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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01pv63g341w
Title: Criminal Group Conflict and the State Response: Mexico 2007–2018
Authors: Signoret, Patrick Joseph
Advisors: Yashar, Deborah J
Contributors: Politics Department
Keywords: Mexico
organized crime
public security
Subjects: Political science
Issue Date: 2022
Publisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University
Abstract: Increasing violence in parts of Latin America has spawned research on the ways in which illegal markets, institutions, electoral politics, and government strategies have shaped large-scale organized criminal violence in some territories but not others. This dissertation focuses not on the onset of such violence but rather its termination. When extreme violence breaks out, what determines its duration? Why and how is order restored durably in some places but not others? These questions are motivated by a puzzling phenomenon in Mexico: in several territories in which large-scale conflict erupted after 2007, homicide rates fell back down meaningfully and durably even as the factors blamed for causing the violence—a government campaign against drug cartels, fragmentation of illegal markets, and militarization of public security—remained in place and prevented or derailed recoveries in neighboring territories.I put forth a theoretical framework that explains how the structure and actions of the security apparatus combines with criminal group dynamics to shape the duration of cartel turf wars and post-conflict order. In it, the local security apparatus has a potential role in ending conflict and preventing its recurrence. Police and other security forces in a territory can end a cartel turf war by becoming strong enough to impose order on all criminal groups or resolving it in favor of one group. While both results require a more cohesive security apparatus, they also require a larger one, at least temporarily. This often requires deployments of outside forces. How conflicts end and what authorities do next also shapes the prospects of future conflict. Interventions limited to ending the war in favor of one cartel, especially if it was an outside challenger, result in fragile order. Responses that permanently strengthen security apparatuses enough to manage order on their own terms result in durable recoveries. I illustrate these processes with two in-depth case studies of Mexican cities, Monterrey and La Laguna, that suffered large-scale criminal conflict in 2008–2012 and subsequently recovered durably. Extending the analysis to 21 large urban areas in northern Mexico further supports the theory.
URI: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01pv63g341w
Alternate format: The Mudd Manuscript Library retains one bound copy of each dissertation. Search for these copies in the library's main catalog: catalog.princeton.edu
Type of Material: Academic dissertations (Ph.D.)
Language: en
Appears in Collections:Politics

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