Insurgent Vigilantism and Drug War in Mexico

The proliferation of armed, anti-crime self-defence groups (autodefensas) in Mexico since 2013 has sparked renewed scholarly interest in vigilantism and the politics of collective violence more generally. Whilst most of this recent scholarship attempts to explain where and why such groups emerge in the first place, very little attention has been paid to the micro-foundations of vigilante organisation and behaviour. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Mexico in 2018, and incorporating theoretical insights from the social movements, civil war, and organised crime literatures, this paper examines the political strategies and collection action regimes of contemporary vigilante mobilisation. I argue that vigilante groups in Mexico employ the tactics of popular insurgency both as a negotiating tool to influence government behaviour or policy, and as a primary mechanism to overcome collection action problems in high-risk environments.