This article considers the ways that middle-class and elite citizens in post-revolutionary Mexico pursued access to exclusive favors from the state in the 1920s and 1930s and emphasizes the overlooked role of merit as political logic in this era. Examining political discourse within clientelist exchanges through the close reading of petitions, I explore ideas about class and nation as articulated by young strivers and their families who sought scholarships for foreign study. The article argues that working within clientelism, upwardly mobile Mexicans strategically wielded merit to preserve and legitimate their status amid social tectonic shifts. Petitioners’ ideas of merit encompassed individual loyalty and patriotism, unique talents, and inherited status. I identify heritable and disciplinary merit as distinct yet compatible understandings of worthiness used by privileged citizens. These citizens claimed that exceptional Mexicans trained abroad would make an outsized contribution to the national well-being and thus deserved special rewards, an argument which anticipated rationales that the Mexican state would later embrace for its modernization policy. After 1940, the state expanded international scholarship programs and invoked the same terms that citizens had used in the early post-revolutionary period to justify socially regressive benefits providing foreign education for the already fortunate.

中文翻译：

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获得帮助的权利：国际奖学金、庇护主义和后革命墨西哥的阶级政治

本文探讨了 1920 年代和 30 年代墨西哥革命后的中产阶级和精英公民如何从国家那里获得专属恩惠，并强调了功绩作为政治逻辑在这个时代被忽视的作用。通过仔细阅读请愿书来审视庇护主义交流中的政治话语，我探索了寻求外国留学奖学金的年轻奋斗者及其家人所表达的关于阶级和国家的观念。这篇文章认为，在庇护主义下工作，向上流动的墨西哥人战略性地利用优点来维护和合法化他们在社会构造转变中的地位。上访者的价值观念包括个人忠诚和爱国主义、独特的才能和继承的地位。我将可遗传的和纪律的优点确定为特权公民使用的对价值的不同但兼容的理解。这些公民声称，在国外接受培训的杰出墨西哥人将为国家福祉做出巨大贡献，因此理应得到特殊奖励，这一论点预示着墨西哥政府后来将接受其现代化政策的理由。1940 年后，国家扩大了国际奖学金计划，并援引公民在革命后早期使用的相同术语，为已经很幸运的人提供外国教育的社会倒退福利辩护。这一论点预示着墨西哥政府后来会接受其现代化政策的理由。1940 年后，国家扩大了国际奖学金计划，并援引公民在革命后早期使用的相同术语，为已经很幸运的人提供外国教育的社会倒退福利辩护。这一论点预示着墨西哥政府后来会接受其现代化政策的理由。1940 年后，国家扩大了国际奖学金计划，并援引公民在革命后早期使用的相同术语，为已经很幸运的人提供外国教育的社会倒退福利辩护。