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ABSTRACT
This article engages with institutionalist knowledge production in US-Mexican security relations, demonstrating how anti-crime governance in the Americas has shifted from a heavy-handed military rationale to a good governance and civil society–centred approach. This shift has been facilitated by the newly emerging resilience discourse which advocates turning local communities from passive beneficiaries of government-sponsored law enforcement into pro-active security partners. It will be argued that the rise of good governance and society-centred policy thinking has enhanced the epistemic authority of a heterogeneous, but ideologically aligned set of human rights advocacy groups, think tanks, policy-oriented academics and for-profit development NGOs – both in Mexico and the United States. This transnational expert community has been instrumental in inserting the issue of drug-related violent crime in Mexico into a globally dominant statebuilding framework. In consequence, security governance in Mexico has taken on a more transnational character and become the object of a highly intrusive international monitoring regime.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Markus-Michael Müller for commenting on the first draft. The Institute for Development and Peace (INEF) at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany) supported my research stay in Washington, DC in February 2017. The first draft was written at the Institute for Development and Peace (INEF). Revisions were done at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research (Duisburg, Germany). Part of the research was conducted at the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood’ (Free University Berlin) between 2010 and 2013.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Hameiri, Regulating Statehood.
2. Müller, “De-Monopolizing the Bureaucratic Field”; Interview with Humberto Guerrero, Fundar, Mexico City.
3. US Department of State, The Merida Initiative: United States – Mexico – Central America Security Cooperation.
4. Benítez, The Merida Initiative, 4.
5. Assistant Secretary Alan Bersin, Department of Homeland Security, in US Congress, The Rise of the Mexican, 47.
6. Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Puntualiza La SRE Características; Seelke and Finklea, US-Mexican Security Cooperation 5.
7. Ashby, ‘Solving the Border Paradox?’, 503.
8. Carlsen, ‘NAFTA’s Dangerous Security Agenda’, 443.
9. Shirk, Wood, and Olson, Building Resilient Communities in Mexico; USAID and Secretaría de Gobernación, Comités Comunitarios.
10. Müller and Hochmüller, ‘Encountering Knowledge Production’, 3.
11. Hernández, ‘When Cooperation and Intervention Meet’, 66.
12. Ibid., 69.
13. Human Rights Watch, Neither Rights Nor Security; International Crisis Group, Back from the Brink; International Institute for Strategic Studies, ‘Spiralling Drug Violence’.
14. Heinle, Molzahn, and Shirk, Drug Violence in Mexico, 7, 27, vi.
15. Ibid., 27.
16. Office of the Spokesman, US Department of State, Joint Statement; Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, US Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 389; see also Assistant Secretary Alan Bersin (DHS), in US Congress, The Rise of the Mexican, 57; Seelke, Mexico: Issues for Congress, Summary.
17. Palacios and Serrano, ‘Colombia y México’, 144, author’s translation.
18. Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Puntualiza La SRE Características, author’s translation.
19. Cuellar et al., Five Perspectives, 5; see Walser, ‘Mexico, Drug Cartels’, 1; Astorga and Shirk, ‘Drug Trafficking Organizations’, 31; Seelke and Finklea, US-Mexican Security Cooperation, 5.
20. in US House of Representatives, ‘Merida Initiative to Combat’, 5137–38.
21. See note 7 above.
22. Ibid., 502.
23. Coughlin, ‘NAFTA’s Future and Regional’.
24. Ibid.; see Cruz, ‘Plan Colombia e Iniciativa Mérida’, 360; Mohr, ‘The Merida Initiative’, 76; generally Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War.
25. See note 8 above.
26. Ibid.
27. cited in Carlsen, A Primer on Plan Mexico.
28. Arzt, US-Mexico National Security, 6.
29. Prodh, ‘Merida Initiative’, 5.
30. Ibid., 1.
31. Jarosz, The Merida Initiative, 29.
32. Ibid.
33. Interview with John Walsh, Washington Office on Latin America, Washington DC.
34. O’Neil, ‘Prepared Statement of Shannon O´Neil’, 87.
35. Seelke and Finklea, US-Mexican Security Cooperation, 1; for policy, see US Embassy Mexico City, Mexico: 2010 INCSR, 8.
36. Former Assistant Secretary of International Affairs (DHS), Mariko Silver, in US Congress, Next Steps for the Merida Initiative, 23.
37. see Assistant Secretary William Brownfield, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), in US Congress, Merida Part Two, 10.
38. Bow, ‘Beyond Mérida?’, 94.
39. Representative Lee, in US Congress, Assessing the Merida Initiative, 6; see US Senate, Making Supplemental Appropriations, 90.
40. Representative Lee in US Congress, Assessing the Merida Initiative, 6.
41. Brands, Mexico’s Narco-Insurgency, 21.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid., 18. This study takes a governmentality perspective. It is interested in understanding how those in power reflect ‘on the best possible way of governing’ (Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics., 2). It intends to capture ‘government’s consciousness of itself’ (Foucault, 2). Whether a particular problematisation represents reality accurately or is able to inform effective policy responses is less relevant for this kind of enquiry.
45. Olson, Shirk, and Selee, ‘Introduction’, 27.
46. Olson, Shirk, and Wood, ‘Building Resilient Communities in Mexico’, 13.
47. Interview with Eric Olson and David Shirk, Wilson Center, Washington, D.C..
48. Interview with David Shirk, University of San Diego, Mexico City.
49. Benítez and Rodríguez, ‘Iniciativa Mérida, Seguridad Nacional’, 54, author’s translation.
50. USAID, Country Development Cooperation Strategy, 17.
51. USAID and Secretaría de Gobernación, Conceptos y Estrategias, 39.
52. Interview with Eric Olson, Wilson Center, Washington DC.
53. Olson, Shirk, and Wood, ‘Building Resilient Communities in Mexico’, 11; for policy, see USAID, Community Resilience, 1.
54. Sabet, ‘Co-Production and Oversight’, 245.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid., 246.
57. Ibid.
58. Olson, Shirk, and Wood, ‘Building Resilient Communities in Mexico’, 2.
59. Ibid., 22.
60. Davis, Urban Resilience, 97.
61. USAID, Building Resilience to Recurrent Crisis, 24.
62. Davis, Urban Resilience, 91.
63. Ibid., 115.
64. Ibid., 102.
65. USAID, Community Resilience, 26.
66. Shirk, Wood, and Selee, ‘Conclusion’, 269.
67. Wilson and Weigend, Plan Tamaulipas, 18; for policy, see former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson, in US Congress, Next Steps for the Merida Initiative, 16.
68. USAID and Secretaría de Gobernación, Comités Comunitarios, 11, author’s translation.
69. Ibid., 78, author’s translation.
70. Acevedo, ‘Stepping Up the Merida Initiative’, 255.
71. Ibid., 247.
72. Seelke, ‘Merida Initiative for Mexico’, 14.
73. Shirk, Wood, and Selee, ‘Conclusion’, 270.
74. Benítez,‘Geopolitics of Insecurity’, 37.
75. Benítez, ‘México: Seguridad Nacional’, 186, author’s translation.
76. Benítez, ‘México 2010’, 26, author’s translation.
77. International Institute for Strategic Studies, ‘Spiralling Drug Violence’. 1.
78. Former Assistant Administrator and Chief of Intelligence Anthony Placido (DEA), in US Congress, US Obligations, 41.
79. US Senate, S. 3172 To Support Counternarcotics, 4.
80. Washington Office on Latin America, The Merida Initiative; Hristoulas, ‘Algo Nuevo, Algo Viejo’, 40; Abu-Hamdeh, ‘The Merida Initiative’, 44–45.
81. Rodríguez, ‘Un Enfoque Institucional’, 315, author’s translation.
82. Kenny and Serrano, ‘Introduction’, 10.
83. US Joint Forces Command, The Joint Operating, 36.
84. Cited in Kellner and Pipitone, ‘Inside Mexico’s Drug War’, 37.
85. Friedmann, Mexico: On the Road.
86. Carpenter, The Fire Next Door, 113.
87. Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico and the Fight.
88. Ibid., 13.
89. Ibid., 14.
90. Interview with Evan Ellis, US Army War College, Washington DC.
91. in US Congress, Has Merida Evolved?, 2, 70.
92. Ibid., 70.
93. Ibid., 25, 29.
94. Interview with Susan Minushkin, Management Systems International (MSI), Washington DC.
95. Interview with Eric Olson, Wilson Center, Washington DC; see Benítez, ‘“Estado Fallidos” e Insurgencias Criminales’.
96. See note 49 above.
97. Ibid., author’s translation.
98. Velázquez and Schiavon, La Iniciativa Mérida, 19.
99. Velázquez and Prado, ‘Conclusiones’, 388, author’s translation.
100. In US Congress, The Rise of the Mexican, 45.
101. In US Congress, Antidrug Package for Mexico, 22.
102. In Ibid., 27.
103. Mariko Silver, in US Congress, Next Steps for the Merida Initiative, 23–24.
104. Former Assistant Secretary for International Affairs (DHS) Marisa Lino, in US Congress, US Obligations, 14.
105. US Department of State, Joint Statement.
106. US Embassy Mexico City, ‘Civil Society Weighs’.
107. See note 105 above.
108. Amnesty International et al., Open Letter.
109. Human Rights Watch, Neither Rights Nor Security, 24; see Interview with Maureen Meyer, Washington Office on Latin America, Washington DC.
110. US Department of State, Mexico – Merida Initiative Report, 6.
111. Ibid., 22.
112. Human Rights Watch, Neither Rights Nor Security, 13; see Shirk, Heinle, and Daly, Armed with Impunity, 42.
113. Hameiri, Regulating Statehood, 12; see Müller, ‘De-Monopolizing the Bureaucratic Field’.
114. US Embassy Mexico City, ‘The Mexico Merida Initiative at Eight Months’, 4.
115. Benítez, ‘“Estado Fallidos” e Insurgencias Criminales’, 39.
116. Benítez, The Merida Initiative, 2; see Interview with Maureen Meyer, Washington Office on Latin America, Washington DC.
117. Harrison, The World Bank in Africa.
118. Ibid., 128–31.
119. See note 9 above.
120. Wilson and Weigend, Plan Tamaulipas, 18.
121. See note 70 above.
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Peter Finkenbusch
Peter Finkenbusch is Associate Fellow at the Institute for Development and Peace (INEF), University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany).