The agenda of “femicide” during the Vicente Fox’s Administration

Abstract

The murder and disappearance of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua during the last thirteen years have become an internationally known human rights case. Ciudad Juarez, as a paradigmatic case of extreme violence against women, has involved the political struggle of numerous Mexican and international activists, international agencies and fragments of different governments, forming what Sikkink and Keck have named a transnational advocacy network ?TAN?, to pressure Mexican authorities to end the situation and comply with the international human rights norms. In this article I apply Risse and Sikkink’s “spiral model” to understand the dynamics and political impact of the Juarez case, addressing four questions: (1) How can we explain the success of the Juarez case in terms of transnational mobilization? (2)  How did the TAN originate and gain international momentum? (3) How did the TAN affect Mexico’s policy during the Fox administration? (4) Is Risse and Sikkink´s “spiral model” useful to explain the scope and consequences of the political pressure exerted on the Mexican government?