Despite the title of the book, this is more than a mere recap of the last 30 years of Mexican history. The four authors have brought together their different disciplinary strengths and their considerable scholarly gifts to produce an interesting new take on what has by now become a familiar story about Mexico's dramatic shift from protectionism to free markets, and from authoritarianism to democracy. One of the most appealing aspects of the book is that it is structured around a coherent theoretical argument, whose arc helps the reader navigate through the rich and detailed empirical evidence presented. The second and perhaps more intriguing aspect of this book is that while it does provide an explanation of political and economic change, its recurrent theme is an understanding of why Mexico has underperformed economically over time, and why it continues to perform more poorly than countries at comparable levels of development despite profound changes in its political and economic models. The arguments are not exactly new; what is unique is their combination in what attempts to be a unified explanation of Mexico's political and economic outcomes.

The core of the argument points to the state's role as arbiter and enforcer of contracts and property rights. This, the authors note, creates a dilemma: “Any government powerful enough to define and adjudicate property rights is also strong enough to abrogate them for its own benefit. Unless the government can give the population credible reasons to believe that it will not act arbitrarily in its own short-run interest … the population will not invest” (p. 5). Without investment, there is little economic growth and thus a weak basis for taxation, which threatens the survival of the state. It is therefore in the interest of states to create a credible commitment not to take advantage of their strength to expropriate property. Liberal democracies typically resolve the problem by creating systems of checks and balances against and within the government. Authoritarian governments can resolve the problem by creating rent-seeking arrangements to compensate potential investors for the added risks of government intervention. The results in Mexico included stable authoritarian government, high inequality and poverty, economic inefficiency, and slower growth.

As the costs of compensating the rent-seeking coalition increased in Mexico, the authoritarian coalition began to break down, bringing about an historic change in the economic model and eventual democratization. However, because the underlying institutions of rule of law had been deliberately stifled in order to maintain the authoritarian government's ability to award preferential treatment to its allies, the economy continued to be inefficient, investment continued to lag behind expectations, and democracy itself suffered from the consequences of profound social and economic inequality.

The argument is persuasive, well documented, and a mostly readable account of Mexico's transformation. Particularly in the first half of the book, however, there is extensive reference to economic theories without much explanation.

A deeper issue is the apparent ambivalence across the book's chapters about the effect of democratization. On the one hand, the authors argue that democracy alone cannot solve rule-of-law problems, and therefore that Mexico's problems are likely to continue. On the other hand, especially in their chapter on health, education, and welfare, they attribute increased spending on social services to the incentives that democratization has given political parties to expand and broaden coverage. This spending addresses one of the historic weaknesses of the Mexican economy: unusually weak and uneven patterns of investment in human capital compared to more successful countries like Chile. One could make similar arguments based on recent protests—that popular demands to fix Mexico's underfunded and inefficient court system could eventually lead politicians to allocate more funding and attention to rule of law. The implication is that perhaps democracy simply has not been around long enough to have the anticipated curative effects on the historical problems of the Mexican economy; after all, the earliest dating of the time of transition is only about 10 years, and most scholars prefer a 2000 date to 1997. The authors do not clear up their view on this, even in the book's conclusions.

The book appears to lose focus a bit toward the end. The chapter on health, education, and welfare is not as well integrated into the overall argument as the earlier chapters. It could be more clearly connected either to the issue of property rights and credible commitments or to the reason why Mexico's economy has grown so slowly. Details about pension reforms and education spending appear to overwhelm the argument itself. Reforms in these areas are also attributed to democratization, although President Ernesto Zedillo initiated them before most scholars would date the democratic transition. The last chapter seems to peter out with a few vague statements that electoral democracy cannot guarantee rule of law.

Nevertheless, Mexico Since 1980 is an excellent contribution to our understanding of this period in Mexican history, and, more generally, to the political economy literature. If the other books in this Cambridge series (The World Since 1980) are of equal quality, I look forward to reading them.