Violent Conflict and Unequal Development: The Case of Mexico

Abstract

In the last 15 years, Mexico has experienced high levels of both political and criminal violence. While the Zapatistas are the most well-known insurgent group in southern Mexico, by the twenty-first century various sources were reporting guerrilla activities in the majority of states and in the Federal District.¹ In addition, drug trafficking and drug violence have expanded throughout the country. These problems have long historical roots and spring from a variety of interrelated social, political, and economic factors. This chapter will focus on the country’s development trajectory from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century and will make the case that even when the Mexican economy was growing and social peace appeared to prevail, inequality and exclusion persisted. I will further argue that the failure to mitigate these negative aspects of the country’s development trajectory has contributed to the current high levels of criminal and political violence. However, poverty and inequality, by themselves, did not produce political violence in Mexico; a key ingredient was a particular kind of state response to societal grievances: one that combined encouraging promises with minimal real concessions, supplemented by brutal repression of those reaping the least from economic policies. Politicizing agents, who contributed to the collective awareness of grievances, also played a crucial role.