Overcoming authoritarianism and other social and political vices: The civic search for democracy, security and social justice in contemporary Mexico

This research deals with contemporary Mexico and its struggle for the consolidation of democracy, security and social justice. The central purpose is to define and analyze the process through which a relatively weak civil society has contributed to the development of a more diverse and inclusive democratic regime, while indicating the influence that such democratic evolution has had over civil society itself---the way it organizes, coordinates and interacts.;By creating public spaces for political participation, organizing viable alternatives to State power at the institutional or grass-root levels, defending and enforcing freedom of speech or enriching the domestic debate on the relevance of granting essential rights to certain minority groups around the country, Mexican civil society has transformed and continuous to transform the nature of Mexican politics. In other words, Mexico's civil society can be conceived, at last, as an incipient public sphere from which a variety of associations express new dispositions towards autonomy and collective action.;Despite the country's long authoritarian tradition, civil society has managed to stop considering the State as the central and sole advocate of 'public' actions. In fact, Mexico's civil society has developed initiatives to control, limit and permeate the State and these initiatives have somehow forced the State to invest more in education, to promote law and order, and to reestablish public safety. Therefore, if the country wants to guarantee all basic conditions for its own subsistence, Mexican society shall be able to grow, invest, create and flourish within a clear set of restrictions, barriers or limitations enforced by the State but legitimized by a general democratic consensus. Today, when---at least in theory---all Mexican citizens have nominal voting rights, a more open and participatory society is helping to illustrate how the possibility to enforce this basic right represents only a minimal condition for the consolidation of other more complex and perhaps even more important rights. Consequently, this research is also an attempt to explore additional and deeper conditions of political inclusion and civil participation in both, the political and economic realms of the country.