Governance and militarization: the failure of public security in Mexico: a mid-six-year assessment?

The purpose of this article is to examine the decision of the government of Felipe Calderón to use the Mexican Army to patrol and capture drug trafficking groups. Although the strategy of using the armed forces against drug trafficking is not new, the expansion of the military's actions is aimed at militarizing the problem of public security. According to the proposal of this essay, the main motivations for pursuing this plan are political in nature and are aimed at obtaining internal and international legitimacy and gaining citizen support. The major risks in implementing this type of maneuver are: failure to curb the violence generated by drug gangs, reducing the entire public security problem to the issue of drug trafficking, corrupting the military personnel who are authorized for this type of mission, and undermining the constitutional order that guarantees civil liberties.