Between Organized Crime and Armed Conflict: Explaining the Evolution of Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations

The multiple violent actors present in Mexico, commonly described as “drug cartels”, demonstrate a high degree of fluidity and change. Some of them conform mostly to ideal types of criminal organizations, some appear to be evolving into rather territorial militias, while others display highly unusual or hybridized characteristics - such as the Caballeros Templarios, which have been described as part militia, part cult, part criminal enterprise. What has driven this unusual evolution of violent actors? Some approaches in the study of organized crime attribute the convergence of criminal and terrorist or other actors to their internal dynamics. In this chapter, however, I will suggest that the changes observable in Mexican organizations is mostly caused by structural changes in the state apparatus, in international affairs, and in the supply and demand situations of various illicit markets, as well as the overall economic structuration of the North American continent.