Abstract

This paper includes a detailed discursive analysis of the discourse of the former President Salinas de Gortari and that of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional. This study contextualises the EZLN struggle as a local response to the global policy shift of the Mexican government. It considered the discourses of both parties as narratives which played a strategic role in a struggle to gain hegemonic acceptance in Mexico. This paper focuses on the theoretical–methodological framework which integrates a Gramscian view on hegemony with discourse theory and two main directions in critical discourse analysis. It shows that this approach opened a series of new perspectives and helped to evaluate the existing interpretations as well as to define the main stakes in the struggle. While Salinas sought to establish republican nationalism and a liberal democracy, the EZLN struggle is for ethnic nationalism and a radical democracy.