Abstract
Violence in its different expressions and exercised by various state and non-state actors is currently one of the most pressing problems and challenges for various nations worldwide, as it has adverse effects on the entire political and social life of a population and hence on the democratic quality. Despite these empirical observations, the relationship between violence, violent non-state actors and the quality of democracy is still unclear and under-examined as the prevalent democracy assessments have yet to incorporate these developments sufficiently in their measurements. In the debate about democratic regression through violence, understood as a loss of democratic quality, Mexico is an especially interesting case. After completing its democratic transition in 2000, expectations arose that Mexico would transform to a functioning democracy. However, with the declaration of the war on drugs in 2006 the country slid into a spiral of violence that was unknown up until that point. This violence, which has continued to accelerate until now, as well as the increasing presence of organized criminal groups give cause to analyze whether these factors have an adverse effect on the quality of democracy. The following article will answer this question by analyzing the quality of the Mexican democracy and its development between 2000 and 2015. The analysis is carried out by the empirical application of the 15-Field-Matrix of Democracy, which was complemented by context-specific indicators to measure the mentioned factors. The thesis is that Mexico has experienced a democratic regression due to the presence of organized criminal groups and the high level of violence. The article suggests that violence and the presence of violent non-state actors should generally be included in detail in a democracy assessment to achieve a more valid measurement of democratic quality, and it provides inductive generated indicators to achieve this.
Highlights
The global spread of democratic systems is a notable phenomenon of the 20th century
The research is designed as a comparative qualitative case study, which aims to answer the question of whether Mexico has experienced a democratic regression through violence
As a first conclusion we can state that Mexico has never been a functioning liberal democracy, in contrast: in each of the analyzed periods, we can identify strong democratic deficits that significantly reduced the democratic quality
Summary
The global spread of democratic systems is a notable phenomenon of the 20th century. With the increasing number of states that satisfy the procedural minima of a democratic political system, the variance within this group of states has increased significantly. Since the beginning of the so-called Drug War, which was implemented by Foxs successor, Felipe Calderón and perpetuated by the current president Enrique Peña Nieto, the government is focusing on the militarization of society in order to fight organized crime and insecurity Instead of achieving these goals, violence has spread out and the organized criminal groups have begun to split and diversify their activities, becoming. Violence has effects on the entire political and social life of the population as it leads to massive limitations of political rights and civil liberties Despite this empirical evidence, the exact relationship between violence, violent non-state actors and democratic quality is still unclear and under-examined. This paper will focus on the last three forms of violence, as these are the most concerning ones in Mexico
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