Skip to main content

Penalizing democracy: punitive politics in neoliberal Mexico

Crime, Law and Social Change volume 65, pages 227–249 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

During the last two decades Mexico witnessed a hitherto unparalleled increase in its prison population and an outright punitive turn in local politics. In analyzing these developments, the article argues that the latter are inseparable from different securitization processes emerging from the articulation of democratic politics and neoliberal rationalities of economic governance. The article analyzes three key policy areas—as well as the related (in)securitization processes, their legal-institutional manifestations, and the penalizing consequences—which are paradigmatic examples of the growing punitiveness of Mexican politics: (a) the securitization process related to the war on drugs, (b) the securitization of urban space, and (c) the securitization of migration. In analyzing these three instances of (in)securitization, the article stresses that far from being homogenous and even developments, (in)securitization as well as the underlying processes of neoliberalization and democratization are policy- and place-specific phenomena that produce an uneven punitive topography that shapes the neoliberal present in democratic Mexico.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Notes

  1. To be sure, Mexico’s democratization process was already underway since the 1980s, when opposition parties,—like PAN, the Mexican Democratic Party (PDM) or the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD)—secured electoral victories at the municipal and state levels. In addition, and partly in response, to this, the formal rules of the electoral game in Mexico became more democratic with the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) in 1990, an institution that is in charge of the organization and oversight of federal elections. For a comprehensive assessment of Mexico’s democratization process, see Eisenstadt [39].

  2. The concept of arraigo first appeared in 1983 with the reform of the Federal Code of Criminal Procedure. In 2006, the practice was declared as unconstitutional, only to be reinstituted in 2008 as part of constitutional changes related to the creation of Mexico’s new criminal justice system. And because the reforms now incorporated arraigo into the Mexican Constitution, “the mechanism could no longer be challenged on grounds of unconstitutionality” ([36]: 3).

  3. Mexican penal law differentiates between crimes that are under the exclusive prosecutorial authority of federal institutions and legislation (fuero federal), and crimes that are investigated and prosecuted by local authorities and according to local laws (fuero común). Drug trafficking and organized crime are defined as federal offenses.

  4. http://www.reclusorios.df.gob.mx

  5. This annihilation of “public” space is also driven by the expanding power of transnational actors. For instance, international rating agencies and consultancies—and their interests in economic profit and security—have fundamentally shaped Mexico City’s urban renewal process and the related redefinition of the “publicness” of urban space (see [70]). Moreover, even seemingly progressive actors—like artists, academics, and young intellectuals, who throughout the last ten years “discovered” and literally “colonized” parts of the “rescued” and “securitized” areas of downtown Mexico City—have played an ambivalent role in the annihilation of the public character of urban space in this part of the city (see [62]).

  6. Mexico’s long and troubled experience with discriminatory and criminalizing US migration policies contributed significantly to this outcome (see [67]).

  7. http://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/rpt/pbg/fy2013/206691.htm

  8. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112shrg71959/html/CHRG-112shrg71959.htm

References

  1. Andreas, P. (2000). Border games: policing the U.S.-Mexico divide. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Arteaga Botello, N. (2009). The Mérida initiative: security-surveillance harmonization in Latin America. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 87, 103–110.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Arteaga Botello, N. (2004). En busca de la legitimidad: seguridad pública y populismo punitivo en México, 1990–2000. Mexico City: UACM.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Astorga, L. (2004). El siglo de las drogas. El narcotráfico, del porfiriato al nuevo milenio. Mexico City: Random House Mondadori.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Auyero, J. (2012). Patients of the state: the politics of waiting in Argentina. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  6. Azaola, E., & Bergman, M. (2007). The Mexican prison system. In W. A. Cornelius & D. Shirk (Eds.), Reforming the administration of justice in Mexico (pp. 91–114). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Azaola, E., & Ruiz Torres, M. A. (2011). Poder y abusos de poder entre la polícia judicial en la Ciudad de México. Iberoamericana, 11(41), 99–113.

    Google Scholar 

  8. BBC. (2012). Mexico prison riot: Apodaca boss and guards arrested, February 22.

  9. Becker, A., & Müller, M.-M. (2013). The securitization of urban space and the “rescue” of downtown Mexico City: vision and practice. Latin American Perspectives, 40(2), 77–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Becker, K. (2011). Military justice and impunity in Mexico’s Drug War. Security Sector Reform (SSR) ISSSUE PAPERS, No. 3, September 2011. http://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/SSR_Issue_no3_1.pdf. Accessed 25 June 2014.

  11. Benítez Manaut, R. (2000). Containing armed groups, drug trafficking, and organized crime in Mexico: the role of the military. In J. Bailey & R. Godson (Eds.), Organized crime and democratic governability. Mexico and the U.S.-Mexican borderlands (pp. 126–159). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Bigo, D., & Tsoukala, A. (2008). Understanding (in)security. In D. Bigo & A. Tsoukala (Eds.), Terror, insecurity and liberty. Illiberal practices of liberal regimes after 9/11 (pp. 1–9). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Bourbeau, P. (2013). The securitization of migration. A study of movement and order. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Buffington, R. (1998). Looking forward, looking back: judicial discretion and state legitimation in modern Mexico. Crime Histoire & Sociétés, 2(2), 15–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Calleros Alacrón, J. C. (2009). El vínculo entre seguridad nacional y migración en México. Revista Mexicana de Política Exterior, 88, 9–43.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Campesi, G. (2010). Policing, urban poverty and insecurity in Latin America: the case of Mexico City and Buenos Aires. Theoretical Criminology, 14(4), 447–471.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Castillo, J. (2008). After the explosion. In R. Burdett & D. Sudjic (Eds.), The endless city (pp. 174–185). London: Phaidon.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Ceyhan, A., & Tsoukala, A. (2002). The securitization of migration in western societies: ambivalent discourses and policies. Alternatives. Global Local Political, 27(1), 21–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. CDHDF (Comisión de Derechos Humanos del Distrito Federal). (2004). Informe especial sobre la situación de los centros de reclusión del Distrito Federal. Mexico City: CDHDF.

    Google Scholar 

  20. CDHFMC (Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Matías de Córdova). (2013). Derechos Humanos y condiciones de detención en la estación migratoria siglo XXI. Tapachula, Chiapas, México. Tapachula: CDHFMC.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Chevigny, P. (2003). The populism of fear: politics of crime in the Americas. Punishment and Society, 5(1), 77–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. CNDH (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos). (2012). Diagnostico nacional de supervisión penitenciaria 2012. Mexico City: CNDH.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Coleman, M. (2007). Immigration geopolitics beyond the Mexico-US border. Antipode, 38(1), 54–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Coleman, M. (2007). A geopolitics of engagement: neoliberalism, the war on terrorism, and the reconfiguration of US immigration enforcement. Geopolitics, 12(4), 607–634.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. (2006). Law and disorder in the postcolony: an introduction. In J. Comaroff & J. Comaroff (Eds.), Law and disorder in the postcolony (pp. 1–56). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  26. Cornelius, W. A., & Weldon, J. A. (2004). Politics in Mexico. In G. Almond, G. B. Powell, K. Strom, & R. Dalton (Eds.), Comparative politics today. A world view (pp. 298–329). New York: Pearson Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Corva, D. (2008). Neoliberal globalization and the war on drugs: transnationalizing illiberal governance in the Americas. Political Geography, 27, 176–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Craig, R. (1980). Operation condor. Mexico’s antidrug campaign enters a new era. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 22(3), 345–363.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Crossa, V. (2009). Resisting the entrepreneurial city: street vendors’ struggle in Mexico City’s historic center. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33(1), 43–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Dammert, L., & Salazar, F. (2008). ¿Duros con el delito? populismo e inseguridad en América Latina. Flacso: Santiago de Chile.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Davis, D. E. (2010). The political and economic origins of violence and insecurity in contemporary Latin America: past trajectories and future prospects. In E. D. Arias & D. M. Goldstein (Eds.), Violent democracies in Latin America (pp. 35–62). Durham: Duke University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  32. Davis, D. E. (2012). Policing and regime transition: From post-authoritarianism to populism to neoliberalism. In W. Pansters (Ed.), Violence, coercion, and state-making in twentieth-century Mexico. The other half of the centaur (pp. 68–90). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  33. Davis, D. E. (2013). Zero-tolerance policing, stealth real estate development, and the transformation of public space: evidence from Mexico City. Latin American Perspectives, 40(2), 53–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. DDLDB (Diario de los debates de la Asamblea Legislativa del Distrito Federal). Segundo periodo ordinario de sesiones del segundo año de ejercicio. Mexico City, 29 April 1999.

  35. De Genova, N. (2007). The production of culprits: from deportability to detainability in the aftermath of ‘homeland security’. Citizenship Studies, 11(5), 421–448.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Deaton, J., & Rodriguez Ferreira, O. (2015). Detention without charge. The use of arraigo for criminal investigation in Mexico. San Diego: University of San Diego/Justice in Mexico Project.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Délano, A. (2011). Mexico and its Diaspora in the United States. Policies of emigration since 1848. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  38. Diaz, G., & Kuhner, G. (2007). Mujeres migrantes en tránsito y detenidas en México. Mexico City: PROCM.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Eisendtadt, T. A. (2007). Courting democracy in Mexico: Party strategies and electoral institutions by Eisenstad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  40. El Universal. (2011). Ley de Tierras regirá sobre las invasiones en zonas agrarias, December 13.

  41. El Universal. (2013). Endurece ALDF penas para delitos durante marchas, November 19.

  42. Feldman, A. (2004). Securocratic wars of public safety: globalized policing as a scopic regime. Interventions, 6(3), 330–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Finkenbusch, P. (2014). The knowledge Paradox of statebuilding: Serendipitous expansion in the Mérida Initiative. Dissertation, Freie Universität Berlin.

  44. Fox, J. (1994). The difficult transition from clientelism to citizenship. World Politics, 46(2), 151–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Gonzales, A. (2013). Reform without justice: Latino migrant politics and the homeland security state. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  46. Gutmann, M. C. (2002). The romance of democracy. Compliant defiance in contemporary Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Hernández, A. P. (2010). Drugs legislation and prison situation in Mexico. In M. Pien & C. Youngers (Eds.), Systems overload—Drug laws and prisons in Latin America (pp. 60–70). Washington, DC: WOLA.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Hernández, R. A. (2014). Structural racism and the criminalization of poverty: imprisoned indigenous women in Mexico. Paper presented at the workshop “Re-thinking the state: Law and politics in the making of inequalities in Latin America,”. Berlin: Freie Universität.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Hilgers, T. (2008). Causes and consequences of political clientelism: Mexico’s PRD in comparative perspective. Latin American Politics and Society, 50(4), 123–153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Huysmans, J. (2000). The European union and the securitization of migration. Journal of Common Market Studies, 38(5), 751–777.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Isacson, A., Meyer, M., & Morales, G. (2014). Mexico’s other border. Security, migration, and the humanitarian crisis at the line with Central America. Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America.

    Google Scholar 

  53. INM (Instituto Nacional de Migración) (2011). Realiza INM Menos Detenciones. http://www.inm.gob.mx.

  54. INM (Instituto Nacional de Migración) (2012). “Eventos de extranjeros alojados en estaciones migratorias, según entidad federativa, 2012”. Boletín mensual de Estadísticas Migratorias 2012. Cuadro 3.1. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Migración.

  55. Johnson, J. (2008). The forgotten border. Migration & human rights at Mexico’s Southern Border. Washington, DC: The Latin American Working Group Education Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Knight, A., & Pansters, W. (Eds.). (2005). Caciquismo in twentieth-century Mexico. London: Institute for the Study of the Americas.

    Google Scholar 

  57. La Jornada. (2002). Critica Ensástiga la iniciativa de reformas al Código Penal propuesta por el Ejecutivo local, August 25.

  58. La Jornada. (2012). Propone Ebrard 30 años de cárcel a quien perturbe la paz social, November 1.

  59. La Jornada. (2013). Crece la corrupción en cárceles; reos controlan 65 %, dice CNDH, November, 20.

  60. La Razón. (2012). 44 muertos en un motín en México, February 22.

  61. Lawson, C. (2004). Introduction. In J. I. Domínguez & C. Lawson (Eds.), Mexico’s pivotal democratic election: candidates, voters, and the presidential election of 2000 (pp. 1–23). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  62. Leal Martínez, A. (2007). Peligro, proximidad y diferencia: negociar fronteras en el Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México. Alteridades, 17(34), 27–38.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Luccisano, L., & Macdonald, L. (2013). Guns and butter: social policy, semi-clientelism, and efforts to reduce violence in Mexico City. Paper prepared for the Workshop ‘Clientelism and Violence in Subnational Latin American Politics’, Carleton University, Ottawa, December 13–14, 2013.

  64. Luciano, L., & Macdonald, L. (2015). Guns and butter in Mexico city. In T. Hilgers & L. Macdonald (Eds.), How violence varies within nations: subnational place and identity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  65. MacLeod, G. (2002). From urban entrepreneurialism to a revanchist city? on the spatial injustices of Glasgow’s renaissance. Antipode, 34(3), 602–624.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Magaloni, B. (2007). Voting for autocracy: hegemonic party survival and its demise in Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  67. Martinez, D., & Slack, J. (2013). What part of “illegal” don’t you understand? the social consequences of criminalizing unauthorized Mexican migrants in the united states. Social and Legal Studies, 22(4), 535–551.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. Meneses-Reyes, R. (2013). Out of place, still in motion: shaping (im)mobility through urban regulation. Social and Legal Studies, 22(3), 335–356.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  69. Mitchell, D. (1997). The annihilation of space by law: the roots and implications of anti- homeless laws in the United States. Antipode, 29(3), 303–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. Mitchell, K., & Beckett, K. (2008). Securing the global city: crime, consulting, risk, and ratings in the production of urban space. Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 15(1), 75–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. Morín, J. L. (2008). Latinas/os and US prisons: trends and challenges. Latino Studies, 6(1–2), 11–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Morton, A. D. (2012). The war on drugs in Mexico: a failed state? Third World Quarterly, 33(9), 1631–1645.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  73. Mountz, A., & Curran, W. (2009). Policing in drag: Giuliani goes global with the illusion of control. Geoforum, 40(6), 1033–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. Müller, M.-M. (2012). Public security in the negotiated state. Policing in Latin America and beyond. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  75. Müller, M.-M. (2012). The rise of the penal state in Latin America. Contemporary Justice Review, 15(1), 57–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  76. Müller, M.-M. (2012). Transformaciones del clientelismo: democratización, (in)seguridad y politicas urbanas en el Distrito Federal. Foro Internacional, 52(4), 836–863.

    Google Scholar 

  77. Müller, M.-M. (2012). The universal and the particular in Latin American penal state formation. In P. Squires & J. Lea (Eds.), Criminalisation and advanced marginality. Critically exploring the work of Loïc Wacquant (pp. 195–216). Bristol: Policy Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  78. Müller, M.-M. (2013a). “Public” security and patron-client exchanges in Latin America. Government and Opposition, 48(4), 548–569.

  79. Müller, M.-M. (2013b). Penal statecraft in the Latin American city: assessing Mexico city’s punitive urban democracy. Social and Legal Studies, 22(4), 441–463.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  80. Müller, M.-M. (2014). De-Monopolizing the bureaucratic field. Internationalization strategies and the transnationalization of security governance in Mexico city. Alternatives Global Local Political, 39(1), 37–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  81. Müller, M.-M. (2015). Punitive entanglements. The “war on gangs” and the making of a transnational penal apparatus in the Americas. Geopolitics, 20(3), 696–727.

  82. Müller, M.-M. (2016). The punitive city. Privatised policing and protection in neoliberal Mexico. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  83. Pansters, W. (Ed.). (2012). Violence, coercion, and state-making in twentieth-century Mexico. The other half of the centaur. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  84. Pansters, W., & Castillo Berthier, H. (2007). Mexico city. In K. Koonings & D. Kruijt (Eds.), Fractured cities. Social exclusion, urban violence & contested spaces in Latin America (pp. 36–56). London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  85. Peck, J., Theodore, N., & Brenner, N. (2009). Neoliberal urbanism: models, moments, mutations. SAIS Review, 29(1), 49–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  86. PGDDF (Programa General de Desarrollo del Distrito Federal). (2000). Programa general de desarrollo del distrito federal 2001–2006. Mexico City: Gobierno del Distrito Federal.

    Google Scholar 

  87. PGDDF (Programa General de Desarrollo del Distrito Federal). (2000). 2001–2006. Mexico City: Gobierno del Distrito Federal.

    Google Scholar 

  88. PGDDF (Programa General de Desarrollo del Distrito Federal). (2013). 2013–2018. Mexico City: Gobierno del Distrito Federal.

    Google Scholar 

  89. PGDDF (Programa General de Desarrollo del Distrito Federal). (2013). 2013–2019. Mexico City: Gobierno del Distrito Federal.

    Google Scholar 

  90. Pimentel, S. A. (2000). The nexus of organized crime and the organization of crime. In J. Bailey & R. Godson (Eds.), Organized crime and democratic governability. Mexico and the U.S.-Mexican borderlands (pp. 33–57). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Google Scholar 

  91. Pratt, J. (2007). Penal populism. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  92. Presidencia República de la. (2012). 6 Informe de Gobierno: 2012–2013. Mexico City: Gobierno de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

    Google Scholar 

  93. Presidencia de la República. (2013). 1er Informe de Gobierno: 2012–2013. Anexo estadístico. Mexico City: Gobierno de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

    Google Scholar 

  94. Schild, V. (forthcoming). Securing citizens and entrenching inequalities: The Janus-faced neoliberal Latin American state. Berlin: desiguALdades.net Working Paper Series. Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America.

  95. Seelke, C., & Finklea, K. (2014). U.S.-Mexican security cooperation: the Mérida initiative and beyond. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.

    Google Scholar 

  96. Reuters. (2013). Prominent Mexicans urge government to decriminalize marijuana, September 25.

  97. Robinson, W. I. (2003). Transnational conflicts. Central America, social change and globalization. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  98. Rosas, G. (2013). Barrio libre: criminalizing states and delinquent refusals of the new frontier. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  99. Ruiz Ortega, H. (2006). Crecimiento de la población penitenciora. Mexico City: Subsecretaria del sistema penitenciario. http://www.reclusorios,df.gob.mxfpenitenciarismo/crecímiento_población.pdf.

  100. Sabet, D. M. (2012). Police reform in Mexico: informal politics and the challenge of institutional change. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  101. Serrano, M. (2012). States of violence: state-crime relations in Mexico. In W. Pansters (Ed.), Violence, coercion, and state-making in twentieth-century Mexico. The other half of the centaur (pp. 135–158). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  102. Shirk, D. A. (2010). Justice reform in Mexico: change & challenges in the judicial sector. In E. L. Olson, D. A. Shirk, & A. Selee (Eds.), Shared responsibility. U.S. – Mexico policy options for confronting organized crime (pp. 205–246). Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

    Google Scholar 

  103. Snyder, R., & Durán Martínez, A. (2009). Drugs, violence, and state-sponsored protection rackets in Mexico and Colombia. Colombia Internacional, 70, 61–91.

    Google Scholar 

  104. Squires, P. (2012). Neoliberal, brutish and short? cities, inequalities, and violences. In P. Squires & J. Lea (Eds.), Criminalisation and advanced marginality: critically exploring the work of loic wacquant (pp. 217–242). Bristol: Policy Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  105. SSPDF (Secretaría de Seguridad Pública del Distrito Federal). (2006). Memoria instituional 2000–2006. Mexico City: SSPDF.

    Google Scholar 

  106. Stiegler, U. (2013). Migrants’ money for financial inclusion? Transnational governance- initiatives in the US-Mexican Context. Dissertation, Freie Universität Berlin.

  107. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2012). Immigration and enforcement actions: 2011. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics.

    Google Scholar 

  108. Valenzuela Aguilera, A. (2013). Urban surges: power, territory, and the social control of space in Latin America. Latin American Perspectives, 40(2), 21–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  109. Vogt, W. A. (2013). Crossing Mexico: structural violence and the commodification of undocumented Central American migrants. American Ethnologist, 40(4), 764–780.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  110. Wacquant, L. (2009). Punishing the poor. The neoliberal government of social insecurity. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  111. Wacquant, L. (2008). The militarization of urban marginality: lessons from the Brazilian metropolis. International Political Sociology, 2(1), 56–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  112. Watt, P., & Zepeda, R. (2012). Drug war Mexico. Politics, neoliberalism and violence in the new narcoeconomy. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  113. Weaver, O. (1995). Securitization and desecuritization. In R. D. Lipschutz (Ed.), On security (pp. 46–87). New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  114. Wigle, J. (2014). The ‘Graying’ of ‘green’ zones: spatial governance and irregular settlement in Xochimilco, Mexico City. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(2), 573–589.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  115. Williams, G. (2011). The Mexican exception. Sovereignty, police, and democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  116. Zepeda-Lecuona, G. (2007). Crimen sin castigo. Procuración de justicia penal y ministerio público en México. Mexico City: Fondo de la Cultura Economica.

    Google Scholar 

  117. Zepeda-Lecuona, G. (2008). La reforma constitucional en materia penal de junio 2008: Claroscuros de una oportunidad histórica para transformar el sistema penal mexicano. Análisis Plural 1. Tlaquepaque: ITESO.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ZI Lateinamerika-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin, Rüdesheimer Str. 54-56, 14197, Berlin, Germany

    Markus-Michael Müller

Authors
  1. Markus-Michael Müller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Markus-Michael Müller.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Müller, MM. Penalizing democracy: punitive politics in neoliberal Mexico. Crime Law Soc Change 65, 227–249 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-015-9582-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-015-9582-6

Keywords

  • Organize Crime
  • Mexico City
  • Urban Space
  • Drug Trafficking
  • Penal Code