‘Que el cielo un soldado en cada hijo te dio …’: Conscription, Recalcitrance and Resistance in Mexico in the 1940s

Abstract

Conscription and resistance to it can tell us much about state–society relations in Mexico in the 1940s. The state's implementation of conscription was obstructed by limited bureaucratic and coercive capacity, and by the continued political autonomy of the regions. Popular protests and the hundreds of petitions sent to the central government provide a glimpse of popular views of the army, state, nation, notions of respectability, and the family. The extent of both violent and more ‘loyal’ resistance to the draft shows the continued vigorous contestation of state policies by Mexican society at different levels, and it illustrates the limits to the popular legitimacy of the central state.

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