The Obama Administration and the Americas: Agenda for Change

Chapter 12: The Rule of Law in Mexico: Challenges for the Obama Administration

How should the Obama administration first assess, and then respond to, the evidently worsening crisis of governance, lawlessness, and large-scale criminal violence that has been gathering momentum in Mexico throughout 2008? This is shaping up to become possibly the most urgent policy challenge Washington faces in the Western Hemisphere in 2009. Given the extent of U.S.-Mexico interconnections on so many fronts—migration, trade, investment , energy security, environment, as well as cross-border illegal transactions of all sorts—the apparent disintegration of the rule of law is one challenge that cannot be postponed or sidestepped. Already, certain quarters of the U.S. press and public opinion are becoming increasingly agitated about this issue, and it would be easy for the new team to respond too impulsively to such pressures. The situation is indeed urgent, but it also requires a measured assessment. The new administration would do best to evaluate the immediate problems with an eye to the longer-term health of U.S.-Mexico relations as a whole, and with a clear understanding of the broader historical and institutional context. Today’s dramas have been in gestation for a considerable period, and they will require sophisticated and coordinated long-term management. They are the product of complex interactions between U.S. and Mexican institutions 183 twelve The Rule of Law in Mexico: Challenges for the Obama Administration Carlos Elizondo and Ana Laura Magaloni The authors would like to thank Laurence Whitehead for his invaluable contribution to this chapter. in general, and between their justice systems in particular. Lessons can be learned and better relationships can be forged, but it must be understood that the most important reforms in this area will take considerable time. Short-term responses need to be harmonized with this longer-term logic. Just how serious is the present violent-crime problem? On the one hand, newspaper headlines in both countries reflect a gruesome reality. On the other hand, U.S. decisionmakers should always bear in mind that Mexico is a sprawling and complex society with a large modern economy and highly elaborated structures of governance. There were times in the not so distant past when considerable areas in large U.S. cities such as New York and Washington were also severely afflicted by frightening levels of criminality. Yet it was always understood that this was just one aspect of a far more complex U.S. reality, and that in any case it could only be corrected by reforms introduced from within. Despite the temptation to view Mexico’s current crime problems as much more overwhelming of domestic law enforcement capabilities , the same basic principles still apply there as well. From a Washington perspective, the big policy options can be broadly divided into two categories: measures that reinforce the U.S. capacity to insulate itself from southern instabilities (“quarantining” the problems by, for example, building a higher wall, issuing more tourist warnings, directing more aggressive U.S. law enforcement against Mexican nationals), and those that seek to reinforce the Mexican state’s capacity to deliver security to its citizens and enhance rule-of-law protections and guarantees. Although there may still be some limited scope for further measures in the first,“quarantining ,” category, our focus in this chapter is the second alternative. This is mainly because we think responses of the first kind have already been pursued to the point of diminishing returns, and indeed may now start becoming counterproductive. Furthermore, it can be argued at a deeper level that the “quarantining” response reflects a false diagnosis of the dynamics of the problem. If Mexico’s current crime problems arise from interaction effects between the two societies, then longer-term remedies will require corrective measures coordinated from both sides. Mexican Democracy and the United States Mexico’s new democracy is struggling, and its future stability cannot be taken as given. The“breakthrough”elections of 1997 and 2000 (when the PRI [Partido Revolucionario Institucional], which had governed Mexico for almost seven decades, peacefully lost first the chamber of deputies and then, in 2000, 184 Carlos Elizondo and Ana Laura Magaloni the presidency), created illusions of easy progress. But the problems in enacting needed reforms, mainly as a result of the resistance of the PRI and the PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática), and then the close-fought 2006 presidential contest, showed that the results of the elections would be contested...