Drug trafficking, the informal order, and caciques. Reflections on the crime-governance nexus in Mexico

ABSTRACT While Mexico is widely considered as an example of consolidated statehood, the deepening of drug-related violence and insecurity has corroborated the existence and expansion of ‘dark spaces’ governed by coalitions of state and non-state actors driven by criminal and political interests. In contrast to the prevailing interpretations and public narratives, I will argue that it is historically and conceptually flawed to understand such expressions of limited statehood solely in terms of the proliferation of criminal organisations and the exacerbation of the so-called war on drugs only. Instead, I will examine the historical patterns in Mexican state-making, in which actors and practices of political ordering outside the state properly speaking exercise multiple forms of de facto sovereignty and governance. These arrangements, including caciquismo, accommodate distinct crime-governance manifestations. The article substantiates its claims by looking at the examples from different periods and regions such as Sinaloa, Sonora and Michoacán.