Mexican Foreign Policy and Diplomacy: From Defensive Tradition to Incomplete Modernity

Abstract

Two characteristic aspects of Mexican foreign policy and its operative arm, diplomacy, define the challenges the country must face in the twenty‐first century: one is a doctrinarian diplomatic tradition of goodwill and defensiveness (principles of nonintervention, self‐determination, and peaceful conflict resolution), which is clearly inadequate for facing current global challenges. The other is a fragmented push for modernity whose scope is limited to certain areas of the diplomatic agenda (human rights, democracy, multilateral activism), with a strong focus on specific contemporary issues (gender equality, the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the inclusion of civil society) which, at least in the short term, lacks the necessary strength and tools to define the course of Mexico’s foreign policy.