Is Narco‐Violence in Mexico Terrorism?

Mexico's drug ‘war’ produced 100,000 deaths between 2006 and 2012. The extreme violence has raised the notion that Mexico has become a failed state wracked by terrorism. We categorise the forms of narco‐violence in Mexico in light of the literature on terrorism and contemporary Mexican politics. Our study suggests three overlapping dimensions of narco‐violence that should be considered terrorism: (a) narco‐terror as a struggle for regional political control; (b) narco‐terror as a practice ordered by cartel leaders rather than spontaneous violence of foot soldiers; and (c) narco‐terror as an expansion strategy from solely drug trafficking to other kinds of organised crime.     

The Illegal Drug Industry,Violence and the Colombian Economy: A Department Level Analysis

Previous research on the Colombian illegal drug trade, which is generally qualitative in approach and focused on the national level, has concluded that the drug industry harms the economy. In order to test out this widespread claim, this article seeks to differentiate between the corrosive economic effects of Colombia's persistently high levels of generalised political violence and the specific consequences of the cocaine trade. It combines historical national level analysis with quantitative department analysis and identifies the economic effects of both paramilitary and guerrilla violence, thereby contributing to a closer examination of the impact of the drugs trade on the economy. The results reveal that paramilitary violence is related positively to exports but negatively to gross domestic product. Guerrilla violence, however, appears to harm exports but, surprisingly, not gross domestic product. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, coca cultivation does not have independent effects on exports or GDP, a conclusion which suggests that Colombia's economic problems stem more from political violence than from the drug trade in itself.     

Drugs, Violence, and Development in Colombia: A Department-Level Analysis

Observers say that drug production fuels violence in Colombia, but does coca production explain different levels of violence? This article examines the relationship between coca production and guerrilla violence by reviewing national‐level data over time and studying Colombia by department, exploring the interactions among guerrilla violence, exports, development, and displacement. It uses historical analysis, cartographic visualization, and analysis of the trends in four high coca‐producing and four violent Colombian departments, along with a department‐level fixed effects model. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the department‐level analysis suggests that coca production is not the driving force of contemporary Colombian guerrilla violence. Instead, economic factors and coca eradication emerge as prominent explanatory factors.     

Coyotaje and Drugs: Two Different Businesses

This article, based on a qualitative methodology that includes in‐depth interviews with 85 migrant‐smugglers who operate at the border between Mexico and the United States, addresses three research questions: do migrant‐smugglers take part in organised crime? Are criminal groups involved in migrant smuggling? And are migrant‐smugglers engaged in drug trafficking? It concludes that many smugglers have become part of organised crime groups but only after leaving the migrant‐smuggling business; that criminal organisations do not help migrants to cross the border; and that migrant‐smugglers do not carry drugs.     

Beyond Domestic Violence Survivor Services: Refocusing on Inequality in the Fight against Gender‐Based Violence in the Americas

Despite a consensus in the Americas that gender‐based violence is rooted in inequality and historic precedent and exacerbated by socio‐economic hardship, government programmes and institutional evaluations of programmes to combat violence against women tend not to tackle the problem at source. Instead, governments and policy evaluations tend to focus on domestic violence survivor services. This article analyses current work to evaluate government efforts to fight violence against women and unpacks scholarly and policy consensus on the root causes of the violence. I then illustrate the disconnect between root causes of violence and government programmes, to emphasise the need to link programmes more closely to agreed‐upon causes of violence.     

Reflections on the Mutual Impact of Violence and Religious Change in Latin America

The mutual impact of violence and religious transformation in the recent experience of Latin America has reshaped the public presence of churches (both Catholic and Protestant) and altered their discourse and appeal. Many churches turned to promotion of human rights, protection of victims, and opposition to authoritarian rule. Others allied with repressive regimes in the name of a kind of Christian nationalism. The violence at issue ranges from the massive violence of repression, torture, and revolutionary struggle to the institutionalized violence of poverty, disease, and injustice, which is often accompanied by the violence of daily life and linked with migration, drugs, gangs, and domestic abuse. Religion itself has changed: the Catholic monopoly has been replaced by pluralism, as Protestant and Pentecostal churches reach new populations and offer potential converts a way of opting out of the violence of daily life through rebirth in a new religious community.     

Explaining Domestic Violence Policy Outcomes in Chile and Argentina

This article explains why Chile has outperformed Argentina in policy responses to the problem of domestic violence. It argues that policy variation is due to both macro‐level institutional features (state capacity and centralization) and to more contingent political factors that shape the structure, role, and resources of the women's policy agencies that coordinate and implement domestic violence policies. The initial design of Chile's National Women's Service has allowed it to act as a crucial “insider” ally to advocacy groups. In contrast, Argentina's National Women's Council has suffered repeated downgrading and loss of resources due to ideological conflicts and changes in government, rendering it unable to coordinate policy responses to domestic violence effectively or to act as an ally to advocates inside and outside the state seeking increased resources and more effective policy responses to violence against women.     

Ideo‐theology and the Jewish state: from conflict to conciliation?

The assassination of Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin provided the most vivid demonstration to date of religious‐nationalist opposition inside Israel to the principle of exchanging land for peace. This article sets out to explore this world view and its intellectual origins, exploring in the process how the use of sacred Judaic texts have become both the monopoly of religious‐nationalism and the template for politically inspired violence against those in Israel suspected of condoning territorial compromise. This article concludes that if the ideo‐the‐ology of religious‐nationalists is to be assuaged, a religious discourse supporting territorial retrenchment has to become part of the political fabric of the centre‐left in Israel.     

State Sovereignty and Private Military and Security Companies in Australia

Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) as active participants within global security environments has increased in the last two decades exponentially. States have progressively incorporated PMSCs in their security functions, both domestically and internationally. Since the conflict in Iraq in the early 2000s, there have been numerous plausible reports of PMSCs violating international humanitarian law. Despite this, only a few have ever been prosecuted, suggesting a fundamental challenge to understandings regarding state control and monopoly over violence. Utilising a historical case study of an Australian PMSC in Operation Iraqi Freedom, this article argues that PMSCs undermine Australian sovereign legitimacy. It demonstrates how Australian oversight and accountability regarding its use of PMSCs is significantly fractured and current regulatory mechanisms concerning PMSCs are deficient. Thus, the Australian government's ability to provide control over the actions of PMSCs is diminished, affecting its sovereign legitimacy and ability to monopolise violence. The article overall conveys the dubious position states come into when the use-of-force is wielded by actors for distinct material incentives.     

Paisaje antes de la batalla. Notas sobre el contexto de la guerra contra las drogas en México

Mexico’s security crisis and Felipe Calderón’s (2006-2012) security strategy had its roots in drug trafficking, the prohibition of drugs, contraband and the border shared with the United States. Standard accounts of the violence experienced in the country, which reduce it to confrontations between drug cartels, are of little use. This article presents part of the context in which the security crisis developed, putting it in a historical perspective, and attempting to take a step towards a more nuanced interpretation. It holds that drug trafficking between Mexico and the United States is a complex, many-sided reality which admits dense symbolic elaboration. Apart from the very concrete shipping of drugs, drug trafficking is part of Mexico’s relation with the United States, a register that imbues the asymmetry between both countries with meaning, a space of political negotiation and a resource of American global diplomacy which is crystallized in a clandestine foreign policy system. Furthermore, through the demystification of the imagery that envelopes organized crime, corruption and contraband are examined, conceiving these two as phenomena that are integrated organically into borderland society.     

Cocaine's Long March North, 1900–2010

This essay charts the entanglements and “blowback” effects of U.S. policy toward Latin American drug exports over the last century as the backdrop to today's cascading drug violence in northern Mexico. The history of cocaine reveals a series of major geopolitical shifts (closely related to U.S. interdictionist drug war policies) that bring drug commodity chains, illicit trafficking centers, and conflicts, over the long run, closer to the United States. It analyzes shifts from initial legal cocaine and small‐time postwar smuggling of the central Andes to the concentrating 1970s–1990s “cartel” epicenter in northern Andean Colombia, to the 1990s political shift north to Mexican transhipment and organizational leadership. Violence around cocaine has intensified at every step, and the present conflict portends another shift in the chain.     

Repression as a Double‐edged Sword: Resilient Monarchs,Repression and Revolution in the Arab World

The Arab world shows a puzzling variation of political violence. The region's monarchies often remain quiet, while other autocracies witness major upheaval. Institutional explanations of this variation suggest that monarchical rule solves the ruler's credible commitment problems and prevents elite splits. This article argues that institutional explanations neglect the role of repression: increasing the scope of repression raises the costs of rebellion and deters rebels. However, the deterrence effect disappears if repression is used indiscriminately. If remaining peaceful offers no benefits, repression creates new rebels instead of deterring them. A time‐series‐cross‐section analysis of repression and political violence in the Middle East and North Africa corroborates our argument and shows the u‐curve relation between repression and violence. Once we control for repression, monarchies have no special effect anymore. Thus, our article addresses the discussion about monarchical exceptionalism, and offers an explanation why repression deters as well as incites political violence.     

A study in social change

Taiwan has dramatically improved its response to domestic violence within the last fifteen years, becoming the first East Asian country to pass major legislation criminalizing domestic violence. Ethnographic research on the origins, development, and operations of the domestic violence prevention movement shows how individuals from diverse backgrounds acted collectively to achieve this social reversal. Activists have profited from feminist social networks, the growing economic and political power of women, domestic violence models from other countries, a unified vision of creating new legislation, and an atmosphere open to change. Their efforts were catalyzed by three widely publicized cases regarding violence against women and culminated in the passage of the Domestic Violence Prevention and Treatment Act in 1998. The domestic violence prevention movement in Taiwan provides a valuable case study of social change and a model for other East Asian countries interested in passing similar legislation.     

Economic Statecraft,Structural Power,and Structural Violence in Sino-Kyrgyz Relations

Abstract

This article employs the concepts of structural power and structural violence to a undertake critical study of China’s use of economic statecraft toward Kyrgyzstan. The article argues that China’s reliance on economic exchange to secure its strategic ends in Kyrgyzstan has resulted in asymmetric economic exchange between the two states. Through this asymmetric exchange, China has gained influence over Kyrgyzstan’s domestic structures. Chinese structural power, in turn, contributes to violence across Kyrgyzstan’s structures of economy, environment, and society and within the country’s state-society relations. Structural violence within Kyrgyzstan also results in periphery instability and domestic insecurity for China. As such, the article argues that China’s use of economic statecraft to achieve its strategic aims in Kyrgyzstan is self-defeating.     

Breaking the Law to Ensure Order: The Case of Tijuana (2007–2012)

This paper explores how state agents and civilians justify human rights violations when the military perform police tasks. Based on a set of interviews and documents, it analyses the actions of the armed forces and the police during a military-led operation that targeted drug trafficking organisations in Tijuana. In a context of limited civilian control over the armed forces and the police, the paper identifies two discourses that supported the illegal action of state agents: the construction of a foreign other who does not belong to society and the need to use violence to accomplish a greater good.     

Legal Inequality and Federalism: Domestic Violence Laws in the Argentine Provinces

This article shows that the institutional design of Argentine federalism allows for differences in the protective scope of the provincial domestic violence laws. It holds that the broad legislative capacities of subnational districts enable the working of political and social local factors, which, in turn, determine heterogeneity in these laws’ protective scope. It analyzes, compares, and measures 37 laws on domestic violence sanctioned between 1992 and 2009. It advances a methodology to measure their differences and it evaluates the impact local factors have on legal variations across jurisdictions. The article shows that the protective scope of these laws is determined by the intensity of the local electoral competition and by the strength of women's organizational capacity. Results also show that time matters insofar as it allows for the diffusion of more protective laws.     

Youth Gang Members in Rio de Janeiro: The Face of a ‘Lost Generation’ in an Age of Fear and Mistrust

This article analyses the relationship between stigmatisation, violence and marginality, and its limits to social justice and citizenship. It involves a critical reflection on the way groups living in ‘a social and symbolical shade’ are represented and treated by governments and their institutions, and the way such practices reinforce a cycle of socio‐symbolical marginality and the limits to life in the city. The article will explore the findings of a research within drug gangs in which I have been involved ( Observatório de Favelas, 2006 ; Silva et al., 2009 and, Silva and Urani, 2002 ), and my own research on violence, urban marginality and stigmatisation ( Fernandes, 2009, 2012 ).     

Explaining State Violence in the Guatemalan Civil War: Rebel Threat and Counterinsurgency

Literature on the Guatemalan Civil War has debated whether or not state violence was triggered by rebel activities. Did the government respond to each insurrection caused by the rebels, or did it blindly target regions where antigovernment antipathy and movements had historically prevailed? Because state violence was extensive during the civil war period, the dynamism of the war could have been the reason for its occurrence. Relying on the threat‐response model of state violence, this article argues that human rights violations occurred when the government perceived a rebel threat that would have seriously degraded its capability in future counterinsurgencies. The article employs propensity score matching to address the problem of confounding in empirical analysis, and reveals that rebel attacks, particularly those targeting security apparatus and resulting in human injury, increased the likelihood of state violence in the Guatemalan Civil War.     

Memoria y democracia. Una relación incierta

This paper begins with a series of findings on the increasing focus on the memories of the recent past, particularly in societies that have undergone periods of political violence, dictatorships and civil wars. In analysing the moment of installation of the institutional, territorial and symbolic marks (understood as expressions produced by various actors and state policies and social movements that respond to the demands of these social actors), one can see how memories of the recent past, suffering and political violence act as stimuli for countless rituals, cultural productions, and a search for interpretations and explanations. This paper seeks to question some of the basic assumptions and basic innuendos implicit in the “duty of memory”: an exploration of the relationship between memory and justice, between memory and democracy, and between preservation-preservation and transmission. By analysing these relationships, this paper aims to relocate memories in the context of broader and longer-lasting structures and social processes; centrally linked to the persistence of multiple social inequalities and the relationship between memory and political present. To do this, some institutional state processes are analysed, both at the symbolic level and in the field of education and transmission, in order to present some situations that allow the task of rethinking and raising further questions about the relationship between memory and democracy.     

泰国的禁毒运动

制毒、贩毒和吸毒是当今世界最大的公害之一。它跟艾滋病、恐怖主义一样,是人类的大敌。目前全世界毒品的种植、生产和消费仍呈蔓延和发展的趋势,毒品问题已成为全球性的问题,几乎没有一个国家能幸免于难。地处世界著名毒源“金三角”的泰国,更是在劫难逃,长期受到毒品的危害和困扰,可以说,毒品已成为泰国国家安全与稳定的主要威胁之一。他信政府自2001年2月上台执政以来,把禁毒作为与脱贫、治贪并列的三大施政目标之一。他信认为,毒品是泰国当前的大敌,防毒反毒是政府的当务之急,提出了向“毒品宣战”的口号。近三年,由于措施得力,行动果断,所以扫毒工作战果累累。泰国政府禁毒的成功将不仅造福于全体泰国人民,也将为整个亚洲乃至全世界的禁毒斗争做出历史性贡献。