Yearly Archives: 2022

Luis Rubio Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) says that “the True University of these days is a collection of books.” Here is my best attempt to share some of the readings that have most impacted me this year. Two emblematic dictators-Stalin and Hitler- were allies at the beginning of theSecond World War, each because of his own […]

Luis Rubio The way that the current presidential term closes will be determinant for the potential future of Mexico. Given the enormous power and legitimacy that President López Obrador has accumulated during these years, the matter turns in good measure to a very simple dilemma:  Which will win: the narrative or the reality? In a […]

Luis Rubio The central characteristic of our time would seem to be the tensions that generate real or perceived inequalities in the distribution of the benefits of economic growth. Countless nations around the world have elected leaders whose calling card has been the rejection of whatever existed. Obvious examples include Trump, Brexit, Bolsonaro and now […]

Luis Rubio In “The Seventh Seal”, a 1957 film by Ingmar Bergman, a knight returns from the Crusades to find his homeland ravaged by the plague. Suffering and devastation had shaken his faith in God. When Death comes for him, the crusader proposes a game of chess to eke out enough time to commit an […]

 Luis Rubio All societies face risks, but the risk that Mexico and Mexicans confront today is immeasurable, above all because it is self-inflicted.   Mexico and the U.S. are advancing in the direction of a potentially uncontainable train wreck that, with enormous ease, could lead to the cancellation of the principal engine of the country’s economy. […]

Luis Rubio “Cultures notoriously differ as to the content of their rules, but there is no culture without rules.” In the last half century, Mexico was propelled from a world of rules established from the helm of power and for the power -the important ones always being the “unwritten” rules and, among those, the first […]

Luis Rubio “The crisis consists precisely of that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum there appears a great variety of morbid symptoms.” That is how Gramsci characterized the processes of political transition.  Mexico ended up in a quagmire in the middle of that process, which can be appreciated […]

   WILSON CENTER By Luis Rubio on November 07, 2022  The Supreme Court of Justice was the first branch of government to experience drastic transformation in modern Mexico. In an attempt to advance the consolidation of a new political regime, one based on democratic elections and checks and balances, the Supreme Court was thoroughly revamped […]

Luis Rubio The fight for the National Electoral Institute (INE) entails two very simple explanations. First, it is evident that at this point there is no guarantee of the continuity of the so-called Fourth Transformation (4T) or, at best, of the Morena party. Natural attrition and absence of results lead the president to seek means […]

Luis Rubio In July of 1914, a month before WWI broke out, none of the protagonists of what would be a grisly conflagration had any idea of what was to come or, as Christopher Clark writes, they were sleepwalking toward the precipice. On reading that and other accounts on the initiation of that sanguinary conflict […]