Mexico's Security Failure: Collapse into Criminal Violence

Paul Kenny · Monica Serrano · Arturo C. Sotomayor

Jun 2013 · Routledge

About this ebook

Mexico has failed to achieve internal security and poses a serious threat to its neighbors. This volume takes us inside the Mexican state to explain the failure there, but also reaches out to assess the impact of Mexico’s security failure beyond its borders. The key innovative idea of the book—security failure—brings these perspectives together on an intermestic level of analysis. It is a view that runs counter to the standard emphasis on the external, trans-national nature of criminal threats to a largely inert state.

Mexico’s Security Failure is both timely, with Mexico much in the news, but also of lasting value. It explains Mexican insecurity in a full-dimensional manner that hasn’t been attempted before. Mexico received much scholarly attention a decade ago with the onset of democratization. Since then, the leading topic has become immigration. However, the security environment compelling many Mexicans to leave has been dramatically understudied. This tightly organized volume begins to correct that gap.

About the author

Paul Kenny, former lecturer in humanities, King’s College, London University, and Visiting Professor, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).

Mónica Serrano, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Professor of International Relations at El Colegio de México, and Senior Research Associate at the Centre for International Studies, Oxford University.

With Arturo Sotomayor, Assistant Professor, Naval Postgraduate School.