina (EIAL), 2019

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Journalism History, 2018

In defiance of general trends in ethnic-minority broadcasting, U.S. Spanish-language radio enjoye... more In defiance of general trends in ethnic-minority broadcasting, U.S. Spanish-language radio enjoyed remarkably consistent growth from its beginnings in the 1920s to its commercial maturation in the 1960s and 1970s. To explain how this happened, this study situates broadcasting in Spanish within the context of foreign-language (or “ethnic”) radio. It then elucidates the factors behind its sustained increase in popularity and commercial viability over its first 50 years, along with the reasons why programming in other tongues diminished. Spanish-language radio’s early success owed not only to demography but also to Latin America’s proximity to the United States, circular flows of entertainers, mutual attitudes between Anglos and Hispanics, and the creative initiatives of Hispanic radio executives, brokers, and advertisers.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Secuencia (Mexico), 2018

This three-part article addresses the genre of business biography in Mexico. In the first part, I... more This three-part article addresses the genre of business biography in Mexico. In the first part, I evaluate those biographies already written, which can be classified as commissioned works (the majority fall into this category and tend to lack analytical value) or independent creations. I also explain the scarcity of biography in this country as compared to the Anglo-Saxon tradition. In the second part I propose seven reasons why the biography genre is useful for history and sociology; some pertain to Mexican fields of study, while others are relevant to history in general. Complementing this section is a selection of conclusions drawn from my recent book Jenkins of Mexico. Finally , I suggest how to undertake the writing of a business biography in Mexico, with references to public, private, journalistic, oral and archival sources.
Note: This is a revised and expanded version of a 2014 paper ("The Uses of Business Biography in Mexico") previously avaialble on this web page.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Istor (Mexico), 2017

Some historians have used “crony capitalism” to label the cosy and inefficient relationships betw... more Some historians have used “crony capitalism” to label the cosy and inefficient relationships between business and political elites prevailing in Mexico since the 19th century. But it is a nebulous term, stigmatizing various behaviours not all of which are harmful to state formation or economic growth. I seek to solve this problem of conceptual vagueness by differentiating between forms of state-capital interdependence. The first, necessary to both parties at times of uncertainty, I term a “symbiotic imperative,” which operates between institutions and purports to serve the greater good. The second, involving exchanges of favours that are merely advantageous, I term “symbiotic convenience,” which tends to operate at a more interpersonal level. As a case study, I consider relations between the governors of Puebla and the leading industrialist William Jenkins after the Mexican Revolution.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

"During the Mexican Revolution, expatriate textile entrepreneur William Jenkins turned his attent... more "During the Mexican Revolution, expatriate textile entrepreneur William Jenkins turned his attention and accumulated profits to property trading. Following Baron Rothschild’s maxim “The best time to buy is when blood is running in the streets,” he converted his dollar savings into the much-devalued peso and snapped up assets in town and country for cheap. Jenkins specialized in haciendas. Often he targeted Porfirian widows, offering mortgage loans and then foreclosing on the properties as soon as he could. While he offloaded some estates at great profit when the Revolution ended, he held on to others and acquired yet more land in the 1920s and 30s.

Jenkins’ success in property speculation and predatory lending illustrates one of the ways in which new entrepreneurial classes used the turmoil of the era to their advantage. Helping make such deals possible was Jenkins’ ability to ingratiate himself with the new political elite, by befriending influential individuals and by making loans and donations to state governments. Such activities set a precedent for his reciprocal interactions with regimes both regional and national, and they foreshadowed the symbiotic modus operandi of Mexico’s business and political elites for decades to come.

This paper draws on a forthcoming biography, tentatively titled Jenkins of Mexico, about the expatriate U.S. businessman William O. Jenkins (1878-1963)."

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina (EIAL), 2018

NB: This article, posted on 24 July 2018, replaces a brief paper on the same theme delivered at L... more NB: This article, posted on 24 July 2018, replaces a brief paper on the same theme delivered at LASA in 2009 and posted the fiollowing year.

DURING the Second World War, a convergence of local acting and directing
talent and rising production levels gave birth to the Golden Age of Mexican
Cinema, a phenomenon facilitated by reduced competition from Hollywood,
Argentina, and Europe. However, as of 1946, high output masked a growing
malaise within Mexico’s film industry, manifest in a decline in cinematic
originality and a dependence on cheaply-made genre pictures. Traditionally,
the slow demise of the Golden Age has been blamed on two factors: first,
the influence of William Jenkins, an expatriate U.S. investor who developed
a near-monopoly of theaters that privileged Hollywood fare at upmarket
screens and financed local production in a way that kept budgets low; second,
the creative stagnation of Mexico’s directors, whose union admitted few
new members. This article explores those allegations while also considering
other key factors of the decline: the risk-averse role of producers, the
populist media policies of the Mexican state, and international trends such
as the resurgence of competing film industries. The article therefore offers
a holistic, business-conscious history of the Golden Age fade-out. [3172]

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Hispanic American Historical Review, 2023

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Journal of Latin American Studies, 2022

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Journal of Contemporary History, 2022

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Journal of Latin American Studies, 2021

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Journal of Latin American Studies, 2021

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Hispanic American Historical Review, 2021

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Latin American Research Review, 2021

Review of 7 books, by Benjamin Smith, Humberto Musacchio, Celia del Palacio, Ana María Serna, Arn... more Review of 7 books, by Benjamin Smith, Humberto Musacchio, Celia del Palacio, Ana María Serna, Arno Burkholder, Javier Valdez, and Gabriela Polit Dueñas.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Una reseña retrospectiva, del dossier “Democracia, prensa y poder en México: Un debate sobre News... more Una reseña retrospectiva, del dossier “Democracia, prensa y poder en México: Un debate sobre Newsrooms in Conflict, de Sallie Hughes”, coord. Grisel Salazar. El libro fue publicado en español con el título "Redacciones en conflicto: El periodismo y la democratización en México" (2009).

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

A talk based upon my forthcoming history of the Mexican press, given in the History Seminar of th... more A talk based upon my forthcoming history of the Mexican press, given in the History Seminar of the Latin American Centre, University of Oxford.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

¿Qué nos puede enseñar la historia sobre las políticas de prohibición de drogas? Argumento que no... more ¿Qué nos puede enseñar la historia sobre las políticas de prohibición de drogas? Argumento que nos puede enseñar por lo menos una media docena de principios universales, un conocimiento de los cuales podría ayudar en la formación o la modificación de las políticas públicas de hoy. Primero, hablo de los factores culturales que han impactado la definición de lo que es un “narcótico” desde principios del siglo XX. Luego, paso a 3 estudios de caso: A: El tabaco, la primera droga comerciada por todo el mundo; B: El opio en la China decimonónica; y C: El alcohol y su contrabando durante la Ley Seca estadounidense.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

This talk uses the career of Tennessee-born, Puebla-based industrialist William O. Jenkins (1878-... more This talk uses the career of Tennessee-born, Puebla-based industrialist William O. Jenkins (1878-1963) to discuss parallels between the culture of the post-bellum U.S. South and that of Porfirian and post-Revolutionary Mexico, which in turn help explain Jenkins' success in Mexican business. More broadly, the talk suggests that the USA, especially (but not only) the South, has more things in common with Mexico than is usually believed.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Since the election of Donald Trump, Mexico has seen a resurgence of anti-American feeling. This t... more Since the election of Donald Trump, Mexico has seen a resurgence of anti-American feeling. This talk draws on my book "Jenkins of Mexico" to put current anti-Americanism in historical perspective, with a focus on its politicized form, what I term "Gringophobia." The talk then considers recent opinion polls to argue that there is political mileage to be gained from anti-American rhetoric in Mexico's current presidential race - and that the candidate best placed to exploit it is the leftist-nationalist Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact