Articles

October 05, 2025

Governing Means Choosing

Luis Rubio At the end of the day, governing is about choosing—and choosing means picking between alternatives that are often unattractive, or at best, mutually incompatible. Candidates on the campaign trail imagine a world of infinite possibilities and dream of sweeping away every problem their nation faces with the stroke of a pen. Once in […]

September 28, 2025

Hubris

Luis Rubio Morena is breaking the cardinal rule of politics: believing itself permanent and immutable. It is the most common vice of those who feel all-powerful and invincible. Their arrogance exposes them to the affliction the ancient Greeks called hubris—a defiance of the gods, a challenge to the natural order of things. Nothing good can […]

September 22, 2025

Mexico’s fuel theft scandal is too big for the government to contain

THE MEXICO BRIEFMexico’s SecurityMexico’s Economy22 Sept by Luis Rubio, political analyst and Chair of México Evalúa. Gasoline theft is nothing new in Mexico. One need only recall the 1992 Guadalajara explosion, triggered by stolen gasoline dumped into the city’s drainage system after traffickers failed to sell their cargo during Holy Week. That was just the […]

September 21, 2025

Opposition

Luis Rubio The great success of the PAN (National Action Party) in the 1980s and 1990s lay in a strategy of gradual territorial conquest. Instead of launching a direct attack on the presidency—an impossible feat against a hegemonic party—their strategy consisted of a gradual, bottom-up process of persuasion: starting with urban municipalities to capitalize on […]

September 14, 2025

Prosperity?

Luis Rubio Mexico has never been an archetype of constitutional solidity. Our first constitution laid out an ideal to be achieved rather than a reflection of the sociopolitical realities that would later characterize the negotiations of the 1917 constituent assembly. Yet the realities of power determined that the constitution would be more of a point […]

September 10, 2025

Mexico’s electoral reform will close the door on pluralism

Mexico’s CongressMexico’s Democracy10 Sept by Luis Rubio, political analyst and Chair of México Evalúa. President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced an electoral reform. Its details have not yet been made public, but its spirit has been clear since the beginning of the year, laid out through a series of official statements. What motivates this initiative is […]

September 07, 2025

Deterioration

Luis Rubio In his novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller presents a paradox that time itself naturally elevates: “Isn’t it funny that day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different?” The recent visit of the U.S. Secretary of State vividly illustrated just how much the priorities of both governments […]

August 31, 2025

Back to the Porcupine

Luis Rubio Two emblematic books capture the history of U.S.–Mexico relations over the past few decades. Alan Riding’s Distant Neighbors, published in 1985, portrayed two opposing nations that seemed incapable of communicating, much less understanding one another. In retrospect, Riding was writing just as the two countries were beginning to talk and to construct the […]

August 24, 2025

The Chinese Meander

Luis Rubio Over the last half century, Mexico has experienced versions of one-party hegemony, electoral competition, authoritarianism, “perfect” dictatorship, incipient democracy, and back again to a growing quasi-hegemonic thrust. In the meantime, there have been moments of obstinacy, openness, freedom, attempts at subjugation, dinosaur tail lashes, extortions, threats, much discretion and arbitrariness, and “other data”. […]

August 22, 2025

Mexico and TrumpMexico’s Foreign PolicyMexico’s Politics

by Luis Rubio 19 Aug by Luis Rubio, political analyst and chairman of México Evalúa. For months, talk has been circulating about a possible US military intervention in Mexico. The idea has gained traction here due to the presence of American intelligence ships in the Gulf of California and, more recently, the sighting of a drone […]

August 17, 2025

Hegemonies

Luis Rubio Is Morena the “new” PRI? The question is obvious and frequently asked. The way in which Morena has advanced its political project—now in its second administration—makes clear its aim to become a hegemonic party, as the PRI once was. However, context matters: the 21st century is very different from the last one, and […]

August 15, 2025

The Morena Pact

Mexico’s Democracy, Mexico’s Politics, Mexico’s Economy15/08/2025by Luis Rubio, political analyst and chairman of México Evalúa. In 1989, a series of protests and disturbances in China culminated in the massacre at Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s central plaza. The event shook not only China, but also the outside world, which had placed its hopes on reintegrating China into the community of […]