Monthly Archives: August 2010

“Transition presupposes –says Joaquín Villalobos- dismounting repressive apparatuses, reconstructing institutions, learning to employ the laws, and protecting the citizen instead of keeping a watchful eye on him”. The political transition opened a new space of freedom for the citizenry and of competition for political parties. In the process, it changed the structure of numberless institutions, […]

“In democratization theories” -writes Joaquín Villalobos- “it is said that authoritarianism is made up of uncertain processes with certain results, and democracy, of certain processes with uncertain results.” Although the interminable democratic transition that Mexico has experienced has been excessively terse, its consequences have been extraordinarily grandiose and not all good. Decentralization of power has […]

The war on narcotrafficking has paralyzed the country. The Colombian experience demonstrates that the key to defeating the criminal mafias lies in the conviction of the population that the enemy must be defeated. However, for whatever reason, this conviction does not exist in Mexico. Thus, the “war on drugs” has become yet another of many […]

An old tale cautions that one should be careful of what one wishes for, because it may come true. In the case of Mexican migration to the U.S., Mexico has been extraordinarily emphatic in the urgency to legalize the population of Mexican origin who live and work in that nation. It is a complex theme, […]

The history of the independent Mexico, wrote Edmundo O’Gorman, is the perennial struggle between tradition and modernity. Every epoch has had its specific manifestations: in the 19th century, the themes were federalism vs. capitalism and republic vs. empire; in the 20th century, these included proximity to vs. distance from the U.S. and centralism vs. decentralization. […]