In 2013, Mexico Proved Itself a Reformer

[Geee]

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Most Americans have an image of Mexico as a nation convulsed by violent drug wars and sending hundreds of thousands of desperate immigrants across our southern border.

 

That image is out of date. The drug war has largely quieted down and scarcely affects most of the country while, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, net migration from Mexico to the United States since 2007 has fallen to zero.

 

What has been happening in Mexico recently is far more encouraging: the culmination of reforms that have been in train, but have been frustratingly delayed, for the last 25 years.

Some historical background is in order. For 71 years, Mexican politics and government was totally dominated by the paradoxically named Party of the Institutional Revolution, which held the presidency and virtually all governorships from 1929 to 2000.