Rushing Infrastructure Projects Under Austerity
The Militarization of the Mexican Public Administration During Amlo's Government
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3367516 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Raúl Zepeda Gil (0000-0003-3123-7804, King's College London, corresponding author), Luis Roberto Vargas Pineda (0009-0006-2232-0955, University of Nevada, Las Vegas) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Armed Forces & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0095-327X • E-ISSN: 1556-0848 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0095327x251368871 |
| OpenAlex | W4414337248 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 92 |
In this article, we examine the militarization of public administration in Mexico under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). Between 2018 and 2024, AMLO expanded the military's role beyond traditional public security and disaster response to include civilian tasks, such as infrastructure construction, social program delivery, and the operation of public agencies. We argue that this shift is not solely the result of authoritarian impulses. Instead, it reflects a convergence of fiscal austerity, infrastructure as a political priority, and distrust of technocratic bureaucracies. Using a process-tracing methodology, we analyze public spending data, official speeches, and policy decisions to show how austerity weakened civilian capacity, positioning the military as a practical alternative. Militarization enabled the government to circumvent administrative constraints while pursuing flagship infrastructure projects. Our findings contribute to debates on civil-military relations, populism, and neo-developmentalism in contexts of middle-quality institutions, highlighting how militarization can emerge from developmental goals under fiscal and administrative constraints
Corruption and Economic Development · International Development and Aid
Politician's Dilemma
The Military as an Economic Actor
Populism and Technocracy
Armed Servants
Process tracing
The New authoritarianism in Latin America
State Building in Latin America
A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change
Public Administration Under Populist Rule
The militarization of responses to Covid-19 in Democratic Latin America
Making Peace in Drug Wars
Mexico's Security Failure
Hierarchical Capitalism in Latin America
Fighting Past Economic Wars
When Populist Leaders Govern
Domestic military missions in Latin America
We're Reaping What We Sowed’
Post-truth Politics, Bullshit and Bad Ideas
Process tracing of extensive and intensive processes
Legislative Oversight of the Armed Forces in Mexico
Violent crime and the expansion of executive power in Latin America
The Logic of “War on Deforestation”
The US Southern Command and the Militarization of US-Latin America Foreign Relations
Civil-military Relations in Mexico
The promises and perils of populism for democratic policymaking
Military Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis in Latin America
After KKV
The Political Underpinnings of Privatization
Mexico 2019
Easy and Hard Redistribution
The Militarization of Law Enforcement
Politics and Privatization
Populist agenda-setting
Is Mexico at the Gates of Authoritarianism
State Security or Exploitation
Populism and civil–military relations
The Consequences of Militarizing Anti-Drug Efforts for State Capacity in Latin America
Clarifying a Contested Concept
Power Relations, Coalitions, and Rent Control
The Silent Militarization
Politicians against Soldiers
Opting Out of the Social Contract
A Military-Green Biopolitics
Military Rule
Bureaucrats, Budgets and the Growth of the State
Armed Forces, Police and Crime-fighting in Latin America
The Populist Zeitgeist
Populism
Understanding Process Tracing
Discursive Institutionalism
Shaping the security-development nexus in Brazil
Militarized Development in Post-war Sri Lanka
Heuristics made easy
Not a Mexican Pink Tide
Resilient privatization
The Armed Branch of the State
Clientelism and Social Funds
Conceptualizing Mano Dura in Latin America
Military Entrepreneurs
Generals in the Palacio
Blood and Debt
A Unified Theory Of Civil-Military Relations
Civil-Military Relations Reconsidered
The Rise of the Militarized State? African Developmental Militarism, Public Works Projects, and Praetorian Politics in Kenya
What is Controlled by Civilian Control of the Military? Control of the Military vs. Control of Militarization
Militaries in Business
Selecting Appropriate Cases When Tracing Causal Mechanisms
The Logic of Process Tracing Tests in the Social Sciences
Building the Modern State in Developing Countries
Trust in the military in post-authoritarian societies
The World System and the Hollowing Out of State Capacity
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |