Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T09:22:44.118Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultivating Violence: Trade Liberalization, Illicit Labor, and the Mexican Drug Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2019

Joel Salvador Herrera
Joel Salvador Herrera*
Affiliation:
Joel Salvador Herrera is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles.
*
jsherrera@ucla.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article asks whether economic liberalization, under certain institutional conditions, is indirectly related to drug violence. Focusing on Mexico’s drug trade, where violence was historically limited by politicoinstitutional arrangements, this study examines how trade liberalization shapes social exclusion in key trafficking regions and, in turn, shapes the industry. It argues that the change in development strategy has increased the flow of workers into the drug trade by reconfiguring the agricultural sector in regions where drugs are produced while failing to absorb surplus labor in manufacturing centers containing key smuggling routes. Through both mechanisms, workers enter an illicit market with new institutional settings that allow for fierce competition and the use of violence. Using panel data on drug violence from 2007 to 2011, the study finds that exposure to trade is associated with violence in both drug-producing and -smuggling regions, but with a more sizable effect in the former.

Keywords

drug traffickingtrade liberalizationviolencelaborMexico
Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 129 - 153
Copyright
© University of Miami 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreas, Peter, and Wallman, Joel. 2009. Illicit Markets and Violence: What Is the Relationship? Crime, Law and Social Change 52, 3: 225–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arias, Enrique Desmond, and Goldstein, Daniel M., eds. 2010. Violent Democracies in Latin America. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ascher, William, and Mirovitskaya, Natalia, eds. 2012. Economic Development Strategies and the Evolution of Violence in Latin America: Politics, Economics, and Inclusive Development. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Astorga, Luis. 2003. Drogas sin fronteras. Los expedientes de una guerra permanente. Mexico City: Grijalbo.Google Scholar
Astorga, Luis. 2005. El siglo de las drogas. Mexico City: Plaza and Janes.Google Scholar
Atuesta, Laura, Oscar, S. Siordia, and Alejandro, Madrazo. 2016. La “Guerra Contra las Drogas” en México: Registros (oficiales) de eventos durante el período de diciembre 2006 a noviembre 2011. Laboratorio Nacional de Políticas Públicas. Mexico City: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas. http://datos.cide.edu/handle/10089/17389.Google Scholar
Audley, John, Papademitriou, Demetrios G., Polaski, Sandra, and Vaughan, Scott. 2003. NAFTA’s Promise and Reality: Lessons from Mexico for the Hemisphere. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Babb, Sarah L. 2001. Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briceño-León, Roberto. 2005. Urban Violence and Public Health in Latin America: A Sociological Explanatory Framework. Cuadernos de Saúde Pública 21, 6: 1629–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Briceño-León, Roberto. 2007. Sociología de la violencia en América Latina. Quito: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales.Google Scholar
Briceño-León, Roberto, and Zubilaga, Verónica. 2002. Violence and Globalization in Latin America. Current Sociology 50, 1: 19–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buxton, Julia. 2006. The Political Economy of Narcotics: Production, Consumption and Global Markets. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Calderón, Gabriela, Robles, Gustavo, Díaz-Cayeros, Alberto, and Magaloni, Beatriz. 2015. The Beheading of Criminal Organizations and the Dynamics of Violence in Mexico. Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, 8: 1455–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Centeno, Miguel Angel. 1994. Democracy Within Reason: Technocratic Revolution in Mexico. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo (CIDAC). 2017. Resultados electorales, 1985– 2012. Mexico City: CIDAC. elecciones.cidac.orgGoogle Scholar
Consejo Nacional de Evaluación de la Política de Desarrollo Social (CONEVAL). 2016. Medición de la pobreza. Mexico City: CONEVAL. https://www.coneval.org.mx/Medicion/Paginas/Pobreza_2008–2016.aspxGoogle Scholar
Consejo Nacional de Población (CONAPO). 2014. Proyecciones de la población: 2010–2050. Mexico City: CONAPO. conapo.gob.mx/es/CONAPO/Proyecciones.Google Scholar
Cook, Maria Lorena, Middlebrook, Kevin J., and Horcasitas, Juan Molinar, eds. 1994. The Politics of Economic Restructuring: State-Society Relations and Regime Change in Mexico. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Cornelius, Wayne A. 1999. Subnational Politics and Democratization: Tensions Between Center and Periphery in the Mexican Political System. In Subnational Politics and Democratization in Mexico, ed. Cornelius, Todd A. Eisenstadt, and Jane, Hindley. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego. 3–16.Google Scholar
Davis, Benjamin. 2000. The Adjustment Stratgies of Mexican Ejidatarios in the Face of Neoliberal Reforms. CEPAL Review 72 (December): 99–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dresser, Denise. 1994. Embellishment, Empowerment, or Euthanasia of the PRI? Neoliberalism and Party Reform in Mexico. In Cook et al. 1994. 125–47.Google Scholar
Dube, Oeindrila, García-Ponce, Omar, and Thom, Kevin. 2016. From Maize to Haze: Agricultural Shocks and the Growth of the Mexican Drug Sector. Journal of the European Economic Association 14, 5: 1181–1224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durán-Martínez, Angélica. 2015. To Kill and Tell? State Power, Criminal Competition, and Drug Violence. Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, 8: 1377–1402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durán-Martínez, Angélica. 2018. The Politics of Drug Violence: Criminals, Cops, and Politicians in Colombia and Mexico. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Esquivel, Gerardo, and José, Antonio Rodríguez-López. 2003. Technology, Trade, and Wage Inequality in Mexico Before and After NAFTA. Journal of Development Economics 72, 2: 543–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairbrother, Malcolm. 2007. Making Neoliberalism Possible: The State’s Organization of Business Support for NAFTA in Mexico. Politics & Society 35, 2: 265–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flores-Macías, Gustavo. A. 2012. After Neoliberalism? The Left and Economic Reforms in Latin America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franzese, Robert J., and Hays, Jude C.. 2008. Interdependence in Comparative Politics: Substance, Theory, Empirics, Substance. Comparative Political Studies 41, 4/5: 742–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friman, H. Richard. 2009. Drug Markets and the Selective Use of Violence. Crime, Law and Social Change 52, 3: 285–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grayson, George W. 2010. Mexico: Narco-violence and a Failed State? New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Grillo, Ioan. 2012. El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Hernández, Anabel. 2013. Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Hough, Phillip A. 2011. Disarticulations and Commodity Chains: Cattle, Coca, and Capital Accumulation Along Colombia’s Agricultural Frontier. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 43, 5: 1016–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imbusch, Peter, Misse, Michel, and Carrión, Fernando. 2011. Violence Research in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Literature Review. International Journal of Conflict and Violence 5, 1: 87–154.Google Scholar
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI). 2011. Encuesta nacional de ocupación y empleo: ENOE 2010. Mexico City: INEGI. https://www.inegi.org.mx/programas/enoe/15ymasGoogle Scholar
Instituto Nacional para el Federalismo y el Desarrollo Municipal (INAFED). 2017. Sistema nacional de información municipal. Mexico City: INAFED. http://www.snim.rami.gob.mxGoogle Scholar
Knight, Alan. 2012. Narcoviolence and the State in Modern Mexico. In Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the Centaur, ed. Pansters, Wil. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 115–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koonings, Kees, and Kruijt, Dirk, eds. 2004. Armed Actors: Organised Violence and State Failure in Latin America. London: Zed.Google Scholar
Lessing, Benjamin. 2018. Making Peace in Drug Wars: Crackdowns and Cartels in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lupsha, Peter A., and Pimentel, Stanley A.. 1997. Political-Criminal Nexus: Mexico. Trends in Organized Crime 3, 1: 65–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz. 2006. Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maldonado Aranda, Salvador. 2012. Drogas, violencia y militarización en el México rural: el caso de Michoacán. Revista Mexicana de Sociología 74, 1: 5–39.Google Scholar
Malkin, Victoria. 2001. Narcotrafficking, Migration, and Modernity in Rural Mexico. Latin American Perspectives 28, 4: 101–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDonald, James H. 2005. The Narcoeconomy and Small-Town, Rural Mexico. Human Organization 64, 2: 115–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreno-Brid, Juan Carlos, and Ros, Jaime. 2009. Development and Growth in the Mexican Economy: A Historical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreno-Brid, Juan Carlos, Santamaría, Jesús, and Carlos Rivas Valdivia, Juan. 2005. Industrialization and Economic Growth in Mexico After NAFTA: The Road Travelled. Development and Change 36, 6: 1095–1119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osorio, Javier. 2015. The Contagion of Drug Violence: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of the Mexican War on Drugs. Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, 8: 1403–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pena, Alfredo, and Stevenson, Mark. 2016. Mexico’s Drug War Marks a Decade Amid Doubts, Changes. Associated Press, December 10. https://apnews.com/edf2fe18fe534c3a9e62badb7aee2492Google Scholar
Phillips, Brian J. 2015. How Does Leadership Decapitation Affect Violence? The Case of Drug Trafficking Organizations in Mexico. Journal of Politics 77, 2: 324–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, Karl. [1944] 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Hoffman, Kelly. 2003. Latin American Class Structures: Their Composition and Change During the Neoliberal Era. Latin American Research Review 38, 1: 41–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Puyana, Alicia, and Romero, José. 2009. El sector agropecuario mexicano bajo el tratado de libre comercio de América del Norte: la pobreza y la desigualdad se intensifican, crece la migración. In Retos para la integración social de los pobres en América Latina, ed. Solano, Carlos Barba. Buenos Aires: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales. 187–213.Google Scholar
Recio, Gabriela. 2002. Drugs and Alcohol: U.S. Prohibition and the Origins of the Drug Trade in Mexico, 1910-1930. Journal of Latin American Studies 34, 1: 21–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Resa Nestares, Carlos. 2016. El mapa del cultivo de drogas en México. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Online mss. https://www.academia.edu/29138371/El_mapa_del_cultivo_de_drogas_en_M%C3%A9xicoGoogle Scholar
Reygadas, Luis. 2006. Latin America: Persistent Inequality and Recent Transformations. In Latin America After Neoliberalism: Turning The Tide in the 21st Century? ed. Hersh-berg, Eric and Rosen, Fred. New York: New Press. 120–43.Google Scholar
Rios, Viridiana. 2008. Evaluating the Economic Impact of Drug Traffic in Mexico. Unpublished working paper. Department of Government, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Rios, Viridiana. 2012. Why Did Mexico Become So Violent? A Self-Reinforcing Violent Equilibrium Caused by Competition and Enforcement. Trends in Organized Crime 16, 2: 138–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rios, Viridiana. 2015. How Government Coordination Controlled Organized Crime: The Case of Mexico’s Cocaine Markets. Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, 8: 1433–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rios, Viridiana, and Shirk, David A.. 2011. Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2010. San Diego: Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, Andrés. 2005. El debate sobre el sector agropecuario mexicano en el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte. Serie Estudios y Perspectivas No. 30. Mexico City: Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).Google Scholar
Salzinger, Leslie. 2003. Genders in Production: Making Workers in Mexico’s Global Factories. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sánchez, Magaly. 2006. Insecurity and Violence as a New Power Relation in Latin America. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 606, 1: 178–95.Google Scholar
Scherer, García, Julio. 2010. Proceso en la guarida de “El Mayo” Zambada. Proceso, 3 April. proceso.com.mx/106967/proceso-en-la-guarida-de-el-mayo-zambada.Google Scholar
Serrano, Mónica. 2012. States of Violence: State-Crime Relations in Mexico. In Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the Centaur, ed. Pansters, Wil. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 135–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shirk, David, and Wallman, Joel. 2015. Understanding Mexico’s Drug Violence. Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, 8: 1348–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, Erica S. 2016. Corn, Markets, and Mobilization in Mexico. Comparative Politics 48, 3: 413–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklair, Leslie. 1993. Assembling for Development: The Maquila Industry in Mexico and the United States. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Snyder, Richard, and Durán-Martínez, Angélica. 2009. Does Illegality Breed Violence? Drug Trafficking and State-Sponsored Protection Rackets. Crime, Law and Social Change 52, 3: 253–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teichman, Judith. 2012. Violent Conflict and Unequal Development: The Case of Mexico. In Ascher and Mirovitskaya 2012. 41–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Topalova, Petia. 2007. Trade Liberalization, Poverty, and Inequality: Evidence from Indian Districts. In Globalization and Poverty, ed. Harrison, Ann. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 291–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trejo, Guillermo, and Ley, Sandra. 2016. Federalism, Drugs, and Violence: Why Intergovernmental Partisan Conflict Stimulated Inter-Cartel Violence in Mexico. Política y Gobierno 23, 1: 9–52.Google Scholar
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). 2016. National Drug Threat Assessment Summary. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.Google Scholar
Valenzuela, Pedro. 2016. Mexico’s Reforms and the Prospects for Growth. Washington, DC: Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center.Google Scholar
Vellinga, Menno. 2004. The Political Economy of the Drug Industry: Latin America and the International System. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Villarreal, Andres. 2002. Political Competition and Violence in Mexico: Hierarchical Social Control in Local Patronage Structures. American Sociological Review 67, 4: 477–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, Peter M., and Rodríguez, Victoria E.. 1999. New Federalism, Intra-governmental Relations and Co-governance in Mexico. Journal of Latin American Studies 31, 3: 673–710.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watt, Peter, and Zepeda, Roberto. 2012. Drug War Mexico: Politics, Neoliberalism and Violence in the New Narcoeconomy. London: Zed.Google Scholar
Williams, Phil. 2009. Illicit Markets, Weak States and Violence: Iraq and Mexico. Crime, Law and Social Change 52, 3: 323–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Health Organization (WHO). 2014. Global Status Report on Violence Prevention, 2014. Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar
World Trade Organization (WTO). 2016. Tariff Download Facility. Database. Geneva: WTO. tariffdata.wto.orgGoogle Scholar