Mexico City — A new anthology examining Mexico’s cultural policy over the past 36 years has sparked calls for a more integrated, long-term approach to developing the country’s arts and heritage sector.
The book, Sucesos culturales 1988-2024 (Grecu Ediciones, 2026), brings together 40 authors — including journalists, promoters, artists, and former public officials — to analyze the role of the state in Mexican cultural development. It was coordinated by journalist and cultural manager Eduardo Cruz Vázquez.
“This book has a sectoral structure; it is not a book about public policy, nor does it judge the work of presidents or those who led cultural institutions,” Cruz Vázquez said. “It offers an overview of what the sector has been over 36 years, with a strong emphasis on public policy and the state’s role in cultural development.”
The anthology is organized chronologically, covering the six presidential terms from Carlos Salinas de Gortari through Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with an epilogue dedicated to Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration and her “It’s Women’s Time” banner.
Cruz Vázquez noted that the book reveals a “consistent” effort by the Mexican state across administrations to address major cultural concerns and motivations. However, he identified a persistent flaw: the inability to view culture as a sectoral driver of development.
“It’s not just a budget problem from public spending; it’s about an economic policy that fosters sector development, just as money was injected into the energy sector with a new refinery, or into regional and tourism development with the Tren Maya,” he said. “All productive sectors are crying out for tax incentives, support, or subsidies to invest.”
The specialist criticized a centralist tradition that concentrates cultural decision-making in the federal Secretariat of Culture, ignoring the 31 states and municipalities. He also pointed to the persistent myth that cultural activity only moves through state intervention.
“Unfortunately, different administrations have been fundamentally interested in exercising public spending based on the designs of their work projects and investments from the state’s perspective,” Cruz Vázquez said.
He attributed the lack of a sectoral vision to a failure to understand or prioritize culture. “They don’t understand, they don’t have the training, they haven’t had it, they don’t share it, they think it’s a minor issue, they believe the market or the cultural sector moves simply by inertia.” Meanwhile, the sector remains impoverished, with cultural companies barely surviving.
