Undermining The Rule of Law - Democratization and The Dark Side of Police Reform in

Undermining the Rule of Law: Democratization and the Dark Side of Police Reform in
Mexico
Author(s): Diane E. Davis
Source: Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Spring, 2006), pp. 55-86
Published by: Distributed by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Center for
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Undermining the Rule of Law:
Democratization and the Dark Side of
Police Reform in Mexico
Diane E. Davis
ABSTRACT
This article asks whether democratization, under certain historical

conditions, may relate to the deteriorating rule of law. Focusing on
Mexico City, where police corruption is significant, this study argues
that the institutionalized legacies of police power inherited from
Mexico's one-party system have severely constrained its newly
democratic state's efforts to reform the police. Mexico's democratic
transition has created an environment of partisan competition that,
combined with decentralization of the state and fragmentation of its
coercive and administrative apparatus, exacerbates intrastate and
bureaucratic conflicts. These factors prevent the government from
reforming the police sufficiently to guarantee public security and
earn citizen trust, even as the same factors reduce capacity, legiti-
macy, and citizen confidence in both the police and the democrat-
ically elected state. This article suggests that when democracy
serves to undermine rather than strengthen the rule of law, more
democracy can actually diminish democracy and its quality.
n recent years, Latin American countries have made progress on

democratic front by ushering in more competitive political party
tems and ousting longstanding authoritarian rulers. Yet a good nu
also have suffered through explosions of violence, rising public in
rity, and deteriorating rule of law, much of it fueled by police co
tion and impunity. In response, democratically elected leaders ha
struggled to enact police or judicial reforms aimed at strengthenin
rule of law and eliminating corruption among officers in the adm
tration of justice system. The intensity and range of these effort
been especially noteworthy in Mexico, where an unprecedent
number of reforms, many of them directed toward the police, hav
introduced in the several years since the Institutional Revolution
Party lost its grip on national power.
Despite the clear resolve by Mexico's leaders to undertake p
and judicial reform, the pattern of success has been mixed, espec
when measured by degrees of public confidence in the police and
latter's capacities to reduce crime and guarantee public secur
(Alvarado Mendoza and Arzt 2001). Part of the problem is that a co
police force and a weak judicial system exist as two interrelated en
55
56 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 48: 1
that together undermine the rule of law. Th

which criminality flourishes, even among th
have little confidence in the rule of law or the officials entrusted with
guaranteeing order; and public insecurity seems to be worsening day by
day (Inzunza 2003; CNI en Linea 2005c).
At no time was this more evident than in late November 2004, when
an angry mob of residents in a neighborhood of Mexico City called San
Juan Ixtayopan (in Tlahuiac) lynched two police officers, beating and
burning them alive while hundreds of other officers surrounded the
area, unable to quell the revolt (El Universal 2004; New York Times
2004a). Residents in this neighborhood on the southern outskirts of the
capital claimed that the murdered victims were responsible for kidnap-
ping two children leaving a local school. The officers, in plain clothes
and sitting in an unmarked car outside the school at the moment of the
attack, were members of the Coordinaci6n General de Inteligencia para
la Prevenci6n del Delito, a special intelligence-gathering unit of the Fed-
eral Preventive PIolice (PFP).
Neither riot police nor a l)cal elected official intervening on the o)ffi-
cers' behalf succeeded in dispersing the mohb ()r calming citizens, who)
armed with sticks and knives, dragged the officers from their car and
pummeled them lifeless (Nev' )irk 7'zimes 2004a). Reporters, however,
were able to get close eno(ughl to the scene to capture the killings )on
cailmera, and leaders o(f the angry mob() allowevcd them to intervicw t\he
twv( police officers. As the officcrs tried to identify themselves as under-
cover agents investigating drug dealing in the area, not as kidnappers
the m b remained irate and filming continued. Few in the cromwd were
convinced o)f their innocence bccause mo st saw o)nly a fine line sepa-
rating the police fr()m criminals. These attitudes had been cemented by
recurrent stories in the press exposing high levels )of drug corruption
and impunity in the Mexican police and military.
The lynching was neither the first nor the last in the Mexico City
metropolitan area reported by the press in the six months surro(unding
the event (CNI en Linea 2005a). In the days and weeks that followed,
citizens and the government reacted strongly to the deteriorating secu-
rity situation. Those who sought a larger meaning felt a great temptation
to highlight the "postmodernity" of the events, in that news outlets were
able to record and shape an event that neither the state's elected offi-
cials nor its coercive forces were able to control and in which the lines
between participant and observer were blurred. For most Mexicans,
however, it was the "premodern" character of the violence that was
most significant and troubling. Many saw the uncivilized mob character
of the lynchings as a throwback to premodern times; a form of behav-
ior assumed to be more common before the rise of the modern state,
with its capacity to monopolize the rule of force, and before the rule of
DAVIS: MEXICO'S POLICE REFORM 57
law, a legitimate and functioning judicial

sensual forms of governance. This view
media, in which citizens, politicians, a
lamented that the longstanding problem
in the justice system would generate su
To be sure, observers did not always ag
of the problem. Yacobo Zabludovsky, a p
cast journalist, publicly traced the resp
bureaucratic estrangement between offic
"police commanders 'have not realized w
that we are afraid to approach the po
Carlos Monsivais, one of Mexico's lead
more to culture and the transformation
by violence and fear, a condition that h
the large cities of Latin America (Rotker
showed that "it has become possible [for
ing in the name of the disappearance of
shocked him into adding, "one cannot be
late date-that a mob, a lynch mob, of
moment like this as if it were a carnival" (New York Times 2004a).
Although they represented two very different ideological tendencies
in Mexican politics (the conservative and tradition-bound versus the
progressive and oppositional, respectively), both observers concurred
that the system of justice-and the state's capacity to mount a legitimate
and effective police force that was also trusted by the people-was fun-
damentally flawed. This unusual consensus among those of opposite
political leanings may explain why, as a result of the San Juan Ixtayopan
incident, Mexican police officials and politicians were forced to
acknowledge publicly "that anarchy exists in parts of Mexico," a view
closely matched by citizens who lamented that "there is no security here
[in Mexico City]; there is no control" (Newu York Times 2004a).
FROM DEMOCRACY TO UNRULE OF LAW
Can the disturbing security conditions brought into relief by the lynch-
ings be traced to Mexico's fragile new democratic regime or the coun-
try's failure sufficiently to deepen and strengthen the quality of its
democracy? Or are other factors responsible for the violence and the
deteriorating rule of law? Scholars such as Charles Call have suggested
that there is a relationship between public insecurity and democracy, or
at least challenges to it. Using the case of El Salvador, Call shows that a
majority of citizens (55 percent) cited crime and public insecurity "as a
justification for the toppling of democracy, double the number who
cited any other reason" (2003, 828).
Further clues as to whether there might

democracy and unrule of law can be also f
the "quality" of democracy (O'Donnell et
focus on civil rights (Conaghan 2004) and h
2004) as much as citizenship and political r
ner 2004). On the basis of standards and cri
one would rate the quality of Mexico's dem
mixed at best, precisely because of the hum
associated with state and citizen violence as well as unrule of law. But
the question still remains as to whether there is any causal relations
between democracy or democratic quality-whether high or low-
the type of violence and disorder seen in Mexico.
The answer is not inherently obvious, because positing such rel
tionships has not been the aim of most recent scholarship on demo
cratic quality or democratic deepening. Instead of examining th
impact of democratization on rule of law, whether positive or neg
tive, for example, many scholars have preferred to examine the de
ening and the quality of demo(cracy in postauthoritarian regimes in
context of a larger theory of democratic transition in Latin Amer
(Hite and Cesarini 2004). Others have been more concerned with
establishing the appropriate measurement dimensions for ident
high- or low-quality democracies (such as ()'I)onnell and his colla
rators) than with asking hlow and whether there is anything int
to a particular democratic regime type or deniocratic transition
might either pr)oduce or reverse conditions of extreme pul)lic i
rity or other problems, which place countries like Mexico in th
gory of low-quality democracy. But there also is a new, albeit s
body of alternative literature suggesting that certain features of
ocratic transition, ranging from the breakdown of patronage net
to the unanticipated costs of military demobilization, can contrib
public insecurity. Such arguments have been advanced in rece
research on Mexico (Villareal 2002), Brazil (Caldeira and Holston
2002), and El Salvador (Call 2003).'
If one were to look carefully at how Mexico's democratically elected
state officials responded to the San Juan Ixtapoyan affair, such a propo-
sition might be worth exploring further. Preliminary evidence suggests
that newly democratic actors, institutions, and practices in Mexico may
have been partly responsible for the failure to guarantee a rule of law
and the increase in public insecurity. Specifically, democratization of the
state through decentralization and power sharing, along with the
strengthening of competitive party politics, seems to have contributed to
the emergence of new and more vicious intrastate and bureaucratic con-
flicts. These problems paralyzed government and legislative efforts to
enact police reform. The result has been rising criminality, a dissatisfied
civil society, and an overall situation of pub

day citizens feel compelled to take the law
Such a dynamic was partly evident within d
it became clear that the local riot police, who
not federal authorities, had not intervened
Shortly thereafter, different cadres of police s
other, creating even less public trust in the
exposing vertical cracks in the principal coerc
The police also took advantage of their new
rights to express their dissatisfaction with th
situation. Hundreds of federal security police
against their own commanders as well as t
police (New York Times 2004b). These event
fidence in police institutions and individual
seen as more concerned with enhancing the
power than figuring out why the public had l
An overheated electoral climate, fueled
competitive party politics, also contributed to
Mexico's two most important democratical
dent Vicente Fox and Mexico City mayor Andre's Manuel L6pez
Obrador, turned the lynching into a prepresidential dogfight. Instead of
uniting in the common search for a policy solution to the problems of
police conflict and citizen vigilantism, these two bitter rivals-from two
competing political parties, controlling the two most significant levels of
the state, and struggling to win the support of Mexico City's residents
and the national electorate-sought to use the situation to humiliate
each other sufficiently so as to score points at the ballot box, as they
had tried with many other high-profile incidents of violence, police cor-
ruption, and impunity (CNI en Linea 2004a, b).
For his part, President Fox used the lynching as the pretext for forc-
ing the resignation of Mexico City's very popular police chief, Marcelo
Ebrard, a key ally of Mayor L6pez Obrador. L6pez Obrador retaliated by
charging Fox with playing dirty politics, even as he set out on his own
independent search for a new round of police reforms and alternative
security policies to show that he, as mayor, was better able to gain con-
trol of the situation than the president (CNI en Linea 2004a). L6pez
Obrador, however, had publicly repudiated a two-hundred-thousand-
strong citizens' march for public security barely six months earlier. His
stance therefore brought skepticism about how seriously committed he
was to police reform and security matters (Reforma 2004) even as it
helped fuel partisan backbiting and further squabbling about his party's
commitment to the same goals.
The evidence from this public debate overwhelmingly suggests that
no single party or elected official was willing or able to transcend par-
tisan bickering enough to convince Mexic

lems of fighting police impunity and pub
tant than winning seats in the next rou
conflict and competition not only motiva
state and take matters into their own h
nesses and divisions in the state itself, as
mented bureaucracy unable to monopo
basic tenet of modern state formation an
democracy or rule of law.
EMPIRICAL OBJECTIVES AND MET
In exploring the relationship between M

deteriorating rule of law, this article foc
problems of police corruption have been
and insidious in the nation. It argues tha
of police power inherited fromn a system
severe constraints on the newly democrat
po)lice, perverting even positive gains. It
deepening democracy has overly complica
reform by creating an environment of o
which, comblined with a deml cratizatio
state and an attendant fragmentation ot
apparatus, exacerCbates intrastate and bur
vent the g(overnment from reforming the
pulblic security and citizen trust. Togecth
state capacity, state legitimacy, and citize
and in the democratically elected state's m
Stated in sociological terms, this articl
police reform in newly democratizing M
have enabled several new and disturbing
society, and their relationship to each oth
undermine the commitment to democra
law. Stated in terms more consistent wit
ing or quality of democracy, this article
serves to undermine rather than stren
democracy can actually diminish democra
These arguments build on the premise
insecurity in Mexico owe their existence
reform efforts, or the inability to bring
reform, than to the proliferation of int
changes these reform policies actually eng
the findings of other scholars of police
have shown that strategies of police refor
they produce bureaucratic infighting leadin

that police reform often reinforces more c
authority, thereby leading to further abuse
a nondemocratic ethos (Ungar 2002). In con
ever, this analysis is not confined to "top-
efforts at police reform and their consequ
reform measures coming "from below," in
social movements, NGOs, and other sector
impact on the rule of law.
SEEKING THE ORIGINS OF THE SECURITY

PROBLEM
Scholars have described contemporary Mexico as a place where

"impunity is the rule and legality is the exception" (Pardinas 2003). One
observer has even suggested that if someone actually "tried to plan a
lack of control over public security forces, not only in Mexico City but
also in a good part of the rest of country, they could not have done it
better" (Alcocer 1997, 49). Blame for this situation is routinely assigned
to the country's difficult economic situation and dreary employment
conditions, which motivate desperate citizens to pursue a life of crime.
Growing income polarization and a failure to recover from more than a
decade of recession mean that real wages have remained stagnant and
under- and unemployment have been on the rise.
These problems have been particularly severe in Mexico City, a
locale hit especially hard by the collapse of the import substitution
industrialization model. The city's industrial sector has been mortally
wounded by the opening of the economy and the relocation of Mexico
City factories to the border areas, closer to new markets favored by the
export-led model that the government prioritizes. As a result, many
workers previously employed in the city's industrial sector have looked
elsewhere for income. Youth unemployment has been an especially big
concern, given Mexico's age structure. This demographic problem has
fueled the rise of youth gangs.
Still, the problem of public insecurity owes equally as much to how
Mexico City police have responded to growing criminality. In an eco-
nomically squeezed environment in which state downsizing has made it
difficult to raise public sector salaries, the police themselves have been
tempted to engage in crime. It is not uncommon to find police acting as
frontmen for criminal gangs or routinely extorting criminals for kickbacks
whether they arrest them or not. One reason police become directly
involved in criminal operations, of course, is the remuneration. This helps
explain why foreign consultants uniformly suggest that raising police
salaries is an essential first step in professionalizing police and gaining
control of impunity. But such a policy ha

partly because macroeconomic policy con
nomic liberalization have limited public se
The biggest obstacle to eliminating pol
salaries, however, is the enormity of com
"buying" police impunity, a situation th
Although international drug trafficking
Mexico have existed for decades-some
2000)-they remained a relatively low-p
economy until recently (Astorga 2000; B
early 1990s, especially when the U.S. Dru
aged to cut off direct supplies between C
much of the drug trade moved its operat
and drug money began to infiltrate a vari
society, including the military and police
Gonzdilez Ruiz et al. 1994; Kaplan 1991). A
that practically the entire state apparatus
gle against drug trafficking (Zepeda Lecu
so that the current government's struggl
impunity is very much linked to the prob
crime and othler mafia dru(g lords, who
into the office of the presidency (t1' }r,,
Even s)o, a singular focus o0n econoC0mic
can go only so far in accounting fcor p0)li
curity, primarily )ecause the historical or
pinnings of these probleims are much de
and impunity among the police has deve
finds its deepest roots and greatest reach
po)pular imagination, problems with polic
a time when a larger "brotherhood" of co
Mexico City police chief ArturLo IDurazo
1994) and society experienced the "deconmposition of the security
organs of the State" (Alcocer V. 1997, 50). But the true roots of police
corruption go back to the postrevolutionary period and the tradeoffs
made between revolutionary leaders and Mexico City police in their
efforts to defeat counterrevolutionary forces associated with Porfirian
loyalists (Davis 2001).
In the initial years surrounding the 1910 Revolution, many counter-
revolutionaries counted on the military for support. Prorevolutionary
forces therefore had to seek other "coercive" allies, among them police
and armed peasants and workers. The struggle to consolidate the new
revolutionary state revolved pretty much around who could control the
means of coercion in the capital city. This meant that support from the
Mexico City police was essential to the stability of the new regime. It
should be recalled that a large majority of Mexi

support the Revolution and were hardly excite
peasants, workers, and northern provincial eli
revolutionary coalition in its early years. Revolu
needed a new police force, loyal to these new p
lations and their sentiments and willing to dem
arresting or harassing counterrevolutionaries an
cal leadership considered dangerous. As a result
olutionary aftermath, Mexico City police-indivi
tion-were given extraordinary leeway and very
In theory, once revolutionaries consolidated t
ican state, there should have been considerable
local police's task from that of fighting counter
ing the rule of law. But the contested nature of
building and the ongoing struggles within the r
over which factions would prevail prevented t
quite a while.
The period 1910-20, for example, saw ongoing
between police and the military about who had
public order in the capital. These concerns wer
placing military commanders as Mexico City
giving the police considerable institutional pow
tlement, based on the feeling that their functio
and not merely public service or urban order i
the Mexico City police had been successfully tra
ization of progovernment loyalists allied with
individual police would still run up against political or ideological
opponents in other branches of the state and legal system. This fre-
quently resulted in court dismissals of police detainees or repudiation of
their grounds for arrest. This response further emboldened the police
and their superior officers to disregard the judicial end of the legal
system and act on the basis of their own views of what was just or
important for the Revolution. As the courts and the legal system became
notorious as venues where elites with money or political influence
would readily prevail, the police further sought to follow their own
sense of justice, legally acknowledged or not.
Actions of the revolutionary state further contributed to problems of
police impunity. As early as 1918, President Venustiano Carranza acted
on his concern that the courts were still overly controlled by pro-Por-
firian elements and introduced changes in the constitution that sepa-
rated the power to arrest from the power to try or convict suspects.
These changes formally separated preventive police (that is, "beat cops,"
or those entrusted with guaranteeing social order) from judicial police
(those who had the power to arrest and take suspects to court). The
legal separation of police powers gave the e

trol over who would end up in the hands o
judicial police-who alone had the right to
eral ministry under the supervision of the pre
tion to empowering certain cadres of polic
the presidency, this reform also laid the fou
tion in the entire system of policing, even a
of the legal process in such a way as to pro
function or fragmentation (Reforma 2003a;
Police corruption and citizen distrust intensi
a period that proved politically contentious for
decade of the 1920s and much of the 1930s
gence of labor and other social movements p
Some of the most active and mobilized oppos
city's municipal politics, with municipal leaders
police to battle each c)thcr in the struggle for
of armed co)nflict amn)ng contending political
only tarnished the p )(lice's reputation; they als
leadership to centralize lp)litical c(ntrol o f bo>
nance. Tle climination o)f demo)cratic political
in 1928 and the elected mayor's replacement by
regent furthelCr enableCd the ruling party s u
0pp_)nents, lcwhethel r lo cal or nattijonal. 'l?chsce r
as in the 19)()s and 195()s, to pr(testing stude
cates, as in the 1900()s and 197()s.
'he plics (own \vwillingness to hlarass th
political enemies and to> (perate abo/ve the
distrustful of police m otivcs and legal inst
incentive to resolve violations o(f the law at
coercive bribery rather than through juridic
the formal system lof justice. These inform
miore vicious cycle of police corruption and
to legitimate an alternative or unofficial sy
while also undermining the courts and the r
HAS DEMOCRATIZATION MADE A DIFFERENCE?
During the seven decades the PRI remained in power, party and gov-
ernment leaders managed to keep the worst manifestations of police
corruption out of the public eye through control of the media and
bureaucratic reshuffling of abusive police from one set of forces to
another (Martinez de Murguia 1998). Keeping the problem hidden wa
a high priority because exposing the depths of the corruption would
have been disastrous for the party's overall legitimacy and electability
Mexico's slow but steady democratic transfor

helped to put an end to the cover-up by c
impunity and public insecurity into the publi
a floodgate of citizen hopes about reversing
Citizen perceptions that criminality and vi
stemmed partly from the more competitive
which themselves were a product of democra
addition, expectations for improvement were
zation held the promise of offering new cha
cerns and seeking remedies. Still, growing ci
also owed to the deteriorating conditions on th
state's inability to cover it up or increased ex
ity. By the mid-to-late 1990s, just around the
were granted the right to elect a mayor demo
itself awash in robberies, kidnappings, stolen
other forms of violent and nonviolent crime,
cide (Davis and Alvarado 1999). Between 1995 and 1998 alone, the
overall crime rate in the city nearly tripled (Fundaci6n Mexicana Para la
Salud 1997, 16).
To be sure, the relationship between violence and democratization
is a complicated one. It is difficult not only to distinguish the cause and
the effect but also to distinguish the impact of political versus economic
liberalization on public insecurity. In Mexico City, most observers cite
1994 as the year criminality and public insecurity burst out of control.
This was the year the North American Free Trade Agreement changed
several key aspects of the macroeconomy, such as the tariff and trade
structure, making border areas more hospitable to domestic and foreign
manufacturing firms and directly hurting the more protected industries
located in the capital. The 1990s also hosted the democratization of
Mexico City governance, with a series of constitutional changes intro-
duced to empower a local consultative body with legislative power (the
Asamblea Legislativa del Distrito Federal, or ALDF), followed by a move
to allow direct election of the mayor for the first time since 1928. These
legislative changes not only brought new anti-PRI political forces into
city government; the local defeat of the PRI also destroyed old social
networks and institutional practices, some of which contributed to the
growing social disorder. Without the PRI at the municipal helm and with
the party weakened by electoral defeat, neither police nor citizens
counted on the same informal patronage and patron-client relations that
in past decades had kept crime out of the public eye and the whole
system of social and political order functioning, albeit imperfectly.
The changing political balance of power set into motion by democ-
ratization also produced new practices for keeping order, several of
which called into question the old authoritarian power structures of the
PRI and its relationship to the police. This w

1996 when the last Priista to govern Mexic
lareal, called for "militarization" of the city's p
to purge the corps of its most corrupt elem
Villareal's efforts came partly in response t
ing for the revitalization of democratic stru
city. It was under Villareal's mayorship in 19
Congress passed legislation fully to demo
nance starting in 1997. With crime rates sk
with popular elections for a democratically
a scant two years, it seemed evident to Villa
that the party that had the most to offer in c
ing public security might have the best sh
democratic rights were established (Gonzail
In theory, Villareal's idea of "militarizing
may have seemed a good move because th
the role of fighting drug lords and c)rgani
police were directly implicated in mafia and
military also was considered a revered social
able prestige earned from its role in the RC
ership had parlayed into considerahle politic
contrast, po)lice in Mcxic') were routinely c
c Lated, undisciplined, and uncivilized dregs
ties were sharply distinguislhed, in 1)0th law
from those of the military.
In practice, h)owever, the lo)gic underlyin

the police was flawed. The military's longstan
ing drug lords meant that many of its perso
the police. Indeed, several of the military of
police forces in Mexico City were subsequen
activities (Pifleyro 2004). The threat of mil
policing only increased the police's resolve
trol of the city, partly to protect the same
and drug-trading networks. In reality, neither
wanted to stop the drug-related criminality,
themselves into these lucrative networks o
expense of potential competitors. Thus with
for control over the rights to "police" crim
accelerated among the police, the military, a
as each of these overlapping forces sought to
sible influence.
The military's involvement in local policing concentrated the power

of law enforcement agents in the higher echelons of the PRI-led state,
where elected officials and the military leadership would make deci-
sions independent of local input and out of co

rity, sovereignty, and party hegemony as mu
Thus the chain of authority among the party
coercive forces was condensed and concent
Because major nodes in this chain were alread
lacking commitment to the rule of law, and b
were already directly involved in illegal ac
involvement of higher-ranking authorities in cri
the police and the military into a direct rela
tempting the law enforcers with higher volum
making it harder for them to keep to the stra
In 1997,
mayor's when
office, Cuauhte'moc
expectations Ci.rdenas
about suc
eliminating
cally. The PRI was now out of power in the c
that he would establish both democracy and
emboldened by support from social movem
forces from the PRI, who knew the ruling pa
inside, further raised citizen expectations th
the dirty tricks that had sustained the cycle
criminality. One of the great advantages Cird
the mayor's office, despite his lack of contro
democratically elected ALDF, dominated by
Therefore he was not hamstrung by old Priist
reform. Yet he also faced obstacles.
First, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) was a relatively
new party, born out of the struggle for democracy. This meant that Car-
denas came to power with a much weaker and less organizationally
developed party base. Second, Cirdenas had left the PRI for the PRD,
generating considerable antagonism from many Priistas who saw him as
a traitor to the party his father, former president Lizaro Cirdenas, was
instrumental in forming. Both factors further estranged him from the
police and intensified their unwillingness to help in his crime-fighting
project. Indeed, after several high-profile efforts to call attention to
police corruption, Cirdenas was met by public intransigence from sev-
eral leading police officials, one of whom went directly to the press to
defend vigorously the "moral quality" of the city's police. (This despite
his acknowledging the "occasional" problem of "judicial police ... link-
ages with mafia dedicated to the robbery and reselling of automobiles
and autoparts." LaJornada 1999b).
All this meant that if one of Cirdenas's first tasks as mayor was to
mount a capable and trustworthy police force, purged of old and cor-
rupt elements and refurbished with those loyal to the PRD rather than
the PRI, he could not count on individuals or institutions with long-
standing political connections to the PRI. Among Cirdenas's first pro-
nouncements was to insist that he would n

reform the police-although his appointmen
cer as the first police chief placed generat
about the veracity of this claim. Still, his
civilians Alejandro Gertz Manero as Fede
Samuel del Villar as DF attorney general so
ment to a new strategy of reform. Shortly
duced new structures for hiring and formu
for police oversight. These changes inclu
detector tests for new and returning polic
tions among the judicial police, and a new
tive police by neighborhood.
Unfortunately, even these strategies yie
and a few negative ones; the reform's ineff
immediately. Beat cops boldly protested the
ruption measures by "withdrawing" their s
way as to abet crime. Crime rates immediat
product perhaps also of police involvement
retribution. The level of calculated impunit
after the reform was introduced was so ext
Manero) was compelled to acknowledge p
"40,000-membelr tforce [was] out of contro(l"
'I'lThe reform eforts did nrot toLuch the re
which was gowvernment incapacity legally to)
themselves. Most beat cops refused to coo(pera
tigating drug and )ther ga(ng-related crime, an
to purify the judicial police had alienated ke
of the administration of justice, the courts. Th
cooperation etween different crime-fighti
system than before. I()olice Chief Gertz M
this problem, lamenting the lack of institu
which [could I link [crime] prevention with
civil, business, and penal codes" (La lorna
DEMOCRATIZATION DRIVES INTRAS

CONFLICT
The question emerges, however, why the police were so intransigent

their opposition to the reforms of the Cirdenas administration, and why
they felt so empowered in openly flaunting their clout, despite the new
democratic environment. Police reforms have worked in other situations
of pervasive police corruption, as evidenced in the case of El Salvador.
Even if these reforms were much less enduring than their advocates
hoped, owing to what Charles Call labels the "transaction costs of secu-
rity reform"-which abetted crime because the "

nal security system took its toll"-they did bea
American nation for several years (Call 2003, 83
ficult to make much headway in Mexico, even w
ing appeared in 1997? More to the point, why
corruption and resistance to reform even worse
ened in the years to follow?
Part of the answer rests in a more nuanced
nature of the democratic transition and its
democratization did give the newly elected PRD
City a public platform to call for changes in th
tions and institutional goals on the national lev
Throughout Cirdenas's term, the PRI maintain
national executive, and with it a reservoir of in
could be used to undermine police reform effo
included a system of federal police forces tied t
with a history of intervening in Mexico City af
cracy still answering to the PRI and also increa
exposing its own complicity and impunity, a
control of local finances in the form of a budge
expenditures. The Mexican Constitution also
mayor's autonomy to name his own police chie
be jointly supported by the president and ap
Congress. Many local police, moreover, still ha
the PRI, given the history of complicity. Thus
structures and practices constituted a nontrivial ba
Yet why did the PRD not successfully compe
failures when his successor, Andres Manuel L6pez Obrador, became
mayor in 2000? That year also brought the defeat of the PRI at the
national level. Why was progress still elusive and conditions seemingly
worse? One explanation is that even with the PRI purged from the
national executive, the nation's third major political party, the National
Action Party (PAN), had gained control of the presidency. Yet it, too,
had very few of its own networks of control over police or military. For
precisely this reason, when the newly elected President Fox wanted to
deal with the problems of police corruption, he had to do so through
the institutions over which he had some authority-national (that is, fed-
eral police and the attorney general's office), not local institutions in
Mexico City, where corruption was organized differently. Moreover,
many of these were now wracked with their own problems of intensi-
fying corruption, some of which had worsened in the several years
before the PAN came to power because of growing military involvement
in both drugs and policing. In such an environment, national efforts to
join the struggle against corruption and public insecurity entailed a cen-
tralization of institutions and efforts cl

individuals and agencies the new preside
Far from solving the.problems of cor
ever, these actions fueled the cycle of po
drug and crime-fighting agencies were r
thereby driving the dismissed personnel
ners in crime (often bringing with them
they had used before their dismissal). Co
tion of reform efforts alienated Mexico
cratic rights and responsibilities, now ha
tions, and partisan goals with respect to
is that to enact police reform in this hig
required a shared commitment by the com
tiple local and national government level
institutions or agencies where impunity
torically ingrained and systemic patterns
with contested partisan character of Me
made such a shared commiitment almost
All this is well revealed by a closer look
tion of President Fox, his efforts at police
his relationship to Mayor L6pez Obrador.
right PAN, came tto p)ower in no small
dential campaign he identified police co)r
as key problelms to) be so)lved during h
assumed the presidency, lo)x was rudely
ihe lacked the political netw(orks or insti
and military to be able to introduce a ref
the high-level military generals, drug c
appointed--and in who(m he invested gr
dence-were found to be directly implica
works, as were a good number of the h
new federal police force that Fox establ
rupted one (HernAndez 2003b).
That newly democratic Mexico was no
congress divided almost equally betwe
parties set further limits on the types o
from the national executive. His newnes
institutional weakness of the PAN, as a
bureaucracy, further prevented Fox from
he could trust in this battle. The most direct evidence of this was seen
in the exposure of a spy for a drug cartel working directly in the off
of the president, using this platform (and Fox's confidence) to pass cl
destine information about drug intervention operations directly to t
criminals (New York Times 2005, 4; C'NI en Linea 2005d).
The limits to police reform also transl

City mayor L6pez Obrador. Although
committed to solving the problems o
impunity facing the country, he also kn
police reform in Mexico City would dire
efits for the PRD and L6pez Obrador. He
tive to coordinate reforms on the national level with those being
advanced on the local level in Mexico City. Mayor L6pez Obrador, for
his part, was just as hamstrung by his electoral concerns and the politi-
cal bases associated with his own territorial jurisdiction.
On the one hand, L6pez Obrador was very interested in police
reform because he saw growing criminality and public insecurity as a
major obstacle to his planned "rescue" of downtown Mexico City and its
transformation into a mecca for global capital (both businesses and
tourists). The revival of the downtown was important for the mayor
because he was desperate for financial resources to govern the city,
given that there was very little goodwill to initiate federal transfers from
either the national congress or the presidency. He also needed funds to
bring middle-class and business allies as a coalition of partners into a
party that was known as an advocate mainly of workers and the poor.
The working class and poor of the city, on the other hand, were the
PRD's "natural" base; and while these constituencies had plenty of citi-
zen and neighborhood organizations committed to police reform and
public security, they also brought an additional political base that lim-
ited L6pez Obrador's commitment to police reform: citizens employed
in the informal sector.
Among L6pez Obrador's strongest allies in newly democratic
Mexico City politics were lower-income citizens in downtown areas
who sold goods, sometimes illegally, on the streets. These activities had
developed over the years with full police complicity, and much of the
Mexico City police's involvement in contraband and drugs can be traced
to these relationships. Many of the mayor's efforts to dismiss or reform
the police threatened those lower-income communities. So did his sup-
port for a physical renovation of the downtown, a plan designed to
emulate a similar one in New York that called for a different structure
of policing. This was a threat to those low-income residents whose
property values and livelihood would be affected by plans to "clean up"
downtown (Davis 2005).
With these competing political constituencies-and his own contra-
dictory political objectives-L6pez Obrador had very little maneuvering
room for enacting a serious or substantial police reform. His space for
action was further limited not just by the democratization of Mexico City
governance but also by the steep democratic competition from the PRI
and the PAN for political office. As a result, most of the changes intro-
duced by L6pez Obrador and his police

Fox in the lynching episode), fell into o
renaming old police forces with new, c
policia comunitaria; appointing new p
corrupt police out of the force but keep
intact (Sarre 2001); or developing more
grams, built around PRD ideals of citizen
of bringing citizens to the front lines o
three approaches touched the source of
police corruption (Davis 2003).
WHERE DEMOCRACY MEETS CENTRALIZATION
Lopez Obrador has tried to balance his own political constituencies

while struggling to keep the federal government and its police forces
fro()I p(olitically m)onoo()tolizing the terrain ()f l)cal police reform. As ihe
has muddled throughl0 several superficial po(lice refolrms, l0however, Pres-
ident lFox has pursued hlis (owVn rIeform agenda. The result migllt he clhar-
acterized as "dueling" p olice reftrm efforts, paralleled hby dueling po(lit-
ical parties and dueling presidential candidates co(ntro)lling dueling
p()lice f()rces, w\itlh eaclhi set )f f() rccs trying (to cWap:tturc large s\watChes ()t
piu)llic loyallty.
lBecLIulsc I.1)pcz (lhrad(Or llhas l(0)ng 1een c()nsictdered Ilthe man mI ( )st
likely to) dctalt the PAN ()I- the IPRI in the 20()(6 p)rsidential elccti (n, lo()x
has h2een \ever 111more reluctant to wo\)rk \vitih himni to solve\ Mexico (City's
i)0lice c()Irrupltio(n pro)hllcm. If anytling, l()x l has tried to take the spo()t-
lighlt \,awmay fro(m Ii)pez Oh(1ra(do0r )on the po)lice fro0nt, and he has used a
variety ()f p()werful measures and l)urcaucratic agencies at his service to
do so, not to mcntioin his 111much greater fiscal resources (M(orett 2003, 9).
Fueled I by a desire to reap the plitical capital fro(m p(lice reform
efforts, Fox has instructed the national executive branch and its depend-
encies to fund new and m11ore narrowly circumscribed institutional
domains for policing that effectively redraw the boundaries of authority
so as to exclude the o(ld "tainted" elements of the police, in Mexico City
and elsewhere, while also creating an alternative agency answering only
to him. This is a strategy of centralizing power in order to enable polit-
ical and institutional-managerial aims.
The move toward police centralization was first seen in Fox's deci-
sion to create an entirely new national police force called the Federal
Preventive Police (PFP), built around a new authority and personnel
structure, within a year of coming to office. As with most reforms pre-
viously tried by his predecessors, the responses of the police themselves
soon required a tandem institutional reform a year later, in 2001, that
would enable more clandestine investigative activities directed at the
police. Given the structure of legal author

creation of a yet another new framework
replace the old Federal Judicial Police (PJ
and more centralized agency for criminal
eral Agency of Investigation (AFI), operate
ican FBI. Agents from both of these new
would be able to enter Mexico City if th
investigation (a federal crime, such as dr
police involved) so warranted.
While these reforms greatly increased t
the police, they still could not reverse th
breadth of corruption; nor could this inst
pletely stop the police's own retaliation ag
two realizations that further drove Fox to
authoritarian state controls. In June 2003
yet another new federal agency, called th
for Special Investigation of Delinquency
replace the AFI, directly empowered with
which corrupted military and police wer
ficking, arms trading, robbery, child pro
napping, money laundering, and terrorism
implications have been clear: Fox' strategy
been greater centralization, which, by
greater power for clandestine investigati
authority and coercive power in ways tha
The problem is that this strategy has f
tion even as it backtracks on decentralized democratic ideals. More cen-
tralized efforts to shut corrupt police out of the state and punish them
for past abuses have driven many police officials directly into the crim-
inal world, especially as the Fox administration's all-out war on drug
cartels has motivated drug lords to marshal greater and greater resources
to infiltrate both the police and military. One could conclude, indeed,
that it is this dynamic that explains why, soon after SIEDO's creation, it
was found to be infiltrated by corrupt elements (CNI en Linea 2004c),
and why a key drug cartel was able to plant a spy in the president's
office. Indeed, almost every new police agency that Fox has established
or tried to reform since coming to office has been found to be riddled
by corrupt elements, from the PFP (Joyner 2003, 12) to the Fiscalia de
Especializaci6n para la Atenci6n a Delitos Contra la Salud, or FEADS
(Hernrindez and Joyner 2003, 14), to his most recent creation, the AFI
(Milenio 2003). The point here is that criminal behavior on the part of
the police has not automatically receded in lockstep with the central-
ization of power; and in some senses it has accelerated, at least at the
higher and more important levels of government.
Such developments further push the F

greater means of hierarchical control to
the use of highly specialized military pe
against the police and other potential su
The use of one coercive arm of the sta
underscores the depth of the problem of
Mexican government has found itself for
militarized tactics to bring the problem und
ics to label the Fox administration incre
Linea 2004c).
The logical progression of this vicious cycle of failed police reform
followed by a more centralized, quasi-authoritarian response was seen
long before the dismissal of DF police chief Ebrard in December 2004.
It appeared as early as April, when President Fox created what Mexico's
papers have called a superfiscalia and a superpolicfa, or two new,
highly centralized, powerful national offices for a "super" attorney gen-
eral and "super" police (La .ornada 2004). It is still too early to under-
stand the full political and legal rationale or even the implications of this
new reform, which breaks with past efforts by Fox and his predecessors
because it mixes and matches both investigative and preventive police
in one agency (superpolice, or those answering to the Secretary of the
Interior) while separating b oth from the criminal prosecutor's office.
TOI a certain extent, such a strategy might allow the Fox government
to eliminate somne of the interagency rivalries between preventive and
investigative police forces that have sustained corruption, prevented the
arrest of fellow police, and undermined the rule of law for sc) many
years. But the quixotic and potentially dangeroLus aspect o)f the reforn
is that it creates two coimpeting agencies that overlap in function both
internally and externally. One comblines investigative and prosecutorial
functions in which some but not all investigative police are involved
(the attorney general's office); the other combines preventive and inves-
tigative policing functions in which some prosecutorial groundwork is
laid (Secretary of the Interior/police).
The bureaucratic fragmentation that results owes something not just
to the institutional fallout from reorganizing cadres of police who, in
practice, are not ready to relinquish their networks of authority and affil-
iation. It also owes much to how the remixing of these different aspects
of the administration of justice system (that is, the constitutional sepa-
ration of police and judicial power) has created two new federal agen-
cies that overlap and compete with each other in function, even if not
in personnel, on both the federal and the local Mexico City level. The
overlap leads to continued conflict, competition, and ambiguity about
which police forces are supposed to be responsible in a given crime sit-
uation. This was one of the issues that emerged from the San Juan Ixtay-
opan lynchings and has long been the

Mexico City administrators, those in the
and the federal authorities (LaJornada 20
Combined with a centralization of pow
limits the power of local authorities in s
Mexico City, these organizational changes
ence and efficacy of many of democratic
tures, as well as the longstanding constitu
code separating these aspects of police po
bined effects of these reforms create pro
mention legitimacy and trust-from the va
would not be unreasonable for the averag
are answering to which authority. Nor
describe the situation in postmodern term
is a real reform and what is an illusion. Y
state of affairs that promotes further p
foundational element of a vibrant democr
CIVIL SocIETY TAKES OVER

Delegitimation of state structures and the
accountability by no means signal the e
even if they do diminish its quality. Mexic
episodes in which citizens have struggled t
lish the state's accountability and transpar
racy a process as much as an outcome. It
ipatory citizenry willing to demand this i
on precisely these counts, the situation in
least in terms of concerted citizen claim
respect to police; and again, it is the gov
viable police reform that lies at the heart
To some extent, this is a vicious circle:
and struggling for government accountab
ing corruption and cleaning up the police
the extra mile to attack the problem. Yet
ing out police corruption and strong account
local or national, citizens become further
cratically elected officials and take up alte
rity problems, even as they bypass demo
City, a mobilization of two hundred thou
name of public security brought almost n
Obrador, mainly because he feared antag
(Reforma 2004). The mayor's failure to acc
izenry further disenfranchised them polit
even more cynical about the possibilities of

"from above."
With Mexico City's police seemingly out of control and the govern-
ment unwilling if not unable to turn around the accelerating problem of
public insecurity, citizens and businesses have started to absorb the
servicing and protection duties that have long been the legitimate
charge of state-employed security forces. This was evident long before
the recent citizen mobilization, and was reflected in the unprecedented
explosion in private policing in Mexico's capital during the 1990s. The
boom in crime starting in 1994 generated considerable demand for pri-
vate security forces. The economic liberalization and commercial open-
ing of the country further contributed to the proliferation of private
security forces in the immediate post-NAFTA period because it allowed
foreign companies to offer security services. Highly lucrative profits and
a relatively low investment were two of the benefits of this business.
To coordinate the proliferating private security forces in this period,
in 1994 Mexico City created the Private Security Services Registration
Department (Direcci6n de Registro cle Servicios Privacios cle Seguzriccidc),
which, in its first year of operation, counted 2,122 "registered" private
security firms in the Federal l)istrict.' By 2002, the number of private
security firms operating the capital neared 1,()()000, and these companies
together employecd approxinmately 22,50() private security guards.
To )be sure, citizens cannot )he faultcd for turning to the private
sector to> solve pIroblems that the go-vernment hlas proved incapable of
tackling. By so doing, citizens are effectively introducing their own
"'bottoml-up" police reforms, luilt on a rejection or repudiation that
implies a legitimation of "public" police's willful disenfranchisement
from ascribed duties. Yet bypassing public police in favor of private
security forces also has its darker side. Such actions not only let corrupt
police off the hook by taking citizen pressure off the state; they also
sometimes generate more violence and insecurity, even as they raise
troubling questions abXout democracy, equality, and the rule of law more
generally. Whenever more persons start bearing arms as a condition of
their employment in private security services, and citizens themselves
start to carry guns for self-protection from criminals and police alike,
violent "resolutions" to questions of public insecurity become the norm,
thereby fueling the vicious circle of violence and insecurity. The
recourse to lynchings and the emergence of vigilante mentalities can be
seen as the logical extension of this situation.
Protagonists in these events frequently justify their behavior in terms
of the total breakdown of policing and the rule of law, a claim that is
not that far from the truth. Notably, such responses also seem to emerge
most frequenlty among low-income communities where the police have
long abused the citizenry and professionalized private policing is unaf-
fordable. When both state and mark

citizens vulnerable, they have little
Still, the overall security situation can
nities or "private" police compete wi
on the legitimate use of force. Indeed
vate" police forces, not to mention c
some instances battled with each othe
and insecurity. This dynamic may par
years, as the number of private poli
making formal complaints against the
The magnitude of the problem a
against private security forces still d
public police, of course. But as a tren
statistics were first compiled, Mexico
than a fourfold rise (from 5 to 22) in
police between May and Novembe
quently are composed of ex-military
for some of the "transference" in im
abuses to their ranks.5 Whatever the
forces thwarting public police, and vi
citizens and officials alike. One high-
years ago in an armed shootout in th
borhood of Tepito, a mere couple o
administrative offices of the newly d
mayor (Davis 2003; La.jornada 2001b

For many citizens, one seemingly po
rise of new social movements and nongovernmental organizations
devoted to questions of public security. Many grassroots groups are
taking the problems of police corruption and public insecurity to heart,
seeking alternative solutions and community practices at the neighbor-
hood level. In this sense, citizens are both building on and reinforcing
the democratic practices and advances that resulted from many years of
struggle against authoritarianism. Over the last several years, the Mexico
City government has supported citizen security meetings at the level of
the delegation, with the goal of bringing residents and police together
in democratic dialogue about how best to guarantee public security. The
results have been limited, however, for obvious reasons. Citizens do not
speak frankly about police corruption and impunity in their neighbor-
hood when those very same police are sitting across the table, armed
with their note pads to identify citizens by face, street, and so on. A cer-
tain degree of police reform therefore must already be in place before
grassroots citizen participation can make a serious difference.
Given the limits to individual and even neighborhood action, among
those social organizations making most headway in tackling police cor-
ruption are those operating citywide, wh

scope for action and organization. Yet t
based organizations-the bread and butter
and a vibrant democracy-relatively insign
Instead, the high-profile organizations t
collaborate with private sector businesse
zation funded by the private sector, the
of Insecurity (Instituto Ciudadano de
ICESI), has developed a massive public re
corruption; its efforts have included the
officials known to be involved in illegal a
Organizations such as ICESI have considerable clout because of
their connections to wealthier elites in society, and a great deal of legit-
imacy because they are independent from the government institutions
that may be linked to police corruption. But these types of organizations
also have a narrowly defined view of the problem of public insecurity,
and they rarely engage government agencies or key democratic institu-
tions. Organizations linked to business chamnbers of commerce and
other private sector entities, moreover, care ab)out problems like crime
and police corruption Iecause they create an environment that puts
economic gains in jeopardy, either I y creating locational disincentives
for private investors ()r by driving away po(tential cu)nsumers, n ot
b!ecause of their concern fotr civil society. Within tlhis framcework, con-
cerns alboxut justice and human rights are nr)t so central, while the te tech-
nilques these organizati)ins favor are more consistent with an auth()ritar-
ian, "eliminate the problem no matter what it takes" ethos than a
conmmitment to democracy, due process, and the rule of law.
This is not to say that all civil society organizations appropriate the
business agenda of stopping crime at all costs. A number of the civil
society organizations in Mexico have taken a human rights approach to
the problem. But in the last several years these seem to be declining in
number compared to the more anticrime-oriented NGOs and citizen
organizations, several of which are now working with some police
departments in the Mexico City area to place greater restrictions on indi-
vidual liberties. Thus the emphasis has shifted from police reform to
criminalization, with human rights issues shunted to the sidelines.
Notably, newfound citizen activism for hardline measures against crime
suspects is encouraged by many police, who have a vested interest in
blaming the criminals-and thereby diverting attention from their own
corrupt forces-while also avoiding human rights discourses that could
be used against them.
The popularity of the anticrime-fighting stance grew after the 2002
visit and the reform plan proposed by former New York mayor Rudolph
Giuliani, which was strongly supported by the business community, some
police leaders, and local government offic

around the "broken windows" idea that clea
lishing neighborhood livability is the key t
hike in penalties for criminals and an incre
those who are in the wrong place at the wr
often the first casualty of such an approach,
than decrease their discretionary power. Ye
such hardline measures, the sky seems to b
new efforts in Mexico to install the death pen
that authoritarian tendencies are alive and w
is now advocated by some members of the
through their recent victories in the State
selves competing with PRD loyalists for the v
izenry. Differentiating themselves in terms o
perhaps the last salvo to be launched in a tig
parties are desperate to secure their political f
In a democracy there should be healthy
solve key social problems, including crime.
ety between those who take a hard, anti-c
who are committed to human rights is no
What is most troublesome in the new disc
Mexico, then, is the failure to target police
of the problem of crime and public insecur
battle alone; they surely cannot do so if t
and focus only on crime and insecurity. T
movement activism and most community
the divergent framings of the problem am
pro-human rights, or otherwise-continues
zations from each other in ways that prev
united front against the corruption proble
go only so far if both state and civil socie
behind this common goal.
The power to change endemic police corr
where-rests on civil society's institutional
system of policing and the overall adminis
requires, among other things, legislative an
state and political parties also are key players.
plished, in a virulently competitive political
unwilling? Or in an environment where a com
the purging of police must be sacrificed in or
erate in the efforts to establish public security
the Mexican state's role in crime fighting a
much legitimacy that few NGOs or civil societ
or political parties as partners in the struggle
The point here is that even though civ

ize around the problem of public insecu
citizen groups and NGO unwillingness to
allies prevents them from making furt
police remain relatively unaccountable t
perhaps their direct superiors and in ma
problems of public insecurity and police
City, bringing new "practices of insecur
with power, fellow citizens, and space,"
lation (2002, 13, emphasis in original), d
into the depths of chaos, unpredictabilit
THE SOCIAL CONTRACT UNDON

AND IMPLICATIONS FOR DEMOCRACY
T7oday, as denmcracy has taken deeper root and started to blo )ss)om, the
state is still so fragmented and rickddled with pINlice c0rruption, and soCi-
ety perhaps even more alieniated and cynical thlan earlier, that even th
long soughlt-,aftcr prize seems strangely irrelevant ftr nmany. l)oes th
ails()o mean tllhat democranlcy, no1t to mention its (Cua:lity, is tile truc victi
helre? While it is too) early to \vrite the OIituiary f)r dlemo(cracy in Mexi
()r its capital city, the country's still-fragile po)litical system1 d(ces seem1 to
lchave been critically \V(lundedl Iby tile )parad(oi)xical Cdevel()pmelcnts ()I
rcccnt iyea s, including thliosc set in mo()ti on by co()ncerted efft.ts )t
refCrm thePl p)lice "fr()im aboi)C" eandc remedCy tChe security sitiuatio(n "')fr(M
blo)w." As (lenio)cracy lhas CCC)deepenedC, tilhe secuCrity situation has wors-
ened, citizens are morei politically disenfrtanchised thacn ever, ncl few
are turning to( tlheir democlratic leadclCrs to solve thle piobleins.
It shl()uld be borne in mindl that dcem1ocracy is a so cial pro jccit a
mnuch as a set of constitutional guarantees ablout structures and
processes of p)olitical representation. It will flower only when there ar
strong connections between the governors and the governed in a social
contract that ties citizens to each other and to the state in a ciommon
framllew()rk fo(r so)cial order, political representation, and political actio

For such a situation to materialize, citizens and the state must accep
single rule of law with predictable results and mechanisnms or structure
of representation and accountability. But both the law and these me
anisms remain strangely elusive in Mexico today.
One reason the viability of the social contract is now under threa
that those with the power to guarantee the rule of law, the police, a
neither trusted nor accountable. But the real obstacle is the inability
state and citizens to join together in the struggle to restore trustwor
ness and accountability to the system of policing. And this, paradoxically
is partly because previous efforts at police reform, whether coming from
above or below, have driven rather than

gitimation, citizen frustration, police in
leading to vigilantism and the irrelevan
authoritarian governance caused Mex
mobilize independently of the state. T
democratization has been successful in
historical proclivities to mobilize again
reliance on corrupt police officials to s
Economic liberalization-and more recently, globalization-also
have made their mark by opening borders in ways that allow each of
these protagonists to further their own aims without directly engaging
the others. Direct foreign investment and foreign aid go to national
states; clandestine global networks of illegal trade fuel police impunity;
and international advocacy groups support civil society organizations
that are financially rewarded for bypassing government programs and
mobilizing for police reform. Thus the new world order has made each
of these three actors less willing to tie their fate to each other in the
same territorial space in the search for a new and democratic politics
and society.
This phenomenon parallels the transformational shift from solid to
"liquid" modernity, to use the terms of the great postmodern theorist
Zygmunt Bauman, in which widespread social disorder results from
changing social and political practices. Bauman contends that in the
new world of liquid modernity,
all communities are imagined, but the stability of this shared life is
more fragile than ever due in fundamental ways to weakening ties
between nation and state. The human pursuit of security and dig-
nity is threatened by the deterioration of effective governing struc-
tures and boundaries of appropriate scale. . . ; while the very
essence of society, a normatively structured way of life for a group
of people within recognizable boundaries, is in jeopardy . . . [and]
growing numbers of individuals are left to their own resources to
resolve increasingly social problems. (Quoted in Brueggeman
2004, 222)
Privatization of police, the desperate search for authoritarian or vigilante

actions to maintain social order, and the declining institutional capacity
of the Mexican state to fulfill its normative responsibilities can all be
identified as signs of this troubling state of affairs.
What Bauman calls liquid modernity might also be understood as
the paradox of deepened democracy. As Mexico's political parties
strengthen and power sharing becomes the modus operandi, more inse-
curity and unrule of law appear, not to mention less transparency and
legitimacy, all because of how the key elements of a newly democratic
Mexico work or do not work together. In sociological terms, this might
mean that Mexico is on the precipice of

may not be as relevant as the extent of
characterizing the quality of political life
problems of police corruption and attend
tions in Mexico City are now considered "
and brute force, not a social contract, a f
racy, set the rules. In this environmen
degraded, as are the enlighted institution
to concerns about humanity in the first
moving and powerful ethnographic foray
Mexico City discusses these developments
and a depreciation of life," in which "th
the fear, guilt, and impunity that are ass
sensibility nearly to an end (Lomnitz 200
What we are seeing, in short, is not me
of democratic gains that most observers hoped would accompany
Mexico's transition from authoritarian rule. Nor are we merely seeing a
democracy with diminished quality. We are confronting elements of
extreme social disorder and a breakdown of political and legal institu-
tions and practices that make questions of representation and demo-
cratic participation almost irrelevant. Missing is the shared enlightened
commitment to social order and rule of law that served as the midwife
to democracy over the last several centuries. In a society marked by
unpredictability, violence, state fragmentation, and societal breakdown,
the challenge of reform is indeed immense. Forget demnocratic deepen-
ing; forget bettering the quality of democracy; forget the nuts and bolts
of police reform. How about reconstructing, reviving, or renewing
modern enlightenment ideals and an attendant commitment to the rule
of law with the hope that with such social infrastructure a vibrant
democracy will once again become something worth struggling for?
That particular "transition" may be the hardest of all to achieve, yet it
surely will be the most lasting and worthwhile.
NOTES
1. Villareal (2002) used time series data from a sample of 1,800 Mexican
municipalities to demonstrate a direct relationship between democratization
(defined in terms of increased electoral competition) and violence, as mediated
by the breakdown of patronage relations.
2. The legal separation of functions increased incentives for bribery, espe-
cially among beat cops, as citizens learned that the judicial police and a court
date could be avoided with a small payoff to the beat cop. These restrictions
motivated both sets of police to transcend their legal limits of action, further
undermining the rule of law.
3. Transaction costs are defined as liabilitie

police from their jobs. In the search for newly
dismissal, many ex-police turned directly to t
4. Officials acknowledge that many more "p
ister. and thus remained beyond government sc
that did register, almost half (1,123) were sub
ularities in their functioning: no permits for th
tion of firm personnel, and so on. Data on priv
and documentation provided by the Secretaria
the Police Chief), Mexico City, summer 2002.
5. Statistics from the Registration Office sugg
sonnel (30 percent) in private security forces
public police ranks. In research team interroga
from private security firms, the numbers we
Zapata 2002.
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Undermining the Rule of Law: Democratization and the Dark Side of Police Reform in

This article asks whether democratization, under certain historical

n recent years, Latin American countries have made progress on

that together undermine the rule of law. Th

law, a legitimate and functioning judicial

FROM DEMOCRACY TO UNRULE OF LAW

Further clues as to whether there might

civil society, and an overall situation of pub

tisan bickering enough to convince Mexic

EMPIRICAL OBJECTIVES AND MET

In exploring the relationship between M

they produce bureaucratic infighting leadin

SEEKING THE ORIGINS OF THE SECURITY

Scholars have described contemporary Mexico as a place where

control of impunity. But such a policy ha

should be recalled that a large majority of Mexi

legal separation of police powers gave the e

HAS DEMOCRATIZATION MADE A DIFFERENCE?

Mexico's slow but steady democratic transfor

PRI and its relationship to the police. This w

In practice, h)owever, the lo)gic underlyin

The military's involvement in local policing concentrated the power

sions independent of local input and out of co

nouncements was to insist that he would n

DEMOCRATIZATION DRIVES INTRAS

The question emerges, however, why the police were so intransigent

rity reform"-which abetted crime because the "

tralization of institutions and efforts cl

The limits to police reform also transl

duced by L6pez Obrador and his police

WHERE DEMOCRACY MEETS CENTRALIZATION

Lopez Obrador has tried to balance his own political constituencies

police. Given the structure of legal author

Such developments further push the F

opan lynchings and has long been the

CIVIL SocIETY TAKES OVER

even more cynical about the possibilities of

fordable. When both state and mark

mayor (Davis 2003; La.jornada 2001b

ruption are those operating citywide, wh

police leaders, and local government offic

The point here is that even though civ

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT UNDON

framllew()rk fo(r so)cial order, political representation, and political actio

above or below, have driven rather than

Privatization of police, the desperate search for authoritarian or vigilante

mean that Mexico is on the precipice of

3. Transaction costs are defined as liabilitie

. 2005a. Vecinos de Santiago Atlaltongo golpearon a los agentes, pero 6stos

policia federal preventiva y de la policia es

Inzunza, Anayansin. 2003. Hacen de la corrupci6n su forma de vida. Re

. 2001b. Se contradicen autoridades sobre e

Kaplan, Marcos. 1991. El estado latinoamericano y el narcotrdifico. Mexico Cit

2004b. Police Arrest 33 After Lynchings in Mexico City. November 26: A

Sarre, Miguel. 2001. Seguridad ciudadana y ju

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