Mexico! When the state is absent.
The absence of the state in Mexico has become one of the country's most serious structural problems in recent decades, and in 2025-2026 this reality remains an open wound affecting millions of people.
In vast rural and marginalized urban areas, the Mexican state simply does not reach or reaches them inadequately. Entire regions of Guerrero, Michoacán, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Colima, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, and parts of Sinaloa and Baja California experience a power vacuum that organized crime has filled swiftly and brutally. The cartels not only traffic drugs, but also impose rules, extort protection money, control roads, kidnap, displace communities, and even administer parallel justice. In 2024 and 2025, record numbers of internal displacement were recorded, with more than 28,000 people forced to flee in 2024 alone, and cumulative estimates of nearly 390,000 in recent years, primarily in the south and west of the country.
This situation has deep roots. Systemic corruption has permeated security and justice institutions, generating impunity rates exceeding 90% for many crimes. The militarization of public security, initiated in 2006 and intensified in subsequent administrations, has not reversed this trend; on the contrary, it has contributed to institutional erosion and, at times, to collusion between state agents and criminal groups. Weak prosecutors' offices, a lack of coordination between levels of government, and the prioritization of welfare programs over investment in security, education, and health have exacerbated the problem.
The consequences are devastating and multidimensional. Criminal violence has become the leading cause of death for large segments of the young population. Mexico ranks very high in global organized crime indices, second only to countries in open civil war. The economy suffers: investors avoid regions without an effective state presence, tourism is affected, and remittances—vital for many families—become targets of extortion. Entire communities live in constant fear, with social leaders, mayors, and human rights defenders murdered with impunity. Forced displacement destroys the social fabric, exacerbates poverty, and generates silent humanitarian crises.
The absence of the state is not only geographical; it is also a lack of the rule of law. The concentration of power, the weakening of institutional checks and balances, and the opacity in the use of public resources have deepened public distrust. Until a legitimate state presence is rebuilt—with trustworthy police, independent prosecutors' offices, investment in prevention, and effective justice—organized crime will continue to govern territories where the state has withdrawn or never truly arrived.
Recognizing this reality is the first step. Without a comprehensive strategy that prioritizes restoring the legitimate monopoly on the use of force and rebuilding institutions, Mexico will continue to pay an unacceptable human and economic price.
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