Losing The Monopoly of Violence The Stat-2

LOSING THE MONOPOLY OF VIOLENCE:
THE STATE, A DRUG WAR AND THE

PARAMILITARIZATION OF ORGANIZED
CRIME IN MEXICO (2007–10)
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Michelle Keck and José Nava
Abstract: This article examines the phenomenon of drug-related violence in Mexico and the
causal factors that enabled the upsurge in the numbers of drug-related homicides during the
period 2007–10 – the first 4 years of the so-called “war on drugs”. The authors explore regional
statistics derived from official sources, as well as from both anecdotal and empirical research
on the subject, and assess quantitatively the impact of different factors such as deteriorated
economic conditions, corruption, a new configuration of organized crime, divisions between
criminal organizations and the Mexican government’s strategy to fight organized crime. The
study finds that the key forces that explain a massive increase in violence in the most recent
years are the involvement of the federal forces in the fight against drug trafficking organizations
(the State), the splits between criminal syndicates and what is defined here as the “paramili-
tarization” of organized crime in Mexico. Finally, the present analysis makes use of Max Weber’s
(1919) “monopoly of violence” framework, and explains how the Mexican State has been losing
this monopoly in recent years.
Keywords: drug-related homicides, war on drugs, organized crime, the State, Max Weber, para-
militarization
Introduction
Violence in Mexico has reached unprecedented levels, particularly since the launch
of military operations against drug-trafficking organizations – today known as
transnational criminal organizations (TCOs)1 – in late 2006 by the administration
of former Mexican President Felipe Calderón (2006–12).2 As of today, Mexico’s
so-called “war on drugs” has officially claimed over 70,000 lives.3 During this
period, more than 27,000 people disappeared. Many of these disappearances
were linked to drug violence, while thousands of citizens have become internal
refugees, displaced within Mexico. At the same time, some local governments
have fallen under the control of criminal organizations.
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Michelle Keck and José Nava are at the Department of Government at
University of Texas at Brownsville, USA, guadalupe.correacabrera@utb.edu
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78 Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Michelle Keck and José Nava
This article discusses the influence that two groups of factors have had on the
seemingly irrational escalation of drug-related violence in Mexico in recent years.
First, we assess the impact of socioeconomic factors, such as economic growth,
unemployment, inequality and poverty. Second, we analyze more institution-
alized dynamics endemic to this phenomenon, such as the change in Mexico’s
political regime and the resulting decline in the State–organized crime nexus, the
militarization of the fight against organized crime, the paramilitarization of TCOs
and divisions between criminal organizations – like the one experienced in the
State of Tamaulipas in early 2010 between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas.
A factor of particular interest in this research is what we refer to as the “para-
militarization” of TCOs in Mexico. Although such groups cannot be described as
true paramilitary units, the term, as we use it in this article, alludes to the change in
operational and institutional practices by criminal organizations in a bid to attain
regional or national supremacy over other market competitors (other criminal
organizations), as well as over state forces. This phenomenon was possible due
to a decline in the State–organized crime nexus in Mexico’s new democratic era.
In some regions of the country, through the usage of these new tactics – based
primarily on the exercise of extreme violence and military techniques – organized
crime has functioned as an alternative state.
At the same time, these new paramilitary criminal syndicates have been able to
corrupt state, local and even federal law enforcement authorities, thus putting into
question the capacity of the Mexican State itself by challenging its monopoly of
the legitimate use of violence. By exploring Max Weber’s “monopoly of violence”
framework, the present account shows how, in some parts of Mexico, organized
crime, through its paramilitarization process, has become the de facto legitimized
purveyor of violence at regional level, effectively supplanting the rule of the State
and placing sociopolitical control in the hands of private individuals.
Mexico’s Drug War, Democracy and Violence
A Drug War and the Escalation of Drug-Related Violence in Mexico

The political panorama in Mexico has changed substantially since former
President Felipe Calderón took office on 1 December 2006 and declared a “war
on drugs”. Since then, drug-related violence in Mexico has visibly intensified –
particularly in the first 4 years of the Calderon administration. This period, marked
by the ongoing conflict between Mexican TCOs and governmental forces, saw a
momentous increase in violent, drug-related deaths, and the widespread use of
barbaric, terror-inflicting methods, such as dismemberment, decapitation or the
complete dissolution of human remains. TCOs also developed unconventional
State Crime 4.1 Spring 2015
LOSING THE MONOPOLY OF VIOLENCE 79
terror tactics, including car bombs, mass kidnappings, grenade attacks, blockades
and the execution of public officials (Nava 2011: 1).
During this period, the Mexican State failed to subdue criminal organizations in
some parts of the country and consequently lost its “monopoly of violence”. These
years were marked by the widespread corruption of government officials at all
levels, as well as by the proliferation of certain criminal practices. Drug trafficking
organizations were able to diversify their operations and are now involved in
lucrative new businesses such as kidnapping, extortion, migrant smuggling,
human trafficking, weapons smuggling, video and music piracy, and trafficking of
crude oil, natural gas and gasoline stolen from Mexico’s State petroleum company,
among others. At the same time, a new domestic drug market emerged and spread
throughout the country, which was able to provide cheap doses of drugs to
domestic consumers.
In the first few years of the so-called “drug war”, violence rapidly spread across
the country. The northern/border states of the Mexican Republic were particularly
affected. According to official statistics – released during Calderón’s administration
– a total of 34,612 people were killed from 1 December 2006 till the end of 2010.4
The number of drug-related homicides kept increasing every year from the time
that Calderón took over until the end of his presidency. According to the official
reports by the Calderón government, there were a total of 2,826 homicides in 2007
and 15,273 in 2010 (Federal Government, Office of the Presidency 2010).
The emergence of paramilitary criminal groups in certain regions and the new
government strategy to fight organized crime changed long established patterns
of violence in Mexico, as well as the geographical distribution of conflicts across
the country. Violence had tended to be concentrated on Mexico’s northwestern
border regions, especially Chihuahua, as well as in Pacific states such as Sinaloa,
Michoacán and Guerrero. The city of Ciudad Juárez registered the highest number
of homicides during the first 4 years of Calderón’s administration – in 2010,
approximately 3,100 people were killed in this border city just across the Rio
Grande from El Paso, Texas. In recent years, violence has spread to other regions
of Mexico, and has particularly increased in the states of Coahuila, Nuevo León,
Michoacán and Tamaulipas. In 2010, nearly half of Mexico’s drug-related murders
took place in Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas (Federal Government, Office of
the Presidency 2010).
Losing the Monopoly of Violence in Mexico’s “New Democratic” Times

The ongoing bloody drug feud in Mexico has produced unprecedented levels of
violence that is reflective of a transformation of the country’s political regime and
a distinct nature of organized crime and the drug trade industry. Long gone are
the days when the power of the State subjugated drug trafficking organizations
and the State decided which actors were allowed to remain in the industry and
which ones were eliminated. Mexico’s democratization changed the structure of
power that had been institutionalized by the Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI). The ensuing political dissonance brought on by the triumph of the National
Action Party (PAN) in the 2000 presidential elections – after more than 70 years
of PRI dominance – had a significant impact on the role and leverage of Mexico’s
drug syndicates.
The shift in the power structure represented by the 2000 presidential elections led
to the loss of control by the State over non-state actors. According to Edmons-Poli
(2006), Mexico’s pre-2000 political regime was,
... one of the most hierarchical and centralized in the world, with administrative,
political and financial power firmly concentrated in the hands of the president and
central (federal) government ... [T]he country was so highly centralized that it more
closely resembled an autocratic unitary polity than a constitutional federal republic:
the legislature and judiciary were empty symbols of the separation of powers and states
and municipalities had virtually no independent authority. (p. 388)
The post-revolutionary system mentioned above was in reality “an authoritarian

regime, capable of subordinating every existing social actor to the dispositions
emanating from the highest ranks of political authority: fundamentally, the president
as well as the political party that backed him up, in this case, the PRI” (Flores 2009:
137). The subsequent disintegration of the control apparatus that had been forged
under the PRI allowed for the unrestricted exponential growth of Mexican-origin
TCOs and a shift towards a much more violent and sophisticated methodology.
The genesis of the conundrum posed by the “democratic” transition and its
inability to achieve effective control measures to deal with organized crime were
fueled by “factionalism” and by a “patrimonial conception of political power” that,
according to Flores (2009), maintained sectarian divisions between political parties
and thwarted the creation of agreements between them that could have produced
the professionalization of the country’s security services and the cooperation
between them needed to stop the growing power of Mexican TCOs (p. 325). In
fact, Mexico’s ill-conceived patronage system laid the foundation for the present
wave of violence that severely afflicts the country in various regions. Democracy
simply fueled the challengers to actually break off from State dominance when
it was at its weakest and most disoriented stage, during a significant top-down
political overhaul.
Such was the old regime’s reach that it covered all sorts of businesses, even
those of an illegitimate nature, in an attempt to maintain the party’s hold on power.
As Steinberg (2011) states,
Drug trafficking was no exception. By and large, the PRI turned a blind eye to the illicit
trade, so long as the cartels gave government officials a cut of the profits and prevented
the violence from spilling into the traditional plaza. (p. 28)
As long as peace was maintained, political partnerships allowed for the

continuation of the illicit drug trade.
But the 2000 presidential elections brought an end to such control measures and
ushered in a new order for the country’s power structures, giving, in particular, a
newfound operational freedom to drug trafficking organizations. In fact, “[l]ocal
power brokers were suddenly free to negotiate their own arrangements, whether
by forcing new deals with rival groups or by taking a more aggressive line on
enforcement” (Steinberg 2011: 28). The sudden disintegration of the decades-old
political system that bound drug trafficking organizations to the domineering
political party in Mexico allowed for an unprecedented expansion in their
operations and brought with it a host of unforeseen changes that altered the drug
industry and organized crime in general.
In sum, the change in Mexico’s political power structure led drug trafficking
organizations to evolve, expand their areas of influence and diversify their revenue
streams, thus transforming themselves into truly transnational criminal entities.
Exploiting the inexperience of new elected officials, Mexican TCOs were able
to restructure their relationship with the State. In this new context, the paramili-
tarization of organized crime ignited a spiral of violence that overwhelmed the
State’s capacity to effectively respond to criminal syndicates, which, at the same
time, corrupted state, local and federal law enforcement authorities. Overall, this
situation has undermined – if not deterred – the State’s capacity for an effective
strategy to regain a semblance of control over its competing informal actors.
The violence levels currently afflicting various parts of the Mexican territory are
indicative of the degree of control and coercion that TCOs exert over localities
and entire regions. At times, TCOs even substitute the State as the legitimate
purveyor of control – consider, in particular, the cases of Michoacán (Grant 2014)
and Tamaulipas (Hale 2010).
The Causes of Drug-Related Violence in Today’s Mexico
As of the previous account and considering recent studies on this subject (Guerrero
2011; Osorio 2012, 2013; Rios and Shirk 2011), one can identify some key
factors that might have contributed to cause extreme levels of violence associated
with organized crime in a new “democratic” Mexico. The factors proposed
are as follows: (1) the paramilitarization of organized crime, (2) divisions
between TCOs, (3) the Mexican government’s security strategy, (4) deteriorated
socioeconomic conditions, and (5) corruption in a new democratic era. Indicators

of the phenomenon of extreme violence are the increasing number of drug-related
homicides and the brutal ways in which these acts have been performed. Thus, the
present section proposes general explanations and hypotheses of how these five
factors are related to increasing levels of drug-related homicides in Mexico in the
recent years.
The Paramilitarization of Organized Crime
Arguably, one of the most critical factors that has influenced the current wave
of violence that is afflicting Mexico, as alluded to by Steinberg’s (2011: 28)
aforementioned “more aggressive line of enforcement”, is the “paramilitarization”
that TCOs underwent as a response to the expansionist demands of such enterprises.
It is important to note that the use of the term paramilitarization in this article
does not conform to the strictest meaning of the word. According to Friesendorf
(2011: 81), paramilitary forces are those that “have both military characteristics
and, de facto or de jure, policing powers ... Their tasks range from maintaining
public order to operations against terrorists and organized crime groups”.
Friesendorf’s definition “leaves room for the paramilitarization of other actors,
such as regular police forces, military and intelligence agencies increasingly
encroaching on policing terrain, and non-state or para-state paramilitary forces,
such as citizen militias” (p. 81).
It is of utmost importance to distinguish our use of the term paramilitariza-
tion from the definition of paramilitaries that is dominant in the collective
conscience. The most usual image that comes to our mind when one hears the
term “paramilitary” is the image of the Colombian-armed civilian forces that
were supported by the military, were financed by drug traffickers and fought a
decades-long communist guerrilla insurgency (see Chernick 1998). Our term
refers to a different phenomenon. It relates to the process that some Mexican
TCOs have undergone, in which they have adopted militaristic techniques, tactics
and procedures, while maintaining their primordial gain: a financial one.
Paramilitarization here is not the same as paramilitarism observed in Colombia
(Chernick 1998; Raphael 2009), Northern Ireland (Knox 2002; Monaghan and
Shirlow 2011; Rolston 2005) or Africa (Mullins and Rothe 2008). This concept
has somewhat distinct connotations in different contexts. The vagueness that
surrounds the definition of what constitutes a paramilitary group is sometimes
translated into a myopic view of the phenomenon that tends to encompass it into
black or white definitions that curtail the examination of such phenomena in
diverse regions.
Despite branching out and influencing other activities, including political

arenas, Mexican-origin TCOs are fundamentally money-driven organizations,
lacking political/societal values or interests, such as those exhibited by traditional
paramilitary groups. Moreover, while they may be in league with State elements,
they are not primordially linked to the State. Scobell and Hammitt (1998: 220–221)
mention the importance of differentiating the applications under which the term
“paramilitary” is utilized. According to these authors, an attempt has been made
by them to clarify the vague significance of the term paramilitary as
... uniformed group, usually armed, neither purely military nor police-like in format
or function but often possessing significant characteristics of both. It may serve as
an agent or as an adversary [emphasis added] of the state; it may or may not perform
informal security functions; and it may or may not have a wartime role as an adjunct in
the regular forces.
While paramilitaries can be considered repressive tools with links to the State,
in the Mexican case, paramilitarization refers to the practice developed by TCOs
to change their enforcement methodologies – ranging from their weaponry to the
manner in which they execute their opponents – that denote military influences.
With money, not counterinsurgency as their primary motivation, the enforcement
groups of Mexico’s TCOs have increased their power to the point of forming a
parallel State which rivals – and in some regions even supplants – the State as
the sole purveyor of legal violence. Contrary to Monaghan and Shirlow’s (2011)
“loyalist paramilitaries”, TCOs lack the political and community interests that bind
them to society, employing their practices to abide by illegal tenets provided by an
illegal industry. Their economic power and professionalization levels allow these
TCOs’ enforcement groups to transform the old concept of paramilitarization and
turn themselves into competing non-state actors within the country that not only
engage in harsh and violent control and cleansing practices but also, in some areas,
taking over State functions of providing security and projecting power.
Critics of this perspective argue that, as opposed to countries such as Colombia,
Mexico does not face a paramilitary problem due to the fact that the armed groups
lack a political base and because of the country’s geography, which allows the
State security apparatus to effectively control Mexico’s entire territory (Aguilar
and Castañeda 2009: 104). While Mexican enforcer groups may lack a political
base, their progressive specialization has allowed them to use violence not only
as a “tool of the trade”, but as a form of social control as well. In addition, the
argument of the country’s geography can be countered by the rampant corruption
levels that have not only permeated local and state officials and agencies but
the very same federal forces sent to specific regions to address the problem of
organized crime and violence.
In the case of Mexico, the militarization of cartel enforcement groups can be

traced back to the inception of the much maligned, vilified and popularized Zetas.
Originally formed in the mid-1990s by deserters from Mexico’s Special Forces,
the Zetas served as a quasi-praetorian guard for former Gulf Cartel leader Osiel
Cardenas Guillén (Ravelo 2009: 167–176). Cardenas Guillén’s leadership style
relied on the extensive use of violence in order to exert control and consolidate
his organizational reign, and was diametrically different from his predecessor’s
methods. He introduced professionally formed enforcer groups into the realm of
drug trafficking, changing the way negotiations were conducted (Flores 2010).
The introduction of a more militarized element to settle disputes of criminal
organizations – coupled with the breakdown of old relations with government
structures during Mexico’s democratic transition – allowed for the expansion of
drug trafficking organizations into truly transnational entities. It also encouraged
an arms race and a sharp increase in the use of more militarized groups across
the illicit industry, while doing away with old rules which limited the type of
person who could be targeted for assassination. Names such as Zetas, La Familia
Michoacana, Los Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar), La Linea, Gente
Nueva, Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generaciónn, Artistas Asesinos, Barrio Azteca and
other transnational gangs like MS-13, as well as the recent inclusion of foreign
military personnel (e.g., Guatemalan Special Forces soldiers – otherwise known
as Kaibiles), create in the national imagination images and conceptualizations of
new and more brutal methods and institutional mindsets that have paramilitary
connotations. One of our primary arguments is that the paramilitarization process
that TCOs have undergone in recent years is one of the principal causes of the
unprecedented violence produced by Mexico’s ongoing drug-fed conflict. As a
result, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H1: The appearance of paramilitarized criminal syndicates in several regions of

the country has significantly contributed to the increase of drug-related homicides.
Divisions between TCOs

In the past few years – and due to the changing dynamics of public security
policies and the new configuration of organized crime – the once few and powerful
organizations that had controlled the main drug trafficking routes within Mexico
have been fighting constantly among themselves and have also experienced a
series of internal fights and divisions. An interesting example of factionalism
and fragmentation within TCOs is the case of the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas in
northeastern Mexico – particularly in the state of Tamaulipas.
The break between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas plunged Tamaulipas (and other
Mexican states) into a spiral of violence provoked by the fight between the two
groups for strategic drug routes. Eventually, the Zetas declared their independence
from their erstwhile overlords of the Gulf Cartel. The split between the two
organizations became final at the beginning of 2010, leading to an extremely
brutal battle for the control of the Tamaulipas territory, which continues to have
an enormous impact on the State’s economy and society. Another example is the
division between La Familia Michoacana and the Knights Templar in Michoacán.
Based on the above-mentioned information, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H2: “Drug cartel” divisions or conflicts between criminal syndicates in specific
areas (states) will result in high levels of drug-related homicides.
The Mexican Government’s Security Strategy

On 12 December 2006, Felipe Calderón, the former president of Mexico, declared
a war on drugs and sent federal forces – including thousands of soldiers and
navy marines – to the most violent states of the Mexican Republic. This strategy
implemented by the federal government spawned a “long, bloody and ruthless
struggle” involving many organized crime groups fighting for supremacy in the
drug trade, who also faced off against local, state and federal law enforcement
organizations; Mexican military personnel and “international players, most notably
the U.S. and its various federal agencies and intelligence services” (Nava 2011: 2).
In different parts of the country, the government strategy to fight organized
crime has apparently contributed to increased drug violence in a significant way.
The federal government’s actions have directly targeted the economic interests
of criminal organizations, which seem to respond immediately, strongly and with
higher levels of violence. In this context, one can clearly observe two levels of
conflict: The first level involves criminal organizations fighting against each other,
while the second conflict is between the TCOs and federal government forces,
including the army and the Mexican navy. Based upon these arguments, the
following hypothesis is proposed:
H3: Areas (states) where federal operations are present show higher levels of
drug-related homicides.
Socioeconomic Explanations
Mexico’s fragile socioeconomic conditions are among the causes most frequently
listed as being responsible for the country’s drug violence. It is often claimed
that poverty, inequality and economic crisis push people into joining organized
crime groups as traffickers or killers (sicarios). For example, according to Moreno
(2011), it seems natural that a country that has high levels of poverty and offers
few development possibilities for its population would register high levels of
crime. For some people, living in harsh economic conditions, “to grow, produce
or sell drugs”, is a way of improving their life, Moreno says. Moreno also cites
poor economic conditions as a reason why drug trafficking organizations are often
able to recruit Mexican soldiers and policemen. It is not surprising that in such
conditions, “members of the armed forces or the police resign to their commitment
with their institutions and the Mexican society with the aim of moving to the
‘other side’, that is, to the fields of organized crime”, Moreno writes (2011: par. 3).
To test the impact of socioeconomic factors on drug-related violence, we propose
the following hypothesis:
H4: There is a direct relationship between low or decreasing levels of economic

growth/development and high levels of drug-related homicides. In other words,
deteriorated socioeconomic conditions lead to higher levels of drug-related
homicides.
Corruption
Political corruption is an endemic problem in Mexico. During the PRI regime, the
State–organized crime nexus was strong and assured stability. In those days, the
Mexican State allegedly controlled the main drug trafficking routes in the country
and distributed such routes among the major drug cartels that operated then. As
Mexico became more democratic, the State–organized crime nexus weakened and
corruption grew – particularly in those states that were not governed by the PAN,
which held the presidency from 2000 to 2012. Organized crime was transformed
and new paramilitarized criminal syndicates appeared, and part of their success
depended now on their corrupt links with state and local law enforcement
authorities. This situation has afflicted all levels of Mexico’s justice system.
Power at the state and local levels is now distributed between the three main
parties – PRI, PAN and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) – and each
party supports or tolerates TCOs in different ways. This has generated serious
conflicts among the main criminal syndicates for the control of the territory, the
drug trafficking routes in the country, and other illegal markets. At the same time,
the federal government has its own dynamics and agendas that are not always in
line with those of the governors. Thus, decentralization of power in Mexico – that
has brought with it higher levels of corruption – seems to have generated greater
conflict and violence among the different players: federal forces, local authorities
and organized crime groups. In the past few years, drug violence in Mexico has
been motivated by a decline in the State–organized crime nexus, which has visibly
fueled corruption, particularly in those states that are not governed by the party in
power at the federal level (i.e., the PAN in the period 2000–12). This explanation
leads us to formulate the following hypothesis:
H5: Higher levels of drug-related homicides are positively associated with higher
levels of corruption in Mexico’s new democratic era.
Explaining the Causes of Violence: A Research Model
In an attempt to test these hypotheses and assess the impact of the aforementioned
factors, this work utilizes a times series cross-sectional dataset, including data
from 2007 to 2010 for the 32 Mexican states. The fixed-effects Poisson-based
negative binomial regression model presented here evaluates the impact of seven
independent variables on drug-related violence for each Mexican state.
The Variables
Dependent variable: Mexico’s drug-related violence
The dependent variable, drug-related violence, is operationalized as the total
number of drug-related homicides per state per year from 2007 to 2010 (Federal
Government, Office of the Presidency 2010). The State counts on drug-related
homicides were compiled by the National Center of Planning, Analysis and
Information for Combating Delinquency (Centro Nacional de Planeacion, Analisis
e Informacion para el Combate a la Delincuencia, CENAPI), with information
provided by Mexico’s Defense Secretariat, Secretariat of the Navy, Secretariat of
Public Security (SSP, for its acronym in Spanish)5 and the Ministry of the Interior
(Secretaría de Gobernación).6
Independent variables
The present model includes seven independent variables, including paramilitariza-
tion of Mexican criminal syndicates, divisions between and within transnational
criminal groups, the presence or absence of federal troops, three socioeconomic
variables (gross domestic product (GDP), unemployment and foreign direct
investment (FDI)) and corruption. Summary statistics for all variables in the
model are included in Table 1.
The first independent variable identified in the study is the one that measures para-
militarization of TCOs – that is alleged to be one of the main causes of increasing
levels of drug-related violence in the country. This variable is dichotomous and
takes a value of 1 when a paramilitarized criminal syndicate, or various groups of
this kind, control or have strong presence in a particular Mexican State. Examples
of such groups are as follows: Zetas, La Familia Michoacana, Knights Templar,
La Línea, etc. A value of 0 represents the absence of paramilitarized criminal
activity in a state in a specific year or years. Values were assigned through a review
of a number of journalistic publications and official communiqués that document

the existence of such groups in specific Mexican states during this 4-year period.
The next variable, which tests the second hypothesis proposed here, accounts
for major divisions/cohesion between/within the main TCOs operating in each
state. The variable “cartel divisions” is dichotomous taking a value of 1 when there
is a clear documentation of a major conflict or divisions taking place between or
within the main TCOs operating in a specific state.7 Values were assigned through
a review of a number of journalistic publications that document the divisions
between some criminal organizations that have taken place in some states of the
Mexican Republic.
The third variable, which tests Hypothesis 3, is also dichotomous and represents
the presence/absence of federal forces (army, navy and federal police) in the
form of “federal operations” (operativos federales) in conflict zones/states. This
variable was compiled by analyzing several journalistic publications, as well as
official statements regarding the presence of federal forces (the army, the navy
and/or the federal police) in certain Mexican regions – primarily the ones posted
on Mexico’s governmental website: http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/el-blog/los-
operativos-conjuntos/. A value of 0 was assigned to those cases where federal
operations were absent and a value of 1 was assigned to the years when the federal
forces were sent to a specific state.8
The fourth hypothesis relates to the impact of socioeconomic factors on the
incidence of drug-related homicides. In particular, we analyze the effects of GDP
growth, unemployment and FDI. GDP growth and unemployment statistics were
provided by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Instituto Nacional
de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI)). The figures of FDI were obtained from
the Secretariat of the Economy’s (Secretaría de Economía) website, and are
expressed in millions of dollars. A log of the FDI variable is taken to smooth out
extreme values.
The corruption variable was constructed using data from Transparencia
Mexicana – a chapter of the NGO Transparency International.9 Corruption levels
were presented in index numbers, with the calculations being obtained by the
following general index formula (Transparencia Mexicana 2011: 5):10
number of times a bribe was given for services

Corruption index = × 100
number of times services were used
A variable for population is also included as an exposure that translates our

dependent variable into a rate during the estimation procedure. Population data
for the years of 2000, 2005 and 2010 were provided by INEGI. An average of the
population from those 3 years for each state is utilized in the model. Population
was logged to account for extreme values.
Table 1 Summary Statistics
M SD
Variables Observations Minimum Maximum
Drug-related homicides 128 240.421 543.038 0 4,246

Paramilitarization 128 0.382 0.487 0 1
Cartel divisions 128 0.296 0.458 0 1
Federal operations 120 0.425 0.496 0 1
GDP 128 1.264 5.182 –13.5 12.8
FDI (logged) 119 4.639 2.245 –1.203 9.705
Corruption 128 8.218 3.246 1.8 18.8
Unemployment 128 4.359 1.698 1.2 8.4
Population (logged) 128 16.087 0.772 14.550 17.845
Note: GDP = gross domestic product; FDI = foreign direct investment.
The Model
In our study, a “Poisson regression based analytical approach” is used because
it estimates the probability of observing a discrete number of events, in this case
drug-related homicides, “given an underlying mean count rate of events, assuming
the event is random and independent” (Osgood 2000: 23). More simply, a Poisson
model relates independent variables to dependent variables that are counts of
events. As noted by Osgood (2000), when using crime data, “count models” are
preferred to ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression, which assumes that the
dependent variable is a continuous value, normally distributed and linearly related
to the independent variables. Crime data rarely adhere to these assumptions; rather,
they are distributed as rare event counts which can be controlled for using a count
model (Martinez, Stowell and Lee 2010; Osgood 2000). When using crime data,
the assumption of events being independent of one another is often violated with
the occurrence of one crime event impacting the likelihood of observing additional
events in the same period. Osgood (2000) contends that this is common in crime
data, which has many sources of dependence. Also referred to as overdispersion
(variance greater than the mean), its presence can lead to an underestimation of the
standard errors, which results in an overestimation of the coefficients. A common
correction is the use of a Poisson-based negative binomial regression, which
Osgood (2000) argues is the “best known and most widely used Poisson regression
model that allows for overdispersion” (28–29). Model diagnostics performed using
these data revealed the presence of dependence (overdispersion) in drug-related
homicides; therefore, a Poisson-based negative binomial model is utilized.11
Because we are interested in how changes in the independent variables over
time relate to changes in drug-related violence within each state, a fixed-effects
time-series cross-sectional model is used.12 States are being compared to themselves

over time by calculating the deviations of each observation from the state-specific
mean of all time periods for each variable (Johnston and DiNardo 1997). The
fixed-effects model controls for all unmeasured time-invariant variables within
each state by simulating the inclusion of a dummy variable for each. As a result,
the model reduces bias by allowing for the control of unmeasured but constant
variables such as cultural differences that vary between states yet do not change
(Johnston and DiNardo 1997).
Results
The results from the fixed-effects negative binomial model on drug-related
violence in Mexico are presented in Table 2. The results in the first model support
Hypotheses 1 and 3, indicating that paramilitarization and federal operations
are significantly related to drug-related homicides in the Mexican states, while
Hypothesis 2 concerning the impact of cartel divisions fails to reach statistical
significance. Hypothesis 4 regarding socioeconomic factors shows mixed results
with GDP and unemployment insignificant; however, FDI is significant and
positively related to drug-related homicides. Hypothesis 5 is also supported;
a one-unit increase in the corruption index increases drug-related homicides
by 0.084.
The presence of paramilitarized organized crime groups increases drug-related
homicides by 1.164. Our results indicate that the paramilitarization process
that TCOs have undergone in recent years is associated with the unprecedented
violence produced by Mexico’s ongoing drug-fed conflict. The paramilitarization
of TCO enforcement groups has resulted in harsh and violent control and cleansing
practices that have led to an increase in drug-related homicides throughout Mexico.
The presence of federal operations has an even greater effect, increasing
drug-related homicides by 1.296. The emergence of federal operations as a
possible causal link with the number of drug-related homicides is indicative of a
continual struggle between the State and criminal non-state actors to surpass each
other in response to their continual attempts to retain legitimate or illegitimate
control of certain regions. Based on the results of this model, the significance
of the relationship between the independent variable of federal operations and
the dependent variable (drug-related homicides) points towards the theory
that, as a response to the paramilitarization process that criminal organizations
have undergone, Mexico’s federal government has responded by deploying its
military and federal forces to regions considered to be in conflict. This has, in
turn, exacerbated – or at the very least made public – previously unnoticed levels
of violence, forcing criminal organizations to augment their professionalization
levels. This phenomenon has brought with it a host of repressive and violent
measures that compounded with the direct participation of federal forces in the
conflict, has increased the levels of violence to previously unseen heights.
Table 2 Fixed-Effects Negative Binominal Regression of Mexican Drug-Related Homicides,

2007–10
Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Paramilitarization of TCOs 1.164 (0.242)* 1.435 (0.208)* 1.207 (0.254)*

Cartel divisions 0.225 (0.277) 0.852 (0.249)*
Federal operations 1.296 (0.282)* 1.417 (0.247)*
GDP growth –0.024 (0.021) –0.040 (0.202) –0.022 (0.021)
FDI (logged) 0.074 (0.036)** 0.090 (0.037)** 0.077 (0.037)**
Corruption 0.084 (0.030)** 0.030 (0.033)** 0.083 (0.030)**
Unemployment 0.091 (0.063) 0.090 (0.065) 0.098 (0.060)
Constant –0.448 (0.411) 0.318 (0.377) –0.486 (0.413)
Observations 112 119 112

Wald c2 138.56* 105.96* 134.14*
Notes: Logged population included as exposure. Robust standard errors in parentheses. GDP = gross domestic
product; FDI = foreign direct investment.
*p < .001, **p < .05, two-tailed.
Hypothesis 2 regarding the impact that cartel divisions have on drug-related

homicides failed to reach statistical significance in the full model. The insignificant
finding could be due to the moderate correlation (0.544) between cartel divisions
and federal operations as indicated in the correlation matrix in Appendix 1. Models
2 and 3 are included to account for this, and the findings reveal that both federal
operations and cartel divisions are significant and positively related to drug-related
homicides when they are included in separate models. This suggests that federal
operations could be connected to cartel divisions; when the State utilizes federal
operations, cartels respond by dividing in order to remain viable.
It is clear from the models that the Mexican security strategy and paramilitariza-
tion of TCOs appear to be the main factors in the recent sharp increase in the levels
of violence in Mexico, particularly since most of the country’s socioeconomic
factors, with the exception of FDI, failed to reach statistical significance in the
model. This could be due to the fact that the county’s socioeconomic structure has
not changed much in recent years.
Concluding Remarks: The Transference of the Monopoly of Power
The present study finds that the key forces explaining the recent massive increase
in drug-related violence in Mexico are the paramilitarization of TCOs and the
federal government’s strategy to fight organized crime. In other words, a new

configuration of organized crime and the State’s actions are the main determinants
of conflict in Mexico during drug war times. While violence in drug trafficking
regions is not a completely new issue, the virulent spread of increasingly violent
tactics by drug trafficking groups has captured the attention of governmental
forces and made public the struggles for control of certain key areas in the illicit
trade. Every time such fights for control move to a different geographic area,
violence seems to follow. The government believes that it must respond to the
TCOs in order to ensure the safety and well-being of its citizens, but such attempts
seem to be more indicative of a quest by the State to regain the control on the
monopoly of violence after having lost it to increasingly violent, paramilitarized
criminal groups.
In some regions of Mexico, the State has effectively lost the monopoly
it possessed on the legal instruments of violence. Non-state actors such as
drug trafficking organizations, through a constant barrage of bribes and terror
practices, have muscled their way into the institutional as well as social fabric of
entire regions. They have created fiefdoms where the power of the State, if not
supplanted, is shared in a duopoly. In certain regions of the country, this situation
has effectively weakened the stance of the government not only in the eyes of
the criminal groups, but also in the eyes of the population, reducing the State to
merely a political façade while real power is exerted by private individuals.
According to Max Weber in his 1919 lecture Politics as a Vocation, the State
“[c]laims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given
territory”. What is more, “the right to use physical force is ascribed to other
institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the State permits it.”
Under this perspective, “the State is considered the sole source of the ‘right’ to
use violence.” Applying the aforementioned power-relations structure to certain
regions and states of Mexico where the violence phenomenon is extreme – as
reflected by the number of homicides related to illicit drug enterprises, the
relationship between possessors of the “legitimate” means of physical force and
the population has transformed itself to the point that non-state actors share with
the state the legitimate use of force or, in some extreme cases, they even exert the
monopoly of violence. In such cases, it seems that non-state actors have effectively
supplanted governmental structures and have imposed their idiosyncratic as well
as operative rationale upon the population, effectively transforming otherwise
criminal elements into social control mechanisms. State sovereignty within some
regions of Mexico has been successfully defied and parallel governments have
been established by criminal organizations.
Once again, it has to be mentioned that while Weber (1919) referred to the
possession of the legitimate use of physical force, he referred to legitimate
recognized entities. The way the model is used in this writing is due to the
gradual empowerment and participation of private individuals as the purveyors
of the physical means of force, which, in turn, legitimizes them in the eyes of the
population as the wielders of violence in the regions/states where they operate,
therefore supplanting or splitting the function of the State as the sole possessor of
the monopoly of violence.
Appendix 1
Correlation Matrix
Homicides Paramil Cartel Feds GDP LNFDI Corr Unemp LNpop
Homicides 1.000
Paramil .356 1.000
Cartel .354 .351 1.000
Feds .337 .283 .544 1.000
GDP –.107 .030 .109 .014 1.000
LNFDI .170 .010 .074 .022 .060 1.000
Corr .036 .074 –.271 –.293 –.051 .160 1.000
Unempl .235 .061 .172 –.025 –.143 .263 .097 1.000
LNpop .154 .225 –.261 –.151 .011 .342 .579 .049 1.000
Notes
1. The term “drug trafficking organizations” (DTOs) has recently been replaced by the term
“transnational criminal organizations” (TCOs). Hence, we use the latter in this article to refer to
the various drug cartels vying for hegemony in Mexico.
2. Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) took over as Mexican President
on 1 December 2012.
3. Some say that this conflict has claimed many more lives than official sources report. For example,
Molly Molloy, a researcher at New Mexico State University – who maintains the discussion site
Frontera List – posits that the actual number of drug-related murders in the past few years is
much higher (almost double) than the government has claimed (Molloy 2013; O’Reilly 2012).
See Frontera List at Google Groups for more information.
4. These statistics were released by the Office of the Presidency (Oficina de la Presidencia de la
República) during Calderón’s administration. They were downloaded on 18 February 2011 and
were available at http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/?DNA=119.
5. This secretariat does not exist anymore. Its functions today are performed by the Ministry of the
Interior.
6. This dataset has not been updated since 2011, but it is the only one that has been “official” in
Mexico. What is more, it was compiled utilizing a very clear and rigorous methodology that
involved the participation of the most important law enforcement agencies in the country. More
recently, other relevant efforts have been made to quantify the magnitude of drug-related violence
in Mexico (e.g., Molloy 2013; Osorio 2013). However, the resulting databases show some basic
limitations having to do with less access to resources and information than Mexico’s government.
Therefore, we decided to utilize the one collected by the Office of the Presidency, which we
consider superior to any other good attempt to measure drug violence in Mexico in the years
2007–10.
7. Zero (“0”) represents the absence of internal conflict within the criminal organizations operating
in a specific state or the absence of a mayor TCO disrupting stability.
8. The value of 1 was assigned to the year when the operation began and maintained until the end of
the period.
9. See http://www.transparency.org/whoweare/organisation/mission_vision_and_values
10. It is worthwhile mentioning that this measurement of corruption is not conducted every year. For
the period we want to analyze, there are only data for the years 2007 and 2010. Therefore, 2007
figures were used for the first 2 years of the period (2007 and 2008) and the 2010 figures were
used for the years 2009 and 2010.
11. The estat command in Stata 11.0 was used to test for overdispersion.
12. A Hausman test was performed using Stata 11.0 to determine if a fixed- or random-effects model
should be used. The test indicated that fixed-effects model was the appropriate method for our
data.
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LOSING THE MONOPOLY OF VIOLENCE:

THE STATE, A DRUG WAR AND THE

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Mexico’s Drug War, Democracy and Violence

A Drug War and the Escalation of Drug-Related Violence in Mexico

State Crime 4.1 Spring 2015

Losing the Monopoly of Violence in Mexico’s “New Democratic” Times

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The post-revolutionary system mentioned above was in reality “an authoritarian

State Crime 4.1 Spring 2015

As long as peace was maintained, political partnerships allowed for the

The Causes of Drug-Related Violence in Today’s Mexico

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socioeconomic conditions, and (5) corruption in a new democratic era. Indicators

The Paramilitarization of Organized Crime

State Crime 4.1 Spring 2015

Despite branching out and influencing other activities, including political

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In the case of Mexico, the militarization of cartel enforcement groups can be

H1: The appearance of paramilitarized criminal syndicates in several regions of

Divisions between TCOs

State Crime 4.1 Spring 2015

The Mexican Government’s Security Strategy

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H4: There is a direct relationship between low or decreasing levels of economic

State Crime 4.1 Spring 2015

Explaining the Causes of Violence: A Research Model

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of a number of journalistic publications and official communiqués that document

number of times a bribe was given for services

A variable for population is also included as an exposure that translates our

State Crime 4.1 Spring 2015

Table 1 Summary Statistics

Drug-related homicides 128 240.421 543.038 0 4,246

Note: GDP = gross domestic product; FDI = foreign direct investment.

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time-series cross-sectional model is used.12 States are being compared to themselves

State Crime 4.1 Spring 2015

Table 2 Fixed-Effects Negative Binominal Regression of Mexican Drug-Related Homicides,

Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Paramilitarization of TCOs 1.164 (0.242)* 1.435 (0.208)* 1.207 (0.254)*

Observations 112 119 112

*p < .001, **p < .05, two-tailed.

Hypothesis 2 regarding the impact that cartel divisions have on drug-related

Concluding Remarks: The Transference of the Monopoly of Power

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federal government’s strategy to fight organized crime. In other words, a new

State Crime 4.1 Spring 2015

Homicides Paramil Cartel Feds GDP LNFDI Corr Unemp LNpop

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State Crime 4.1 Spring 2015

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