Book review: Angélica Durán-Martínez, The Politics of Drug Violence: Criminals, Cops and Politicians in Colombia and Mexico (original) (raw)

2019, Theoretical Criminology

In 2018 and 2019, thousands of Central Americans fleeing drug-related violence arrived at the US-Mexico border. In international media coverage, the countries people are fleeing from, such as Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, are often described as 'failed states'. However, the relationships between violence, criminal organization and the state and security apparatus in the region are highly complex: while Mexico suffered record levels of violence in 2018, it is now the 11th largest economy in the World. 1 After the 2016 peace agreement, homicides in Colombia have dropped to an all-time low: nevertheless, the country remains one of the world's most violent and community leaders and activists are harassed, threatened and killed at a high rate. Based on comprehensive empirical analysis and a mixed-methods approach, Angélica Durán-Martínez sets out to unpack some of assumptions about drug-related violence informing academic and policy analysis of drug violence in Latin America. The overall ambition of the book is to contribute to the collective academic effort of rethinking a failed prohibitionist regime. Widespread drug-related violence is not a new phenomenon in this region, but it has become more noticeable-and more frequent. Durán-Martínez sets out to present a comprehensive analysis of the repertoires of violence playing out in five cities in Colombia (Cali and Medellin) and Mexico (Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez and Culiacán) respectively. I particularly welcome the inclusion of Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, among the case studies: while the other highly violent cities studied have received substantial academic attention, this is not true to the same extent for this midsized city. Using a mixed-methods approach and offering a careful social and political scoping of each city studied, Durán-Martínez presents a nuanced explanation of drug violence and its relationship to the state security apparatus and the ebbs and flows of criminal competition. The volume explores questions such as: when does violence escalate? What characterizes the competition between criminal actors? Violence is not an inherent attribute of the drug trade-what drives it? To unpack these questions Durán-Martínez adopts 835631T CR0010.1177/1362480619835631Theoretical CriminologyBook review book-review2019