GENERALS IN THE PALACE, SUMMARY.

Mexico is one of the few Third World

nations that has successfully withdrawn
the military from political control, with a
longer reign of civilian government than
any other country in Latin America.
However little research has been done on
the Mexican military. In Generals in the
Palacio, Camp provides the most
comprehensive portrait to date of the
Mexican military from 1946 through 1990,
taking the reader inside a world previously
unexamined. Beginning with the historical
background, Camp explores the intricacies
of the officer corps and the theory upon
which it was based, as well as the economic and political context in which it was formed.
He also scrutinizes the origins of the leaders of the military, their education, and
requirements for promotion to the upper echelon--the rank of general, as well as
professionalism and the military's electoral activity. This work includes the latest empirical
data for claims concerning the relationships worldwide between the civil and the military
leaders of government. Camp succeeds in his wide-ranging analysis despite the Mexican
military's intense desire to remain unexamined. The text is
enhanced with numerous tables which clearly detail the
generals' lives, as well as appendices which highlight the
various presidents of Mexico, their defense secretaries, and
the structure of the military. This work will be essential for
those involved in military sciences, as well as those
concerned with political development in general, and
modern Mexico.
The Officer Corps: Theory and Context Of all the leadership groups and all the institutions
exercising political power in Mexico in the past half century,
none have been examined as sparsely as the officer corps
and the military. The lack of attention paid to the Mexican
military is remarkable, considering the theoretical
implications it offers as a case study of a Third World society
that has successfully limited the military's political
involvement, establishing a longer reign of civilian
supremacy than any country in Latin America. In the context
of the broader, comparative literature on military
withdrawal, this neglect is unfortunate, given the appraisal
that generally "little has been published on a systematic, comparative basis about the
process, or processes, of military disengagement from politics."1 Researching the Military
in Mexico Methodologically, the working hypotheses for this study were extracted from the
general literature on civil-military relations, and from Third World and Latin America case
studies. My preliminary work on the Mexican military in the 1970s and 1980s also generated
Mexico-specific hypotheses, which also have been offered previously. Although the
historical literature has been useful in producing valuable interpretations, several other
sources or approaches have contributed to the overall thrust of this analysis. It is interesting
that the literature on Latin America, with the exception of a few classic introductions to
civil-military relations, excludes sociological studies of the
United States armed forces, probably the best examined in
the world. This is an unfortunate oversight, for although
societally the United States has very little in common with
Mexico or Latin America, remarkable similarities occur
between any two military cultures, even in the context of
civil-military relations. Empirical examinations of officer
values and origins, in particular, are the most complete in the
United States literature, and therefore offer revealing
comparative perspectives for this work. Because the
Mexican military has erected obstacles to outside
examination, the scholar has to resort to different
methodological approaches to acquire fresh data.
This study focuses on the officer corps, specifically
on the rank of 3 general.

Generals, especially those in top staff and command

positions, exercise decision-making authority over
the armed forces. Additionally, as Frank McCann
suggests in his own examination of the Brazilian
general, an important justification for looking at
Mexican generals is that officer generations are overlapping time lines that link the army to
the past and project it into the future. Because generals are on active duty the longest, they
are the ones who give the institution direction and a sense of historical continuity. They set
policy in the context of their accumulated
experiences and intellectual baggage.2

Because a shifting pool of generals and national

civilian politicians has determined the military's
role, as well as the broader context of Mexican civil
military relations, these two groups of leaders are
compared and analyzed in some detail. The basis for
some of these comparisons is collective biography.
Collective biography provides only one element
among this book's resources, revealing many
interesting characteristics and trends about the
Mexican military, making it more clearly understood as an institution and in its relationship
to civilian elites. Collective biography also provides some empirical evidence in support of,
and for disproving, certain assertions about the Mexican case. Typically, prior analyses of
the armed forces have focused on the army alone, but data on top naval and air force
officers have made possible some interservice comparisons. To facilitate increased
attention on societal variables in civil-military relations, this book makes use of, for the first
time, general surveys of Mexican attitudes toward military intervention in politics. The
results of national polls cross-tabulated with numerous variables, both background and
attitudinal, offer many significant insights into Mexican society. Finally, documental
evidence on internal military policies, especially in regard to promotion policies, has been
located and examined in defense publications, Senate records, and the official army-air
force magazine. Individual officer records, studied over time, shed considerable light on
presidential policies toward promotion, portending changes in civil-military relations.
Similarly, frank political elite attitudes toward the broader relationship have been expressed
publicly only since 1946, in the Senate Memorias, as a consequence of several controversial
promotion recommendations. These discussions reveal not only legislative attitudes toward
the executive branch but the political elite's views of the
military. The Focus The primary focus of this analysis is not on
civil-military relations specifically but on shedding some light on
the composition, experiences, background, and behavior of the
officer corps, particularly its general cohort, in Mexico. The
secondary purpose of this analysis is to provide, in some cases
for the first time, some fresh empirical data for testing claims
and assumptions of others concerning civil-military relations and the role that the officer
corps plays. Simultaneously, it is hoped that a more thorough understanding of the officer
corps and, more significant, of consequences stemming from officer formation will provide
new, if not complete, insights about the Mexican success story of military nonintervention
in politics. If Mexico has been often cited in the literature as a key example of military
subordination to civilian rule, why has the Mexican case been so neglected, especially given
the abundance of social science analysis of its rather unique political model? Two decades
ago, David Ronfeldt could write that the contemporary Mexican military may be the most
difficult such institution to research in Latin America. Certainly it is the most difficult
national institution to research in Mexico. The few studies that have been completed, the
statistical data that can be compiled, and the press and biographic material that are
available enable the historical analyst to gain only a cursory knowledge of post 1940
processes and seminal events.
One of the most important characteristics about the Mexican military that must be
understood from an academic point of view and that is suggestive of an aspect of Mexico's
unique civil-military formula is the military's intense desire to remain unexamined, indeed
enigmatic. More than any single Latin American military, the
Mexican military openly discourages analysts, domestic and
foreign, from exploring its institutional behavior in the post-
1946 era. Mexican scholars have paid it little attention
because of the military's openly antagonistic attitude.
Restricted access to historical archives has discouraged, even
intimidated, scholars. The few who have tried to penetrate
this barrier quickly sensed their isolation. Major domestic
political analyses of the Mexican system tend to omit the
military altogether. For example, the principal survey on Mexican politics, until that of
Miguel Basanez in the 1980s, is Pablo Gonzalez
Casanova's, the only general Mexican political analysis to
have been translated into English, Yet his interpretation,
which spends two pages on the military, offers no
comments or insights whatsoever into the officer corps
as a political actor.4 U.S. political scientists, protected by
geographic distance, have had greater opportunities to
produce such an analysis but no better access to relevant
materials. In fact, of the political research I personally
have carried out in Mexico, this is the only project I have
 been warned against pursuing. Military historians
have given us much more substance to work with
than have political scientists in the Mexican
context. Their efforts, although not examining the
post-1946 period, provide a basic foundation for
carrying out this research agenda. As Edwin Lieu
wen, the pioneer in this respect, argued, Mexico's

Mexico, therefore, provides a unique example of a

military leadership's transforming itself into a
civilian political elite, simultaneously transferring
the basis of power from the army to a civil state.
Importantly, the transfer of power occurred after
a revolution, and regardless of how one classifies that particular revolution, similar
upheavals have not occurred elsewhere, providing a unique historical context from which
the Mexican pattern emerges.6 Given the uniqueness of the Mexican case, it is fair to argue
that the abundant literature on civil-military relations generally, and Latin American
specifically, has very little to offer. In some respects, that assertion is true, especially
because theorists largely have concerned themselves with authoritarian regimes wherein
military-civil power is shared, or with more politically competitive societies wherein the
military cyclically, if temporarily, involves itself directly in politics, neither of which
adequately reflects the Mexican model. Nevertheless, keeping in mind the many singular
features of the Mexican case, which itself suggests several working hypotheses, this
literature provides important theoretical arguments about military withdrawal from and
military subordination to civil authority applicable to Mexico.

If you want a full version of this book, you can

find it on Amazon, Product Details Hardcover:
296 pages Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr (Sd);
Edition: 1 (April 1, 1992) English language
ISBN-10: 0195073002 ISBN-13: 978-
0195073003 Product dimensions: 16.2 x 2.7 x
24.1 cm Shipping Weight: 721 g price from $
2,556.00 hardcover