THE WAR AGAINST DRUG–CARTELS: THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECURITY ASPECT OF MEXICO'S "FOURTH TRANSFORMATION"

The primary goal of our research is to explain the security aspect of Mexico's "fourth transformation" as well as its concrete results in practice from 2019 to 2022. The current president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, promised in the 2018 presidential campaign that upon coming to power, he would implement extensive economic, social and security reforms that would provide Mexicans with a better quality and safer life. The security aspect of his pre–election program was particularly concerned with finally ending the war against drug cartels that has been raging in this Latin American country since 2006. The results of our research showed that, despite the significant efforts of the López Obrador administration, in the observed period from the beginning of 2019 to the end of 2022, not only the overall security situation in Mexico did not improve, but the conflicts between the state and the drug cartels took on even more greater intensity. In conclusion, we pointed out several key factors that influenced the collapse of the security aspect of the "fourth transformation" of Mexico–the organizational, military and financial strength of the Mexican drug cartels, the outbreak of the corona virus pandemic, the specific "social policy" implemented by the drug cartels etc. During the research, we used the historical method, the case study method and the analysis method.