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Presidential Approval and Public Security in Mexico's War on Crime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Vidal Romero ,
Beatriz Magaloni  and
Alberto Díaz-Cayeros
Vidal Romero
Affiliation:
Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. vromero@itam.mx.
Beatriz Magaloni
Affiliation:
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. magaloni@stanford.edu.
Alberto Díaz-Cayeros
Affiliation:
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. albertod@stanford.edu
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Abstract

To fight criminal organizations effectively, governments require support from significant segments of society. Citizen support provides important leverage for executives, allowing them to continue their policies. Yet winning citizens' hearts and minds is not easy. Public security is a deeply complex issue. Responsibility is shared among different levels of government; information is highly mediated by mass media and individual acquaintances; and security has a strong effect on peoples' emotions, since it threatens to affect their most valuable assets—life and property. How do citizens translate their assessments of public security into presidential approval? To answer this question, this study develops explicit theoretical insights into the conditions under which different dimensions of public security affect presidential approval. The arguments are tested using Mexico as a case study.

Type
Research
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , Summer 2016 , pp. 100 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2016

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