ABSTRACT
Mexico is in the midst of a security crisis. Despite an apparent (relative) improvement in statistics for homicide, and a public rebranding exercise by the recently elected Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) administration of Enrique Peña Nieto,1 large areas of the country remain gripped by insecurity and violence commonly associated with the illegal drug business and the activities of the powerful drug trafficking groups that engage in it. While Mexico has long experienced violence associated with drug smuggling, in December 2006 former President Calderón launched a militarised crackdown on drug traffickers which has coincided with a staggering increase in carnage, leaving potentially upwards of 120,000 to 130,000 dead.2 The US, through policy and aid commitments making up and associated with the Mérida Initiative, has focused a good deal of attention
and support towards aiding the Mexican state tackle insecurity within its territory. Despite limited evidence for violence leaping the south-west border (hereafter “the border”) on a large scale, Mexico’s travails with drug-related instability have become part of a deeper debate on border security within the US, both in terms of actual US policy, and policy/academic discussion. Immigration, drug trafficking and terrorism have animated new rounds of border security crackdowns. These three concerns now co-exist in both discourse and, more importantly, policy. I highlight this development in the first section of the article. The discussion then goes on to demonstrate how US border security efforts have
led to the existence of a “border paradox.” This argument draws on concepts well established by US-Mexico border scholars. As Andreas has noted, two seemingly contradictory trends have dominated US-Mexican bilateral relations (and US policy towards Mexico) since Mexico began to open its economy in the 1980s: the push towards deeper economic integration encompassing greatly enhanced and facilitated cross-border flows in finance and trade (culminating in the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA]) as part of a drive towards North American economic integration, and the steep rise in US efforts to secure the border.3
However, the emphasis on border security has sat uneasily with an integrated North American economy, and the former has impacted negatively on the latter, especially in terms of efficiency in border trade and bilateral cooperation. US border policy and its wider relationship with Mexico has been termed “schizophrenic,”with seeminglymutually opposed agendas being pursued simultaneously, often driven by competing interest groups.4 These trends have left uswith the “paradoxical end result” of “both a borderless economy and a barricaded border.”5 I examine some of the key analysis of this border paradox from scholars of USMexican relations. The irony is that economic integration has generated ormagnified its own security threats,whichhave inspired further border security initiatives,which in turn have further detrimental impacts on integration. In thisway, theNAFTAzone can be seen in the light of increasing academic and US policy concern with the “dark sideof globalisation”—the empowerment of illicit actorswithin interconnected economies that has put stress upon “traditional” sovereign borders.6
