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AbstractIn many developing countries where formal institutions fail to guarantee rule of law, criminal organisations have emerged as intermediaries between citizens and the state. In some cases, these armed non-state actors adopt repressive strategies to govern their territories and local populations. This study asks under what circumstances local actors mobilise against criminal governance. Focusing on the case of Michoacán, Mexico, I argue that the emergence of vigilante groups, known as autodefensas, was prompted by the breaching of a social contract – a set of formal and informal agreements and obligations – between organised crime and civil society. As criminal governance spread in Michoacán, so did predatory behaviour against local communities, which gave way to an elite-organised social movement structured by rural inequalities.

ABSTRACTThis article asks whether economic liberalization, under certain institutional conditions, is indirectly related to drug violence. Focusing on Mexico's drug trade, where violence was historically limited by politicoinstitutional arrangements, this study examines how trade liberalization shapes social exclusion in key trafficking regions and, in turn, shapes the industry. It argues that the change in development strategy has increased the flow of workers into the drug trade by reconfiguring the agricultural sector in regions where drugs are produced while failing to absorb surplus labor in manufacturing centers containing key smuggling routes. Through both mechanisms, workers enter an illicit market with new institutional settings that allow for fierce competition and the use of violence. Using panel data on drug violence from 2007 to 2011, the study finds that exposure to trade is associated with violence in both drug-producing and -smuggling regions, but with a more sizable effect in the former.