López Portillo PRI — oil boom to 1982 debt-crisis bank nationalisation

Doctrine — stated goals and content

Statist-developmentalist PRI programme dominated by the Cantarell oil discovery and its subsequent fiscal mismanagement. Four phases: (1) 1976-1977 IMF stand-by stabilisation after the August 1976 peso devaluation (first in 22 years), inherited from Echeverría; (2) 1978-1981 oil boom — proven reserves rose from 6.3 to 72 billion barrels; Pemex output doubled; oil rose from 15% to 75% of export revenue; "administering abundance" became the doctrinal slogan; (3) massive fiscal expansion via external borrowing — public-sector deficit rose to 14.1% of GDP (1981); external debt rose from USD 20bn (1976) to USD 86bn (1982); Global Development Plan and Industrial Development Plan (1979) financed via petrodollar recycling; (4) 1982 crisis and bank nationalisation — February 1982 40% devaluation, August 1982 moratorium on foreign debt service ("Mexican Weekend") triggering the Latin American debt crisis, and the 1 September 1982 decree nationalising the private banking system and imposing exchange controls. Stated school: Mexican developmentalism + oil-rent redistributive populism. Left-right axis: statist-left on economic content, authoritarian-corporatist on political content within PRI hegemony. Popularity / legitimacy: López Portillo ran unopposed in 1976 (100% of valid votes cast, 62% turnout) — the last such PRI single- candidate election before 1977 political reform introduced opposition party registration; 1979 midterms PRI retained Chamber majority with ~70% seats. Coherence line: trade fiscal discipline and private-sector autonomy for oil-rent-financed accelerated industrialisation — a bet that failed when Fed Volcker shock plus oil-price softening collapsed external financing in 1982.