Militarization, an obstacle to democratic governance of security in Mexico

The literature agrees that the evolution of security policy in Mexico corresponds to a process of militarization. On one hand, this process has been characterized by the reconstitution of military institutions and organizations as central axes of security policy and, on the other hand, by the adoption of military logic and practices by civil actors and institutions. In this article, we analyze the case of Mexico, using a notion of militarization inspired by the concepts of organizational field and isomorphic changes from the new sociological institutionalism. This theoretical approach makes it possible to integrate the transformations noted above, as interdependent processes, into a general reconfiguration of the organizational field of security in Mexico. A process in which the civil organizations and institutions involved in this field undergo processes of isomorphic change, related to the constitution of the armed forces as the hegemonic actor of the field, and that as part of this change toward a military type of orientation in the civil components of the field, the military components are also transformed. Based on the analysis of this case, we discuss the manner in which the transformations experienced by the civil and military actors constrain their ability to propose and conduct actions that can reorient the field toward democratic schemas. In this article, we identify four obstacles, both institutional and symbolic, to the democratic governance of security in Mexico: a) the transfer of civil control, b) hierarchic relations between the hegemonic and peripheral actors of the field, c) a centralized organization of the field, and d) the totalizing action of a legitimacy centered on the rhetoric of military efficiency. We argue that these four elements, together with the escalation of violence and impunity with regard to the systematic violation of human rights, in addition to the progressive withdrawal of the Mexican State from its social functions, contribute to consolidating the trajectory of the militarization of security in Mexico, increasingly reducing the probability of its democratic reorientation