Corruption in Mexico has permeated several segments of society – political, economic, and social – and has greatly affected the country's legitimacy, transparency, accountability, and effectiveness. Many of these dimensions have evolved as a product of Mexico's legacy of elite, oligarchic consolidation of power and authoritarian rule.
Transparency International's 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index scored Mexico at 31 on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"). When ranked by score, Mexico ranked 126th among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 90 (ranked 1), the average score was 43, and the worst score was 12 (ranked 180). For comparison with regional scores, the highest score among the countries of the Americas was 74, the average score was 43 and the lowest score was 14.
PRI rule
Although the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) came to power through cooptation and peace, it maintained power for 71 years straight (1929 to 2000) by establishing patronage networks and relying on personalistic measures. That is why, Mexico functioned as a one-party state and was characterized by a system in which politicians provided bribes to their constituents in exchange for support and votes for reelection. This type of clientelism constructed a platform through which political corruption had the opportunity to flourish: little political competition and organization outside of the party existed; it was not possible 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.
Hierarchization was the norm. Power was consolidated in the hands of an elite few, and even more narrowly, the president controlled almost all of the practical power across the three branches of government. This central figure had both the formal and informal power to exercise extralegal authority over the judiciary and legislature and to relegate these other branches to the executive's individual political will.
Beyond this, few checks were set on elected officials’ actions throughout the PRI's unbroken reign. Consequently, sustained PRI rule yielded low levels of transparency and legitimacy within the councils of Mexico's government. 71 years of power provided an opportunity for corruption to accumulate and become increasingly complex. Civil society developed around economic interest aggregation that was organized by the clientelistic government; the PRI allowed citizens to collectively bargain under the condition that they would continue to provide political loyalty to the party. Anthony Kruszewski, Tony Payan, and Katheen Staudt explain,
With this type of institutionalized corruption, the political path in Mexico was very narrow. There were specified political participation channels (the party) and selective electoral mobilization (party members). These issues, deeply engrained in Mexico's political culture after over half a century's existence, have continued to generate and institutionalize political corruption in today's Mexico.
Organized crime
Border issues
Mexico’s geographic location has played largely in the development of the country’s role in organized crime and drug trafficking. Not only is Mexico adjacent to the world’s largest illegal drug market – the United States – but it also borders Central and South America, the latter being a region of nations with a similarly high demand for drugs. This positions Mexican drug cartels at an advantage; demand for drugs is not simply confined to the Mexican state, but rather it extends to several other nearby countries. Because of this, Mexico’s borders are especially crucial to drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), which can exploit the borders as a passageway for contraband and as a method for consolidation of power.
As drug cartels and TCOs have increasingly made use of these areas, the groups have become progressively more complex, violent, and diverse. Trafficking has been accompanied by other forms of illegal activity – such as extortion, kidnappings, and political corruption – as disparate factions compete for control over the same, lucrative areas.