Social Movements and Constitutional Change in Times of Outrage. The Case of Mexico in Contemporary Perspective.

Contemporary processes of political transformation and constitutional change are characterized by a growing sense of distrust of and dissent from the way in which governing elites implement their strategies for modeling change. Inasmuch as elites aim at preserving the status quo, social movements strive to reject its central elements and bring into-the-wall something that was off-the-wall (and vice versa). This dichotomy between preservation and transformation has been a constant in the interplay between elites and social movements. This essay will explore in contemporary perspective, the way in which growing popular movements such as those comprised by the victims of the war on drugs and more recently, the women’s movement, are striving to shape constitutional change in Mexico. A critical part of their predicament lies upon the lack of institutions and procedures to model change outside the system and a governing political elite utterly unequipped to capture the movement’s signaling.