U.S.-Mexico Policy Coordination: An Assessment of the Twenty-First Century Border Policy Coordination Effort

摘要

There is some concern in the United States about the ability of the Mexican government to address policy priorities, especially in the face of rising drug violence. Mutually beneficial topics such as border infrastructure, information sharing, and law enforcement coordination have not been effectively coordinated at the national levels of both governments, which has led to significant inefficiency on issues related to the border. In 2010, the United States and Mexico established a bi-national policy coordination process to address topics beyond security and law enforcement. The United States' 'Twenty- First Century Border' coordination process, a parallel and supporting effort to the Obama Administration's 'Beyond Merida' effort, is the primary national- level effort to improve U.S. border policy coordination with Mexico. This paper assesses the effectiveness of the Twenty-First Century Border policy coordination process to determine if the bureaucratic structures, work identified, and work accomplished to date hold the potential to increase the governance capability of the Government of Mexico. The paper concludes that the Twenty-First Century Border effort will improve the governance capability of the Mexican federal government through increased and effective bi-national coordination, but more must be done.