A snake who eats the devil’s tail: The recursivity of good and evil in the security state

The Islamic State and Mexican drug ‘cartels’ have been positioned as extreme menaces to the Western world by media and state actors despite their inability to pose existential threats to the US. These groups deftly facilitate such representations through barbaric violence which security and information sharing apparatuses uptake and amplify. The ‘good’ neoliberal security state combats and inflates these ‘evil’ threats which, in turn, empowers purveyors of security in a deregulated environment. The authors interrogate this problem through the lens of negative utopias presented in speculative fiction to understand the implications for state and society. Projected representations of evil as an existential threat present a conflicted vision of the future manipulated by political and media actors with dire consequences for democratic ideals. National security relies on a never-ending cast of foreign threats that legitimize counter-terror actions in the name of moral good. Security institutions persist primarily through the simultaneous representation of a never-ending battle of good and evil. They stand to gain from the existence of extremely violent groups, without legitimate progress towards their eradication. They also bring fantasy into reality through the recursive enactment of good versus evil.

Why Did Drug Cartels Go to War in Mexico? Subnational Party Alternation, the Breakdown of Criminal Protection, and the Onset of Large-Scale Violence

This article explains why Mexican drug cartels went to war in the 1990s, when the federal government was not pursuing a major antidrug campaign. We argue that political alternation and the rotation of parties in state gubernatorial power undermined the informal networks of protection that had facilitated the cartels’ operations under one-party rule. Without protection, cartels created their own private militias to defend themselves from rival groups and from incoming opposition authorities. After securing their turf, they used these militias to conquer rival territory. Drawing on an original database of intercartel murders, 1995 to 2006, we show that the spread of opposition gubernatorial victories was strongly associated with intercartel violence. Based on in-depth interviews with opposition governors, we show that by simply removing top- and midlevel officials from the state attorney’s office and the judicial police—the institutions where protection was forged—incoming governors unwittingly triggered the outbreak of intercartel wars.

The Use of Social Media by Alleged Members of Mexican Cartels and Affiliated Drug Trafficking Organizations

Focusing on Mexican cartels and affiliated drug trafficking organizations, this article examines how self-proclaimed cartel members use social media to further the criminal activities of their organizations. Employing an open-source, intelligence-driven methodology, the authors identified, followed, and mapped the connections between and among 75 alleged cartel members over a period of 4 months. Results indicated that cartel members actively use Facebook to plan, organize, and communicate in real-time. These findings provide tentative validation to the utility of using open-source social media platforms to study the social structure and operations of Mexican drug cartels. Implications for law enforcement, homeland security, and the intelligence enterprise are discussed.

A Network Flow Model of the Complex Illicit Trafficking Network Operating in the El Paso-Juarez Area

In 2013, El Paso, TX, was selected for the third time in a row by the Congressional Quarterly Press as the number one safest city with a population over 500,000 people (Borunda, 2013). Just across its border though, sits Ciudad Juarez, considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world. There is a unique social ecosystem between the two cities, a product of many years of shared history and traditions. The El Paso-Juarez area also happens to be one of the most valuable plazas for the Mexican Drug Cartels. According to BBC Mundo, the Sinaloa Cartel has won the El Paso-Juarez territory over the Juarez Cartel and the Zetas (Najar, 2012). Consequently, now that the territory is dominated by one cartel, drug trafficking through the area will likely increase and smuggling through border crossing check points will continue to be more prevalent. The purpose of this research effort is to assist the Border Patrol in allocating its resources towards improved interdiction of illicit trafficking. Whether it is manpower, money, technology, or any other resource, the Border Patrol desires to efficiently allocate to maximize interdiction. This analysis is intended to suggest a tool that will assist in allocating resources and aid the extremely important effort to maintain El Paso, TX, as the safest city in the U.S. by keeping drugs away from the streets. This research presents a network flow model of the complex illicit trafficking network operating in the El Paso-Juarez area, and provides insight that will aid such agencies as the Border Patrol in allocating its resources.