Professionalization and Politicization of the Mexican Army during the Porfiriato

Abstract

In this article, a way to analyze the professionalization of the Mexican Army and its connection with the political role that it played during the Porfiriato, starting from the debate between Samuel Huntington‘s and Bengt Abrahamssonn’s theories, is proposed. The former argues that professionalization leads to the depoliticization of the Army, while the latter claims that professionalization provides the military with political awareness. Based on José Luis Piñeyro’s definition of “professionalization” (who divides it into three levels: organizational-educational, material-logistic, and ideological-political), this work defends the pivotal idea that, depending on the approach, Huntington's thesis is seen in correlation to the highest ranks of the Army (generals); whereas in the middle and lower ranks (all generals’ subordinates), Abrahamssonn’s thesis may apply.

In order to identify and analyze these differences, this article is based both on numerous secondary and primary sources from the Historical Archive of the Mexican Secretariat of National Defense, mainly memoirs, writings from that period and military rankings. The purpose of this is to examine the general state of the Mexican Army during the Porfiriato regarding Díaz’ general project and government strategies to "deactivate” the Army politically, including the lack of professionalization in the ideological-political rank and a minimum logistic development, a higher educational level for the elite of the elite (which implied ideological indoctrination), and low organizational and logistics developmental levels. Finally, the Maderista Movement, which posed an opportunity for these differences to become more severe and for a further politicization across the military, in opposition to the low professionalization in the middle and lower ranks, or for an effective professionalization of the highest.