The Merida Initiative: Perceptions, Interests and Security Cooperation in the Mexico-U.S. Relationship (2006-2012)

This dissertation asserts that bilateral cooperation can be possible when specific perceptions and identities -socially constructed- converge between two states, creating subsequently rational incentives to cooperate strategically. Both states can derive domestic and international benefits from mutual cooperation materialized through a specific bilateral policy. However, the evaluation of such cooperative program requires, as another stage of analysis, different analytical tools based on materialist and constructivist criteria opening then the possibility to find successes and failures simultaneously in the same bilateral policy. Taking the Merida Initiative as a case study of security cooperation, this research engages in the analysis of the Mexico-U.S. relationship from 2006 to 2012, finding some theoretical and political lessons about bilateral cooperation and regional security affairs.