By: Allison Fedirka
There’s more than meets the eye in the Feb. 21 gathering of Mexico’s National Conference of Governors in Baja California Sur. The conference, which has no official capacity, is where the governors of every Mexican state meet to discuss the problems facing their country.
Most people outside Mexico are unaware that the meeting takes place at all; even many in Mexico regard the group as unremarkable. However, it is the very group the national government needs to work with to address the country’s security crisis.
Maintaining control over the whole of Mexico is difficult for any government. Security threats have changed over the years, but now is the era of organized crime, the breadth and depth of which requires a multifaceted strategy from Mexico City.
The National Security and Peace Plan submitted by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador includes creating a National Guard, targeting the financial assets of criminals, judicial reform, anti-corruption campaigns and socioeconomic initiatives. For it to have a chance of working, it needs the support of Mexico’s constituent states.
Centralization versus Decentralization
Historical political administrative structures and Mexico’s natural geography tend to create voids of power throughout the country. Mexico has 11 distinct geographic regions that tend to keep it divided.
The eastern and western Sierra Madre mountain ranges dissect the country from north to south, while a third range cuts across horizontally in the south, making bicoastal infrastructure difficult and expensive to develop and, to an extent, impeding urban growth along the edges, especially on the west coast.
The deserts endemic to the western half of the border with the United States likewise boast sparse populations. East of them, there is the Rio Grande River Basin, which follows the U.S. border the rest of the way to the Gulf.
Two peninsulas jut out on opposite ends of the mainland, while the Mexican heartland is tucked in at the center of an expansive landmass that is difficult to traverse.
Elevation and a favorable climate of the Mexican plateau mean that only the southern half of the country can support large populations. As a result, the country is scattered with relatively isolated populations with strong regional roots.
In pre-Columbian and colonial periods, the geographic barriers forced political entities to embrace decentralization. The Aztec Empire owes its success in no small part to the alliance of three civilizations – the Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan, whereby Tenochtitlan would be the de facto leader – and the encouragement of municipal control.
The Aztec alliance conquered land through military expeditions. Acquired territories were generally left to their own devices provided that each paid tribute to the central power.
Spain took a similar approach when the Conquistadors arrived. It depended heavily on local officials, who had a high degree of administrative power such as setting ways and means, leading public works projects and overseeing market activity as well as security matters. In both cases, decentralization allowed the national power to establish itself throughout a large territory with limited resources and population.
But when Mexico became a state of its own – when national unity was a matter of necessity – this hands-off approach was more of a threat than a solution. Regional governments were wary of ceding too much power to a different central authority. Constitutional reforms and other political initiatives tried and failed to unify the country.
In some cases, state militias outnumbered national troops for defense, and poor economic prospects at the national level reinforced local ties. This left the Mexican government with a series of separatist movements in the mid-19th century, just as it was becoming its own nation.
From this rose Gen. Jose de la Cruz Porfirio Diaz Mori, who served as president from 1876 to 1880 and then from 1884 to 1911. He ushered in a period of strong central control that has since been dubbed the Porfiriato. He dissolved local authorities, removed federalist features from governance and appointed state governors who reported directly to him.
States lost a vast amount of their power to the central government. This played a large part in spurring the Mexican Revolution, after which came a new constitution and the formation of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI.
Chapter 5 of the constitution deals with states’ rights and clearly reflects the national government’s concern over giving too much power to the states. The document explicitly prohibits states from making formal alliances with one another or with foreign countries, restricts the use of armed forces at the state level and specifies that the national government will protect states in case of internal rebellion provided that they themselves are not the source of the uprising.
As for the PRI, it was the predominant political party for most of the 20th century, holding power from 1929 to 2000. Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa would later describe the PRI as “the perfect dictatorship.”
In 2000, the PRI’s monopoly on power broke when the National Action Party won the presidency, beginning an era in which Mexican political power was diffused among various groups such that the notion of decentralization was brought back to the fore.
It’s no coincidence that just one year later the governors themselves established the National Conference of Governors, or Conago. Every governor, and the mayor of Mexico City, attended the second meeting.
Conago describes its mission as a permanent forum that seeks to strengthen federalism through democratic means and respect for Mexican institutions. It values decentralization in federal form over political party affiliation and aims to create a space for dialogue with states and national government. In years past, the sitting president and Cabinet members attended these meetings as well.
The group walks a somewhat fine line with the constitution but is not seen as in violation because participation is voluntary, decisions are nonbinding and any follow-through is optional. Even so, one of the group’s more immediate agenda items includes elevating Conago to constitutional status, an initiative that would formally give it the legal space for greater cooperation.
Governors and Security Now
Which brings us to today. Mexico’s organized crime and security problems are the modern-day expression of Mexico’s inability to control its full territory. Criminal groups thrive where government power is weak or absent. A lack of state presence enables criminal groups to use the economic power of their illicit activities to entrench themselves in local communities by providing sources of income and other state services.
Over the years, they have created their own parallel market economies and established so much control over certain areas that they are able to patrol roads and regulate port activity. Through financial incentive and electioneering, they even govern some communities.
Each criminal group has its own general territory of operations, but their territories rarely align with state borders, making it all the more difficult for any one group to be considered an endemic threat to any one state. But neither can the federal government take them on on its own.
And so, in December 2019, Lopez Obrador (commonly known by his initials, AMLO) said the national government sought to persuade and find agreement with governors for security projects. He emphasized the need for federal and state governments to keep working together and with full transparency, noting that the country cannot afford to have power vacuums.
These words were quickly followed by a meeting with the governors and AMLO’s security team.
At the most recent meeting with the coordinator of the Security and Justice Commission, in conjunction with the national-level Secretariat of Citizen Security and Protection and equivalent Ministry of the Interior, the governors pledged support for constitutional reforms of the justice system.
Conago also agreed to work together to articulate the mechanisms of operation and interaction between the federal entities and the National Guard. The most recent meeting of this roundtable – governors and AMLO’s security Cabinet – occurred in January. The conclusion from the meeting was that security was the main problem for all parties and that they need to close ranks to combat it.
It was also recognized that the National Guard alone is insufficient without the support of a local security branch and that bimonthly meetings were needed to enhance cooperation.
States have also taken initiatives to improve security cooperation among themselves at the regional level through a series of bilateral and multilateral security agreements. These have been arranged with the oversight of the national government.
Durango and Coahuila helped pave the way with early initiatives in June 2018 that have since expanded. Since 2018, at least five groupings of states have emerged with interstate security agreements. The general framework calls for greater collaboration, increased communications, more information exchange and intel sharing.
There are also some checkpoints and joint patrols. The specific objectives vary slightly from place to place, but they generally all agree to reduce kidnapping, large-scale theft, drug running and other illicit activities. Most recently, the governors of Oaxaca and Veracruz signed an agreement this month to form a shared strategy for reinforcing security at their border, which is considered a high crime zone.
It includes creating a limited area where there will be checkpoints and patrols, on land and at sea. They will share intelligence on suspects captured so that they can remain in one state and not risk transfer. This will be in coordination with the National Guard, the navy, the Defense Ministry, the attorney general’s office and the national intelligence center.
The prospect for security cooperation presents a political opportunity for the members of Conago to gain more power. Rather than fight the governors, the national government is embracing the role they can play in helping combat Mexico’s security problem.
While centralized control has been an option for some post-independence governments in the past, more historical examples suggest a decentralized approach may help the central government reach and influence places currently outside its grasp.
In this model, the role of Mexican states gain renewed importance in the complex and uphill battle of confronting Mexico’s security crisis.
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