Corruption in Mexico has permeated quite a few segments of society – political, economic, and social – and has greatly affected the country’s legitimacy, transparency, accountability, and effectiveness. Many of those dimensions have evolved as a product of Mexico’s legacy of elite, oligarchic consolidation of power and authoritarian rule. Get additional information about imss fraude
Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index ranks the nation 135th place out of 180 nations.
PRI Rule
Although the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) came to power by means of cooptation and peace, it maintained power for 71 years straight (1929 to 2000) by establishing patronage networks and relying on personalistic measures. That is, Mexico functioned as a one-party state and was characterized by a system in which politicians offered bribes to their constituents in exchange for support and votes for reelection. This sort of clientelism constructed a platform by way of which political corruption had the chance to flourish: small political competition and organization outside on the party existed; it was not doable to independently contest the PRI system. Political contestation equated to political, economic, and social isolation and neglect. The party remained securely in power, and government accountability was low.
PRI party
Hierarchization was the norm. Power was consolidated within the hands of an elite few, and even far more narrowly, the president controlled practically all the practical power across the 3 branches of government. This central figure had both the formal and informal energy to physical exercise extralegal authority more than the judiciary and legislature and to relegate these other branches for the executive’s individual political will. Beyond this, handful of checks were set on elected officials’ actions all through the PRI’s unbroken reign. Consequently, sustained PRI rule yielded low levels of transparency and legitimacy inside the councils of Mexico’s government. 71 years of energy offered an opportunity for corruption to accumulate and turn out to be increasingly complex. Civil society developed about economic interest aggregation that was organized by the clientelistic government; the PRI permitted citizens to collectively bargain under the condition that they would continue to supply political loyalty towards the party. Anthony Kruszewski, Tony Payan, and Katheen Staudt explain,
“Running via the formal structure of…political institutions was a well-articulated and complicated set of…networks…that deliberately manipulate governmental resources…to advance their political aspirations and to shield their private interests and those of their clienteles and partners… Under the political geometry of an authoritarian and centralized scheme corruption…grew and prospered.”
With this type of institutionalized corruption, the political path in Mexico was very narrow. There have been specified political participation channels (the party) and selective electoral mobilization (party members). These troubles, deeply engrained in Mexico’s political culture right after over half a century’s existence, have continued to create and institutionalize political corruption in today’s Mexico.