The appearance of this book is well timed as an evaluation of the first Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN) government in Mexico. The election of Vicente Fox as president put an end to 50 years of leadership from the Partido de la Revolución Institucional (PRI), that as it's name suggests, was the institutionalisation of the political elite who inherited the revolutionary rhetoric of modern twentieth century Mexico.

There were a lot of expectations among the left wing and popular sectors of the democratic changes that breaking the PRI's political monopoly might bring to the democratic constitution of the nation, even if it was a right wing party which won this 2000 presidential election. The Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cardenas, lost for the third time, ending his career as candidate of the left wing opposition party (the first loss in the 1988 elections was achieved through fraud, giving way to Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and in 1994 resulting in Ernesto Zedillo as president). In the 2000 elections we have to remember that left wing politicians (at that moment) such as Jorge Castañeda supported the option of what they called ‘voto útil’ to contribute to the ending of the PRI dictatorship.

For its part, the EZLN manoeuvred to make a dramatic presence in Mexico City on March 2001, demanding approval of the Acuerdos de San Andres that were reworked with delegates of Congress into the so called Ley COCOPA. This was the historical moment when for the first time in Mexico's history, indigenous leaders, men and women, entered the Congress and discussed their idea of nation (an autonomous and plural Mexico). Comandanta Esther′s clear speech touched the feelings of the nation. Everyone was impressed and civil mobilisation was vast. Polarisation between conservative and progressive wings was also evident. By the end of this epic moment, left and right closed ranks and blocked the approval of the Acuerdos and the Ley COCOPA. The modified constitutional reform instead privileged the tutelary state versus indigenous self-determination. Vicente Fox had publicly supported Ley COCOPA, but did not intervene when it was modified by Congress.

Hernández, Paz and Sierra's intention in producing this book is to draw out the deeper analyses of indigenous policies that Fox's administration put forward, by illustrating three directions: neoindigenismo (neo-indigenous state politics), legality and identity. The essays on neo-indigenism tackle the link proposed by some scholars between the neo-liberal and identity politics and the democratic reform of the state in underdeveloped countries. Multilateral agencies such as the World Bank had become the ‘rectors’ of Latin American social policies, becoming the frame for understanding neo-indigenist policies, as Salomón Nahmad's essay illustrates. How local changes occur as the process of re-organisation of municipalities in Chiapas and Oaxaca, coming from the official view, correspond more to these policies than to the interests and inclusion of indigenous communities, can be seen in Araceli Burguete's contribution.

Paloma Bonfils′ essay focuses on gender equity policies carried out for indigenous women during Fox's administration, pointing out the limits and obstacles that institutional gender policies face in order to support alternatives that go against the grain on the predominant view of indigenous women's underdevelopment and vulnerability. Neil Harvey's contribution demonstrates how mega or regional development projects, such as the Plan Puebla Panamá, funded by international entities, are designed and eventually completed without – and most of the times against – the interests and participation of the involucrate actors, that is, the indigenous communities themselves. National government is shown to support transnational interests.

Thus, the evaluation of the change of national administration shows more of the same ‘indigenist’ understanding of indigenous subjects, seen more as a subordinated and backward population than clear agents and actors in the re-definition of the national project. The chapter by Natividad Gutiérrez Chong is particularly sharp on signalling how new indigenist state policies are produced as marketing, how neo-liberal rhetoric invades all communicational aspect of new ‘democratic’ governance. New agencies substitute old ones, as is the case of the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas, that replaced the Instituto Nacional Indigenista, but retain the same vertical and care practices, refusing to recognise the political determination of an indigenous component of the nation.

The continuity of indigenist policies and practices through the new administration is also part of the official response to indigenous peoples' claims of rights, plurality and autonomy. The section on ‘Legality’ explains on several levels that the Mexican State is not willing to define a new relationship with indigenous nations. Multicultural nationhood and respect for self-determination of indigenous communities are only the rhetoric commercialised by the new political elite. Magdalena Gómez analyses the constitutional reform that the Zapatista uprising brought to the table, characterising it as a mutilated reform that goes against the ILO 169 resolution. Francisco López Bárcenas makes a similar contribution, considering the process of reform from 1996 to 2002 as a denied reform, while for Consuelo Sánchez, the process refers to a conservative reform. Juan Carlos Martínez explores inside the legal dimension, considered a sphere in Bourdieu's terms. This begs the question of how or why other Latin American countries have been more successful in guaranteeing indigenous rights (Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, among others) than Mexico. Analysing Oaxaca's exceptional indigenous constitutional jurisdiction, Martínez points out the confluence of instrumental and formal practices in order to gain local governance.

Finally, in the section entitled ‘Identity’, the authors frame the political dimension of the relation between the state and indigenous communities. Aída Hernández Castillo explores the extent of the new reform, the Ley de Derecho y Cultura Indígena approved by Congress in April 2001, just to confirm that political forces are not willing to redefine the hegemonic idea of nation. The tension between identity politics and difference is also discussed in this chapter by pointing out the singular voice of indigenous women and their redefinition (and appropriation) of rights. Also focusing on indigenous women's rights and human rights, the chapter presented by María Teresa Sierra enhances the political uses of human rights, and the tension between individual and collective rights in Mexico, using the example of Cuetzalan, Puebla. Sarela Paz Patiño focuses on the political dimension of difference as the ground upon which to build the indigenous political subject, and its agency in claiming a new pact in and among the nation. ‘Difference’ as the consciousness of subaltern relations in hegemonic mestizo national state has been a process unleashed since the 1974 Indigenous Congress in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, and in 1975 celebrated in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. However, indigenous difference is also the ground of official policies and recognition. The author questions in relation to the state and indigenous formation of caciquismo the use and reconfiguration of difference as tradition. Recognition and redistribution is the title of Hector Díaz Polanco's contribution to this book. It is intended to demonstrate the contradictions and failures of the official response to the biggest indigenous mobilisation of present times in Mexico. The author makes critical considerations on the actual organisation and unity of indigenous movements. Without a national leadership, with principal national organisations like Asamblea Nacional Indígena Plural por la Autonomía and Congreso Nacional Indígena with no clear national agenda, the indigenous movement had depended in the last years of the ‘sporadic requests of the EZLN’. The need for a new wave of initiatives and agendas that further the defence of the Acuerdos de San Andrés is urgent, to avoid the disintegration and regionalisation of the indigenous movement.

To this end, the book offers a variety of approaches to indigenous rights, organisational quests, and constitutional recognition in Mexico, pointing to the limitations of the neoliberal agenda carried out by Vicente Fox, and reinforced by the controversial 2006 election of Felipe Calderon. As foreseen by the reviewed text, without structural state reforms, with no new pact with social movements, Mexico advances to higher levels of confrontation and polarisation.