| Summary: | There is an apparent consensus that “corporatism” was one of the dominant aspects of the Mexican political system in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, this term never really corresponded to the conceptual language of the founders of the hegemonic party, who associated the “corporatist state” with fascism and catholicism. This article demonstrates that Mexico’s alleged corporatism had another name and intellectual genealogy. The original reference was to “functional democracy,” a concept invented by José Ingenieros following an analysis of the Soviet revolution. Through a reconstruction of its transnational circulation, this article shows how this concept influenced the discourses of the Latin American left. In Mexico, “functional democracy” became the ideal of many political parties in the 1910s and 20s, until it was consecrated in the statutes of the Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM).
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