A new analysis of Mexico’s record on effective governance shows that the nation still outpaces many other Latin American countries yet has struggled to catch up with more developed nations such as the United States and Canada.
The report, using insights from the 2024 Berggruen Governance Index (BGI), sets the stage for Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, whose election in June 2024 extended the leadership of the leftist Morena party.
Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, embarked on ambitious programs of state building and economic nationalism during his tenure from 2018 to 2024, but these efforts have been criticized for contributing to democratic backsliding, particularly in the conservative U.S. press.
“Mexico’s governance trajectory, and specifically the approach taken by the ruling Morena party since 2018, presents a decidedly mixed record,” according to the report authored by researchers from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute and the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany.
“On one hand, Mexico has fostered economic growth, expanded its infrastructure and public goods, and recovered some of the lost ground in state capacity. On the other, Mexico still trails other large Latin American democracies, such as Brazil, in democratic accountability.”
One of Sheinbaum’s key dilemmas will be to balance a more expanded and effective reach of the state without undermining democratic norms. This will be a difficult balance to strike, given resistance to changes like judicial reform as well as the nationalization of resources and use of the military for state-building projects, the report says.
