Mexico's Security Failure: Collapse Into Criminal Violence

Front Cover
Paul Kenny, Mónica Serrano, Arturo Sotomayor
Routledge, 2012 - Law - 235 pages

Mexico has failed to achieve internal security and poses a serious threat to its neighbors. This volume takes us inside the Mexican state to explain the failure there, but also reaches out to assess the impact of Mexicoâe(tm)s security failure beyond its borders. The key innovative idea of the bookâe"security failureâe"brings these perspectives together on an intermestic level of analysis. It is a view that runs counter to the standard emphasis on the external, trans-national nature of criminal threats to a largely inert state.

Mexicoâe(tm)s Security Failure is both timely, with Mexico much in the news, but also of lasting value. It explains Mexican insecurity in a full-dimensional manner that hasnâe(tm)t been attempted before. Mexico received much scholarly attention a decade ago with the onset of democratization. Since then, the leading topic has become immigration. However, the security environment compelling many Mexicans to leave has been dramatically understudied. This tightly organized volume begins to correct that gap.

From inside the book

Contents

Security Failure Versus State Failure
1
The Background
27
An Unending Story
29
19942008
54
Security Failure at Home
87
3 Arbitrariness and Inefficiency in the Mexican Criminal Justice System
89
The Police in Mexico
107
The Case of Contemporary Mexico
122
and Abroad
141
Causes of Conflict
143
Rhetoric and Reality
161
External Insecurity Internal Vulnerability
183
Authoritarian Evolution
197
About the Authors
228
Index
230
Copyright

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