Related Papers
Civil War in Mexico: Re-Examining Armed Conflict and Criminal Insurgency [working paper]
Zachary J Foster
Counternetwork: Countering the Expansion of Transnational Criminal Networks
2017 •
Douglas Farah
Journal of Strategic Security
The Strategic Implications of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion
2018 •
Nathan P . Jones
Vortex Working Paper No. 11
Cross-Border Connections: Criminal Inter-Penetration at the US-Mexico "Hyperborder"
2013 •
John P. Sullivan
The United States (US) and Mexico share a complex border and a common threat for transnational organized crime. The US-Mexico border is one of the most complex in the world. At first glance cross-border threats appear to be concentrated along the nearly 2,000 mile long frontier. This frontera divides the American states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas from their Mexican counterparts Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. Yet, as I will describe the impact of cross-border criminal connections reach far from the frontera and influences crime and corruption in major cities and exurban enclaves far from the actual border.
Journal of Strategic Security
A Social Network Analysis of Mexico's Dark Network Alliance Structure
2022 •
Nathan P . Jones, Daniel Weisz Argomedo, John P. Sullivan
This article assesses Mexico's organized crime alliance and subgroup network structures. Through social network analysis (SNA) of data from Lantia Consultores, a consulting firm in Mexico that specializes in the analysis of public policies, it demonstrates differential alliance structures within Mexico's bipolar illicit network system. The Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación's (CJNG) alliance structure is top-down and hierarchical, while the Sinaloa Cartel is denser, particularly in the broader Tierra Caliente region. Additionally, our analysis found a sparse overall network with many isolates (groups with no relations to other groups) and disconnected components. Further, we identified organized crime networks that might fill future power vacuums based on their network positions, following state or rival high-value targeting of major cartels. The implications of these findings are discussed, and policy recommendations are provided.
Center for the United States and Mexico
Mexico’s 2021 Dark Network Alliance Structure: An Exploratory Social Network Analysis of Lantia Consultores’ Illicit Network Alliance and Subgroup Data
2022 •
Nathan P . Jones, Irina Chindea, John P. Sullivan
This paper assesses Mexico’s organized crime alliance and subgroup network structures. Through social network analysis (SNA) of data from Lantia Consultores, a consulting firm in Mexico that specializes in the analysis of public policies, it demonstrates differential alliance structures within Mexico’s bipolar illicit network system. The Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación’s (CJNG) alliance structure is top-down and hierarchical, while the Sinaloa Cartel is denser, particularly in the broader Tierra Caliente region. Additionally, our analysis found a sparse overall network with many isolates (organized criminal groups with no relations to other groups) and disconnected components. Further, we identified organized crime networks that might fill future power vacuums based on their network positions, following state or rival high-value targeting of major cartels. The implications of these findings are discussed, and policy recommendations are provided.
Fear and Loathing in Mexico: Narco-alliances and Proxy Wars
Irina Chindea
Mexico's Drug Trafficking Organizations: Source and Scope of the Violence
2013 •
June Beittel
This report provides background on drug trafficking in Mexico: it identifies the major drug trafficking organizations (DTOs); how the organized crime “landscape” has been altered by fragmentation; and analyzes the context, scope, and scale of the violence. It examines current trends of the violence, analyzes prospects for curbing violence in the future, and compares it with violence in Colombia.
Cartel v. Cartel: Mexico's Criminal Insurgency
John P. Sullivan
As the decade ends, Mexico's criminal insurgency continues. Yet the narco-war in 2010 is not identical to the violence that began three years ago. Mexico's criminal insurgency at the beginning of 2010 is distinguished by three main trends: continuing (though increasingly diffused) violence against the state, increasing militarization of the Mexican state's response, and a growing feeling of defeat among some within Mexican policy circles. Additionally, the conflict has assumed broader transnational dimensions. On the surface, the conflict has entered into a period of seeming stasis. But it is a bloody stalemate—and the war promises to continue simmering well into this year and beyond. According to the Mexican press, 2009 may have been the bloodiest year of the war, with 7,600 Mexicans perishing in the drug war. Whatever the nature of the conflict, the danger still remains to American interests. As we have noted before, loose talk of a Mexican "failed state" obscures the real problem of a subtler breakdown of government authority and bolstering of the parallel authorities that cartels have already created.
Small Wars Journal
Criminal Insurgency: Narcocultura, Social Banditry, and Information Operations
2012 •
John P. Sullivan
Drug cartels and gangs are challenging state authority in Mexico and Central America. This power-counterpower struggle erodes state legitimacy and solvency and confers both economic and political power on the cartels and gangs. As part of this contest, the criminal enterprises seek to remove themselves from state control and act in the manner of "primitive rebels" to sustain a struggle that is essentially a "criminal insurgency." As part of this contest, the cartels provide utilitarian social goods, form narratives of power and rebellion and act as "post-modern social bandits" to gain support and legitimacy within their own organizations and the geographic areas they control. Their message is delivered through the use of instrumental and symbolic violence and information operations (including influencing the press, forging a social narrative-- narcocultura--where the gangsters are seen as powerful challengers to the corrupt state). Narcocorridos (folk songs), narcomantas (banners), narcobloqueos (blockades), narcomensages (messages in many forms including "corpse-messages"), and alternative systems of veneration (narco-saints including Jesus Malverde and Santa Muerte) are used to craft these narratives of (counter) power. This essay will examine these dynamics as they are currently unfolding in Latin America and place them in theoretical perspective.
