For several years now, rising crime rates have become a central issue in Latin America. In 2021, the region recorded the highest homicide rate in the world—nearly three times the global regional average. This has increased public demand for security measures. In some countries, such as El Salvador and Mexico, the strategy to combat violence has involved the implementation of hardline measures and the adoption of states of exception. However, experience in these countries shows that, if poorly implemented, such measures can lead to an escalation of authoritarian actions by the executive, potentially marking the beginning of democratic backsliding. (Read more).

What does justice mean to you? We have asked this question to many families of disappeared persons in Mexico. The answers vary. Most families say that, for them, the only thing that matters is finding their loved ones. Others say they also fight to identify and prosecute those responsible for the disappearance. Regardless of each family’s decisions, the stance of the authorities in Mexico seems to follow a zero-sum logic: if a person is located, the criminal investigation is not pursued; if a conviction is obtained, the search for the disappeared person is discontinued. Many of the few families who have obtained a conviction still have not found their relatives, and most of those who have found their relatives have no conviction in their case. (Read more).

Interviewed by Kellogg Institute Doctoral Affiliates Mayra Ortiz and Laura López, political scientist Guillermo Trejo discusses how weak democratic transitions can lead to the outbreak of large-scale criminal violence, focusing on Mexico. He presents the main findings of his book co-authored along with Sandra Ley, “Votes, Drugs and Violence: The Political Logic of Criminal Wars in Mexico,” which offers evidence on the partisan logics of the ‘war on drugs’ and power fragmentation’s impacts on cartels’ and state’s incentives in engaging with violence. (Listen to the full podcast).