Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

Transnational Organized Crime and Hybrid Governance in Latin America. The Case of Forced Disappearance in Mexico

By Marcial A. G. Suarez

This article is a shortened version of the eponymous MECILA Working Paper, which was originally published by the Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America in 2025 and can be read here.

1. Introduction: What is Hybrid Governance?

In the last two and a half decades, there has been a robust production of theoretical works, mainly related to the phenomenon of communities of “long peace”, negative peace, hybrid peace, and blockages to peace and security in South America (Holsti 1996; Kacowicz 1998; Mares 2001; Oelsner 2007; Battaglino 2012; Ferreira and Richmond 2021; Duarte Villa and Pimenta 2016; Buzan et al. 1998). These discussions relate to another important topic: formal and informal governance (including the lack of state control) in areas with high rates of violence. Even though much of this hybrid literature on governance examines empirical cases that occurred in urban settings (Willis 2014; Arias 2018; Lessing 2021; Davis 2020; Fahlberg 2018; Feltran 2020), other experts have focused on different spots in South America to understand better what is now labelled “hybrid governance” (Duarte Villa and Pimenta 2019; Pimenta and Rosero 2020; Duarte Villa et al. 2021).

Hybrid governance describes the situation where protection rackets are operated under an illicit relationship between state actors and non-state actors. So, what is the relationship between illegality and violence? Several authors (Snyder and Durán-Martinez 2009; Cruz and Durán-Martinez 2016; Garzón-Vergara 2016), argue that the dynamics of violence are influenced by several variables such as illicit market competition, fragile law enforcement, and corruption, to name a few.

We are not only dealing with formal governments in this study but rather with forms of governability and governance that move through space and time, that is, they occupy dimensions of state action but are not themselves configured as official state agents. We suggest that the added value of the hybridity approach lies in blurring the lines between the actors involved (Colona and Jaffe 2016).

John M. Hagedorn uses “institutionalized gangs” to denote several minimum characteristics for criminal organizations to consider how non-state violent actors usually present themselves to signify their relevance to the State in the environment of security (Hagedorn 2008):

  • Institutionalization to the point that a particular gang continues despite leadership changes (killed, incarcerated, etc).
  • Introduction of complexity to support multiple roles of its members (including roles for women and children).
  • Adaptation to changing environments (police repression or civil war).
  • Resolution of some community needs (economy, security, services).
  • Development of a distinct identity for its members (symbols, rituals, traditions, sometimes called subculture).

The contextual and regional dimension of political choices indicates that crime is defined in the context of the action and perception of the actors who suffer violence, as proposed by David Rodgers and Adam Baird (Rodgers and Baird 2015). Violence and crime are from a relational perspective and must be considered depending on the new actors involved and the political contexts. The concept of hybrid governance has emerged widely in the literature since the 2000s as a derivation of developments made from studies on security sector reform (SSR). The analysis of how hybrid governance is structured presents different forms according to the security context in which it emerges:

Hybrid governance arrangements can be defined as arrangements in which non-state actors take on functions classically attributed to the state and, in the process, become entangled with formal state actors and agencies to the extent that it is difficult to make a clear distinction between state and non-state (Colona and Jaffe 2016: 176).

We aim to underscore the intensity of the debate on hybrid governance and the different theoretical and empirical approaches related to the topic. One of the ways to distinguish among different forms of hybrid governance, which can also be understood as criminal governance, is to elaborate the superpositions of norms involved. In normative terms, post-Westphalian formal legitimacy has long been understood as originating from the sovereign state, which has the power to produce standards. However, in hybrid governance, we recognize non-state actors as also being producers of norms.

A green wall in front of a avenue lined by trees and skyscrapers.
The Glorieta de las y los desaparecidos (Roundabout of the Disappeared) in Mexico City. The anti-monument was erected by relatives of disappeared persons. Photo by Luis Alvaz via Wikimedia Commos.

Globalization has, on the one hand, weakened sovereignty along classical lines (Sassen 1996, Strange 1996), and on the other, favored the emergence of subnational actors, and with them the erosion of state normative structures in a complex of the juxtaposition of norms (Beraldo 2022). In other words, we are not only in the universe of the classic state normative debate but beyond this in the realm of the debate on the juxtaposition between state and non-state norms and this intermezzo space is where we try to develop the concept of hybrid governance.

Despite much of the hybrid governance literature examining empirical cases from urban settings (Arias 2018; Davis 2020; Fahlberg 2018; Feltran 2020; Lessing 2021; Willis 2014), other experts have focused on different locations in South America to better understand hybrid governance (Jimenez Aguilar and Thoene 2021; Duarte Villa and Pimenta 2019; Pimenta and Rosero 2020; Duarte Villa et al. 2021).

In places where violence is concentrated, criminal control is often found coexisting symbiotically with state legitimacy (Feltran 2020; Lessing 2021). In such an environment “[of hybrid governance], the ‘state’ does not have a privileged position as the political framework that provides security, welfare, and representation; it must share authority, legitimacy, and capacity with other structures” (Boege et al. 2008: 10). The concept of hybrid governance allows a shift from the assumption that only the State can create norms and legitimacy in areas under political dispute, in which non-state actors, and more precisely criminal actors, create coexistence spaces for local populations.

Boege et al. propose an approach that dialogues with our proposed understanding of the interpenetration of different social spheres and their subsequent normative arrangements; “These hybrid orders are characterized by a plurality of overlapping rule systems which has a profound effect on politics and policies in these societies” (Boege et al. 2008: 11).

2. State-Sponsored Protection Rackets: Hybrid Governance in Mexico

In the Mexican case, as well as in the Brazilian one, an association between public power and violent non-state or criminal actors can be understood as having existed for a long time. Benjamin Smith reproduces the concept of protection rackets to understand the dynamics of organized crime in Mexico, especially linked to drug trafficking (Smith 2024).

The issue of protection rackets should not be viewed solely through the lens of state corruption, but rather as a rational choice made by local actors involved in the dynamics of illegal activities. Among the key characteristics is the fact that these relationships between the formal and informal, or legal and illegal, when understood at a more immediate level of analysis, reach the familial dimension.

Mexico became a significant player in the illegal drug trade as early as the beginning of the 20th century when the United States started establishing anti-drug policies and border controls. During the period of the 1920s and 1930s, key products like heroin and morphine originated from the Veracruz region and soon made their way to Ciudad Juárez, and from there to the U.S.

Although there were anti-drug policies during this early 20th-century period, in practice, what emerged was a long-lasting protection network involving state actors and segments of society that profited from the business in the region. At the immediate level, most local authorities established a direct relationship with traffickers and producers, where these authorities protected illegal activities in exchange for bribes.

An important distinction between the concept of corruption and that of protection rackets was made by Claudio Lomnitz (1996), and Alan Knight (2010) to highlight that there is a pragmatic dimension to both non-state criminal actors and the state itself, through the actions of its sectors and agents linked to the production of anti-drug policies or the repression of drug production and trafficking. This pragmatic relationship involves understanding that the business of producing illegalities has a point of “equilibrium” or optimal tradeoff that directly ties the decision-making process beyond the moral analysis of illegality or crime.

However, from the 1970s onward, competition for the sale of protection emerged between local and state authorities and federal authorities, particularly the Federal Judicial Police. In this dynamic of jurisdictional control between previous state actors and new actors entering the business, the established pacts became imbalanced, creating new arrangements of protection for the drug trafficking business.

An interesting example for the proposed argument is the history of the origins of poppy production in the Sinaloa region in the 1940s. Then-Governor Pablo Macías Valenzuela, during his administration, charged around 30% of the harvest or its equivalent value in cash. In this structure, the police chief, Francisco de La Rocha, who already had close ties to the governor, had a brother in the Health Police, a cousin in the Badiraguato police force, and his sister was a morphine trafficker in the region.

The “Sinaloan” model would establish itself in Mexico over the following decades, reaching its most well-developed state under the leadership of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, who in the 1980s would be responsible for founding the Guadalajara Cartel, earning him the nickname Jefe de los Jefes (Boss of Bosses).

In the Mexican case, Nery Sólis Córdova discusses narco-culture and its symbolism as a form of transgression of the law, meaning that social relationships become defined and structured based on the proximity between actors, which can be of a familial, friendship, or other nature (Córdova 2012). On the other hand, the relationships established with state agents linked in one way or another to public security bodies are also structured:

Since the early decades of the 20th century—we are located in northern Mexico, particularly in Sinaloa—, family, neighbourhood, street, barrio, ranchería, community groups, and other types of labour and economic ties, taking advantage of the social and political circumstances and the legal leniencies of their time, began to shape their paths and expectations for an emerging and undeveloped business they foresaw as profitable and highly lucrative (Córdova 2012: 210; author’s translation).

In this sense, the idea of establishing pacts and protection networks was essential for keeping businesses organized and in constant flow. However, beyond this “negotiated peace”, another underlying idea is crucial, which is to avoid provoking state action to curb violent actions. Thus, a relationship of another nature emerges, one that seeks an unstable balance between competition for control of the territory and at the same time maximizing profits without entering into conflict. “Don’t fight here. Go fight outside. Here, just work and I won’t bother you” (Córdova 2012: 12). In this way, the governor of Sinaloa, Leopoldo Sánchez Celis (1963–1968), established the limits for competition over territory control and, consequently, the flow of illegal goods.

There is an important turning point in the relationship between criminal actors and state agents which occurred at the end of the 1960s. On the one hand, in Mexico, there was a change in the jurisdiction of operations related to the repression of drug trafficking. Starting in the 1970s, federal institutions begin to take control of protection strategies through the presence of the army, the Attorney General’s Office, and the Federal Judicial Police.

Another turning point occurred in 1969 when U.S. President Nixon launched “Operation Interception”, which had the primary objective of making it more difficult for illicit goods, especially narcotics, to enter the country. The measure began with the registration of all vehicles crossing the border, mainly targeting the reduction of marijuana trafficking through the southern border with Mexico and the entry of heroin, primarily through the northern border with Canada.

With the tightening of the anti-drug policy, the number of arrests made by the Mexican government increased to 1,603 in 1969, 2,595 in 1970, and 3,782 in 1974 (Kuri 2024):

[…] Certain patterns began to emerge. Agents of the PJF [federal police force] would appear; a handful of major traffickers would end up imprisoned or dead, along with a few corrupt state police officers (Smith 2024: 150, author’s translation).

This dynamic of introducing a new actor into the equation of protection networks signifies a new arrangement of power and clientelist relations. The provision of security and stability to ensure the business operates at its optimal flow also creates space for the establishment of new local leadership. The reorganization model established at this moment would become a standard over time, and it can be characterized by the association of government actors with a specific local group. This aims to reduce the presence of competing groups vying for territorial control, leading to greater stability and a more favorable trade-off in negotiations. With only a limited set of actors selling the “commodity” of security and a limited number of actors purchasing this “commodity,” negotiations become more predictable:

The locals and some journalists began whispering that Del Toro was taking money to protect Guerra and García Abrego while eliminating their competition. A decade later, most observers confirmed their suspicions: Juan García Abrego’s cousin took the position of mayor of Matamoros and appointed Del Toro as his head of security (Smith 2024: 151, author’s translation).[1]

From the emergence of the Guadalajara Cartel onward, Mexico would witness periods of cartel control over pacts with government authorities, leading to a trend toward lower violence and homicide rates, and other periods when these pacts and protection networks were broken or shaken, either due to new market arrangements, competition for territorial control, or more direct public policies to combat organized crime. This correlation between disruptions or discontinuities in hybrid governance and increased violence becomes almost self-evident:

Figure 1, National Homicide Incidence Rate in Mexico, 2006–2024.

Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI).

Figure 1 presents some temporal aspects of the relationships between state actors and non-state actors, highlighting how the distinction between “legal” and “illegal” becomes blurred as protection relationships are established. On the other hand, this graph may also indicate the correlations between the breakdown of pacts and the increase in homicide rates. This allows us to consider that, to some extent, a project aimed at reducing violence involves understanding the depth of the relationship between criminal actors and the protection networks established with the state.

3. Violence, Hybrid Governance, and Conviviality

The paper will attempt to “touch the ground”, to understand how this model of violence is organized with and by the state, influences people, and the ways of coexistence that emerge through and by violence and by the local arrangements of societies and violent actors, whether they are state or not.

In this session, we will address the issue of forced disappearances and the strategies that emerge as a way of establishing a way of “living” under circumstances in which violence is not limited to non-state violent actors, but also actions involving the State.

As this is a working paper and the research is ongoing, we will develop the analysis of the events that took place during our stay in Mexico to conduct an exploratory study and interviews. Through interviews conducted in Mexico City with family members and social activists, we intend to extract some elements that will guide our analysis of these cases to understand these narratives.

The Mexican Constitution, in Article 21, defines the foundations of public security in Mexico. To this end, this article is divided into four main areas:

  • the role of the Public Prosecutor’s Office as the entity responsible for investigating crimes, the authority that exercises criminal prosecution — except in cases where this is performed by a private individual before a court — and the situations in which, in exercising criminal prosecution, it may apply criteria of opportunity;
  • the power of the Federal Executive, with the approval of the Senate and based on a case-by-case criterion, to recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court;
  • the exclusive function of the judicial authority in the imposition, modification, and duration of sentences;
  • the function of public security, which is the responsibility of the federation, federal entities, and municipalities.

The question that emerges from this introductory note on Article 21 of the Mexican Constitution guides us throughout the study: How should one act when the distinction between the State and the criminal is neither clear nor objective? Can they be both at the same time, in an ambivalent manner? In this space of (in)definition, we find the place of hybrid governance, which results from the juxtaposition of formal regulations and norms alongside informal ones. It is important to note that, in our argument, formality is linked to the State as the primary actor that holds the normative authority to create institutional norms.

Keep reading here.


Notes

[1] Salvador Del Toro Rosales, also known as El Fiscal de Hierro; Juan Nepomuceno Guerra, drug trafficker from Nuevo Laredo; Juan García Abrego, drug trafficker from Nuevo Laredo.


References

Arias, Enrique Desmond (2018): “Criminal Organizations and the Policymaking Process”, in: Global Crime, 19, 3-4, 339–361.

Battaglino, Jorge Mario (2012): “The Coexistence of Peace and Conflict in South America: Toward a New Conceptualization of Types of Peace”, in: Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 55, 2, 131–151.

Beraldo, Ana (2022): “The Social Dynamics of Violence and Respect: State, Crime and Church in a Brazilian Favela”, in: Journal of Latin American Studies, 55, 1, 27–49.

Boege, Volker; Brown, Anne; Clements, Kevin and Nolan, Anna (2008): “On Hybrid Political Orders and Emerging States: State Formation in the Context of ‘Fragility’”, Berghof Handbook Dialogue, No. 8, Berlin: Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management.

Buzan, Barry; Waever, Ole and Wilde, Jaap de (1998): Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Colona, Francesco and Jaffe, Rivke (2016): “Hybrid Governance Arrangements”, in: European Journal of Development Research, 28, 2, 175–183.

Córdova, Nery Solís (2012): “La narcocultura. Poder, realidad, iconografía y ‘mito’”, in: Cultura y Representaciones Sociales, 6, 12, 209–237.

Cruz, José Miguel and Durán-Martinez, Angelica (2016): “Hiding Violence to Deal with the State: Criminal Pacts in El Salvador and Medellin”, in: Journal of Peace Research, 53, 2, 197–210.

Davis, Diane (2020): “City, Nation, Network: Shifting Territorialities of Sovereignty and Urban Violence in Latin America”, in: Urban Planning, 5, 3, 206–216.

Duarte Villa, Rafael; Macedo Braga, Camila de and Ferreira, Marcos Alan (2021): “Violent Nonstate Actors and the Emergence of Hybrid Governance in South America”, 56, 1, 36–49.

Duarte Villa, Rafael and Pimenta, Marília (2016): “A longa paz na América do Sul: Questionamentos às teses da paz negativa na região”, in: Papel Político, 21, 2, 435.

Duarte Villa, Rafael and Pimenta, Marília (2019): “Violent non-State Actors and New Forms of Governance: Exploring the Colombian and Venezuelan Border Zone”, in: Journal of Human Security, 15, 1, 6–18.

Fahlberg, Anjuli N. (2018): “Rethinking Favela Governance: Nonviolent Politics in Rio de Janeiro’s Gang Territories”, in: Politics & Society, 46, 4, 485–512.

Feltran, Gabriel (2020): The Entangled City: Crime as Urban Fabric in São Paulo, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Ferreira, Marcos Alan and Richmond, Oliver (2021): “Blockages to Peace Formation in Latin America: The Role of Criminal Governance”, in: Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 15, 2, 161–180.

Garzón-Vergara, Juan Carlos (2016): “Qual é a relação entre o crime organizado e os homicídios na América Latina?”, Notas de Homicídios, No. 3, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Igarapé.

Hagedorn, John M. (2008): A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Holsti, Kalevi (1996): The State, War, and the State of War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jimenez Aguilar, Carlos M. and Thoene, Ulf (2021): “Associativity in the Bogotá Metropolitan Region: Coordination Challenges in a Fragmented Region”, in: Area Development and Policy, 6, 4, 451–469.

Kacowicz, Arie (1998): Zones of Peace in the Third World: South America and West Africa in Comparative Perspective, Albany: State University of New York Press.

Knight, Alan (2010): “The Myth of the Mexican Revolution”, Past & Present, 209, 1, 223–273

Kuri, Ariel (ed.) (2024): Violencias Mexicanas, 1920–2020. Once Estudios, Cuidad de México: El Colegio de México.

Lessing, Benjamin (2021): “Conceptualizing Criminal Governance”, in: Perspectives on Politics, 19, 3, 854–873.

Lomnitz, Claudio (1996): “Fissures in Contemporary Mexican Nationalism”, Public Culture, 9, 1, 55–68.

Mares, David (2001): Violent Peace: Militarized Interstate Bargaining in Latin America, New York: Columbia University Press.

Oelsner, Andrea (2007): “Friendship, Mutual Trust and the Evolution of Regional Peace in the International System”, in: Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 10, 2, 257–279.

Pimenta, Marília and Rosero, Luis (2020): “Crimen organizado transnacional en América del Sur. Un análisis de la presencia y gobernanza de actores armados no estatales en la frontera de Colombia y Venezuela”, in: Monções, 9, 17, 364–393.

Rodgers, Dennis and Baird, Adam (2015): “Understanding Gangs in Contemporary Latin America”, in: Decker, Scott H. and Pyrooz, David C. (eds.), The Handbook of Gangs, Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 478–502.

Sassen, Saskia (1996): “Toward a Feminist Analytics of the Global Economy”, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 4, 3, 7–41.

Smith, Benjamin (2024): “El Estado, las drogas y la violencia en Mexico, 1970–1982”, in: Kuri, Ariel (ed.), Violencias Mexicanas, 1920–2020. Once Estudios, Cuidad de México: El Colegio de México, 139–172.

Strange, Susan (1996): The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Snyder, Richard and Durán-Martinez, Angelica (2009): “Does Illegality Breed Violence? Drug Trafficking and State-Sponsored Protection Rackets”, in: Crime, Law and Social Change, 52, 3, 253–273.

Willis, Ben (2014): “The Advantages and Limitations of Single Case Study Analysis”, in: E-International Relations, July 05, 2014, at: e-ir.info (Last access 30.05.2025).


About the Author

Marcial A. G. Suarez (Mecila Senior Fellow, 2024 and Chancellor Fellow 2025 at Cologne University) holds a PhD in political science and serves as a professor in the same field as well as in international relations at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, where he leads the International Politics Analysis Group. Previously, he was a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. His research specializes in international security, emphasizing the roles of state and non-state actors, hybrid governance structures, and the resilience of local communities.


Other Recent Articles in the TRAFO Series Conviviality and Inequality

Raquel Rojas, Juan I. Piovani, Laura Flamand, Sérgio Costa, and Carlos Alba, Care, Inequalities, and Conviviality. The Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Berlin, Buenos Aires and Mexico City, 25.08.2025.

Raphael Schapira, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu as a Marker of Whiteness and Anti-Blackness. Embodying Inclusive Conservative Conviviality in Rio de Janeiro, 12.08.2025.

Rúrion Melo, When Conviviality Hides Inequality. Lélia Gonzalez on Brazilian Racial Democracy, 27.05.2025.


Citation: Marcial A. G. Suarez, Transnational Organized Crimeand Hybrid Governance in Latin America. The Case of Forced Disappearance in Mexico, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 16.10.2025, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/62041


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Forum Transregionale Studien (October 16, 2025). Transnational Organized Crime and Hybrid Governance in Latin America. The Case of Forced Disappearance in Mexico. TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. Retrieved November 11, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/14yvc


Forum Transregionale Studien

The Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien promotes the internationalization of research in the humanities and social sciences. It provides scope for collaboration among researchers with different regional and disciplinary perspectives and appoints researchers from all over the world as Fellows. More...

You may also like...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.