Mónica Serrano

Mexico's security failure : collapse into criminal violence

Introduction: security failure versus state failure Paul Kenny and Monica Serrano Part I: The Background 1. The Mexican state and organized crime: an unending story Paul Kenny and Monica Serrano 2. Transition to dystopia: 1994-2008 Paul Kenny and Monica Serrano Part II: Security Failure at Home... 3. Arbitrariness and inefficiency in the Mexican criminal justice system Ana Laura Magaloni 4. Accounting for the unaccountable: the police in Mexico Ernesto Lopez-Portillo 5. Security versus human rights: the case of contemporary Mexico Alejandro Anaya Munoz Part III: ... and Abroad 6. Drug trafficking and US-Mexico relations: causes of conflict Jorge Chabat 7. Mexicos war on terrorism: rhetoric and reality Athanasios Hristoulas 8. The Mesoamerican dilemma: external insecurity, internal vulnerability Raul Benitez and Arturo Sotomayor Conclusion: Authoritarian evolution Paul Kenny and Monica Serrano

Security Regulation or Community? Canada, Mexico, and the Borders of Identity

When NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) was ratified in 1993, it established the world’s first non-colonial integration scheme between two developed states and a developing country. By 2001, the experiment seemed so successful that the World Bank could issue a report recommending it for adoption elsewhere.1 Over twenty years of NAFTA, Mexico’s total trade has increased sevenfold; that of Canada and the US more than doubled. Trade between Canada and Mexico increased by 152 per cent after 1994.2 US annual merchandise trade with Canada and Mexico has gone up from US

Transitional justice and democratic consolidation

300 billion in 1993 to US

Mexico and the North American Free Trade Agreement : who will benefit?

600 billion.

Regionalism and Governance in the Americas

It is nearly three decades since Argentina embarked upon the odyssey that has most influenced modern experiences of transitional justice. Along the way, the story of transitional justice became wrapped up in the narrative of democratization. On their different voyages to democratization, countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America acknowledged the importance of aspirations for transitional justice, but little beyond that. Across continents, new authorities came under varying pressures to reckon with their countries’ respective pasts. Had the goals of transitional justice been easy to achieve, its story would have ended there. On the whole, it did not. As the cases included in this volume vividly illustrate, determining how to reconcile transitional justice and democratic consolidation is anything but easy. Yet, as the Arab Spring moves on a season, it again becomes clear that the way in which countries manage this tension will most likely define the character of new regimes in North Africa and the Middle East. Experiences in Eastern Europe and Latin America amply indicate that the readiness or disinclination of authorities to pursue old crimes has an impact on the behaviour of security and intelligence forces in the immediate present. So, the experiences of transitional justice and democratization in Eastern Europe and Latin America are not closed chapters. Their potential to instruct about the future is surprisingly fertile.