(In)Security and Self-Government: Lessons from the Mexican Experience
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Catalina Pérez Correa
Abstract
Using the Mexican experience in the centralization of public security, this paper proposes federalism as a model of a vertical control of powers and, more importantly, a way of promoting self-governance, citizen participation and, through them, local security. We argue that while federalism as an organizational model of the State does not guarantee self-governance or citizen participation, it can help promote them and through their enhancement, improve security at the community level. Since 2006, the Mexican government has implemented a security strategy that has increasingly centralized public security decisions. The strategy relies on the deployment of federal security forces (Army, Navy and Federal Police) across the country, to replace or support state and local police. The results have been mostly negative. On one hand, there has been an exacerbation of violence in the country, including many incidents in which violence was used disproportionately or illegally by state officials against civilians. On the other, the use of federal forces has undermined the federalist regime which serves as a check on the exercise of power by federal authorities, thus undermining state and local institutional capacities. The lessons from the Mexican case can be useful for other federal systems responding to organized crime.
Article note:
A draft of this paper was presented at the Seminar in Latin America on Constitutional and Political Theory (SELA), organized by Yale Law School.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the attendants of SELA for their comments and suggestions, especially to Carol Rose, Robert Burt, Roberto Saba, Julieta Lemaitre and Alejandro Madrazo. We are also thankful to Karen Silva, Fernanda Alonso and Andrés Ruiz for their help.
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Commandeering the Institutions: The Legitimacy of Structural Judicial Remedies in Comparative Perspective
- Same-Sex Marriage and Italian Exceptionalism
- Notes and Essays
- (In)Security and Self-Government: Lessons from the Mexican Experience
- Book Review
- The Problem with Precedent
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Commandeering the Institutions: The Legitimacy of Structural Judicial Remedies in Comparative Perspective
- Same-Sex Marriage and Italian Exceptionalism
- Notes and Essays
- (In)Security and Self-Government: Lessons from the Mexican Experience
- Book Review
- The Problem with Precedent
