The armed forces and organized crime in Mexican democracy

Abstract

The actions of organized crime have been a key element in the process of deterioration of the quality of democracy in countries of Latin America as Mexico, Brazil or Colombia. To what should be added the growing role of the armed forces to ensure political and civil liberties of the people within these countries and guarantee the democracy, which becomes somewhat ironic for many countries in the region that have suffered from military dictatorships before achieving its democratic transition. Thus, the Mexican case can be emphasized by its pro- cess of peaceful transition to democracy because of the relatively little interference that had had the military in the political affairs of the country. In this sense, it is interesting the way in which phenomena such as organized crime, particularly drug trafficking, began to result in an increase in the incidence of Mexican military in political affairs as a consequence of the new prerogatives granted to them to make prevail domestic peace, defend democracy and combat drug trafficking.