Is the current president Felipe Calderón in a position to implement any of these reforms?
Buscaglia: No. Calderón arrived in office in 2006 with a very small margin of victory. What you need for these reforms are solid popular and congressional majorities, because the resistance from the entrenched elites can be very high. Calderón cannot force the opposition to do anything. They just call him a lame duck and refuse to cooperate because there is no incentive for them to do so. The European: What is the role of civil society in this context? Can non-state actors shoulder some of the burden? Buscaglia: Let me give you an example. The South of Italy is still seen as a safe haven for the mafia, the Ndrangheta, and the Camorra. But the scale and scope of organized crime have decreased significantly. The local governments can now confiscate property from organized crime and represent the interests of crime victims by giving the property to civil society. They use mafia mansions to create centers for the treatments of drug addicts. So there are two effects: the policy harms the fi
