discursive analysis of a struggle for hegemony in Mexico

Political discourse in Mexico includes a detailed §discursive analysis of the discourse of President §Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) and that of the §Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN). §The Zapatista movement broke into rebellion on §January 1, 1994, on the very day that the North §Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was §implemented. The EZLN struggle can be considered a §local response to the global policy shift of the §Mexican government. This study assumed that these §political narratives played a strategic role in a §struggle to gain hegemonic acceptance in Mexico for §the respective national projects which each side §envisioned. Therefore, this volume presents the §design of a theoretical-methodological framework §which integrates a Gramscian view on hegemony with §discourse theory and two main directions in critical §discourse analysis. It presents the historical §context, evaluates existing interpretations of the §EZLN movement and defines the main stakes in the §struggle. While Salinas seeks to establish §republican nationalism and a liberal democracy, the §EZLN struggles for ethnic nationalism and radical §democrcacy.