Mexico's Security Failure

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 Mexico’s security failure beyond its borders. The key innovative idea of the book—security failure—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.Mexico’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 hasn’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.

"Having read many single-authored and collective volumes devoted to the spiralling out of control of insecurity and violence in Mexico in the 2000s, this one ranks alongside the best. Its concise, meticulously researched, engaged prose, coupled with the uncomfortable questions it asks, and the implicit indictments its evidence uncovers, should rattle the conscience (if they possess one) of many of the Mexican and American policy-makers, cheerleaders and operators who have helped to turn the streets and fields of early twentyfirst-century Mexico into gruesome scenes of bloodbaths that will not be forgotten." - Francisco E. Gonzalez, International Affairs, Vol. 88, 6, November 2012, "This is an excellent book. It focuses on Mexico’s inability to provide for one of the fundamental services that the state should provide its citizens, namely, public order and, therefore, personal safety. The book’s principal strengths are the choice of a topic that is so salient for Mexico and its neighbors, the very impressive empirical research evident in all the chapters, and the brevity and clarity of each of the chapters. This book presents in concise, focused fashion excellent empirical research with regard to domestic and transnational insecurity in Mexico such as no other has."—Jorge I. Domínguez, Harvard University"The Mexican state has not failed; the government's security policy has. That is the conclusion of Mexico's Security Failure, which looks beneath the headlines to explain how the Calderon government's assault on the drug cartels exacerbated a security crisis. For those who want to understand the drug-related violence, this is a great place to start."—Robert A. Pastor, American University"This book provides a comprehensive and engaging treatment of the multi-dimensional challenges of Mexican security. This is an ‘eyes wide open’ treatment of uncomfortable, but essential topics. It raises key questions for countries facing violent threats and attempting internal reforms."—Jennifer Holmes, The University of Texas at Dallas

Paul Kenny, former lecturer in humanities, King’s College, London University, and Visiting Professor, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).Mónica Serrano, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Professor of International Relations at El Colegio de México, and Senior Research Associate at the Centre for International Studies, Oxford University.With Arturo Sotomayor, Assistant Professor, Naval Postgraduate School.