Narco-Crime in Mexico

The increasing volume and manner of violent deaths in Mexico nearly doubled in 2009 to just over seven thousand. Mexico appears capable of devolving into a failed state status where an insurgency threat could potentially thrive. These indices depict Mexico as potentially very near collapse. This monograph examines the contradiction among experts of Mexico and Latin America to determine whether the increased cross-border criminal violence reflects "an unintended side effect of democratization and economic globalization," or a signal for the eventual failure of Mexico as a nation-state. The monograph determines that Mexico will not fail. The violence along the US-Mexico border and within Mexico reflects a reaction by criminal organizations to the aggressive counter-narcotic policies enacted by President Calderón. President Calderón, having run for election as an anti-corruption conservative candidate, continues to pursue an aggressive policy as representative of the will of the people as expressed in free and fair elections after nearly 7 decades of single-party rule. Despite significant economic challenges and a deteriorating security situation in localized areas, the empirical evidence indicates that Mexico as a nation-state demonstrates clear national durability.