“The Mexican state dealt successfully with post-revolutionary challenges between 1920 and 1940.” Discuss.

Candidates will offer a considered and balanced review of the post-revolutionary challenges faced by Mexico during the given period and consider if, or how far, the challenges were successfully addressed. Discussion of the problems facing Mexico, as well as the policies implemented to solve them, must be included. Challenges that may be discussed include the need for political stability which led to the creation of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), concerns over secularization of education and the resultant cristero rebellion, tense relations between Mexico and the US and the restoration of diplomatic relations, the need for economic modernization and concerns over the control of natural resources. The inequalities of the hacienda system, the need for agrarian reform and the extent of illiteracy, which led to Vasconcelos’s education programme, may also be discussed.