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Defective Democracy, Erosion of Press Freedom, and the Perils of Being a Journalist in Mexico Two Decades After the Democratic Transition

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Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico

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Abstract

Democracies are losing ground around the globe. As a result, inequalities in individual and collective freedoms have persisted in societies. This chapter explores how the traits of a defective democracy have eroded press freedom in Mexico for more than 20 years. That is, contrary to the national and international expectations, after the democratic transition, Mexican journalists face increasing blatant hazard when they do their job. Drawing on 93 interviews with news workers from the most dangerous states of the country, the central argument is that anti-press violence found in Mexico the ideal ground to flourish: on the one hand, there are inherent risks associated with the practice of journalism, such as adopting a watchdog role and, hence, keeping authorities and powerful groups accountable. On the other hand, however, those risks become extremely dangerous in a context of a defective democracy with high levels of structural violence, clientelism, and collusion between government and de facto powers. This is particularly evident at the subnational level, where the transition fostered the strengthening of local political strongholds, to the detriment of citizens’ right to know and authorities’ obligation to inform.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Croissant and Merkel (2019) distinguished two types of contemporary democracies: embedded and defective. The former has the necessary components for a liberal democracy deeply rooted; for instance, an institutional superstructure which frames free and fair elections, respect to political participation rights, guarantees civil rights, promotes horizontal accountability, and strengthens mechanisms for representatives to exercise power. While in the second one, the defective democracy, at least one of the aforementioned partial regimes is not functioning properly due to economic factors, social inequalities, and previous patterns in the political culture.

  2. 2.

    At the federal level, the arrival of different parties into the power has materialized three times. The first occurred in 2000 when the National Action Party (PAN) came to power, then the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) returned in 2012, and finally, the arrival of the National Regeneration Movement Party (MORENA) in 2018. At the subnational level, political alternation is also a reality. Until 2019, at least 20 states in Mexico were already governed by parties other than the PRI (Arista & Badillo, 2019).

  3. 3.

    The questionnaire included ten questions, organized in three broad topics: an overview of the context of anti-press violence in Mexico; the impact of the attacks at the individual, organizational, and societal levels; and the use of technology during dangerous coverages. However, this chapter will only draw on the answers collected from the opening question of the first topic: “Why do you think that Mexican journalists are under attack?”

  4. 4.

    For the purposes of comparison, Norway leads the ranking with 95.18 whereas North Korea has the worst score with 21.72 (RWB, 2023, 2020a, 2020b).

  5. 5.

    The liberal canon of Western journalism has been widely contested, because there is not only one way to produce news. On the contrary, there is a plethora of approaches to the journalistic practice and, hence, there are “multiple journalisms” across the world (see Waisbord, 2006; Roudakova, 2009; de Albuquerque, 2012). Notwithstanding, the Mexican case suggests that journalists and media in this country have adopted and adapted the liberal model in their daily job. Therefore, as these answers imply, even though Mexico is a defective democracy, the press is still inspired by the liberal framework, at least at a discursive level. For a more elaborated discussion on this issue, the authors suggest the reading of Reyna et al. (2020) study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico

    Ruben Arnoldo Gonzalez

  2. Université Laval, Quebec City, QC, Canada

    Osiris S. González-Galván

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  1. Ruben Arnoldo Gonzalez
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  1. Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico

    Martin Echeverria

  2. Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico

    Ruben Arnoldo Gonzalez

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Gonzalez, R.A., González-Galván, O.S. (2024). Defective Democracy, Erosion of Press Freedom, and the Perils of Being a Journalist in Mexico Two Decades After the Democratic Transition. In: Echeverria, M., Gonzalez, R.A. (eds) Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_5

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