Changing Mexico
Content
A CHANGING MEXICO
Andrew Selee
Mexico has undergone major changes over the past two decades, as its political system shifted from one dominated by a single official party to a highly competitive democracy, and its economy opened up dramatically to global competition. These changes have produced significant dislocations in Mexican society, including high out-migration and a spiral of drug-trafficking related violence. However, signs are that Mexico has now set the foundations for future success. Average income has grown signiflcantly, violence is plateauing, and out-migration has dropped dramatically. There are potential pitfalls ahead, but the country's future looks far brighter today than it did a decade or two ago. If Mexico continues to grow and deepen its democratic process, these changes will have a profound effect on the United States, its neighbor to the north, as well.
T
he biggest storylines about Mexico in the past few years have been the outflow of migrants to the United States and the rising violence between drug-trafficking organizations.' Both of these phenomena have been the result of important transformations taking place in the country as its economy and political structures were transformed, almost overnight, from a closed economy and authoritarian political system, in the 1980s, to an increasingly modern democracy deeply embedded in the global economy. These changes have not been easy, or always linear, and they have generated enormous disruptions in existing institutions and in people's daily lives. However, the main storylines over the next few years are likely to be quite different than the ones we have seen in the past. Migration from Mexico to the United States has dropped to historically low levels since 2010, and this appears to represent a structural shift in migration patterns rather than just a temporary adjustment related to the economic downturn in the United States.^ Violence also reached a plateau and appears to be declining slightly.^ To be sure, violence will
Andrew Selee is vice president for programs at the Woodrow Wilson Center and was the founding director of the Center's Mexico Institute.
Journal of International Affairs, Spring/Summer 2013, Vol. 66, No. 2. © The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 115
Andrew Selee
remain a major issue over the next few years, as Mexico wrestles with the challenge of building credible legal institutions. It is hard to tell yet what the fate of these efforts will be. But, for reasons I will describe below, we are unlikely to see the same rise in violence that took place over the past few years. At the same cime, Mexico's economy has taken off in new ways, with sustained growth over the past fifteen years and a gradually improving standard of living among Mexicans. Mexicans today earn on average roughly the same as people in Russia, Brazil, Turkey, and Malaysia, almost twice those in China, and six times those in India."* As a result, the ratio of CDP per capita between the United States and Mexico has improved dramatically from around 6 or 7 to 1 for most of the 1990s to an average of almost 4.5 to 1 today.^ These figures still suggest a substantial wage gap between the two neighbors, but they point to the fact that this gap has been narrowing substantially over time. If current progress continues— something that is far from certain—it may be possible to talk about a gradual, if incomplete, convergence between the two economies over the next few decades. As with everything in Mexico, these changes come with caveats and questions. While around half of the population is probably in the middle class today, the other half remains mired in poverty. The economy is increasingly manufacturing based and export oriented rather than being dependent on oil, as it was two decades ago, but the country has struggled with efforts to move up the value chain in production. Education is widespread and more readily accessible than ever before, but the quality of educational institutions lags. Democratic institutions have taken root in ways that would have been unimaginable only two decades ago, but significant authoritarian enclaves remain, and building effective and trustworthy police, prosecutors, and courts is one of the country's greatest challenges to stem the threat that criminal impunity poses to people's lives. However, even with these challenges ahead, Mexico's progress is surprisingly robust. And as the country moves forward economically and politically, these changes will have an enormous impact on the United States. Mexico's imprint in the United States will have less to do with the shared challenges of unregulated migration and organized crime, as in the past, and far more to do with intense patterns of trade, binational manufacturing processes, skilled migration, and the mobility of capital. Mexico and the United States—along with Canada—are likely to work more closely to navigate the shifting terrain of the global economy.
A RISING ECONOMIC POWER
It is almost impossible to go through a day in Mexico—or most countries in the world—without using products from the United States. Ford cars, Kellogg's cereals, and Hollywood movies are everywhere in the cities—where three-quarters
116
JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A Changing Mexico of Mexicans live—and even the most rural villages sell Coca-Cola. What is more surprising, however, is that today it is hard to go through a day in the United States without using Mexican products. Almost all cars that circulate in the United States have Mexican parts—a tribute to the increasingly integrated automobile market in North America—and U.S. consumer goods from Blackberries to televisions are often assembled in factories across the border. In addition to this, many of the best-known brands in the United States are actually now owned by Mexican companies.^ These include Entenmann's cookies, Sara Lee cakes, Thomas' Original English Muffins, Oroweat Breads, and Stroehmann's Dutch Treats, all owned by the Mexico City-based bread behemoth Grupo Bimbo, which now supplies almost a third of the U.S. bakery market.^ Borden Milk and several other popular dairy brands are made by Lala, a collective of dairy farmers in Torreón, Mexico, who now supply nearly one-fifth of the dairy products in the United States. Bar-S, owned by Monterrey-based Grupo Alfa, produces roughly a fifth of all hot dogs and processed meats sold in the United States.^ Perhaps less surprisingly, Mexico's largest producer of cornmeal for tortillas, Gruma, has become America's largest supplier of corn and wheat tortillas and wraps for sandwiches. But it is not only at the lunch table where Mexican companies have made inroads. A single large Mexican company, Cemex, is also the largest cement supplier in the United States, literally helping provide the foundations of the U.S. housing market. Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican telecommunications magnate and reportedly the world's richest man, owns TracFone, which has become the leading pre-paid cell phone company in the United States, and he has minority investments in Saks Fifth Avenue and the New York Times. And, of course, there is no shortage of Mexican beer in American refrigerators, ranging from the higher-end Dos Equis to the less expensive Corona and Tecate. What is extraordinary about the quiet and unheralded extension of Mexican companies into the U.S. and international markets is that few of these companies had much presence north of the border five or ten years ago. Large Mexican companies were insular and inward-looking, much like Mexico itself, and only in the past decade have they begun to take their place in the global marketplace. The vast economic opening that took place in Mexico as a result of the country's entrance first into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986 and then the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 initially served to bring foreign investment to Mexico and to boost trade with its neighbor to the north. However, over time, Mexican companies have learned to compete outside their borders and have become significant players on the global stage.
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 I 117
Andrew Selee
The presence of Mexican-owned companies in the United States and elsewhere, combined with the explosion in Mexican manufactured goods in U.S. homes, is only one symptom of a larger shift in the Mexican economy. In the 1970s and 1980s, Mexico's manufacturing base was also largely inwardly oriented, with oil comprising the largest share and, in many years, a majority of export earnings.^ With Mexico's entrance into CATT and later
I n 2L Iittl6 o v e r
rlprí4rlp<2 nils lao beCOrn.6 a m a j o r ma.nufâCtlirinP' 1 ,r r -V ^ glODiil c C ü i l ü m y .
NAFTA, the country's economic base began to change
significantly. Today, exports make up roughly a third of Mexico's CDP, and manufactured goods represent the
y^gj. majority of these, while oil contributes only around 13 percent.'^ in a little over two decades, Mexico has become a major manufacturing platform for the global economy Initially, much of this was achieved through foreign direct investment in Mexico, but increasingly Mexican companies are themselves investing domestically and even abroad. Although the automobile and aerospace industries in Mexico, for example, remain largely foreign owned, Mexican companies have become increasingly prominent in the supply chains in these industries." Adherence to global trade regimes was one reason for this shift. The other reason was democratization, which began to sink roots in Mexico in the 1990s and blossomed after 2000. For most of the twentieth century, at least from the late 1920s until the 1990s, Mexico had a single official party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which was hegemonic and won all national and almost all state elections. Starting in 1989 and accelerating throughout the 1990s, opposition parties won footholds in state governments and eventually dislodged the PRI from the national presidency Although the PRI returned to the presidency in 2012, it did so in the midst of a markedly different political panorama, in which competitive elections, a free press, and an active civil society are well established and cherished by Mexican society.'^ Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argue in their book Wliy Nations Fail that democratization and economic growth are mutually reinforcing.'^ Mexico's old-style mercantilist system, in which the state controls major levers of power in economic transactions and uses them to ensure control over the private sector, often choosing winners and losers according to their willingness to submit to state influence, made Mexican industries highly uncompetitive.''' However, the democratic changes that took place over the past two decades coincided with the economic changes. They ha\'e helped sever many, if not all, of the levers of control allowing Mexican companies, including many small and medium businesses, to
118 I JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A Changing Mexico emerge more vibrant and competitive. This process also provided incentives for Mexican politicians to pursue a more responsible macroeconomic management of the economy, at least after 1995, which has kept inflation low and minimized economic shocks (with the notable exception of the economic shock from the U.S. recession in 2009).'^ As a result, the Mexican economy has grown more slowly than some other economies in Latin America, but it has done so in a sustained way over almost two decades with low inflation and dropping interest rates.
IMPROVING QUALITY OF LIFE
Long-term growth in the Mexican economy has produced a gradual but significant increase in living standards for the vast majority of Mexicans over the past two decades, even if not everyone has benefited equally. Since 1997, Mexico has averaged almost 3 percent growth per year, a modest but steady increase, and as a result, GDP per capita has more than doubled from $4,981 to $10,514 in current prices.'^ Growth has been far less spectacular in Mexico than in some other countries of the region, but it has been largely sustained year after year. As noted above, this has also allowed a gradual narrowing of the income gap between the United States and Mexico—far short of the kind of income convergence some proponents of economic integration predicted but still quite significant in terms of people's livelihood. Increasingly, Mexico is becoming a middle-class society with almost half of the population fitting the definition according to some analysts who look at savings, assets, and consumption patterns.'^ Luis de la Calle and Luis Rubio have argued that the number of cars owned by Mexicans has increased five times since 1980, meat consumption per person has nearly doubled since 1990, and the number of credit cards has quadrupled since 2002.'^ The growth of the middle class has been facilitated by three factors. The first is the long-term, if gradual, growth in real wages. The second is the entrance of more and more women into the labor market since the 1970s, which has increased overall household income. Lastly is the drop in the prices of consumer goods with the dropping of trade barriers, which has made cars, refrigerators, and DVD players accessible to families that never could have hoped to acquire these goods before." One of the manifestations of this change is the emergence of three low-cost airline carriers in Mexico since 2005.2° Eor years, two carriers dominated the domestic airline market in Mexico, charging international competitive prices for air travel. However, since 2005, three bargain carriers, comparable in many ways to Southwest Airlines, have flourished, and the number of air travelers in Mexico has increased by 50 percent.^' Middle-class Mexicans—who range from small businesspeople to bureaucrats and urban taxi drivers—now choose swifter air travel over
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 I 119
Andrew Selee first class buses when they have a little extra cash in their pocket, something once reserved for the country's upper-middle class and truly the wealthy. As more Mexicans become middle class, extreme poverty has also declined noticeably, and inequality has decreased.^^ Some of this decline is the result of good social policy, especially the Oportunidades program, which provides cash transfers to poor families with young children, as long As more hpromP . ^t^^ 1 ' as the children remain in school and get regular medical check-ups. Almost a quarter of all Mexican families receive payments through Oportunidades, which helps lift the poorest families from extreme poverty, even if
poverty also declined
i/^ooKKr o-n/-l i c e ä ü i y a.riQ . . - . T. y **^*^^ decreased.
¡t does Uttle to create productive employment. Some ^^ ^^^ reduction of extreme poverty also has to do
^'^''-'^ '-^^ effect of remittances, which have buffered . , , , ., , , .r . economic shocks and provided needed runas to very poor families, especially in regions with a long history of out-migration in Mexico. And, of course, some of the change has to do with productivity gains, as Mexico has increased average years of schooling.^-*
WEAK INSTITUTIONS AND R E D FLAGS
While there is much to be optimistic about in Mexico, there are also significant warning signs that worry Mexicans about their future. Although many Mexicans have become middle class, many others remain poor. Indeed, even while extreme poverty has declined, overall poverty figures have remained surprisingly constant, and the 2009 economic downturn undermined much of the progress that had been made in previous years in reducing poverty. While some states in the center and north of Mexico, including Baja California, Nuevo Leon, and Queretaro, plus the Federal District of Mexico City, have less than 36 percent poverty and very little extreme poverty, the three poorest states in the south—Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca—continue to have poverty rates from two-thirds to three-quarters of the population and over one third to almost one half living in extreme poverty^'' The drop in out-migration suggests that Mexicans, v/ho in other years might have moved north, now see opportunities for their future in their own country. But there is no guarantee that this will continue if poverty itself does not decline in the near future. Social and economic policy could do much more to lessen the effects of Mexico's persistent inequalities and detonate growth. However, social policy is often regressive, even if this effect has declined slightly.^^ Federal economic subsidies in agriculture, for example, generally provide greater support to farmers who
120 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A Changing Mexico
have large plots over those with more modest holdings.^^ Education spending has grown far more equitable and progressive, but the quality of education remains uneven, and career ladders for teachers remain overwhelmingly tied to patronage rather than to professional criteria.^^ However, recent legislation in Mexico, including a major constitutional reform at the beginning of 2013, may finally begin to create common standards for the hiring and promotion of teachers across the country.^^ PerhapS the There are also several structural factors in the greatest Mexican economy that arouse concern. The govern^ . ment's weak fiscal revenues, which remain under 20 LllclL percent of GDP and depend on oil revenues for roughly expreSS i a third of this, are lower than those of any other OEGD the futUre country and most countries in Latin America.^' This i r i
,
, .. .
.
,,
,
,
rule or law m
suggests that the Mexican state is actually much weaker than commonly believed, and that it has far less capacity tne COUntry. to implement effective regulation and social policy. Given the fiscal dependence on oil sales, the dropping production of Mexico's national energy company, Pemex, to the point where Mexico may become a net oil importer, suggests concerns about the sustainability of its energy industry and its fiscal structure.^" Fortunately, there are signs that policymakers in Mexico are looking at measures to change the fiscal structure and to reinvest in oil production, although there is as yet no consensus on how to do this. Perhaps the greatest concern that Mexicans express is about the future of rule of law in the country. There is probably no single greater drag on the economy— and on democracy—than the weakness of legal institutions. One manifestation of this is, of course, the rising crime rate in the past few years, driven by the sudden increase in violence between organized crime groups tied to drug trafficking. From 2003 to 2011 the murder rate climbed from under ten to almost twenty-four murders per 100,000 inhabitants per year before dropping slightly in 2012.^' There are several reasons why organized crime violence rose in this particular period, which have to do with shifts in the international trans-shipment corridors for cocaine, the weakening of the Colombian organizations that had controlled much of the cocaine trade, the rise in popularity of synthetic drugs, and the U.S. government's efforts to limit trafficking across the shared border with Mexico.^^ However, there is no doubt that the lack of credible police, prosecutors, and courts in Mexico is the most significant factor that has allowed the crime rate to spike—even if other factors contributed to the current spiral of violence—and it will be almost impossible to solve the crime wave without significant and consistent investments in creating credible institutions.^^
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 I 121
Andrew Selee
Rule of law extends far beyond policing, though. Mexican government institutions remain rife with corruption, especially at the state and local levels.^'* A series of reforms to allow citizens access to information about public decision making, which has taken place over the past decade, have been helpful in generating greater accountability. But there are significant areas of public sector decision making that remain out of view, including important information about state finances. Moreover, it remains hard to sanction corruption, even when it is easier today to find out about it.^^ As political scientists Mauricio Merino and Jonathan Fox have each argued, this is one of the central challenges in Mexico today: finding the link between greater transparency, which is advancing, and greater accountability, which has moved forward much more slowly.^^
A BRIGHT FUTURE?
If we take Acemoglu and Robinson's argument about the links between democracy and development as a starting point, there are good reasons both to believe in Mexico's future economic prospects and to worry about the pitfalls along the way. Mexico has certainly moved forward as a democratic nation over the past two decades, and the growing plurality of competition over public power has coincided with steady and consistent growth. Moreover, greater political openness was accompanied by a significant reorientation of the economy to position Mexico more effectively within the global marketplace. In the short term, these changes generated immense adjustment challenges and probably led to the rise in out-migration as some Mexicans found themselves facing economic uncertainty. The advent of democracy also meant an end to the authoritarian controls that contained criminal activity. Yet this did not automatically produce the institutions for rule of law that were required, and this almost certainly contributed to the rising crime rates in the new millennium. In short, Mexico has gone through a period of intense adjustment over the past two decades that has been painful in the short term, but hopefully fruitful in the long term. There are many ways that Mexico's growing prosperity could go off the rails in the future. The intensification of public corruption and the penetration of organized crime into public institutions are two possible ways. Another would be the failure of attempts to remove the structural blockages in Mexico's economy and political system—that is, the needed reforms to the criminal justice system, fiscal finances, energy, and education. However, the most likely scenario is that the growing affluence of many sectors of Mexican society, the gradual reduction of inequality, and the learning curve of democracy will together create a virtuous circle of growth and political change. Citizens who have experienced positive outcomes expect more of their politicians and, in Mexico, they now have some of
122 1 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A Changing Mexico
the tools to hold their leaders accountable for their decisions. Only time will tell if that is enough, but the results of the past few years suggest reasons for cautious optimism. ^
NOTES
' See, for example, the major policy reports written on U.S.-Me.\ico relations in the first years of the millennium, "New Horizons in U.S.-Mexico Relations: Recommendations for Policymakers" (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2001); the "United States and Mexico: Towards a Strategic Partnership" (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2009). ^ Mexicans continue to represent the largest share of legal immigrants in the United States, but unauthorized immigration from Mexico reached a peak in 2007 and then dropped dramatically, reaching replacement levels or less in 2010-2012. In other words, there appears to be net zero unauthorized immigration from Mexico since 2010 (with as many people leaving as arriving), even while there has been a slight uptick in unauthorized immigration from Central America over the past year or two. See Jeffrey Passel, D'Vera Cohn, and Ana Conzalez-Barrera, "Net Migration from Mexico Palls to Zero and Perhaps Less" (report. Pew Research Hispanic Center, Washington, DC: April 2012), and Jeffrey Passel and D'Vera Cohn, "Unauthorized Immigrants: 11.1 Million in 2011" (report. Pew Research Hispanic Center, Washington, DC: December 2012). ^ Drug-related homicides rose significantly from 2003 to 2010 and then only slightly in 2011 before dropping noticeably in 2012. See David A. Shirk, "The Drug War in Mexico: U.S.-Mexico Security Challenges in 2013 and Beyond" (presentation. University of San Diego, Trans-Border Institute, San Diego, CA: January 2013). Homicide rates follow a similar pattern, with significant rises from 2003 to 2010 and a small increase in 2011. The official data for 2012 have not yet been released as of this writing, but the Mexican government has provided preliminary data indicating that homicides were down significantly in the first semester of 2012. For previous periods, see the consultable database on homicides at www.inegi.gob.mx and INECI, "En 2011 se registraron 27 mil 199 homicidios" (press release no. 310/12, INEGI, Mexico: 20 August 2012). For preliminary 2012 figures, see "Homicidios en México disminuyen un 9%: CNSP," Animal Politico, 4 August 2012. '' World Bank, "GDP Per Capita (Current US$)," World Economic Indicators, database available at data. worldbank.org. ' The ratio of CDP per capita between the United States and Mexico has varied over time, but it revolved around 7:1 (and in some years even more) in the 1990s and appears to have settled around 4.7:1 in the period from 2008 to 2012. For historical tables, see Andrew Selee, Christopher Wilson, and Katie Putnam, "The United States and Mexico: More Than Neighbors" (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2010), 29. Figures updated by the author using data from World Bank Indicators for "GDP Per Capita." * This discussion is based on: Selee, Wilson, and Putnam, 39; Christopher Wilson, "Working Together: Economic Ties between the United States and Mexico" (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2011), 24-27; Andrew Selee, "Intimate Strangers: the United States and Mexico" (unpublished manuscript). ^ Ibid. 8 Ibid. ^ Nora Lustig, "Mexico: The Remaking of an Economy" (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 23. '" Figures on trade composition from: Subsecretaria de Comercio Exterior, "Principales productos exportados por Mexico al mundo," http://200.77.231.38/sic_php/pages/estadisticas/mexicojun2011/ TTppx_e.html. Consultable statistics can be accessed through the Economic Secretariat's online database "Información Estadistica y Arancelaria." "
'^
Wilson.
Andrew Selee and Jacqueline Peschard, eds., Mexico's Democratic Challenges: Politics, Government, and
Society (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2010).
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 I 123
Andrew Selee
'"* Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: TIte Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty {New York: Crown Business, 2012). ''' On the history of Mexican economic development, see Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid and Jaime Ros, Development and Crovith in the Mexican Economy: A Historical Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Daniel Levy, Katherine Bruhn, and Emilio Zebadiia, Mexico: The Struggle for Democratic Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Lustig. '^ Andre\v Selee and Jacqueline Peschard, "Introduction," in Mexico's Democratic Challenges: Politics, Covernment, and Society, ed. Andre\v Selee and Jacqueline Peschard (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press: 2010). "^ Author's calculations based on World Bank, World Economic Indicators. The average growth in CDP per capita per year is 2.9 percent from 1997 to 2012. '^ Luis de la Calle and Luis Rubio, "Mexico: A Middle Class Society; Poor No More, Developed Not Yet" {online report, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC: 2012), www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/ defauIt/files/Mexico%20A%20Middle%20Class%20Society.pdf. 'S Ibid., 49, 58, 64. '9 Ibid. ^"^ Selee, "Intimate Strangers." ^' The number of passengers on domestic flights in Mexico jumped 50 percent from 2000 to 2008; De la Calle and Rubio, 64. • ^ • ^ Gerardo Esquive!,, Nora Lustig, and )ohn Scott, "A Decade of Falling Inequality: Market Forces or State Action?" (discussion paper, UNDP, New York: January 2010); Luis F. López-Calva and Nora Lustig, Declining Inequality in Latin America: A Decade of Progress? (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010). ^^ Esquivel, Lustig, and Scott.; Average years of schooling increased between 1990 and 2006 from 6.46 years to 8.27, according to De la Calle and Rubio, 43. ^'^ The most widely accepted measurements of poverty are those by Mexico's National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, cited here for 2010. The measurements can be accessed at http://www.coneval.gob.mx/cmsconeval/rw/pages/medicion/index.es.do. ^^ Esquivel, Lustig, and Scott; John Scott, "Redistributive Constraints Under High Inequality: The Case of Mexico" {working paper. United Nations Development Program: Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, July 2009). ^^ Jonathan Fox and Libby Haight, eds., "Subsidizing Inequality: Mexican Corn Policy since NAFTA" (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2010). ^^ Esquivel, Lustig, and Scott, 193. ^^ E. Eduardo Castillo, "Mexican President Signs Biggest Education Reform in Seven Decades," Associated Press, 25 February 20Í3. ^^ Organisation for Economic Co*operation and Development, Revenue Statistics in Latin America {Paris: OECD, ECLAC, CIAT: 2012). ^^ Duncan Wood, "A New Beginning for Mexican Oil: principles and recommendations for a reform in Mexico's national interest" (online report, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC: 2012), www. wilsoncenter.org/sites/defau!t/files/\vood_new_beginn ing_mexico.pdf. ^' UN Office for Drugs and Crime, Intentional homicide, count and rate per 100,000 population (1995 - 2011), available at http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html; for projected 2012 statistics, see Animal Politico; Shirk {2013). ^^ For a full discussion, see Eric L. Olson, David A. Shirk, and Andrew Selee, "Shared Responsibility: U.S.-Mexico Policy Options for Confronting Organized Crime" (online publication, Trans-Border Institute San Diego, CA and Woodrow Wilson Center Washington, DC: 2010), http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/defaul t/files/Shared%20RespDnsibility-Olson,%20Shirk,%20Selee.pdf. 33 Ibid. ^^ Juan Pardinas, "La Caja Negra del Casto Público" (presentation. Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad, Mexico City: 2010).
124 I JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A Changing Mexico
35 Ibid.
Jonathan Fox, Accountability Politics: Power and Voice in Rural Mexico (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Mauricio Merino, La transición votada: Critica a la interpretación del cambio político en México (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2003).
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 I 125
Copyright of Journal of International Affairs is the property of Journal of International Affairs and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Andrew Selee
Mexico has undergone major changes over the past two decades, as its political system shifted from one dominated by a single official party to a highly competitive democracy, and its economy opened up dramatically to global competition. These changes have produced significant dislocations in Mexican society, including high out-migration and a spiral of drug-trafficking related violence. However, signs are that Mexico has now set the foundations for future success. Average income has grown signiflcantly, violence is plateauing, and out-migration has dropped dramatically. There are potential pitfalls ahead, but the country's future looks far brighter today than it did a decade or two ago. If Mexico continues to grow and deepen its democratic process, these changes will have a profound effect on the United States, its neighbor to the north, as well.
T
he biggest storylines about Mexico in the past few years have been the outflow of migrants to the United States and the rising violence between drug-trafficking organizations.' Both of these phenomena have been the result of important transformations taking place in the country as its economy and political structures were transformed, almost overnight, from a closed economy and authoritarian political system, in the 1980s, to an increasingly modern democracy deeply embedded in the global economy. These changes have not been easy, or always linear, and they have generated enormous disruptions in existing institutions and in people's daily lives. However, the main storylines over the next few years are likely to be quite different than the ones we have seen in the past. Migration from Mexico to the United States has dropped to historically low levels since 2010, and this appears to represent a structural shift in migration patterns rather than just a temporary adjustment related to the economic downturn in the United States.^ Violence also reached a plateau and appears to be declining slightly.^ To be sure, violence will
Andrew Selee is vice president for programs at the Woodrow Wilson Center and was the founding director of the Center's Mexico Institute.
Journal of International Affairs, Spring/Summer 2013, Vol. 66, No. 2. © The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 115
Andrew Selee
remain a major issue over the next few years, as Mexico wrestles with the challenge of building credible legal institutions. It is hard to tell yet what the fate of these efforts will be. But, for reasons I will describe below, we are unlikely to see the same rise in violence that took place over the past few years. At the same cime, Mexico's economy has taken off in new ways, with sustained growth over the past fifteen years and a gradually improving standard of living among Mexicans. Mexicans today earn on average roughly the same as people in Russia, Brazil, Turkey, and Malaysia, almost twice those in China, and six times those in India."* As a result, the ratio of CDP per capita between the United States and Mexico has improved dramatically from around 6 or 7 to 1 for most of the 1990s to an average of almost 4.5 to 1 today.^ These figures still suggest a substantial wage gap between the two neighbors, but they point to the fact that this gap has been narrowing substantially over time. If current progress continues— something that is far from certain—it may be possible to talk about a gradual, if incomplete, convergence between the two economies over the next few decades. As with everything in Mexico, these changes come with caveats and questions. While around half of the population is probably in the middle class today, the other half remains mired in poverty. The economy is increasingly manufacturing based and export oriented rather than being dependent on oil, as it was two decades ago, but the country has struggled with efforts to move up the value chain in production. Education is widespread and more readily accessible than ever before, but the quality of educational institutions lags. Democratic institutions have taken root in ways that would have been unimaginable only two decades ago, but significant authoritarian enclaves remain, and building effective and trustworthy police, prosecutors, and courts is one of the country's greatest challenges to stem the threat that criminal impunity poses to people's lives. However, even with these challenges ahead, Mexico's progress is surprisingly robust. And as the country moves forward economically and politically, these changes will have an enormous impact on the United States. Mexico's imprint in the United States will have less to do with the shared challenges of unregulated migration and organized crime, as in the past, and far more to do with intense patterns of trade, binational manufacturing processes, skilled migration, and the mobility of capital. Mexico and the United States—along with Canada—are likely to work more closely to navigate the shifting terrain of the global economy.
A RISING ECONOMIC POWER
It is almost impossible to go through a day in Mexico—or most countries in the world—without using products from the United States. Ford cars, Kellogg's cereals, and Hollywood movies are everywhere in the cities—where three-quarters
116
JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A Changing Mexico of Mexicans live—and even the most rural villages sell Coca-Cola. What is more surprising, however, is that today it is hard to go through a day in the United States without using Mexican products. Almost all cars that circulate in the United States have Mexican parts—a tribute to the increasingly integrated automobile market in North America—and U.S. consumer goods from Blackberries to televisions are often assembled in factories across the border. In addition to this, many of the best-known brands in the United States are actually now owned by Mexican companies.^ These include Entenmann's cookies, Sara Lee cakes, Thomas' Original English Muffins, Oroweat Breads, and Stroehmann's Dutch Treats, all owned by the Mexico City-based bread behemoth Grupo Bimbo, which now supplies almost a third of the U.S. bakery market.^ Borden Milk and several other popular dairy brands are made by Lala, a collective of dairy farmers in Torreón, Mexico, who now supply nearly one-fifth of the dairy products in the United States. Bar-S, owned by Monterrey-based Grupo Alfa, produces roughly a fifth of all hot dogs and processed meats sold in the United States.^ Perhaps less surprisingly, Mexico's largest producer of cornmeal for tortillas, Gruma, has become America's largest supplier of corn and wheat tortillas and wraps for sandwiches. But it is not only at the lunch table where Mexican companies have made inroads. A single large Mexican company, Cemex, is also the largest cement supplier in the United States, literally helping provide the foundations of the U.S. housing market. Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican telecommunications magnate and reportedly the world's richest man, owns TracFone, which has become the leading pre-paid cell phone company in the United States, and he has minority investments in Saks Fifth Avenue and the New York Times. And, of course, there is no shortage of Mexican beer in American refrigerators, ranging from the higher-end Dos Equis to the less expensive Corona and Tecate. What is extraordinary about the quiet and unheralded extension of Mexican companies into the U.S. and international markets is that few of these companies had much presence north of the border five or ten years ago. Large Mexican companies were insular and inward-looking, much like Mexico itself, and only in the past decade have they begun to take their place in the global marketplace. The vast economic opening that took place in Mexico as a result of the country's entrance first into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986 and then the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 initially served to bring foreign investment to Mexico and to boost trade with its neighbor to the north. However, over time, Mexican companies have learned to compete outside their borders and have become significant players on the global stage.
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 I 117
Andrew Selee
The presence of Mexican-owned companies in the United States and elsewhere, combined with the explosion in Mexican manufactured goods in U.S. homes, is only one symptom of a larger shift in the Mexican economy. In the 1970s and 1980s, Mexico's manufacturing base was also largely inwardly oriented, with oil comprising the largest share and, in many years, a majority of export earnings.^ With Mexico's entrance into CATT and later
I n 2L Iittl6 o v e r
rlprí4rlp<2 nils lao beCOrn.6 a m a j o r ma.nufâCtlirinP' 1 ,r r -V ^ glODiil c C ü i l ü m y .
NAFTA, the country's economic base began to change
significantly. Today, exports make up roughly a third of Mexico's CDP, and manufactured goods represent the
y^gj. majority of these, while oil contributes only around 13 percent.'^ in a little over two decades, Mexico has become a major manufacturing platform for the global economy Initially, much of this was achieved through foreign direct investment in Mexico, but increasingly Mexican companies are themselves investing domestically and even abroad. Although the automobile and aerospace industries in Mexico, for example, remain largely foreign owned, Mexican companies have become increasingly prominent in the supply chains in these industries." Adherence to global trade regimes was one reason for this shift. The other reason was democratization, which began to sink roots in Mexico in the 1990s and blossomed after 2000. For most of the twentieth century, at least from the late 1920s until the 1990s, Mexico had a single official party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which was hegemonic and won all national and almost all state elections. Starting in 1989 and accelerating throughout the 1990s, opposition parties won footholds in state governments and eventually dislodged the PRI from the national presidency Although the PRI returned to the presidency in 2012, it did so in the midst of a markedly different political panorama, in which competitive elections, a free press, and an active civil society are well established and cherished by Mexican society.'^ Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argue in their book Wliy Nations Fail that democratization and economic growth are mutually reinforcing.'^ Mexico's old-style mercantilist system, in which the state controls major levers of power in economic transactions and uses them to ensure control over the private sector, often choosing winners and losers according to their willingness to submit to state influence, made Mexican industries highly uncompetitive.''' However, the democratic changes that took place over the past two decades coincided with the economic changes. They ha\'e helped sever many, if not all, of the levers of control allowing Mexican companies, including many small and medium businesses, to
118 I JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A Changing Mexico emerge more vibrant and competitive. This process also provided incentives for Mexican politicians to pursue a more responsible macroeconomic management of the economy, at least after 1995, which has kept inflation low and minimized economic shocks (with the notable exception of the economic shock from the U.S. recession in 2009).'^ As a result, the Mexican economy has grown more slowly than some other economies in Latin America, but it has done so in a sustained way over almost two decades with low inflation and dropping interest rates.
IMPROVING QUALITY OF LIFE
Long-term growth in the Mexican economy has produced a gradual but significant increase in living standards for the vast majority of Mexicans over the past two decades, even if not everyone has benefited equally. Since 1997, Mexico has averaged almost 3 percent growth per year, a modest but steady increase, and as a result, GDP per capita has more than doubled from $4,981 to $10,514 in current prices.'^ Growth has been far less spectacular in Mexico than in some other countries of the region, but it has been largely sustained year after year. As noted above, this has also allowed a gradual narrowing of the income gap between the United States and Mexico—far short of the kind of income convergence some proponents of economic integration predicted but still quite significant in terms of people's livelihood. Increasingly, Mexico is becoming a middle-class society with almost half of the population fitting the definition according to some analysts who look at savings, assets, and consumption patterns.'^ Luis de la Calle and Luis Rubio have argued that the number of cars owned by Mexicans has increased five times since 1980, meat consumption per person has nearly doubled since 1990, and the number of credit cards has quadrupled since 2002.'^ The growth of the middle class has been facilitated by three factors. The first is the long-term, if gradual, growth in real wages. The second is the entrance of more and more women into the labor market since the 1970s, which has increased overall household income. Lastly is the drop in the prices of consumer goods with the dropping of trade barriers, which has made cars, refrigerators, and DVD players accessible to families that never could have hoped to acquire these goods before." One of the manifestations of this change is the emergence of three low-cost airline carriers in Mexico since 2005.2° Eor years, two carriers dominated the domestic airline market in Mexico, charging international competitive prices for air travel. However, since 2005, three bargain carriers, comparable in many ways to Southwest Airlines, have flourished, and the number of air travelers in Mexico has increased by 50 percent.^' Middle-class Mexicans—who range from small businesspeople to bureaucrats and urban taxi drivers—now choose swifter air travel over
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 I 119
Andrew Selee first class buses when they have a little extra cash in their pocket, something once reserved for the country's upper-middle class and truly the wealthy. As more Mexicans become middle class, extreme poverty has also declined noticeably, and inequality has decreased.^^ Some of this decline is the result of good social policy, especially the Oportunidades program, which provides cash transfers to poor families with young children, as long As more hpromP . ^t^^ 1 ' as the children remain in school and get regular medical check-ups. Almost a quarter of all Mexican families receive payments through Oportunidades, which helps lift the poorest families from extreme poverty, even if
poverty also declined
i/^ooKKr o-n/-l i c e ä ü i y a.riQ . . - . T. y **^*^^ decreased.
¡t does Uttle to create productive employment. Some ^^ ^^^ reduction of extreme poverty also has to do
^'^''-'^ '-^^ effect of remittances, which have buffered . , , , ., , , .r . economic shocks and provided needed runas to very poor families, especially in regions with a long history of out-migration in Mexico. And, of course, some of the change has to do with productivity gains, as Mexico has increased average years of schooling.^-*
WEAK INSTITUTIONS AND R E D FLAGS
While there is much to be optimistic about in Mexico, there are also significant warning signs that worry Mexicans about their future. Although many Mexicans have become middle class, many others remain poor. Indeed, even while extreme poverty has declined, overall poverty figures have remained surprisingly constant, and the 2009 economic downturn undermined much of the progress that had been made in previous years in reducing poverty. While some states in the center and north of Mexico, including Baja California, Nuevo Leon, and Queretaro, plus the Federal District of Mexico City, have less than 36 percent poverty and very little extreme poverty, the three poorest states in the south—Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca—continue to have poverty rates from two-thirds to three-quarters of the population and over one third to almost one half living in extreme poverty^'' The drop in out-migration suggests that Mexicans, v/ho in other years might have moved north, now see opportunities for their future in their own country. But there is no guarantee that this will continue if poverty itself does not decline in the near future. Social and economic policy could do much more to lessen the effects of Mexico's persistent inequalities and detonate growth. However, social policy is often regressive, even if this effect has declined slightly.^^ Federal economic subsidies in agriculture, for example, generally provide greater support to farmers who
120 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A Changing Mexico
have large plots over those with more modest holdings.^^ Education spending has grown far more equitable and progressive, but the quality of education remains uneven, and career ladders for teachers remain overwhelmingly tied to patronage rather than to professional criteria.^^ However, recent legislation in Mexico, including a major constitutional reform at the beginning of 2013, may finally begin to create common standards for the hiring and promotion of teachers across the country.^^ PerhapS the There are also several structural factors in the greatest Mexican economy that arouse concern. The govern^ . ment's weak fiscal revenues, which remain under 20 LllclL percent of GDP and depend on oil revenues for roughly expreSS i a third of this, are lower than those of any other OEGD the futUre country and most countries in Latin America.^' This i r i
,
, .. .
.
,,
,
,
rule or law m
suggests that the Mexican state is actually much weaker than commonly believed, and that it has far less capacity tne COUntry. to implement effective regulation and social policy. Given the fiscal dependence on oil sales, the dropping production of Mexico's national energy company, Pemex, to the point where Mexico may become a net oil importer, suggests concerns about the sustainability of its energy industry and its fiscal structure.^" Fortunately, there are signs that policymakers in Mexico are looking at measures to change the fiscal structure and to reinvest in oil production, although there is as yet no consensus on how to do this. Perhaps the greatest concern that Mexicans express is about the future of rule of law in the country. There is probably no single greater drag on the economy— and on democracy—than the weakness of legal institutions. One manifestation of this is, of course, the rising crime rate in the past few years, driven by the sudden increase in violence between organized crime groups tied to drug trafficking. From 2003 to 2011 the murder rate climbed from under ten to almost twenty-four murders per 100,000 inhabitants per year before dropping slightly in 2012.^' There are several reasons why organized crime violence rose in this particular period, which have to do with shifts in the international trans-shipment corridors for cocaine, the weakening of the Colombian organizations that had controlled much of the cocaine trade, the rise in popularity of synthetic drugs, and the U.S. government's efforts to limit trafficking across the shared border with Mexico.^^ However, there is no doubt that the lack of credible police, prosecutors, and courts in Mexico is the most significant factor that has allowed the crime rate to spike—even if other factors contributed to the current spiral of violence—and it will be almost impossible to solve the crime wave without significant and consistent investments in creating credible institutions.^^
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 I 121
Andrew Selee
Rule of law extends far beyond policing, though. Mexican government institutions remain rife with corruption, especially at the state and local levels.^'* A series of reforms to allow citizens access to information about public decision making, which has taken place over the past decade, have been helpful in generating greater accountability. But there are significant areas of public sector decision making that remain out of view, including important information about state finances. Moreover, it remains hard to sanction corruption, even when it is easier today to find out about it.^^ As political scientists Mauricio Merino and Jonathan Fox have each argued, this is one of the central challenges in Mexico today: finding the link between greater transparency, which is advancing, and greater accountability, which has moved forward much more slowly.^^
A BRIGHT FUTURE?
If we take Acemoglu and Robinson's argument about the links between democracy and development as a starting point, there are good reasons both to believe in Mexico's future economic prospects and to worry about the pitfalls along the way. Mexico has certainly moved forward as a democratic nation over the past two decades, and the growing plurality of competition over public power has coincided with steady and consistent growth. Moreover, greater political openness was accompanied by a significant reorientation of the economy to position Mexico more effectively within the global marketplace. In the short term, these changes generated immense adjustment challenges and probably led to the rise in out-migration as some Mexicans found themselves facing economic uncertainty. The advent of democracy also meant an end to the authoritarian controls that contained criminal activity. Yet this did not automatically produce the institutions for rule of law that were required, and this almost certainly contributed to the rising crime rates in the new millennium. In short, Mexico has gone through a period of intense adjustment over the past two decades that has been painful in the short term, but hopefully fruitful in the long term. There are many ways that Mexico's growing prosperity could go off the rails in the future. The intensification of public corruption and the penetration of organized crime into public institutions are two possible ways. Another would be the failure of attempts to remove the structural blockages in Mexico's economy and political system—that is, the needed reforms to the criminal justice system, fiscal finances, energy, and education. However, the most likely scenario is that the growing affluence of many sectors of Mexican society, the gradual reduction of inequality, and the learning curve of democracy will together create a virtuous circle of growth and political change. Citizens who have experienced positive outcomes expect more of their politicians and, in Mexico, they now have some of
122 1 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A Changing Mexico
the tools to hold their leaders accountable for their decisions. Only time will tell if that is enough, but the results of the past few years suggest reasons for cautious optimism. ^
NOTES
' See, for example, the major policy reports written on U.S.-Me.\ico relations in the first years of the millennium, "New Horizons in U.S.-Mexico Relations: Recommendations for Policymakers" (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2001); the "United States and Mexico: Towards a Strategic Partnership" (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2009). ^ Mexicans continue to represent the largest share of legal immigrants in the United States, but unauthorized immigration from Mexico reached a peak in 2007 and then dropped dramatically, reaching replacement levels or less in 2010-2012. In other words, there appears to be net zero unauthorized immigration from Mexico since 2010 (with as many people leaving as arriving), even while there has been a slight uptick in unauthorized immigration from Central America over the past year or two. See Jeffrey Passel, D'Vera Cohn, and Ana Conzalez-Barrera, "Net Migration from Mexico Palls to Zero and Perhaps Less" (report. Pew Research Hispanic Center, Washington, DC: April 2012), and Jeffrey Passel and D'Vera Cohn, "Unauthorized Immigrants: 11.1 Million in 2011" (report. Pew Research Hispanic Center, Washington, DC: December 2012). ^ Drug-related homicides rose significantly from 2003 to 2010 and then only slightly in 2011 before dropping noticeably in 2012. See David A. Shirk, "The Drug War in Mexico: U.S.-Mexico Security Challenges in 2013 and Beyond" (presentation. University of San Diego, Trans-Border Institute, San Diego, CA: January 2013). Homicide rates follow a similar pattern, with significant rises from 2003 to 2010 and a small increase in 2011. The official data for 2012 have not yet been released as of this writing, but the Mexican government has provided preliminary data indicating that homicides were down significantly in the first semester of 2012. For previous periods, see the consultable database on homicides at www.inegi.gob.mx and INECI, "En 2011 se registraron 27 mil 199 homicidios" (press release no. 310/12, INEGI, Mexico: 20 August 2012). For preliminary 2012 figures, see "Homicidios en México disminuyen un 9%: CNSP," Animal Politico, 4 August 2012. '' World Bank, "GDP Per Capita (Current US$)," World Economic Indicators, database available at data. worldbank.org. ' The ratio of CDP per capita between the United States and Mexico has varied over time, but it revolved around 7:1 (and in some years even more) in the 1990s and appears to have settled around 4.7:1 in the period from 2008 to 2012. For historical tables, see Andrew Selee, Christopher Wilson, and Katie Putnam, "The United States and Mexico: More Than Neighbors" (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2010), 29. Figures updated by the author using data from World Bank Indicators for "GDP Per Capita." * This discussion is based on: Selee, Wilson, and Putnam, 39; Christopher Wilson, "Working Together: Economic Ties between the United States and Mexico" (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2011), 24-27; Andrew Selee, "Intimate Strangers: the United States and Mexico" (unpublished manuscript). ^ Ibid. 8 Ibid. ^ Nora Lustig, "Mexico: The Remaking of an Economy" (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 23. '" Figures on trade composition from: Subsecretaria de Comercio Exterior, "Principales productos exportados por Mexico al mundo," http://200.77.231.38/sic_php/pages/estadisticas/mexicojun2011/ TTppx_e.html. Consultable statistics can be accessed through the Economic Secretariat's online database "Información Estadistica y Arancelaria." "
'^
Wilson.
Andrew Selee and Jacqueline Peschard, eds., Mexico's Democratic Challenges: Politics, Government, and
Society (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2010).
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 I 123
Andrew Selee
'"* Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: TIte Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty {New York: Crown Business, 2012). ''' On the history of Mexican economic development, see Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid and Jaime Ros, Development and Crovith in the Mexican Economy: A Historical Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Daniel Levy, Katherine Bruhn, and Emilio Zebadiia, Mexico: The Struggle for Democratic Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Lustig. '^ Andre\v Selee and Jacqueline Peschard, "Introduction," in Mexico's Democratic Challenges: Politics, Covernment, and Society, ed. Andre\v Selee and Jacqueline Peschard (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press: 2010). "^ Author's calculations based on World Bank, World Economic Indicators. The average growth in CDP per capita per year is 2.9 percent from 1997 to 2012. '^ Luis de la Calle and Luis Rubio, "Mexico: A Middle Class Society; Poor No More, Developed Not Yet" {online report, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC: 2012), www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/ defauIt/files/Mexico%20A%20Middle%20Class%20Society.pdf. 'S Ibid., 49, 58, 64. '9 Ibid. ^"^ Selee, "Intimate Strangers." ^' The number of passengers on domestic flights in Mexico jumped 50 percent from 2000 to 2008; De la Calle and Rubio, 64. • ^ • ^ Gerardo Esquive!,, Nora Lustig, and )ohn Scott, "A Decade of Falling Inequality: Market Forces or State Action?" (discussion paper, UNDP, New York: January 2010); Luis F. López-Calva and Nora Lustig, Declining Inequality in Latin America: A Decade of Progress? (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010). ^^ Esquivel, Lustig, and Scott.; Average years of schooling increased between 1990 and 2006 from 6.46 years to 8.27, according to De la Calle and Rubio, 43. ^'^ The most widely accepted measurements of poverty are those by Mexico's National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, cited here for 2010. The measurements can be accessed at http://www.coneval.gob.mx/cmsconeval/rw/pages/medicion/index.es.do. ^^ Esquivel, Lustig, and Scott; John Scott, "Redistributive Constraints Under High Inequality: The Case of Mexico" {working paper. United Nations Development Program: Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, July 2009). ^^ Jonathan Fox and Libby Haight, eds., "Subsidizing Inequality: Mexican Corn Policy since NAFTA" (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2010). ^^ Esquivel, Lustig, and Scott, 193. ^^ E. Eduardo Castillo, "Mexican President Signs Biggest Education Reform in Seven Decades," Associated Press, 25 February 20Í3. ^^ Organisation for Economic Co*operation and Development, Revenue Statistics in Latin America {Paris: OECD, ECLAC, CIAT: 2012). ^^ Duncan Wood, "A New Beginning for Mexican Oil: principles and recommendations for a reform in Mexico's national interest" (online report, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC: 2012), www. wilsoncenter.org/sites/defau!t/files/\vood_new_beginn ing_mexico.pdf. ^' UN Office for Drugs and Crime, Intentional homicide, count and rate per 100,000 population (1995 - 2011), available at http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html; for projected 2012 statistics, see Animal Politico; Shirk {2013). ^^ For a full discussion, see Eric L. Olson, David A. Shirk, and Andrew Selee, "Shared Responsibility: U.S.-Mexico Policy Options for Confronting Organized Crime" (online publication, Trans-Border Institute San Diego, CA and Woodrow Wilson Center Washington, DC: 2010), http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/defaul t/files/Shared%20RespDnsibility-Olson,%20Shirk,%20Selee.pdf. 33 Ibid. ^^ Juan Pardinas, "La Caja Negra del Casto Público" (presentation. Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad, Mexico City: 2010).
124 I JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A Changing Mexico
35 Ibid.
Jonathan Fox, Accountability Politics: Power and Voice in Rural Mexico (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Mauricio Merino, La transición votada: Critica a la interpretación del cambio político en México (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2003).
SPRING/SUMMER 2013 I 125
Copyright of Journal of International Affairs is the property of Journal of International Affairs and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
