Mexican History Term Paper
The Drug War:
Failed Democratization and Market-Oriented Economics Cause Mexican Insecurity Once a model for Latin American development, Mexico is now home to an epidemic of drug related violence. The state is apparently powerless to stop organized crime, despite increasing military presence in criminal hotspots along the U.S-Mexican border. Since January 2007, more than 28,000 Mexicans died in drug violence. This is a cruel twist for a nation which, during the oil-driven Mexican Miracle of the 1970s, was poised to join the first world of stable industrialized states. Under the heavy-handed guidance of the Partido Revolutionario Institutional, Mexico seemed destined to remain a prosperous authoritarian regime with a thin veneer of democratic legitimacy. However, untested economic policies swept through the country as they did through the much of the world in the 1980s with the help of the "Washington consensus." With the removal of social security nets during an extended period of economic upheaval, Mexico's ruling party was replaced in a wave of popular discontent. The new leadership, with the institutions of an authoritarian regime, did little to relieve the nation of widespread poverty. As a result, the impoverished were unable to either escape crushing deprivation legally or mobilize to replace the government without fear of reprisal. Insurgency, in the familiar form of guerrilla movements and the novel form of increasingly powerful drug gangs, was a natural response to government failure without legitimate avenues of resistance. Mexico now hangs in the balance, unable to reform due to persistent insecurity, and unable to reestablish the balance of economic prosperity which had allowed the authoritarian system to exist.
Section I: Failed democratization Following the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the PRI had an effective