Country at a Crossroads: An Insight into How an Economic Crisis Led to Dramatic Policy Change

In this paper, we try to understand the nature of the changes to Mexican macroeconomic policy in the early 1980s using a critical juncture framework. The framework argues that three elements—crisis, ideational change, and radical policy change—must be identified in order for us to be able to declare, with some certainty, whether an event constitutes a critical juncture. Utilizing this framework, we will ascertain whether the changes to Mexican macroeconomic policy constituted a clean break with the past or were a continuation of previously established policy pathways.