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Dissertation Information for Koobyoung Park

NAME:
- Koobyoung Park

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (2000)

ADVISORS:
- James W. Wilkie

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Jose Carlos Moya
- Barbara Geddes

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: The role of Lazaro Cardenas in demilitarizing Mexican politics and building the one-party state, 1935--1945

Abstract: In this dissertation I examine not only the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) in Mexico but also the period of "extended cardenismo " after his presidency until 1945. His presidency, which coincided with the years of global left-wing resurgence in response to the Great Depression and to the fascist threats, has generally been considered to be the country's first successful populist regime. Thus, previous literature has mostly emphasized the extent of which political trajectory after 1940 contrasted clearly with Cárdenas radical politics. By contrast, this study intends to inspect coherent trends of demilitarizing politics and reinforcing one-party rule that passed through the ten-year period ending in 1945.

In order to add a new dimension to cardenismo and the origin of Mexico's one-party system, I pay special attention to considerable political influence that Cárdenas continued to maintain as the supreme military leader during his post-presidential years. In particular, I examine how Cárdenas succeeded in transforming the military from the leading actor of politics to a subordinate part of institutionalized regime, without repeating his military predecessors' customary political intervention. I hypothesize that Cárdenas continuing role in Mexican politics after 1940 was instrumental in reinforcing long-standing one-party system and has distinguished the political history of Mexico from that of other Latin American countries. Unlike those countries, Mexico has never undergone any serious military threat since the late 1930s and firmly established civilian control of the military afterwards.

My intent here is to contribute to the understanding of a significant aspect of decades-long statism in Mexico by considering the relation between demilitarization of politics and the subsequent single party dominant system. In this regard, I attempt to show that institutionalization of Mexican politics came to exclude the hitherto dominant military presence from Mexico's political terrain. Indeed much of Cárdenas success of demilitarization derived from his incorporation into politics of previously alienated agrarian and labor groups, which came to offer counterbalances to military power.

MPACT Scores for Koobyoung Park

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-09-15 10:41:40

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Students under Koobyoung Park

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None