Cocaine crackdowns and criminal violence

Abstract

In the last decade, Colombia has seen improvement in the levels of violence and the stability of the state as a result of targeting illicit narcotics traffickers. In the same period, Mexico has seen an increase in violence and the destabilisation of the state as a result of targeting illicit narcotics traffickers. This thesis will fill an important gap in the literature and answer the question of why Mexico’s policies failed while Colombia’s have succeeded. The answer will be presented in three parts. The first will explore physical geography, establishing its importance in illicit narcotics trafficking. The second part is state stability, which has an effect on how successfully policy is implemented. The independent and final variable is policy orientation. This thesis argues that the policy orientations pursued in Colombia and Mexico played on the geography and state stability of each state to produce radically different effects on violence.