Eroding democracy and public administration capacities through overstretching the armed forces: evidence of the federal police dismantling in Mexico

Abstract

Democratic backsliding processes erode the institutions and public values of a political system and can lead to the emergence of authoritarian forms of government or shifts towards illiberal democracy. In this context, public administrations are arenas of political dispute and critical instances for implementing anti-pluralist policies and reforms. The final balance could be the weakness of institutional capacities, problems providing essential public services, and several affectations on the policy process. Indeed, the impact of democratic erosion is not the same throughout the public administration. Therefore, analyzing specific public sectors or policy domains could be methodologically appropriate. This article is a longitudinal national case study showing how various strategies have been used to achieve executive aggrandizement through armed forces overstretching in Mexico. We seek to answer the following question: What strategies have the President of the Republic (2018-2024) used to erode professionalism in public safety agencies? To build and analyze this case, we used deductive process tracing with information collected through documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with police and military personnel involved in public security work. We found strong evidence that a mixed strategy combined capture, sabotage, reform, and dismantling actions.