Violent Democracy in the Global South: Evidence from Mexico

Session Submission Type: Virtual Created Panel

Session Description

Conventional armed conflict is on the decline today. Research suggests interstate conflict is now a relatively rare event. Traditional civil wars, meanwhile, are rarer and less lethal than in prior decades. Yet, violence continues. In fact, these trends obscure the persistence of violence situated outside the conceptual confines of traditional armed conflict. According to the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, the majority of the world’s most violent countries are democracies not currently experiencing war. These “violent democracies” (Arias and Goldstein 2010) are clustered in the Global South and characterized by large-scale, organized criminal conflict. Though the violence itself may be characterized as “criminal,” it is part and parcel of political processes of democratization. Indeed, nearly all violent democracies are new or transitioning democracies. As Huntington (1968) theorized, the growing number of violent democracies suggests that increases in pluralism are accompanied by increases in violence where institutions are weak. How does such violence shape the future of new and transitioning democracies of the Global South?

This panel explores this question through focused study of one important case: Mexico. Mexico is an ideal case of violent democracy. Dominated by a single-party regime for more than 70 years, the country experienced an uptick in criminal violence resulting in part from the disintegration of single-party rule and increased political competition in the 1990s (Trejo and Ley 2018). This steady increase in violence spiked dramatically in 2006 when then-President Felipe Calderón launched a militarized war against drug traffickers. Though characterized by “criminal” violence, the violence is often levied to oppress dissenting voices in society, particularly among journalists and human rights activists. This “War on Drugs” has since claimed more than 300,000 dead and disappeared - a number that rivals or surpasses many civil wars (International Crisis Group 2020) – and has endured more than 14 years and over half of Mexico’s democratic tenure. How does this violence shape the present and future forces of democracy in the country?

This panel engages this problem from three different perspectives. In the first, we consider whether and how the state’s militarized response to increasing violence shapes forces of pluralism “from above”. In particular, Logan Puck’s research guides us in exploring how the state’s use of both traditional and new, private security forces – many of which operate without citizen oversight – reinforces authoritarian practices that privilege state and private groups while suppressing other groups in society. In the second, we investigate how citizens living in this violent context shape democratic processes “from below”. To do so, we interrogate Laterzo and Garcia Ponce’s research on whether and how the violent context shapes citizens’ propensity to engage democratic processes to demand change, such as through holding elected officials accountable for security issues. Finally, we question the future of violence in Mexico, using Osorio’s and Daniele and co-authors’ work as our point of departure. In what ways has the state’s response to violence exacerbated security conditions, and in turn, the viability of stable democracy?

While Mexico is an important and emblematic case, the panel will use the case of Mexico to engage and motivate a broader discussion about the role violence plays in democratization processes and forces of pluralism in the increasingly common “violent democracies” of the Global South. Our panel draws on a diverse but complementary range of intellectual traditions and methodological approaches, including large-n quantitative analysis of event data and original survey data, alongside subnational comparative analysis and fine-grained qualitative data collected via field research.

Sub Unit

• Division 12: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries

Individual Presentations

• The Shadow Police: Crime, Impunity, & Mexico’s Hybrid Police Forces - Logan Puck, Bates College

• Perceptions and Normalization of Violence in Mexico’s Drug War - Isabel Laterzo, UNC Chapel Hill; Omar Garcia-Ponce, George Washington University

• Militarizing Law Enforcement and Organized Criminal Violence in Mexico - Javier Osorio, University of Arizona

• Fueling Organized Crime: Oil Theft and the Mexican Drug War - Marco Le Moglie, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart; Gianmarco Daniele; Giacomo Battiston, Bocconi University; Paolo Pinotti, Bocconi University

Chair

• Rebecca V. Bell-Martin Tecnologico de Monterrey

Discussants

• Michael Lee Weintraub Universidad de los Andes

• Gema Santamaria Loyola University Chicago