Abstract
Mexico, like many other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean suffering persistent violence, has sought to shift its anti-narcotics and organized crime control policies to develop more effective responses to the crime challenges that the country faces. Building on research in Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, and Mexico, this essay develops an analysis of crime as embedded within political, social, and economic networks that provide criminal activity with broad cross-sectoral support. This cross-sectoral support for criminal activity - which can involve both official corruption but also social support from entrepreneurs and popular sectors - helps to sustain crime even in the face of evolving state policy. We argue that different forms of crime control policy are affected in different ways by these illicit networks. The essay identifies three forms of policy – market suppression, organizational suppression, and behavioral modification – and examines through case studies the implications of internal and external illicit networks for these policies. López Obrador distanced his administration from the militarized security policy of the previous administrations, and yet has merely rebranded many of these existing policies. Without a policy that specifically addresses these illicit networks, any more novel interventions risk repeating the mistakes of the past.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
Notes
Extradition receives less attention than other forms of leadership removal, but is potentially important, given that some leaders continue to command from within Mexican prisons.
There is little ethnographic data available on how self-defense groups interact with the state and military in Guerrero (these interactions are better documented in adjacent Michoacán). It may be the case that there is less interaction, because the military leaves self-defense groups on their own – an approach somewhere between abandonment and avoidance. As Álvarez notes, the state is rarely experienced as an equal, accessible actor with whom communities can negotiate – unlike organized crime (2021b).
Crime and insecurity barely featured in Calderón’s presidential campaign, but in the long “lame duck” period between Calderón’s election and inauguration, perceptions of insecurity worsened in response to high-profile acts of violence in Michoacán and other states (Astorga, 2015).
References
Abello-Colak, A., & Guarneros-Meza, V. (2014). The role of criminal actors in local governance. Urban Studies, 51(15), 3268–3289. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013519831
Albaladejo, A. (2017, September 1). Second-in-command of Colombia’s Urabeños killed in security operation. InSight Crime. https://insightcrime.org/news/brief/colombia-urabenos-second-command-killed-security-operation/
Álvarez Rodriguez, I. (2021a). Drug-trafficking and rural capitalism in Guerrero. Mexico Opium Project. Noria Research. http://noria-research.com/chapter-2-drug-trafficking-and-rural-capitalism-in-guerrero/
Álvarez Rodriguez, I. (2021b). Ethnography of humiliation in the sierra of Guerrero. Mexico Opium Project. Noria Research. http://noria-research.com/chapter-7-ethnography-of-humiliation-in-guerrero/
Andreas, P. (1999). When policies collide: Market reform, market prohibition, and the narcotization of the Mexican economy. In H. R. Friman, & P. Andreas (Eds.), The illicit global economy and state power (pp. 125–141). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Arias, E. D. (2006). Drugs and democracy in Rio De Janeiro: Trafficking, social networks, and public security. University of North Carolina Press.
Arias, E. D. (2017). Criminal enterprises and governance in Latin America and the Caribbean. Cambridge University Press.
Arias, E. D., & Duica-Amaya, L. (2022). Advocacy, misdirection, protest, and exit: Strategies of aspiration and anxiety amid crime and conflict in Putumayo. Latin American Politics and Society. https://doi.org/10.1017/lap.2022.35
Arias, E. D., & Ungar, M. (2009). Community policing and Latin America’s citizen security crisis. Comparative Politics, 41(4), 409–429. https://doi.org/10.5129/001041509X12911362972476
Astorga, L. (2015). ¿Qué querían que hiciera? Inseguridad y delincuencia organizada en el gobierno de Felipe Calderón. Grijalbo.
Atuesta, L., & Ponce, A. (2017). Meet the narco: Increased competition among criminal organisations and the explosion of violence in Mexico. Global Crime, 18(4), 375–402.
Barrera-Ramírez, J., Prado, V., & Solheim, H. (2019). Life cycle assessment and socioeconomic evaluation of the illicit crop substitution policy in Colombia. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 23(5), 1237–1252.
Bergman, M. (2018). More money, more crime: Prosperity and rising crime in Latin America. Oxford University Press.
Bowden, M. (2001). Killing Pablo: The hunt for the world’s greatest outlaw. Grove Press.
Brockett, C. D. (2019). The drug kingpin decapitation strategy in Guatemala: Successes and shortcomings. Latin American Politics and Society, 61(4), 47–71. https://doi.org/10.1017/lap.2019.24
Calderon, G., Robles, G., Diaz-Cayeros, A., & Magaloni, B. (2015). The beheading of criminal organizations and the dynamics of violence in Mexico. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59(8), 1455–1485.
Carrión, L. (2019). De nada sirvió matar capos. Pie de Página. https://piedepagina.mx/de-nada-sirvio-matar-capos/
Castillo, J. C., & Kronick, D. (2020). The logic of Violence in drug War. American Political Science Review, 114(3), 874–887.
Correa-Cabrera, G. (2017). Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal corporations, energy, and civil war in Mexico. University of Texas Press.
Cruz, J. M., & Duran-Martinez, A. (2016). Hiding violence to deal with the state: Criminal pacts in El Salvador and Medellin. Journal of Peace Research, 53(2), 197–210.
del Bosque, M. (2017). Blood lines: The true story of a drug cartel, the FBI, and the battle for a horse-racing dynasty. Harper Collins.
Dickenson, M. (2014). The impact of leadership removal on Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 30, 651–676.
Dudley, S. (2011). The Zetas in Guatemala. InSight Crime. https://insightcrime.org/investigations/part-1-the-incursion/
Dudley, S. (2012). Part I - How the Zetas took Monterrey. InSight Crime. https://insightcrime.org/investigations/how-the-zetas-took-monterrey/
Duran-Martinez, A. (2018). The politics of drug violence: Criminals, cops and politicians in Colombia and Mexico. Oxford University Press.
Farfán-Mendéz, C. (2016). Beyond cartels and kingpins: A theory on behavioral patterns of Drug Trafficking organizations. University of California.
Farfán-Mendéz, C. (2019). The structure of drug trafficking organizations and money laundering practices: A risk appetite hypothesis. Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 1(3), 294–311.
Felbab-Brown, V. (2020). Fending off fentanyl and hunting down heroin: Controlling opioid supply from Mexico. The Opioid Crisis in America. The Brookings Institution.
Frissard Martínez, P., Farfán-Mendez, C., & Le Cour Grandmaison, R. (2021). Untangling poppy from violence. Noria Research. http://noria-research.com/untangling-opium-poppy-from-violence/
Gay, R. (2005). Lucia: Testimonies of a Brazilian drug dealer’s woman. Temple University Press.
Guzmán, S. (2019, July 20). 4 Reasons Trump could decertify Colombia over coca, cocaine production. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/4-reasons-trump-could-decertify-colombia-over-coca-cocaine-production-2019-7
Human Rights Clinic. (2017). Control… over the entire state of Coahuila.’ An analysis of testimonies in trials against Zeta members in San Antonio, Austin, and Del Rio, Texas. Human Rights Clinic, University of Texas School of Law.
Jaramillo, J. C. (2019, August 31). Urabeños leadership under mounting pressure in Colombia. InSight Crime. https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/urabenos-leadership-under-mounting-pressure-colombia/
Johnson, P. L. (2019). The crime and state terrorism nexus: How organized crime appropriates counterinsurgency violence. Perspectives on Terrorism, 13(6), 16–26.
Johnson, P. L. (2022). Narcommunication: The messaging, marketing, and murder of organized crime. City University of New York.
Johnson, P. L., & Gillooly, S. N. (2023). Grammar of threat: Governance and order in public threats by criminal actors. Comparative Political Studies.
Juárez, C. M. (2021, June 15). Cartels, control, and communicating the reality of Tamaulipas. Mexico Violence Research Project. https://www.mexicoviolence.org/post/cartels-control-and-communicating-the-reality-of-tamaulipas
Kennedy, D. M. (2011). Don’t shoot: One man, a street fellowship, and the end of violence in inner-city America. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Kenney, M. (2007). From Pablo to Osama: Trafficking and terrorist networks, government bureaucracies, and competitive adaptation. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Le Grandmaison, C. (2021). R. Between manna and uncertainty. Poppy as a political opiate in Guerrero. Mexico Opium Project. Noria Research. http://noria-research.com/chapter_3_between_manna_and_uncertainty/
Le Grandmaison, C., Morris, R., N., & Smith, B. (2019). The last harvest? From the US fentanyl boom to the Mexican opium crisis. Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 1(3), 312–329. https://doi.org/10.31389/jied.45
Lee, R. W., & Clawson, P. (1993). Crop substitution in the Andes. Office of National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President.
Lessing, B. (2017). Making peace in drug wars: Crackdowns and cartels in Latin America. Cambridge University Press.
Lettieri, M., Johnson, P. L., & Farfán-Mendez, C. (2020). The battles after the battle: Interpreting violence and memory in Culiacán. Mexico Violence Research Network. https://www.mexicoviolence.org/battles-after-battle/editors-note
Lindo, J. M., & Padilla-Romo, M. (2018). Kingpin approaches to fighting crime and community violence: Evidence from Mexico’s drug war. Journal of Health Economics, 58(March), 253–268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2018.02.002
Moncada, E. (2016). Cities, business, and the politics of urban violence in Latin America. Cities, business, and the politics of urban violence in Latin America. Stanford University Press.
Mora Bayo, M. (2013). La criminalización de la pobreza y los efectos estatales de seguridad neoliberal: Reflexiones desde la montaña, Guerrero. Revista de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre as Américas, 7 (2): 174–208.
Morris, N. (2020). Serrano communities and subaltern negotiation strategies: The local politics of opium production in Mexico, 1940–2020. The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, 34(1), https://doi.org/10.1086/707589
Muehlmann, S. (2020). The narco uncanny. Public Culture, 32(2), 327–348. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-8090101
Osorno, D. E. (2012). La guerra de los Zetas: Viaje por la frontera de la necropolítica. Penguin Random House.
Osorno, D. E. (2013, April 16). The ex-mayor. International Boulevard. http://www.internationalboulevard.com/the-ex-mayor/
Pérez Ricart, C. (2019). La kingpin strategy: ¿qué es y cómo llegó a México? Nexos. https://seguridad.nexos.com.mx/la-kingpin-strategy-que-es-y-como-llego-a-mexico/
Phillips, B. (2015). How does leadership decapitation affect violence? The case of drug trafficking organizations in Mexico. Journal of Politics, 77(2), 324–336.
Reuter, P., Crawford, G., & Cave, J. (1988). Sealing the borders: The effects of increased military participation in drug interdiction. Office of the Deputy under Secretary of Defense for Policy Washington DC. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA213737
Semple, K. (2020, February 24). Under pressure from Trump, extraditions to U.S. from Mexico soar. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/world/americas/mexico-extraditions-william-barr.html
Serrano, A. (2013). La multinacional del crimen:La tenebrosa oficina de Envigado. Debate.
Sheridan, M. B., & Sieff, K. (2021, July 29). Mexico declares $3 billion U.S. security deal ‘dead,’ seeks revamp. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/29/mexico-merida-initiative-violence/
Smith, B. (2013). The rise and fall of narcopopulism: Drugs, politics, and society in Sinaloa, 1930–1980. Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 7(2), 125–165. https://doi.org/10.14321/jstudradi.7.2.0125
Snyder, R., & Duran-Martinez, A. (2009). Does illegality breed violence? Drug trafficking and state-sponsored protection rackets. Crime Law and Social Change, 52(3), 253–273.
Teague, A. (2019). Mexico’s dirty War on Drugs: Source control and dissidence in drug enforcement. The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, 33(1), 63–87. https://doi.org/10.1086/702693
Thompson, G. (2017). How the U.S. triggered a massacre in Mexico. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/allende-zetas-cartel-massacre-and-the-us-dea
Toth, A., & Mitchell, O. (2018). A qualitative examination of the effects of international counter-drug interdictions. International Journal of Drug Policy, 55, 70–76.
Trejo, G., & Ley, S. (2019). High-profile criminal violence: Why drug cartels murder government officials and party candidates in Mexico. British Journal of Political Science, 51(1), 203–229. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123418000637
Villarreal, A. (2015). Fear and spectacular drug violence in Monterrey. In. In J. Auyero, P. Bourgois, & N. Scheper-Hughes (Eds.), Violence at the urban margins. Oxford University Press.
Villarreal, A. (2021). Reconceptualizing urban violence from the Global South. City & Community, 20 (1). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1111/cico.12506
Volkov, V. (2002). Violent entrepreneurs: The use of force in the making of Russian capitalism. Cornell University Press.
Williams, P. (2001). Transnational criminal networks. In J. Arquilla, & D. Ronfeldt (Eds.), Networks and netwars: The future of terror, crime, and militancy. Rand Corporation.
Zavala, O. (2022). La Guerra en las palabras: Una historia intelectual del ‹‹narco›› en México (1975–2020). Debate.
Funding
Arias’ research was partially funded by the United State’s Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative (OUSD[RandE]) and the Army Research Office/Army Research Laboratory via grant #W911-NF- 743 17-1-0569 to George Mason University. Arias’ research was also funded by the Marxe Gift to the Baruch College Fund. Any errors and opinions are not those of the Department of Defense and are attributable solely to the authors. Johnson’s research was partially funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California at San Diego.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Ethics approval
Field research related to this paper was approved under separate protocols for Arias and Johnson by the City University of New York.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Arias, E.D., Johnson, P.L. The implications of illicit networks for changes in anti-narcotics policies. Crime Law Soc Change (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-023-10125-7
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-023-10125-7