Research master thesis | Latin American Studies (research) (MA)
open access
The electoral victory new Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in 2018 meant a major change in the country, as it was the first time a candidate from the left won. However, as...Show moreThe electoral victory new Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in 2018 meant a major change in the country, as it was the first time a candidate from the left won. However, as statistical data show, president AMLO has a big task ahead of him, as homicide rates and violence within the country are spiraling. This research analyzes the characteristics of the use of violence within Mexico, and how this has impacted the state’s legitimacy during the previous two presidential terms, hereby going beyond the ‘failed state’ debate and putting Max Weber’s theory on the monopoly on violence into perspective (Weber 1978). It argues that organized crime, principally the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs), are the main actor challenging the state’s legitimacy and that the two are connected in an uneasy equilibrium that has changed in nature over time. The analysis concludes that there are three principal actors through which the dynamics of violence and state legitimacy interact: the Mexican government, the DTOs and Mexican civil society and that this interplay had led to a capacity, security and legitimacy gap. It further argues that there are different types of legitimacy in Mexico: judicial, economic and social/cultural, meaning that although the Mexican president in theory is the legitimate authority of the country, in practice this is a whole other story.Show less
