Government Communication and Approval of President’s

Performance in Public Security in Mexico: a Times Series

Regression Analysis (2006-2012)

Tomislav Lendo1

Draft: March 15, 2014

Work in progress, please do not distribute or cite without permission

Abstract

This paper looks at the extent to which the Mexican government communications strategy had an impact on presidential approval and most specifically on the approval of the President’s performance in public security, during a period of crisis.

In the whole Latin American region from Mexico to Argentina public security is undergoing a profound crisis. Violence and crime have become the preferred focus of research for regional studies. However, very little has been investigated and reflected upon in terms of the messages that go in many different directions: governments to societies, governments to media, media to societies, media to governments, criminal organisations to media, criminal organisations to society and so on. In particular very little research has been conducted in terms of the communications strategies that governments follow to elicit social support for their public security policies.

This paper looks at some the general features that characterised the public security policy followed by the government of Felipe Calderon in Mexico (2006-2012) and the government’s communications strategy that accompanied it. It uses time series regression analysis to look at some of the factors that determined the support for the way the President handled the issue of public security and more specifically, the roll that the communications strategy of the presidential office played on that.

Keywords: public security, communication, media, presidential approval, presidential speeches

1 Tomislav Lendo is a visiting professor at the University of Essex. Previously he was chief speechwriter for President Felipe Calderón and Chief Speechwriter for President Vicente Fox. He has held several positions at Mexico’s Federal Government. He completed his PhD in Government at the University of Essex and his MSc in Public Policy at the University of London, Queen Mary and Westfield College. Email: tlendo@yahoo.com

Introduction2

When President Calderon took office, crime and violence had been growing and were

regarded by Mexican society as the country’s most serious problems. There was an urgent

call for government action to tackle crime manifested in rising kidnaping, extortion, car

theft and homicide among other offenses. Calderon made the tackling of crime and the

strengthening of the Rule of Law a central part of his electoral platform (Calderón, 2005)

and eventually a central topic of his government’s plan (Poder Ejecutivo Federal, 2007).

Citizens were eager to find a responsive government that acknowledged and addressed

this serious problem; a government that did something about it and was seen as taking

care of the situation. That is why as soon as he began his term, he took immediate action

against crime by sending troops to the state of Michoacán, at the petition of governor

Lázaro Cárdenas Batel (President Felipe Calderón, interviewed by Oscar Mario Beteta, 1 st

December 2008). But not only was he taking immediate action, he also wanted to send a

message to society that fighting crime was one of his government’s top priorities. He spent

a good deal of his inauguration speech talking about the problem of violence and crime,

and the measures his government was ready to take in order to face it. Furthermore, many

of his initial public events were oriented to this issue.3

As president Calderón has expressed in interviews, tackling crime was one the main

petitions he received from rally goers during his campaign.

2 I am particularly grateful to a number of persons and organizations whose support for this research was critical: The Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología provided financial support through the Escuela de Graduados en Administración Pública of the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey. I am in debt to both Institutions. The data used for the statistical analysis came from a large number of sources, I am particularly grateful to IBOPE ABG Mexico that generously allow me to use their monitoring and rating data on the spots campaigns produced and coproduced by Mexico’s presidential office and to Opina, that allowed me to use their polling results for part of the period under analysis. I was fortunate to have the supervision of Todd Landman, Professor in the Government Department and Dean of the Social Science Faculty at the University of Essex. David Sanders, Professor in the Government Department at the University of Essex, John Bartle and Alejandro Quiroz lecturers in the Government Department at the University of Essex with whom I discussed the research model. María Fernanda Vergara, former General Coordinator of Public Opinion at Presidencia de la República, who provided valuable advice on public opinion data and made important comments on various versions of the article. Ivan Ruelas, former General Director of monitoring at Presidencia de la República who provided valuable data on the news coverage about public security during President Calderon’s administration. Adriana Lejarza, whose patient and dutiful work as research assistant, all throughout the process, was crucial. And Irma Méndez de Hoyos professor at Facultad Latino Americana de Ciencias Sociales with whom I discussed the project several times and who provided essential comments and critiques without which this task could not have been completed.3 These are some of the public events in the first days of his administration: 01/12/06 Salutation to the Armed Forces of the Mexican State; 12/12/06, starting signal of the Security Operation for the winter 2006 holiday season; 13/12/06 Transferral of troops from the Army and the Navy to the Federal Police; 19/12/06 Year’s end breakfast with personnel of the Navy; 03/01/07 Visit to the Federal Forces in Michoacán; 19/01/07 Ceremony of transmission of the Mexican Navy’s Command Sable. This must not be misleading in the sense that he only had public security events in his agenda. In fact during the first 50 days of his administration only 15% of the events dealt with the issue, but it was still an important contrast with his predecessor and showed his resolve to tackle the problem.

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“During (my electoral) campaign, I was surprised by the number of people that in many

parts of the country approached me to tell me about a son who had disappeared or had

been killed, businessmen that had been extorted and the impunity with which criminals

operated.” (President Felipe Calderón, interviewed by Roberto Rock 21st of February

2011)4

His government policies in terms of public security represented a response to that social

demand, and they were accompanied by a clear message regarding his commitment to face

crime and violence. From the outset, a strategy was deployed to communicate government

actions to fight criminals and improve public security. Following Parsons’ (1995, p.110)

argument: “In a democracy one could argue that public policy is a function of public

opinion. Policy demand determines policy supply.”

The public support for a democratic system as well as for a democratic government are to

a certain extent linked to the ability of that regime and that government to fulfil the

demands of society.5 As Mateo Diaz, et al. (2006, p.271) argue “prospects for expanding

the legitimacy of democratic systems hinge significantly on the performance of the

system’s institutions and political actors, and on the results of the policies adopted

through its decision-making processes.”

In order for the public to be aware of the government’s performance, it is necessary for the

government to communicate its actions throughout the whole public policy process. As

Cristina Moreno (2012 p.15) argues, government programs’ communication “should seek

to build and maintain consensus and support around its perspective of the problem and

the solution. In that sense, it is important that the measures taken are visible, that is to say,

that the media covers them and citizens get to know them.”6

In fact, if one looks at both the perception of insecurity as the country’s most important

problem, at the beginning of Calderon’s administration (Figure 1) and the public

perception of his performance in the fight against crime (Figure 2), it is clear that

Mexicans saw crime as a very threatening problem and they also supported Calderon’s

resolve to tackle it. Even among those who voted in favour of López Obrador (Calderon’s

main contender) 70% approved of the security operations and only 24% disapproved.

(GEA-ISA march 2007).

4 Translation by the author from the Spanish version of the interview.5 This refers to the idea of diffuse and specific support originally developed by Easton 1965, and later by Norris 1999 and Mateo Diaz, et al. 20066 Translation by the author from the Spanish version of the article.

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Figure 1

What is the most important problem that the President of Mexico should solve?

Presidencia de la República 16/Nov/2006

Figure 2

Do you approve or disapprove of the operations performed by Calderon’s government to combat drug trafficking in the country?

GEA-ISA march 2007.

“Calderon’s determination to combat crime and his unambiguous discourse represented a

clear contrast with his predecessor’s policy.” (Lendo 2013, p. 9). According to another

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pollster, Roy Campos (Consulta Mitofsky) 2007, Calderon’s general approval increased

from 55% to 65% between February and March 2007. After a much-contested election,

this improvement might have been the result of his communication strategy, which was

very active during the first 100 days. During that time, Calderon was presenting the

policies and programs to fulfil his electoral promises, including those on public security.

This might have bolstered his honeymoon period.7

Nonetheless, as we will see, this public support for the President in general and for his

performance on public security in particular were to suffer a decline during his time in

office (see figure 4). The aim of this paper is to look at the factors that might explain this

decline and the role that government communications played in the support for the

President’s public security policy.

Criminal violence as a public problem in Mexico

During the last decades violence has become one of the more critical issues affecting Latin

America (Ayres 1998, Varat 2006, Dammert et. al. 2007, Bergman 2009, Basombrío

Iglesias 2010, Pion-Berlin David et. al. 2011). Despite economic and social improvements

in the region, insecurity and violence have become pervasive in most countries (Romano

2005, Buvinic 2008, Salama 2008, UNODC 2011). As Desmond Arias and Goldstein argue,

violence has been a long-standing feature throughout the region, where established

political regimes coexist and have coexisted with violent nonstate actors (Desmond Arias

and Goldstein 2010, pp 19-32). Nonetheless, in recent times violence has reached historic

levels throughout Latin America (Buvinic 2008, Bergman 2009).

The reasons for this are numerous. Analysts have included among them: the weakening of

the State, as the region moved away from authoritarian rule; a weak Rule of Law and a

weak culture of legality; urbanisation; economic crisis; and social inequality, among

others. Whatever the causes, a characteristic feature of current times is that a great deal of

violence is associated with crime and in particular with organised crime.

Weak states with weak public security and justice institutions have been forced to face

strong criminal organisations, some of which are international organisations or have links

across borders. Organised crime and the associated violence are perceived as problems

with no easy solutions. Today, criminal organizations pose the most serious threat to

democracy and development in Latin America. The actions of these groups erode the roots

7 Evidence show that Presidents enjoy what has been called a Honeymoon period after their election. During this time the press tends to be more positive or neutral, the public is also in a more expectative mood and the Presidential approval in opinion polls tends to be relatively high (see for instance: Erickson, et. al., 2002)

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of democratic institutions, represent a hurdle for business and discourage investment.

That is why public security and the combat of organised crime are gaining a central role

within government policies in many countries (see for instance: Bailey 2005, Dammert

2007, Arias 2012).

There do not seem to be silver bullets to deal with the issue of violence and insecurity.

Most analysts agree that a broad strategy is required, one that on the one hand responds

to the urgency of the matter by facing up to criminal organisations and, on the other,

tackles the conditions that contribute to the reproduction of crime and violence. I argue

that, along with this, a sound communications strategy is also required for at least four

reasons: 1) the problem is likely to be long-lived; 2) the policy is likely to be controversial;

3) results will not materialise in the short run; and 4) costs are likely to be high not only in

economic terms but also in terms of the public’s exposure to violence.

Furthermore, criminal organisations in Latin America frequently resort to violence as a

means of communication. This does not only capture the media agenda with messages

sent by criminal groups, but also creates fear, despair and confusion. As Piccato (2012

p.58) puts it, “If the performance of the violence fully make sense only for those who

understand the specific vocabulary and are aware of the current disputes of territory, that

performance also has a broader effect by sowing fear and confusion throughout general

audiences that see in the obscurity of these messages further evidence that the authorities

are powerless to do anything about violence.”

Under these circumstances, it seems crucial for institutional actors to have a clear

communications strategy that conveys, at the very least, their perspective of the problem,

the nature of the policy that is being followed and the expected results. If there is not a

common understanding of the nature of the problem and the viable courses of action,

confusion may easily emerge.

This paper focuses on an emblematic case: Mexico in the 2006-2012 period. That is the

administration of President Felipe Calderon, which has been widely known for its bold

response to crime and violence.

During the last decade of the twentieth century and most notably the first years of this

one, the perception of crime as a problem began to grow in Mexico. As Fraga points out, by

the 1990s, radio and TV news, as well as newspaper increased coverage of crime and

violence (Fraga 2002, pp. 57-58). By 1994, he argues, the demand for public security was

the citizen’s main electoral flag and therefore was part of candidate and party platforms in

most elections. (Ibid, p. 58).

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By the second half of the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century accounts of

kidnaping and extortion began to be more frequent. In 1997 and 1998 the media widely

covered the story of an infamous kidnapper “El Mochaorejas” who mutilated his victims

(by cutting off an ear, hence the nickname) in order to exert pressure on the family to pay

the ransom. In June 1999 a famous TV presenter, Paco Stanley was shot dead in Mexico

City in a crime apparently related to drug dealing. In June 2004, after some highly

publicised cases of kidnapping, a number of crime victims’ groups organised a massive

demonstration in Mexico City. Over 200 thousand people wearing white clothes marched

in silence to highlight the urgency of the problem of crime. As Carlos Monsivais, a famous

chronicler of Mexico City, put it “it was a very significant demonstration from that sector

that does not belong to the left or the right but to the anxiety of citizens and the urgency of

establishing the rule of law.” 8

In an attempt to respond to the popular clamour to tackle crime and the threat of

criminals, in June 2005, President Vicente Fox9 launched an operation called “México

Seguro”, which involved the participation of military and civilian security forces in order

to combat organised crime in several states. It was an initial response from the Federal

Government to address an issue that was clearly seen as one the country’s more serious

problems.

Nonetheless, during the last years of Fox’s administration more threats to public security

had become apparent. Mayor criminal organisations had started turf wars in various parts

of the country. In 2006, a group operating in the state of Michoacán known as “La Famila”

or “La Familia Michoacana” advertised in local papers its intentions to “fight drug

traffickers and drug consumption and to establish order in the state of Michoacán”

(Piccato 2012, p. 58); a message that made implicit reference to Los Zetas (another

infamous criminal organisation) and La Familia’s intention to force them out of Michoacán.

In September that year, in an event that shocked the whole country an armed group threw

5 heads into a bar in Uruapan (a city in Michoacán). They left a message before leaving the

place: "La Familia does not kill for hire, it does not kill women, it does not kill innocent

people. Those who should die will die. Everybody beware, this is divine justice”.10 All of

this hit the news quickly and contributed to create a sense of deep insecurity.

8 Quoted by Ramírez Cuevas, Jesús. “La guerra verbal y la angustia ciudadana. El ruido tras la marcha del silencio”. La Jornada. 4 July 20049 http://fox.presidencia.gob.mx/actividades/orden/?contenido=18872

10 Márquez, J., 2006. Decapitan a 5 en Uruapan: tiran cabezas en un bar. El Universal, 7th September 2006. Available from: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/62434.html

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In consequence by the end of Vicente Fox’s administration in 2006, the problem of crime

and violence had grown: it was clearly positioned in the media’s agenda; public opinion

regarded it as the country’s most important problem; criminal groups had not only begun

a bloody turf war (see for instance Mauleón, 2010; Guerrero, 2012; and Valdés, 2013), but

they had started to deploy a media strategy as part of it. It was clearly not a problem that

the incoming government could disregard or omit from its discourse. On the contrary, the

public security policy, in particular the fight against organised crime, became one of the

most prominent policies of Calderon’s administration and the one that received the most

attention from the media and the general public.

Public security policy in Mexico 2006-2012

It is not the aim of this paper to analyse or assess Calderon’s public security policy as such;

rather, it focuses on the communications strategy. Nonetheless, in order to set the context,

this section summarises the most salient features of the policy.

We could group Calderon government actions and programs oriented to tackle crime and

strengthen public security into three areas: 1) Immediate actions to face the emergency

(short term); 2) Institutional reform (mid term); 3) Social measures (long term).

Immediate actions to face the emergency

The most obvious set of measures were those deployed to fight criminals right away. They

included sending in the Army and the Navy to combat criminal organisations in regions

where they represented the highest threat to society, the economy and democratic

institutions. These was labelled operativos conjuntos or “coordinated operations”, as they

also included several forces such as the federal police, the general attorney’s office, the

Army, the Navy and in some cases they might include the participation of state or

municipal police forces.

As part of these measures, the Federal Police grew 6 fold from 6,000 to more than 36,000

officers, between 2006 and 2012 (Calderón 2012, p. 157) and the budget grew almost 5

times in nominal terms from 4.8 billion pesos in 2006 to 23.8 billion pesos in 2012. 11 As a

consequence there was a considerable increase in the detention of presumed criminals

and the confiscations of drugs, vehicles and money from criminal groups.12 Tension and

11 Data from Informe de Rendición de Cuentas 2006-2012 Policía Federal, Secretaría de Seguridad Pública.12 According to data in Calderón 2012, during the six-year period of the administration: 114 tons of cocaine, 11 thousand tons of cannabis and more than 75 tons of methamphetamine were confiscated. Authorities also, seized more than 100 thousand land vehicles, 515 boats and ships, and 578 airplanes, together with more than one billion US dollars in cash, as well as more than 154 thousand weapons from criminal organisations. According to this same source, by October 2012, 25 of the 37 most wanted criminals had been detained or put

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violence also increased in several regions of the country including those where

“coordinated operations” took place.

Institutional reform

The problem of increasing crime and violence was in part due to severe deficiencies in

policing at all levels of government. This made police forces both weak in the face of strong

criminal organisations and also prone to engage in corruption. 13 For affluent and powerful

criminal gangs, it was easy to either corrupt or subjugate weak police forces, especially

those at the municipal level. Consequently, one of the first measures the Calderón

administration took was launching a profound reform process in the Federal Police. At the

same time a new police model that could be followed by other levels of government was

designed. The police reform put forward included recruitment and promotion standards,

vetting systems, training, better equipment, big improvements in terms of intelligence and

the creation of a scientific division.14 It also allowed for federal budget to be transferred to

the state governments in order for them to improve their police forces.15

A second issue that was dealt with in terms of institutional reform was the criminal justice

system, which prevented a swift action of justice. Congress passed a bill sent by the

executive branch in order to change the justice system from an inquisitorial to an

adversarial one, with oral trials, and more transparent and simpler. The aim of this reform

was making the justice system operate in a more swiftly and transparent manner.

A third issue in the institutional agenda was the reform to the Sistema Nacional de

Seguridad or National System of Public Security, in order to give it a federalist approach

with greater participation of the states in the decision making process. This new system

would allow, for instance, the new police model to have a national scope.

Social measures

In the way the problem of public security was construed, part of the origin had to do with

the decomposition of the social fabric. Furthermore, the expansion of crime and violence

down.13 This is a problem shared by many countries in the region. See for instance Bobea, 2010, pp 161-200 for the Dominican Republic’s case.14 Among the most important improvements in terms of policing and intelligence was the creation of the Sistema Único de Información Criminal (United System of Criminal Information), which allowed the various police forces in the country to share intelligence information to support policing activities. The profile of federal policemen recruits changed in favour of university educated men and women some of whom were assigned to scientific investigation. (Calderón, 2012, p. 157)15 The SUBSEMUN (Subsidy for Municipal Public Security) was designed to allocate federal funds in order to improve local police corps. According to its final report (Libro Blanco SUBSEMUN 2012) it channelled 20.6 billion pesos between 2008 and 2012. The annual budget grew from 3.6 billion in 2008 to 4.4 billion in 2012. Similarly the federal funds to improve public security at state level FASP (Fund of Contributions to Strengthen the Public Security for the States and the Federal District) grew from 5 billion pesos a year in 2006 to 7.4 billion pesos in 2012.

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had furthered damaged the social fabric. Hence, it was deemed necessary to implement a

number of measures to try and repair it, such as: improving security in and around

schools; recovering public spaces that had been taken by gangs and building instead

sports facilities, parks, libraries and so on; helping local authorities to improve the urban

landscape; creating a network of facilities to treat and prevent addictions; increasing the

number of school grants for low income children and youth; increasing and improving

school facilities; providing universal health care and increasing health facilities, as well as

providing financial and technical support for people that wanted to start their own

business. In certain places with engrained crime problems, such as Ciudad Juárez or

Tijuana, special programs were put in place to provide integral assistance together with

the local authorities and civil society. (See Calderon 2012 pp. 361 and 437).

Being a federal republic, the responsibility for public security in Mexico is not exclusive to

the national government; rather, it is divided into a large number of institutions belonging

to the various branches and levels of government. As a result of President Calderon’s

initiative, on the 21st of August 2008, all the institutional actors with a role in public

security, justice and the rule of law signed an agreement, which included 74 actions, called

Acuerdo Nacional por la Seguriad la Justicia y la Legalidad (National Agreement for

Security, Justice and Legality). Under the agreement, the executive, judiciary and

legislative branches of government as well as the state and municipal governments all

signed a series of commitments to improve public security and the rule of law. The

commitments established covered all three areas previously mentioned and most of them

had specific goals and deadlines. This was supervised by some of the most salient citizen

organisations dealing with the issue of crime. By the end of the administration the results

varied wildly from state to state and between different levels of government.

Public security and the communication sphere

The issue of crime in Mexico has had important repercussions communication wise both

nationally and internationally. Grotesque violent acts have attracted the attention of the

media, which have widely covered the activities of criminal groups. This in turn has

worked as an incentive for criminal organisations to inflict fear among rival groups,

authorities and society. Meanwhile the government, certainly during the Calderon

administration, made an effort to spread its own interpretation of events as well as the

policies put forward to face the public security crisis. But how did criminal violence reach

this notorious level?

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Criminal organisations

Analysts coincide that a series of factors caused violence to escalate in Mexico in the last

decade. The closing of the Caribbean gateway for cocaine going from South America to the

United States made it necessary to use Mexico as a pathway.16 This in turn meant that

Mexican cartels became part of a more lucrative business, which increased their income,

their corrupting power and their firepower. Criminal organisations expanded their

business and began distributing drugs in Mexico as well as venturing into other criminal

activities, particularly extortion and kidnapping. Hence the perceived increase of those

crimes that led to the demonstrations in 2004. All of that also brought about the start of

bloody turf wars between major organisations in various parts of the country. The expiry

of the assault weapons ban in the United States, also in 2004, was like throwing petrol

onto the fire. According to the International Crisis Group, “The cartel violence began to

escalate in 2004, when Vicente Fox was president and immediately after the domestic U.S.

legislative ban on assault weapons expired.” (Latin America Report N°48 | 19 March 2013

p. ii)

Rather than trying to go unnoticed in order to avoid detention, the new context of turf

wars made criminal groups resort to violence in order to make territorial claims. As in

other mafia type contexts, violence is used to claim control over a particular territory, to

maintain discipline within the rank and file, to intimidate authorities and to intimidate the

community. More than just a tool, violence becomes a commodity in itself. Furthermore,

violence becomes a means of communication.

In a context of turf wars, violent acts become statements directed to competing bands and

to own band’s members. In an interview at the moment of his capture, the notorious

criminal Edgar Valdez Villareal nicknamed “La Barbie” explains that using banners with

messages is a way to intimidate competing gangs and discipline the members of ones own

organisation.17 Violence is a way to build the reputation of violent groups. Quoting Kalyvas,

Guerrero (2012, p. 31) argues, “Violence may be deployed in order to annihilate particular

groups, displace populations, plunder goods or demonstrate group’s power and ability to

hurt other groups (what has also been labelled reputation building).”

Apart from being a way of generating fear among rival groups, group members themselves

and government officials, violence is used to intimidate society, whose members are

precisely the victims of theft, extortion, kidnaping and other vicious crimes.

16 See, for instance, (López González, 2012, p.74, Poiré, Alejandro, 2012, p.13, Valdés, 2013, pp. 290-291).17 See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBEXasbdPgQ

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Picatto argues that for criminals the most efficient way to make messages credible is

violence. Internet videos, songs and images have more impact when they reproduce

actions and scenes of violence that could not be simulated (…) By committing murder,

illegal actors demonstrate their willingness to take on considerable risk and costs in order

to make their message more credible. (Piccato 2012, p. 57)

When violence becomes a tool of communication in the hands of criminal groups, criminal

violence becomes part of the public communications sphere. In fact, certain criminal

groups have members with the specific role of developing a communications strategy.

That is the case, for instance, of Servando Gómez Martínez “La Tuta” one of the leaders and

Mastermind of La Familia and eventually Los Caballero Templarios. In August 2009, “La

Tuta” managed to be interviewed by a local radio station and he took the opportunity to

explain to the public in a very eloquent and comprehensive manner the purpose of the

organisation as well as its agenda.18 This is just an example of how criminals purposefully

use licit media channels to put forward their agenda.

In august 2010, four journalists were kidnaped in Durango by a criminal organisation.

Strikingly, the ransom they were asking for was not money, but to change the editorial line

of a news agency. The criminals wanted the media to broadcast a video intended to correct

information about a rival group and its links with local authorities.19

As Picatto (2012, p.56) suggests,

“Criminals cannot sign legally binding contracts and cannot advertise in newspapers although they have at times been able to buy or extort space in local newspapers (…) In Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Zeta operatives emailed ‘press releases, complete with photos, to local newspapers, which ran the propaganda out of fear.’ These fake stories criticise the army or praise the local police agencies. According to Astorga, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén from Tamaulipas was one of the first to develop a media strategy (…) publicity and violence need to go together.”

Quoting Astorga, Piccato underlines that La Familia Michoacana published adds in state

newspapers in 2006 promising to fight drug traffickers and drug consumption and to

establish order in the State of Michoacán (Piccato 2012 p.59).

The media

This protagonist spirit of criminals found fertile land with local and national media. For

newspapers and media networks the public security crisis became an endless source of

front-page stories, which attracted the attention of the public both locally and nationally.

18 See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53m90D8C4y4. More recently he was also interviewed by British Channel 4 News http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX7dbLW-47M.19 See: http://mexico.cnn.com/nacional/2010/07/28/grupo-criminal-levanta-a-cuatro-periodistas-por-la-cobertura-que-hacian

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Increasingly, criminal violence dominated the communication sphere in Mexico.

Furthermore, violence also became the main news story about Mexico for the

international press. Figure 3 shows the answer to the question what is the news topic of

the week you remembered the most?

Figure 3

It is clear that for most of the period public security stories dominated as the most

remembered ones, the exception being the times of intense political activity, the periods in

which the economic crisis had stronger impacts and disasters (not included in the chart)

such as the flue pandemic, floods and droughts.

As a result on the 24th of March, 2011, a large number of newspapers, news agencies, radio

and TV networks, 751 in total, signed the Acuerdo para la cobertura informativa de la

violencia, an agreement to regulate the way violence was covered. 20 The main purpose of

the agreement was to prevent the media from being used by criminal organisations as an

instrument of propaganda. The new self-imposed regulations implied restrictions to

publishing certain images as well as the messages left by criminal groups at the crime

scene, among many other things.

20 A complete version of the agreement can be found in http://www.milenio.com/cdb/doc/noticias2011/7124535617041c8e5402057a537215e1

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The federal government communication strategy

Calderon’s public security policy was accompanied by a communications strategy that

sought to frame the problem, point out the policy objectives and explain government

action. As violence increased throughout the period and with it the news coverage, the

communication strategy also became a key instrument of defence. Calderon’s six-year

term witnessed an increasing critique in the media. This was particularly directed to the

federal government and to the President, who was identified as being in the front line of

the public security policy.

In his inaugural speech on the 1st of December 2006, Calderon addressed the issues of

crime and the Rule of Law in Mexico. He said that it would be one of the three priorities of

his government and that he would be in the front line of the battle. He argued there that

criminals sought to intimidate and immobilise government and society, and posed a real

threat to citizens and the State in certain regions of the country. In that initial framing of

the problem, he underlined the need to strengthen the state, improve social life, and

protect the life and property of citizens and families

(http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2006/12/palabras-al-pueblo-de-mexico-desde-el-

auditorio-nacional/).

He also called attention to a number of issues that needed to be changed in order to

enhance public security and establish the Rule of Law, namely: improving public security

and justice institutions; renovating the mechanisms for justice administration and

enforcement; better organising, purging and strengthening police forces; improving the

soldiers’ living conditions; using modern technology to fight criminality; increasing

penalties; making laws an instrument to protect citizens rather than one to facilitate

impunity. He warned that recovering public security would not be easy or quick and it

would come at a high cost in terms of time, money and lives. Unlike the common belief,

there was no mention of drugs, drug trafficking, and least of all a declaration of “war on

drugs” (ibid.).

Nonetheless, President Calderon’s determination to combat crime and his unambiguous

discourse represented a clear contrast with his predecessor’s policy that seemed less

committed to act against criminals. He expressed his commitment to addressing society’s

most deeply felt concern: crime, with a clear message about his government’s

determination to strengthening the presence of the state, establishing the Rule of Law and

bringing criminals to justice.

14

Public security was indeed a recurrent topic in the President’s speeches. If it was already a

major public concern when he took office, it became an even greater concern as the turf

war between criminal groups and the subsequent violence increased. In that context,

Calderon used his speeches to convey his perspective of the problem and the objectives of

his public security policy, to provide updates in terms of the progress made, and to set his

position regarding particular events.

Apart from the speeches, the communications strategy included promotional campaigns

with TV and radio spots, press conferences and interviews by the President and, during a

short period, by the public security spokesman too.21

The impact of the communications strategy on the approval of public

security policy

In a context where extreme violence had become a standard communications tool among

criminal groups and where the media was filling spaces, day in and day out, with stories of

terror stemming from an increasing number of towns and cities, the Federal Government

had no option but to try and advance its perspective on the issue. The only way to elicit

support for its public security policy was to provide its own account of events and to

explain the reasons for its actions.

The clear contrast between the Fox and Calderon approaches to public security seems to

have had a good reception in public opinion at the outset of the administration, as shown

in figure 2. According to GEA-ISA, in March 2007 83% approved of the aforementioned

“coordinated operations”. This went up to 88% in June and 80% in September. Similarly,

in March 2007 40% thought that President Calderon had been very successful in fighting

organised crime 39%, in June and 40% in September. Even in terms of the more general

question of improving security in March 2007, 32% answered that Calderon had been very

successful; the same percentage in June and 35% thought so in September. Nonetheless,

throughout the six-year term of the administration, support for Calderon’s public security

policy markedly decreased (see figure 4). The aim of this paper is to look, in a systematic

way, at some of the possible causes of that declining support and, in particular, to analyse

the role of the government’s communication strategy in eliciting support for the public

security policy.

21 President Calderón appointed Alejandro Poire as government spokesman for public security in the Presidential Office. This lasted from 19th of August 2010 to 8th September 2011.

15

In order to do that, I analyse weekly data on: public support for President Calderon’s

public security policy, the government’s communication strategy, media reports of

violence, high impact events and contextual socio-economic variables that might have had

an impact on public support for the government and the President.

Figure 4 shows the weekly evolution of Presidential approval22 and the specific approval

to his performance in public security. As can be seen both indicators started at high levels,

however, they both show a declining trend throughout his term in office. It seems clear too

that the decline in the approval for the public security policy was sharper than the decline

for the handling of his job as a President. Actually this latter variable remained with an

approval rate of around 50% for the last three years of his administration, which was not

the case for the support for the public security policy.

Looking at this chart begs several questions regarding the factors that might be causing

these trends. It is important to bear in mind that, as ample evidence indicates, time itself is

a factor for the erosion of a leader’s positive opinion rating. Erikson, et. al. summarise

three relevant theories for this: “coalition of minorities”, “disillusioned voter” and “elite

leadership” (Erickson, et. al., 2002). However, there usually are other factors that influence

such trends, especially when it comes to the support for particular policies. That is

precisely what will be explored in the remaining part of this paper.

In a previous paper, written as part of the hypothesis building process of this research, a

number of factors appeared to be relevant to explain the approval of President Calderon’s

performance in public security. Among them, a variable that seemed most significant was

the number of murders associated with organised crime violence reported by the press.

22 There is a convention in public opinion studies on Presidential approval in the United States that defines Presidential approval as the proportion of respondents in the survey that answer approve to the question: Do you approve or disapprove of the way that [president’s name] is handling his job as President? (Erickson, et. al., 2002). In this paper I am following such a convention for the Mexican case. In the public opinion surveys carried out by Presidencia de la República, respondents were given five choices, I have collapsed approve some and approve much into one category (approve) and disapprove some and disapprove much into another category (disapprove), the third category is neither approve nor disapprove, which has remained unchanged.

16

Figure 4 23

Several sources official and unofficial have been making periodic reports of murders

presumed to be associated with criminal violence. They differ in the exact figures but

coincide in the trends (Molzahn, et. al. 2013, p. 15). For this paper I am using data from

Reforma newspaper, which has been providing weekly reports on this subject. The reason

is twofold: first if organised crime related murders have an impact on public opinion those

would be the murders reported by the press and second Reforma has provided figures on

a weekly basis and other variables that I am including in the analysis also come on a

weekly basis.24

23 The blue line represents, the percentage of those who answered approve some and approve much to the question: Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Calderon works? This is a literal translation of the question in Spanish and it is equivalent to the question in English: Do you approve or disapprove of the way that Felipe Calderón is handling his job as President? The red line represents, the percentage of those who answered approve some and approve much to the question: Do you approve or disapprove of President Calderon’s work in public security?, which would be equivalent to asking Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Calderon is handling his job in regard to public security?24 There has been a long debate about figures of murders linked to organised crime violence and how reliable they can be. It s clear that in order to be sure they are related to organised crime there needs to be an investigation, which is not always the case. So, what most of the sources do is to take into account certain characteristics of the incidents and see if they coincide with procedures regularly used by criminal organisations. For some time Mexico’s federal government provided figures of murders linked to organised crime. However those figures were aggregated monthly rather tan weekly and the series is not complete for the whole period. Nonetheless, looking at various sources (Molzahn, et. al. 2013, p. 15) the general trends are very similar. So, without assuming it is the exact figure of organised crime related murders, they can be considered a valid indicator of levels of criminal violence in the country.

17

Figure 5 shows the strong relationship between the number of murders reported by the

press and the approval of the President’s performance in handling public security. As the

first one grew, the second fell. In fact a simple bivariate OLS regression shows an

astonishing R2 = 0.65646. This would suggest that 65% of the decrease in public support

for the President handling of public security would be explained by the organised crime

related murders reported by the press.

This is quite an interesting finding as it shows that public support for the president’s

public security policy might have indeed been very sensitive to violence reported by the

press. We are talking about measurements taken week after week for more than five years

that seem to suggest a causal relationship:

events press public opinion

Figure 5

Following Erickson’s (2002, p.31) argument one of the two things people want from

government and the President in particular is:

“… competence in achieving commonly shared policy goals (peace, domestic tranquillity, prosperity, and so forth). This is the dominant, and more often

18

exclusive, conception of micro processes in the Presidential Approval literature.

For the president, competence involves more than the achievement of results;

citizens also seek reassurance of control. For confidence in the future, they want the president to be in charge and to seem to be in charge. This is particularly crucial when dramatic events impinge upon government.”

A higher number of deaths related to organised crime might have called into question the

government’s ability to control the public security crisis. This could have been particularly

damaging as Calderon’s government had placed public security policy as one of its

priorities. In sum, both from a quantitative and from a theoretical perspective, the number

of murders reported by the press seems to be a major factor in the decrease in support for

the Presidential handling of public security.

Since the aim of the paper is to look at the role played by the government’s communication

strategy in the public support for the policy, it seems relevant to describe how the

communications strategy was operationalized as a quantitative variable. Two sets of

indicators were considered: 1) Presidential speeches25 and 2) Media campaigns produced

by the presidency about public security.

First, regarding the speeches, I divided the 2,704 public speeches into three categories

according to how much they focussed on public security: 1) highly focussed (304

speeches), 2) partially focussed (386 speeches) and 3) non-focussed (2014 speeches). In

order to make this selection, I first defined a list of 275 words and phrases, with their

stemmed words, commonly used in Calderon’s public security speeches (see Annexe 1). I

then obtained the number of times any of those words appeared in each speech. Using a

measure of one standard deviation from the mean, I came up with the three categories

mentioned above. 26 The highly focussed ones had 69 or more occurrences, the partially

focussed had between 29 and 68 of those words, and the none-focussed ones less than

29.27

25 Al President Calderón speeches are available at: http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx26 The word counting procedure was performed with the NVivo word frequency feature, whereas the classification procedure was performed wit the SPSS visual grouping feature.27 It is worth mentioning that the distribution of those values was clearly skewed. Most speeches had very low counts of these words. It is also important to underline that I used the absolute number of words rather than the percentage they represented in each speech, because I am interested in developed arguments. Using percentages would have excluded those speeches in which he talked about various topics but made important references to public security and developed arguments about it, such as some meetings with businesspeople which dealt mainly with the economy but where he also addressed the issue of public security. It could also have excluded reports of the state of the nation where other issues also competed. Another important consideration about the selection of words is that although they are words commonly used in public security speeches, some of them are also used in other kind of speeches to refer to other topics. However the fact that they appear at the same time in a single text is a good indication that the text makes deep reference to the topic of public security. Some words that were obvious candidates to be part of this list were excluded because in Calderon speeches they are mainly used to refer to other things. That is the case for instance of the word “seguro”, which he most commonly used to refer to health topics as in “Seguro Popular” or “Seguro Social”. For the same reason, the word “seguridad” was excluded as a word on its own but included in certain phrases such

19

Figure 6 shows the relative presence of highly and partially focussed speeches (stacked)

within the total number of speeches each week with a 6 week moving average that allows

us to see the trend more clearly.

Contrary to what some analysts argue about President Calderon being monothematic with

the issue of public security, what can be observed is that, on average, speeches dealing

largely with public security were only 12% of the total.

It seems from figure 6 that in the second part of his term, likely in response to violence on

the streets and the coverage of the media, the presences of speeches related to public

security increased. Violence, in terms of murders reported by the press, reached a peak in

2010 and 2011 and perception of lack of public security was also very high at that time

(Lendo 2013). The fourth and fifth years of Calderon’s administration were very intense in

terms of criminal violence and law enforcement actions. For instance in the period

between May the 15th and September the 12th, 2010, there were several incidents, which

may be the cause for an increase in the President’s focus on the topic that can be seen in

the chart.28

As figure 6 shows, towards the last months of his administration, President Calderon’s

speeches focussed less and less on public security. This coincided with a smaller number

of high impact incidents and with decreasing figures of murders reported by the press. It is

also worth underlying that 2012 was a presidential election year. For that reason the

President was banned from talking about government achievements for three months (1st

April to the first week of July). This meant that if he wanted to promote his achievements

before the election, he had to take advantage of the previous three months (January-

March) to talk about them in all policy areas. Hence, the relative presence of public

security speeches had to be reduced. After Election Day, the time came for him to set his

legacy. This meant talking about government achievements in all policy areas, and not

only in public security. Nonetheless, as his work in public security became the trademark

of his administration, he needed to state very clearly what it was that he had done to deal

with this overwhelming and polarising issue. 29

as “Seguridad Pública”.28 Diego Fernández de Cevallos, a prominent figure from the president’s party, Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), was kidnaped (15/05/10). Gregorio Sánchez Martínez, candidate for governor of Quintana Roo from the PRD, was arrested (25/05/10). Rodolfo Torre Cantú, leading candidate for governor of Tamaulipas, from the PRI, was assassinated (28/06/10). Ignacio Coronel “Nacho Coronel”, leading member of the Sinaloa Cartel, was killed resisting arrest (29/07/10). 72 migrant workers were massacred in San Fernando Tamaulipas (24/08/10). Edgar Valdez Villareal “La Barbie”, a notorious criminal linked first to the Sinaloa Cartel and later to the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, was arrested (30/08/10). Sergio Villareal “El Grande”, a prominent member of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel was arrested (12/09/10).29 It is important to remind here that there is no Presidential re-election in Mexico, which meant Calderon could not compete. Additionally, Calderon’s party, the National Action Party (PAN), lost the election. Under these circumstances the issue of setting the legacy became even more important.

20

Figure 6

Second, regarding media advertising campaigns. Throughout the six years of the

administration a series of campaigns were run from Mexico presidential office.30 They

dealt with several policy issues. For this paper I considered only those dealing with public

security.31 From their content, spots on public security could be divided into two

categories: 1) those reporting achievements (results, captures, seizures, etc.), and 2) those

dealing with the causes of the fight, why is the government doing what is doing.

30 Data on spots used in this paper are not public. They were generously provided by IBOPE AGB Mexico, the firm commissioned by the office of the Presidency to monitor spots campaigns.31 It is worth mentioning that the Presidency was not the only federal government office running campaigns on the public security policy. The Public Security Secretariat as well as the Ministry of Defence and The Ministry of the Navy were also running similar campaigns. Due to data availability this paper only considers those run by the Presidency. While it is true that all of them could have had an impact on public opinion. This paper is mainly concerned with the public support for the President’s handling of public security.

21

Figure 7

Figure 7 depicts the moving average for weekly impacts of public security spots for both

categories (achievement and cause). As can be seen, from the total number of times any

public security spot from the presidency was broadcasted, 57% were spots addressing the

reasons for the policy and 43% were about what the policy had achieved. Throughout the

period both kinds of spots were alternated. Achievements spots were more frequent in

2008 and 2009 but the ones addressing the causes for the public security policy were

preeminent in 2010. What seems clearly out of trend is the increase in spots broadcasted

after the presidential Election Day in 2012. Again, spots and government publicity have

several restrictions prior to the election day, which meant that the publicity campaigns

programmed for that year had to be run after the election, hence that big jump in the last

months of the administration. Interestingly those spots were not mainly focussed on what

the policy had achieved but instead they were trying to remind people why the policy was

present in the first place.

From the literature on presidential approval, we know that issues such as the economy

and party identification have a strong impact on the way the public evaluates a president.

Similarly, we know that approval may vary as a consequence of high profile events of

22

various kinds. (MacKuen et al. 1992; Anderson 1995; Buendía 1996; Stimson 1999; Lewis-

Beck and Paldman 2000; Duch 2001; Erickson, et. al. 2002; Sanders and Carey 2003;

Sanders and Gavin 2004) Consequently, in order to build the hypotheses for this analysis I

considered both the factors that seemed to be relevant in the initial exploratory analysis

(Lendo, 2013) and those factors suggested by the literature and confirmed by a large

number of studies.

It has to be said, however, that most studies focus on presidential approval as such,

whereas this research focuses on presidential approval regarding the public security

policy. This seems theoretically relevant as the topic has been scarcely investigated and

certainly no other studies address it for the Mexican case. Furthermore, the Calderon

administration in Mexico seems to be a good case to study since, as is well known Mexico

underwent a deep public security crisis during those years, which was faced with a bold

policy from the President and the federal government.

This paper intends to apply a systematic statistical technique to explain the approval of

Calderon’s performance in public security as a consequence of violence reported by the

press, his communications strategy and relevant events related to public security taking

place during the administration.

Research Design

Hypothesis

I expect the approval of the President’s handling of public security to be a function of the

violence reported by the press, events related to public security such as major violence

incidents or high impact law enforcement actions, party identification, economic situation

and the communications strategy, as follows:

I hypothesise that other things being equal, the higher the level of violence reported by the

press the lower the level of approval for the President’s handling of public security. This is

so for at least two reasons: first, because an increasing number of murders could be

construed as a failure of the public security strategy (highly identified with the President),

and second, because while Calderon’s resolve to fight organised crime was highly

welcomed initially –when contrasted with Fox’s passive attitude towards crime– an

increasing exposure to violence in the media might have eroded support for the President

and his policy.

I expect certain incidents with higher press coverage to affect presidential approval. On

the one hand the detention of notorious criminal leaders and the confiscations of illegal

drugs, weapons and money should have had a positive impact, as they would count as

23

evidence of the policy delivering good results. On the other hand, vicious violent acts

should have affected it negatively, especially when innocent people were wounded or

killed and even more so if authorities were perceived as being guilty or partially guilty.

I expect party identification to have an impact on presidential approval, with a higher

percentage of people identified with the President’s party affecting positively the approval

of the way he handled public security. Similarly, I expect a positive perception of the

economy to have a positive impact on the general evaluation of the President and as part

of that a positive assessment of his public security policy.

Finally I hypothesise that, other things being equal, the higher the number of speeches he

delivers explaining his policy and the higher the number of spots about public security

that are broadcasted, the higher the approval for the way the President handles public

security.

The method chosen to test these hypotheses was time series regression analysis, because

what I am trying to estimate are the dynamic effects of the aforementioned independent

variables on the dependent variable, i.e. the approval of President Calderon’s handling of

public security.

The initial model was specified as follows:

Approval of President Handling of Public Securityt = a + b1violence reported by the presst-1

+ b2government communicationst-1 + b3party identificationt + b4economic perceptiont +

b5event dummyt-1 … bk event dummyt-1 + ut

The period analysed covers June 2007 to November 2012. Observations are weekly and

there are a total of 287 observations.32 The reason for choosing weekly data is twofold:

first, decisions in terms of communications are frequently made in response to immediate

events and circumstances; and second, weekly data also allows for a greater number of

observations, which increases the accuracy of the estimation. That is why I decided to use

weekly data as opposed to monthly or quarterly data.

The dependent variable (approval of President’s handling of public security) comes from a

poll commissioned by the Office of the Presidency and taken on Friday and Saturday every

week (see annexe2). Data on the communications variables (spots and speeches) has been

32 The dependent variable as well as other variables used in this research come from the weekly poll commissioned by Presidencia de la República. Despite the fact that the administration began on December 2006, data prior to June 2007 is not available. These data were made public at the end of Calderon’s administration. The series is not complete; there is a period between February and June 2008 that is not part of the data made public by the Presidency. However as part of an agreement for this paper with Opina, a polling firm that carried out weekly polls, I obtained the information with the same methodology as the rest of the polls for the missing weeks. Annexe 2 shows the dates when the polls were taken and highlights those weeks with the data gently provided by Opina.

24

organised in such a way that it includes the spots broadcasted and the speeches delivered

from Friday of the previous week to Thursday the week of the poll, so it is lagged one week

(t-1). Data on organised crime murders reported by the press goes from Saturday the

previous week to Friday the week of the poll (that is the way it is organised by the source,

so there is a one day difference compared to the communications variables, but still it is

lagged one week) (t-1). Party identification and economic perception also come from the

weekly poll commissioned by the Office of the Presidency. There is a dummy variable for

each event and it is also lagged one week so that the poll respondents could have been

aware of the event.

Both the dependent variable and the variable on murders reported by the press were non-

stationary, hence the initial model had to be adjusted.33 Those two variables were first

differenced, which corrected the problem. Under this new specification what the model is

testing now is not the level of approval of the President’s handling of public security but

rather, the weekly change in the level of approval. The new model is specified as follows:

dApproval of President Handling of Public Securityt = a + b1 dviolence reported by the

presst-1 + b2 government communicationst-1 + b3 party identificationt + b4 economic

perceptiont + b5 event dummyt-1 … bk event dummyt-1 + ut

Results

Expressed in terms of the variable names used in the analysis, the model is as follows:

ADAPHPS = a + b1 ADRMt-1 + b2 LNICAUSEt-1 + b3 THFOCSPt-1 + b4 PANSTRt + b5 EBLYt + b6

ARTBLt-1 + b7 JJt-1 + b8 SICILIAt-1 + b9 ARPRTSHOt-1 + ut

Where:

ADAPHPS equals the absolute difference of the approval of the President’s handling of Public security (week t- week t-1)

ADRM equals the absolute difference of the murders reported by the press (week t- week t-1)

LNICAUSE equals the natural logarithm of the number of times a spot about cause was broadcasted

THFOCSP equals the total number of highly focussed speeches given in a week

PANSTR equals the percentage of respondent who strongly identified with the President’s party

EBLY equals the percentage of respondents who answered the economy was better now than a year before

ARTBL is a dummy variable, which equals one for the week that Arturo Beltran Leyva was shot and 0 for all other weeks

33 “If a time series contains a trend, then the values of rk will not come down to zero except for very large values of the lag. This is because an observation on one side of the overall mean tends to be followed by a large number of further observations on the same side of the mean because of the trend.” Chatfield, 2009, p.26

25

JJ is a dummy variable, which equals one for the week that José Jorge Balderas was detained and 0 for all other weeks

SICILIA is a dummy variable, which equals one for the week that the first debate between President Calderon and Javier Sicilia took place and 0 for all other weeks

ARPRTSHO is a dummy variable, which equals one for the week when the shooting between federal policemen in Mexico City’s Airport tool place and 0 for all other weeks

Results from the times series regression analysis show that the change in the approval for

the President’s handling of public security is significantly affected by violence reported by

the press, perceptions of the economic situation, the communications strategy and some

high profile events.

Table 1 shows the results of the time series analysis with those variables that proved to be

significant at the 95% confidence level. As had been hypothesised change in the approval

of the President’s work in public security is significantly and negatively affected by the

change in the number of murders reported by the press. In other words one of the main

factors explaining the decrease in the approval of President Calderon’s handling of the

public security crisis was the violence reflected in the media. This would mean that even

for a cause that is largely favoured by society,34 there is only so much violence that can be

tolerated before the support for a bold policy begins to erode.

TABLE 1

Source SS df MSNumber of obs= 286

F (8, 277)= 4.68Model 266.204515 8 33.2755643 Prob > F= 0.0000

Residual 1969.23325 277 7.1091453 R-squared= 0.1191Total 2235.43776 285 7.84364127 Adj R-squared= 0.0936

Root MSE = 2.6663

ADAPHPS Coef. Std. Err. t P > |t| [95% Conf. Interval]

ADRM -.007611 .0036952 -2.06 0.040 -.0148851 -.0003368EBLY .059183 .0352037 1.68 0.094 -.0101178 .1284838

LNICAUSE .0255137 .0152592 1.67 0.096 -.004525 .0555524THFOCSP .1806012 .0906744 1.99 0.047 .0021028 .3590996SICILIA1 7.412556 2.684425 2.76 0.006 2.128091 12.69702

ARTBL 7.411064 2.685743 2.76 0.006 2.124005 12.69812JJ 5.613402 2.690355 2.09 0.038 .3172631 10.90954

ARPRTSHO -4.732768 2.676058 -1.77 0.078 -10.00076 .5352265_cons -1.454139 .719119 -2.02 0.044 -2.869771 -.0385062

34 Even during the last year of the administration (2012) on average 49% thought that the lack of public security was the country’s most important problem; 70% were in favour of fighting organised crime; and 70% approved the so called coordinated operations. That is the special regional operations with the participation of the Army, the Navy and the Federal Police.

26

Another relevant finding is that the communications variables have a significant and

positive effect on the approval of the President’s work in public security. Other things

being equal, as the number of highly focussed speeches increased so did the approval of

the President’s handling of public security. In a similar way, ceteris paribus, as the number

of spots about the cause of the public security increased so did the approval.35 It is

important to underline that the general number of spots was not significant nor was the

number of spots about the results of the public security policy. The ones that had a

significant impact on approval were specifically those about the reasons for the fight

against crime.

While party identification did not prove to be significant under this model specification

(what we are measuring here is not the level of approval, but the change in that level from

one week to the next), the perception of the economy did. Other things being equal, as the

percentage of respondents that thought the economy was better than a year before

increased, so did the approval of the President’s work in pubic security. In other words a

better perception of the economy was reflected in a better assessment of the President in

his most salient policy area, namely public security.

In the case of the events, a large number of events were tested as dummies in the model

(see annexe 3). They included: 1) acts of violence that attracted the most attention from

the press due to their viciousness; 2) the highest impact law enforcement actions such as

the detentions of the most notorious criminals; 3) other government activities related to

public security such as the signature of the National Agreement for Security Justice and

Legality or the public dialogs the President had with various actors about public security.

From all of those events only four proved to significantly change the dynamic trend

between the dependent and the independent variables: 1) the first dialogue he had with

representatives of the victims of the movement called Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y

Dignidad (Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity) lead by Javier Sicilia, which was

significant and positive; 2) the operation in which Arturo Beltrán Leyva was killed

resisting arrest, which was also positive and significant; 3) the detention of José Jorge

Balderas Nicknamed JJ, who acquired notoriety after he shot a very popular football player

in a bar in Mexico City, which was also positive and significant and finally 4) a shootout

between federal policemen in Mexico City international airport, in which one group of

policemen happened to have links with a criminal organisation. That variable proved to be

significant and negative for the approval of the President’s handling of public security.

35 In the case of this variable, it was necessary to use the logarithm of the number of impacts in order to control for variance and make sure that the strong variation did not have undue influence.

27

Conclusions

The objective of this research was to analyse the evolution of approval of the public

security policy put forward by President Felipe Calderon in Mexico. More specifically the

aim was to find out whether the communications strategy followed by Mexico’s

presidential office had an effect on approval of the way President Calderon handled public

security.

From the time series regression analysis carried out, it seems that in fact certain factors

had a dynamic effect on Presidential approval in this particular field. First and foremost

the violence reported by the press seems to have had a significant and negative impact.

Even when we are not talking about the actual levels of approval and the actual levels of

violence reported by the press but the change in those variables, the effect is resilient. It

has to be said that the reported murders indicator comes from the actual figure that one of

the most influential newspapers in Mexico reports every week. It does not in itself reflect

whether or not those murders made the front pages, the brutality of the incidents, or the

exposure of the audience to graphic scenes of violent acts. However, the event dummy

variables precisely tried to capture that, singling out the incidents that generated a higher

impact in the public. Another important point to make is that the variable reported

murders was also tested in a cumulative way, to see if it had a cumulative impact but it

proved non-significant. That is to say that the main effect on public opinion from the

murders reported by the press comes from immediate events. This in turn confirms the

importance of carrying out this analysis on a weekly basis rather than monthly or

quarterly.

While violence portrayed by the media eroded the approval of the President’s handling of

the issue, both his public interventions and some of the advertising campaigns produced

by the presidential office seem to have worked to mitigate that effect. It is striking that,

even when figures of murders reported by the press averaged over 200 a week, by the end

of his administration 50% still approved the way he handled his job as President, and 33%

approved the way he handled public security in particular. Results of the time series

analysis show that both speeches and spots played a significant role to improve support

despite the violence reported by the press.

Regarding speeches, I tested both the percentage of speeches focussing on public security

out of the total number of speeches every week and the total number of speeches as such.

It was this latter variable, which proved to be significant. The reason for this might be that

while the audience do not follow every speech given by the President, the higher the

number of times he addressed the issue in a week the higher the possibilities that the

28

media covered his message. It is important to underline that in his public speeches

Calderón used to explain with detail his view of the problem and the reasons for his policy

as well as the achievements. Consequently, the more he talked about the issue, the greater

the exposure of the audience to his perspective of the problem.

Similarly, I tested advertising campaigns in various ways, but it was not until I singled out

those spots dealing with the cause of the “fight” that I was able to find out how great an

impact they had on public support. It is very symptomatic that the spots depicting the

achievements and results of the policy did not have a significant impact on presidential

approval. The first thing this suggests is that what counts as an important achievement for

the government does not have the same weight for the citizen. Second, as many other

studies have found, the audience assesses the veracity of the information based on the

source. As McNair (2012, p.29) argues, “one’s knowledge that a piece of communication is

partisan will to a large extent predetermine one’s ‘reading’ of it.” Government

achievements reported by the same government might be regarded more as propaganda

than anything else. Third, when the public security policy was launched it did not include

specific goals or tools that could be used to measure success or failure. The media, on the

other hand, did position the number of murders as a meter of levels of violence.

Eventually, Mexico’s attorney general, Procuraduría General de la República (PGR),

published the names of the 37 most wanted criminals36, and there was an attempt to make

that a meter of government’s success but it does not seem to have worked. Consequently,

if what was at stake was the competence of the government37 to deal with criminal

organisations an increasing number of executions had a rather negative effect

overweighting that of the information stemming from government spots.

While media advertising campaigns about achievements and results did not work, those

about the cause did. This finding suggests that despite the levels of violence, the public

agreed that something needed to be done in order to halt criminality. It also suggests that

the reason why they supported the government initially in its campaign against crime

remained. From a more communicative perspective it has to be said that spots addressing

the cause of the fight were more emotionally than rationally oriented. They portrayed

common citizens (especially young people) rather than soldiers, policemen or criminals,

36 This was published the 23rd of March, 2009, See, dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5084563&fecha=23/03/200937 Erickson’s (2002, p.31) argue that one of the two things people want from government and the President in particular is: “competence in achieving commonly shared policy goals (peace, domestic tranquility, prosperity, and so forth). This is the dominant, and more often exclusive, conception of micro processes in the Presidential Approval literature. For the president, competence involves more than the achievement of results; citizens also seek reassurance of control. For confidence in the future, they want the president to be in charge and to seem to be in charge. This is particularly crucial when dramatic events impinge upon government.”

29

which was the case for the other type of spots. This might have made people feel more

identified with the cause and consequently more supportive of the role the President was

playing.

Another finding of course was that the greater the percentage of people who felt the

economy was getting better, the higher the support for the way the President handled

public security. The main reason for this, I would think, is that a better feeling about the

economy had a positive impact on the general evaluation of the President and

consequently in the assessment made about the way he handled specific policies i.e. public

security.

Finally the model was tested with a large number of events as dummy variables to see if

specific events had a significant impact on the dynamic relationship between the

dependent and the other independent variables. Ceteris paribus, just a relatively small

number of them proved to be significant. In terms of the law enforcement actions only two

changed the trend in a significant way:

1) The incident when Arturo Beltrán Leyva, one of the most violent criminals, leader of the

Beltrán Leyva cartel, was shot in Cuernavaca by members of the navy resisting arrest. This

incident received a great deal of attention from the media. A picture of his dead body

covered in 100-dollar bills was all over the place. A couple of days later the mother, a

sister, a brother and an aunt of one of the officers that participated in the operation were

shot dead by a squad that entered their house in another city, Villahermosa. It was

probably this later event that showed the viciousness of criminal organisations, which

generated a positive response from the public to the President’s bold public security

policy.

2) The detention of José Jorge Balderas, also associated with the Beltrán Leyva

organisation, had a positive and significant impact. In this case, we are not talking about a

major cartel leader. However he became notorious after shooting one of the most popular

football players in Mexico: Salvador Cabañas, a proven goal scorer who was active at the

time of the incident. This event, which took place in a bar in Mexico City, became main

news, for both the front page and the sports page. It became a major symbol of insecurity,

and the impunity with which criminals were allowed to operate. Most TV and radio news,

as well as newspapers followed the details of the investigation and when he was finally

captured it easily made front pages. All of this might have contributed to the fact that this

event had a significant and positive impact on the assessment of the President.

30

The case of Sicilia has a totally different interpretation. Javier Sicilia, a poet and father of

Juan Francisco Sicilia who was murdered together with other friends in Cuernavaca,

became the leader of a movement called Paz con Justicia y Dignidad. This movement

represented some of the victims of violence in Mexico. It was one of the organisations that

were most critical of President Calderon’s public security policy. This movement, which

organised a huge demonstration in Mexico City similar to that in 2004, had been asking to

have an open debate with President Calderon about the situation of violence in Mexico and

the government’s anticrime policy. In an event without precedent in Mexico’s history,

Calderón accepted to have a public –televised– dialogue with the leaders of the movement.

It was a three hour long debate in which both parties made their case. It ended up with a

warm hug between the President and Sicilia, the photo of which made all the front pages.

This finding then suggests that the public treasured Calderon’s open attitude to

acknowledge his critics and being able to make his case. The dialogue between Calderon

and Sicilia was widely covered by the media and it was a great opportunity for the

audience to hear what the problem was about and the specific measures that were in place

to address such a complex issue. This might have helped to increase the approval of the

President’s role in public security, as the findings suggest.

A further finding is that of the shooting between federal policemen at Mexico City’s

airport. For years the government’s discourse had been that the Federal Police was a

renewed institution, which had adopted a new and better policing system. Members of this

corporation were portrayed as the best policemen in the country and they went through

regular vetting processes in order to keep the corporation free of corrupt officers.

Nonetheless, the incident in which a group of policemen, linked to a criminal organisation,

shot at another group of policemen that were investigating them, on the public premises of

the airport, severely damaged the image of the exemplary police corporation. The Federal

Police had been subject to recognition by the President, who frequently used the

corporation as an example of good policing practices.38 It is not surprising that if the image

38 See for instance: http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2007/10/el-presidente-calderon-en-el-evento-nuevo-modelo-institucional-de-policia/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2008/06/el-presidente-calderon-en-la-inauguracion-del-centro-de-mando-de-la-policia-federal/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2008/09/el-presidente-calderon-en-la-ceremonia-de-ascensos-y-reconocimientos-en-la-policia-federal/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2009/03/el-presidente-calderon-en-la-toma-de-protesta-del-consejo-directivo-2009-2012-mexico-unido-contra-la-delincuencia-ac/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2009/06/el-presidente-calderon-en-la-inauguracion-del-foro-nacional-seguridad-con-justicia/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2009/06/mensaje-del-presidente-felipe-calderon-en-el-inicio-del-curso-para-policias-cientificos-investigadores-de-la-ssp/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2009/04/el-presidente-calderon-en-la-inauguracion-de-la-plaza-bicentenario-independencia/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2009/09/mensaje-a-la-nacion-del-presidente-calderon-en-materia-de-seguridad-en-el-marco-de-su-tercer-informe-de-gobierno/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2009/08/el-presidente-calderon-en-la-ceremonia-de-entrega-de-condecoraciones-de-la-policia-federal/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2009/11/el-presidente-calderon-en-la-inauguracion-del-centro-de-inteligencia-de-la-policia-federal-de-la-secretaria-de-seguridad-

31

of the corporation was affected by a widely covered incident, such as the shootout, that

would also affect the image of the President himself.

Summing up, this research shows the critical role that the media and communications in

general play in the legitimisation of a public policy and the political actor or actors who

drive it. While the fight against organised crime seemed to have enjoyed a great deal of

support from the public at the outset, media reports about the costs in terms of violence

and human lives utterly eroded such support. It was only a persistent communications

strategy from the federal government, more specifically from the office of the Presidency,

which could prevent further damage.

Mexico, as other nations in the continent, is going through a deep crisis in terms of public

security. Given the complexity of the problem, the resilience of the social conditions that

have generated it and the general institutional weakness in the region, this is likely to be

an enduring issue. Apart from the specific measures to overcome the crisis, it seems

critical to develop sound communication strategies that seek to convey the understanding

of the problem and the nature of the policies implemented to deal with it.

Millions of people in Latin America face the reality of violence, insecurity and lawlessness

in their daily lives. They are also exposed, through the media, to the violent acts performed

by vicious criminals. Making sense of all that is not an easy task, specially when, like in the

case of Mexico, criminals make violence an instrument of communication. If organised

crime represents a threat for society as much as it does for the State, it seems most

relevant that citizens and the government have a common understanding of the problem.

In the case of public security, we are dealing with the most basic function of the State; it

seems critical that citizens are aware of what the policies to address the problem are and

what they should expect from them. Otherwise confusion may easily emerge and the

policies aiming to curb violence and insecurity may not elicit the necessary social support

to be sustained in the long run.

What this research has shown is that people value openness and clarity in the message.

The dialogue with Javier Sicilia, the media advertising campaigns about the cause of the

publica/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2010/07/el-presidente-calderon-en-la-clausura-de-la-quinta-cumbre-de-la-comunidad-latinoamericana-y-del-caribe-de-inteligencia-policial/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2010/06/mensaje-a-la-nacion-del-presidente-felipe-calderon-hinojosa/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2010/06/el-presidente-calderon-en-la-inauguracion-en-la-xxviii-sesion-del-consejo-nacional-de-seguridad-publica/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2010/09/el-presidente-calderon-en-su-mensaje-con-motivo-del-iv-informe-de-gobierno/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2010/12/el-presidente-calderon-en-dialogos-con-motivo-del-cuarto-ano-de-gobierno-i/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2011/02/el-presidente-calderon-en-la-comida-en-el-marco-de-la-xxix-reunion-plenaria-del-comite-empresarial-mexico-japon/ ; http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2011/03/palabras-del-presidente-de-los-estados-unidos-mexicanos-licenciado-felipe-calderon-hinojosa-durante-la-inauguracion-de-la-10ª-convencion-nacional-de-american-chamber-of-commerce-of-mexico/ ;

32

fight and the positive impact of the President’s speeches all point to the same direction.

The public appreciate communication that helps them to understand what is going on and

what is being done to deal with the problem. It is also clear that they are not willing to

hear just propaganda or partisan messages, as in the case of the achievements spots,

which proved to be non-significant. Finally, they are willing to praise government results

when they seem really meaningful for the people, like in the case of the two law

enforcement events that proved to be significant for the presidential approval.

Thus far the research has been concerned with the quantitative nature of communication

rather than the qualitative one. Further investigation is necessary in order understand the

role played not only by the number of messages but also by the content of such messages.

The analysis of the communications coming from criminal groups, the way the press

addresses the issue, what does it say under which circumstances, as well as the specific

messages sent by the government in regard to its policy are all important sources of

analysis. An analysis like that would shed light on the public’s reaction to specific

messages from specific senders.

At this point of his administration, President Enrique Peña Nieto has followed a very

similar policy to fight organised crime, but he has deployed a totally different

communications strategy. It is clear that the federal government has made an effort to

downgrade the issue of public security in the communications sphere. It seems also clear

that by appointing several spokespersons, the President has avoided dealing with the

issue himself. It seems most relevant to analyse what has been the effect of these changes

on public opinion and public support for the policy.

Finally, given the regional nature of the pubic security problem, a comparative study

among the various countries that are facing high levels of criminal activity would shed

important light on how to deal with this issue communication wise. Argentina, Brazil,

Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador and Venezuela represent interesting cases that deserve

to be analysed in order to have a better understanding of the role of communications in

the social support for anti crime policies.

33

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Annex 1

Words and phrases commonly used in public security speeches.

abatimiento delincuente marinaabatir delito mataracosar denuncia miedoacoso denunciar militaracusatorio depuración ministerialadicción depurar ministerioagente derecho "ministerios públicos"agravian "derecho de piso" ministroagredir "derechos humanos" "modus operandi"agresión derrotar muerteagresor despojado narcomenudeoalias despojar narcóticoambición detención narcotraficantesamedrentar detener narcotráficoamenaza disputa navalamparo distingos nueva vidaaprehender dolor oficialesaprehensión dominio operativosarma dosis oralesarredrar droga ordenarrojo ejecución ordenamientoartero ejército organizadoasediar embate pandillasasedio enemigo pazaseguramiento enfrentamiento penalasesinar erradicar penitenciarioasesinato esclavitud pgrasesino esclavizar "plataforma méxico "atacar "escuela segura" plazaatemorizar "espacios públicos" "poder coercitivo"atentan "estado de derecho" policíaautoridad "estrategia integral" policiacoauxilio estructuras policialaveriguación ética polígrafobanda evidencia presobarbarie extinción presuntobatalla extorsión prevenir"bienes asegurados" extorsionar preventivo"cadena de custodia" fallecer prisióncadetes fallecimiento procuracióncaídos flagelo procuradorcaigan frontal procuraduríacapos fuego profesionalizacióncaptura fuero profesionalizarcapturar fuero común proteccióncárcel fuerza protegercartel garras reclutamientocártel gloria reclutar

38

cartucho golpe recuperarcastigar golpear redclaudicar granadas replegarcobarde guerra replieguecobardía homicida rescatarcocaína homicidio rescatecombate honestidad respetarcombatir honrar respetocómplice ilegal robarcomplicidad ilícito robocondena impartición sangreconfiscar impune secuestrarconfrontación impunidad secuestrocontrol incautación "seguridad pública""control de confianza" incautar sicarioscontrolar infame soldadocontundencia infamia sometercontundente informantes sometimientoconvivencia inocencia subsidiariacooptación inseguridad sufrimientocooptar integral tejido socialcorporaciones inteligencia temorcorromper internos territorialcorrupción intimidación terrorcorruptos intimidar "tráfico de"corte judicial tranquilidadcrimen juez trasiegocriminal juicios treguacriminalidad jurídico tribunalcuartel justicia tropacuerpo lastima valentíaculpa lavado valordañar lealtad velardaño legal víctimadeber legalidad victimariodebilidad ley victoriadecomisar libertad vidasdecomiso libre vigilanciadefender lucha vigilardefensa lucrar violacióndelicada lucro violardelictivo lugarteniente violenciadelincuencia magistrado violentodelincuencial marihuana

Annex 2Dates for the opinion polls commissioned by Presidencia de la República:

From 01/07/07 to 16/12/07; from 04/01/08 to 09/02/08; 13-15/06/08; from 04/07/08 to 21/12/08; from 09/01/09 to 05/04/09; from 17/04/09 to 28/07/09; from 10/07/09 to 21/12/09; from 08/01/10 to 16/12/10; from 07/01/11 to 04/12/11; from 06/01/12

39

to 25/11/12. Supplemented by polls from Opina from 15/02/08 to 08/07/08 and from 20/07/08 to 29/07/08

Annex 3Eventos de Alto Impacto:

Crímenes Alto ImpactoSUCESO FECHA

Secuestro de Silvia Vargas (esto no se hizo noticia inmediatamente) 10/09/07Asesinan a Edgar Millán Comisionado de la Policía Federal 08/05/08Secuestro y asesinato de Fernando Marti 01/08/0824 personas fueron ejecutadas en La marquesa 12/09/08Durante el Grito de Independencia en Morelia, explotaron granadas entre la gente que asistió a la ceremonia dejando 7 muertos y más de 100 heridos 15/09/08

El líder de "La Familia" Servando Gómez Martínez, alias "La Tuta", ofreció un pacto de no agresión con el presidente Calderón 15/07/09

Miembros de Los Zetas asesinaron en venganza a familiares de Melquisedec Angulo Córdova, el marino que perdió la vida durante el operativo en donde murió Arturo Beltrán Leyva

22/12/09

Asesinato de jóvenes en Villas de Salvarcar 31/01/10Dos estudiantes del Tec de Monterrey murieron durante un enfrentamiento entre militares y el crimen organizado en el estado de Nuevo León 19/03/10

Secuestro de Diego Fernández de Cevallos 14/05/10Asesinato del candidato del PRI al gobierno de Tamaulipas Rodolfo Torre Cantú 28/06/10Atentado con un coche bomba en contra de la Policía Federal en Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua 15/07/10

Setenta y dos indocumentados centro americanos fueron ejecutados por Zetas en Tamaulipas 24/08/10

Asesinato de Marisela Escobedo 16/12/10Secuestro y asesinato de Juan Francisco Sicilia 29/03/11Hallazgo de doce fosas clandestinas en las que se encontraron más de cien cuerpos y que están relacionadas con el secuestro y asesinato de pasajeros de autobuses en San Fernando, Tamaulipas

12/04/11

Balacera afuera del estadio del equipo Santos en Torreón. 20/08/11Ataque al Casino Royale en Monterrey Nuevo León 25/08/1132 cadáveres fueron encontrados en tres domicilios en Boca del Río, Veracruz, luego de un operativo llevado a cabo por la Marina 06/10/11

Balacera entre Policías Federales en el Aeropuerto de la Ciudad de México 25/06/12Oficial de la Secretaría de Marina y personal de la embajada de Estados Unidos son baleados cerca de tres marías 24/08/12

Golpes a la delincuenciaSUCESO FECHA

Decomiso de 205 millones de dólares del Chino Zhen Li Ye Gon que traficaba materia prima para la elaboración de drogas 15/03/07

Fue detenida en la Ciudad de México, Sandra Ávila Beltrán, conocida como “La Reina del Pacífico” 28/09/07

Captura de Alfredo Beltrán Leyva alias ‘El Mochomo’ 20/01/08

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La policía federal capturó a 11 narcotraficantes colombianos en el Distrito Federal. 19/10/08

Se aseguró a Eduardo Arellano Félix, (a) “El Doctor”, uno de los líderes del Cártel de los Arellano Félix 25/10/08

El Ejército y la Policía Federal capturaron a Santiago Meza López, "El Pozolero", quien desapareció a más de 300 ejecutados por el cártel de Tijuana. 24/01/09

La Procuraduría General de la República capturó a Vicente Zambada Niebla, El Vicentillo, hijo del Mayo Zambada, en la Ciudad de México 19/03/09

La PGR detiene a 10 Presidentes Municipales y otros funcionarios en Michoacán por vínculos con el Narcotráfico 26/05/09

La Policía Federal capturó a cinco integrantes de la banda "Los Rojos", acusados del secuestro y homicidio de Silvia Vargas. 28/07/09

La Secretaría de Marina abatió a Arturo Beltrán durante un operativo en Cuernavaca, Morelos para capturarlo 16/12/09

La Policía Federal capturó a Teodoro García Simental, "El Teo" 12/01/10El Ejército capturó a José Gerardo Álvarez Vázquez, "El Indio", uno de los principales operadores del cártel de los Beltrán Leyva 21/04/10

La PGR detuvo al candidato del PRD a gobernador de Quintana Roo, Greg Sánchez, por vínculos con el crimen organizado y lavado de dinero 25/05/10

El Ejército realizó un operativo en Zapopan, Jalisco, en el que murió Ignacio 'Nacho' Coronel, mano derecha del Chapo Guzmán. 29/07/10

La Policía Federal capturó a Édgar Valdez Villarreal "La Barbie" quien encabezaba el Cártel de los Beltrán Leyva 30/08/10

Captura de Sergio Villarreal, "El Grande". 12/09/10La PGR dio a conocer grabaciones donde "La Tuta", líder de "La Familia", ofreció apoyo a Julio Cesar Godoy en su campaña. 14/10/10

Fue abatido Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén alias "Tony Tormenta" durante un enfrentamiento con elementos de la Marina. 05/11/10

El Ejército capturó a Edgar "El Ponchis" Jiménez, niño de catorce años de edad que era sicario del Cártel de los Beltrán Leyva 04/12/10

Aprensión de Jacobo Tagle secuestrador y asesino del hijo de Isabel Wallace. 04/12/10La Policía Federal capturó a Flavio Méndez Santiago, "El Amarillo", líder y fundador de "Los Zetas" 17/01/11

La Policía Federal capturó en la Ciudad de México a José Jorge Balderas Garza, alias "El JJ" presunto operador de "La Barbie" y presunto agresor del futbolista Salvador Cabañas

18/01/11

La Policía Federal capturó a José de Jesús Radilla, “El Negro”, líder del Cártel del Pacífico Sur en Morelos y presunto autor intelectual y material del asesinato del hijo de Javier Sicilia, Juan Francisco

25/05/11

Elementos del Ejército detuvieron al empresario y ex alcalde de Tijuana Jorge Hank Rohn por posesión ilegal de armas de uso exclusivo del Ejército 04/06/11

La Policía Federal capturó a José de Jesús Méndez, alias ‘El Chango’, el principal líder de la organización criminal ‘La Familia’ 21/06/11

La Policía Federal capturó a José Antonio Acosta Hernández, alias "El Diego", jefe operativo del Cártel de Juárez. 29/07/11

La Policía Federal capturó a Moisés Montero Álvarez, alias "El Koreano", líder del Cártel Independiente de Acapulco 01/08/11

Captura Marina a Mario Cárdenas Guillen, “el M1” o “el Gordo”, hermano de Osiel Cárdenas 05/09/12

Captura del Coss 12/09/12Fue abatido Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, el Lazca, líder del grupo criminal Los Zetas 07/10/12

Otros

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SUCESO FECHAAcuerdo nacional por la Seguridad la Justicia y la Legalidad 21/08/08Acuerdo para la Cobertura Informativa de la Violencia 24/03/11Marcha de Cuernavaca, Morelos a la Ciudad de México encabezada por el poeta Javier Sicilia 05/05/11

Debate entre el Presidente Felipe Calderón y el poeta Javier Sicilia 23/06/11

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