A democracy at what cost? The rise of drug cartels in Mexico's democratic transition
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Over the last three decades, Mexico has undergone two radical changes. With the dawn of a new millennia, Vicente Fox of the opposition National Action Party (PAN) was elected as the nation’s chief executive. Through his victory, Mexico transitioned from seventy years of single party rule under the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) to a democratic system that persists to this day. At the same time, however, the smuggling of narcotics across the country’s northern border fueled the rise of violent drug cartels that threaten political stability. In this thesis, I seek to examine the forces of these seemingly unrelated events in four different ways. First, I provide a survey of existing literature pertaining to the topic. Second, I develop a game theory framework that explains how drug cartels evolved from small bandits to transnational operations capable of challenging the state. Third, using a multivariable regression, I delve into the effects of Mexico’s democratic transition on the criminal world, advancing a new approach to measure the presence of drug cartels. Finally, I invert the relationship to determine the impact of drug cartels on democracy—namely, the influence of drug cartels on electoral patterns. I find that Mexico’s transition had a significant impact on criminal activity as measured by drugs seized by the state. Furthermore, I show that drug cartels tacitly influence electoral results across all parties. In the end, this thesis shows the growing relationship between drug cartels and the state, suggesting these two are closely interconnected despite of common misconceptions.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | May 13, 2022 |
| Date modified | December 5, 2022 |
| Publication date | May 23, 2022; May 13, 2022 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Sabau, José |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor | Díaz Cayerso, Alberto |
| Thesis advisor | Magaloni, Beatriz |
Subjects
| Subject | Mexico |
|---|---|
| Subject | Drug traffic |
| Subject | Democracy |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Sabau, J. (2022). A democracy at what cost? The rise of drug cartels in Mexico's democratic transition. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/hd070xm7639
Collection
Stanford University, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. (CDDRL)
View other items in this collection in SearchWorksContact information
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...