Edgs Working Paper

Why do drug traffickers fight states? In Mexico, Colombia and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, cartel state conflict has been just as lethal, disruptive, and prolonged as civil war. Yet rebel insurgents fight for and sometimes win formal concessions or outright victory. Why fight the state if, like cartels, you seek neither to topple nor secede from it? More puzzling, recent militarized state crackdowns on cartels have led to sharply divergent outcomes: on one hand, the conflagration that has engulfed Mexico since 2006, on the other, the surprising success of Rio de Janeiro’s Pacification strategy. Why do some crackdowns lead to violent blowback, while others successfully curtail cartel-state conflict? I distinguish the logic of violent lobbyingdirect pressure on leaders to change de jure policy-from violent corruption-epitomized by drug lord Pablo Escobar’s phrase ‘plata o plomo?’ (bribe or bullet?) and argue that the latter has been more central to cartel violence in Mexico and Brazil. A formal model illustrates how bribe negotiations can turn violent, and highlights a fundamental dilemma: states cannot crack down on traffickers without inadvertently giving corrupt enforcers additional leverage to extract illicit rents. I find that when corruption is rampant and repression is not conditional on cartels’s use of violence, crackdowns give cartels increased incentive to fight back. I then draw on case study evidence to argue that Rio de Janeiro’s recent turn to violence-reduction over eradication has induced cartels there to switch to more peaceful strategies, while Mexico’s insistence on pursuing all cartels without distinction has driven sharp increases in cartel-state violence. Presented as part of the “Property Rights, Power, and the Rule of Law” speaker series at the Equality Development and Globalization Studies (EDGS) program at Northwestern University, with generous support from the Rajawali Foundation. Violent Corruption and Violent Lobbying: The Logic(s) of Cartel-State Conflict in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia