Environmental scarcity and violent conflict : the case of Chiapas, Mexico

Environmental scarcity and the failure of elite interest groups to redistribute land equitably played a contributory role in the 1994 peasant uprising in Mexicos Central Highlands. A review of the Chiapas conflict suggests the presence of three underlying and interacting factors: mounting grievances among peasants caused by land shortages weakening of the Mexican corporatist state as a result of economic liberalization and effective leadership on the part of churches and peasant groups. For decades and in defiance of land reform initiatives a wealthy elite of agricultural producers controlled the land distribution process in Chiapas capturing prime resources and forcing peasants to relocate to ecologically fragile areas. The ensuing poverty was not a sufficient condition for a peasant uprising; critical were two additional conditions--an erosion of the moral authority of the government and peasant awareness instilled by church and independent peasant organizations of the injustice of prevailing conditions of exploitation. The Zapatista insurgents were able to evoke solidarity based on social class and ethnicity at a time when the governments legitimacy was being undermined by exposure of corruption and human rights violations. The Chiapas experience confirms the hypothesis that the potential for social upheaval is greatest when multiple pressures at different levels of society interact to increase both grievance and opportunity.