Teaching Comparative Government

Politics can be a life and death "game" in Mexico. Mexico violence: Newly elected Congresswoman kidnapped A newly elected Mexican Congresswoman, Norma Azucena Rodríguez Zamora, has been kidnapped at gunpoint on a highway in central Hidalgo state. Two men shot at Ms Rodríguez's car, injuring an assistant and the driver and causing the vehicle to flip over. The gunmen pulled Ms Rodríguez from the car and forced her into their vehicle. The kidnapping comes little more than a month after the mayor of the town of Naupan was seized and killed in the same area. Ms Rodríguez was elected on 1 July to represent eastern Veracruz state in the lower house of Congress for the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). The 32-year-old was due to take up office on 1 September. The state she will represent is one of the most violent in Mexico… The motive for his killing is not known but local politicians often become targets for criminal gangs if they are seen to interfere wi...

The conflicts and politics in Nigeria finally made the NYT front page. Does that make it more real? How many Americans will read it? Deadly Lack of Security Plagues Nigeria as Buhari Seeks Re-election Nigeria is beleaguered by security threats. In the northeast, Islamist extremists from Boko Haram and its splinter groups are waging increasingly complex attacks on military forces and civilians. In the middle part of the country, more than 1,300 people have been killed in increasingly vicious land disputes between cattle herders and farmers. Farther to the south, violence spikes from time to time in the Biafra region, where separatists are pushing to secede. And in various pockets throughout the country, like a major highway between Kaduna and Abuja, kidnappings of prominent figures and regular Nigerians alike have become common. The threats are becoming a major issue for President Muhammadu Buhari as he tries for a second term in February. Increasingly, critics, and even allies, compla...

It's not just on the levels of regime and government that violence affects the political culture. Mexico violence: Clowns protest over Acapulco murder rate Clowns dressed in white marched down a central street in the Mexican resort of Acapulco on Monday demanding an end to the city's crime wave. With their faces painted and carrying signs reading "peace", they said that they were "tired of so much violence". They complained that they were losing business because residents no longer threw parties out of fear of becoming targets of crime… Officials said they had recorded almost 50 more murders in the first three months of 2018 than in the same period last year. Most of the murders are believed to be related to warfare between rival criminal gangs in the region… In January, the US state department prohibited US government employees from travelling to the state of Guerrero, including Acapulco. It warned of armed groups "operating independently of the gove...

How are the demands on government and the state in Mexico similar to and different from those in Nigeria? Mexico’s murder rate heads for a new record IN APASEO EL GRANDE, a town in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, the bodies are stacking up… In the first three months of this year the municipality of 85,000 people had 43 murders, up from 20 in all of 2016. That is about the same as London, a city 100 times larger and currently panicking about its high murder rate… The town and the state it belongs to are suffering from a double blow. One is a national crime wave, during which the murder rate broke through its previous record of 2011. That peak came after the then president, Felipe Calderón, deployed the army to fight drug gangs. His tactic of capturing or killing kingpins caused the gangs to split into warring factions and to enter new lines of business. The current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, who took office in 2012, promised to halve the murder rate. Instead, after an ini...

Politics can be a deadly business in Mexico — especially for local candidates Widespread killings of candidates cast shadow over Mexican elections Authorities have confirmed the slayings of at least 30 candidates, according to Alfonso Navarrete, Mexico's interior secretary. Some reports indicate the toll since last year may be almost twice as high. The killings — mostly of local candidates in provincial areas far from the Mexican capital — form a chilling backdrop to the July 1 elections, which include races for president, Congress and local posts across the country. In all, more than 3,000 offices are up for grabs, the most ever on a single day. The slain candidates represented a range of political affiliations and movements, suggesting that the killings are more about local power grabs and gang rivalries than national conflicts among parties… Most of the killings have garnered little attention from national news outlets, which are heavily focused on the presidential contenders,...