Social Foundations of Limited Dictatorship: Networks and Private Protection during Mexico’s Early Industrialization. ARMANDO RAZO: Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.

Abstract

Porfirio Díaz was once thought tobe the most powerful ruler in the Americas. In 1910, as the nationcelebrated the centenary of its independence, Díaz surrendered his thirty-fiveyear dictatorship to a scattered rebellion led by the wealthy, eccentriclandowner Francisco I. Madero. Until that time Díaz had presided over an era ofunprecedented peace and prosperity. We now know, of course, that he had neverbeen omnipotent, but rather had brilliantly constructed a system that relied onoccasional, selective coercion, the dictator's personal prestige, and a varietyof arrangements with regional elites.