Atlas / Comparisons / Institutional Revolutionary Party vs Social Liberalism
Institutional Revolutionary Party and Social Liberalism
Measured distance across six axes
Opposed programmes with little shared ground. They agree within three points on EC, CH. They diverge by eight points or more on CU, AU, ID.
Axis by axis
| Axis | PRI | Rawlsian liberalism | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +01 | +01 | 0 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +04 | −06 | 10 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +08 | −06 | 14 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +07 | +02 | 5 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| ID · Rule of membership | +03 | −07 | 10 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CH · Method and tempo | −04 | −07 | 3 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
PRI · CU +04
Coded +4: revolutionary anticlericalism succeeded by a conservative corporatist order.
- Documented act or statuteThe 1917 constitution's anticlerical articles were softened by amendment in 1992.
Rawlsian liberalism · CU −06
Coded −6: equal basic liberties as lexically prior to everything else.
- Programme textThe first principle of justice takes priority over the distributive one in Rawls's ordering.
PRI · AU +08
Coded +8: elections held without interruption and never lost for seventy-one years.
- Documented act or statuteThe 1988 result was declared after a computer failure that destroyed the ballots, later admitted by the incumbent president.
- Documented act or statuteThe party lost the presidency in 2000 and conceded, which is why this is not higher.
Rawlsian liberalism · AU −06
Coded −6: entrenched rights and judicial review.
- Programme textThe framework places basic liberties beyond ordinary majority revision.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Institutional Revolutionary Party
1929– · Mexico
A party built to institutionalise a revolution and end military coups, which then held the presidency for seventy-one consecutive years.
Social Liberalism
1971– · Global North
Equal basic liberties first, then fair equality of opportunity, then inequalities only where they benefit the worst off.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
Open in the atlas