Abstract
The war on drugs in México has seen an unprecedented level of violence committed against civilians, the government and rival groups. The bulk of this violence has occurred since 2006, including mass killings and the adoption of new tactics such as car bombings. The aim of this article is to place car bombings within a strategic logic. A total of 16 car bombs between July 15, 2010 and July 3, 2012 were examined, following the extant literature on strategies behind violence and terrorism. The authors affirm that the use of car bombings in México’s context followed various strategic pathways associated with the strength of the group and the government. These group characteristics were applied to both the cartels and the government followed by an example to illustrate support for the assertion.
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Notes
Molloy (2013) estimates the number of fatalities at 130,000 since 2006.
The authors would like to refer readers to Robert Pape’s informative 2003 article, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” for further information on the strategic logics of violence. This work fell outside the authors’ research focus but is essential reading on the strategies of violence.
The dataset is available upon request.
Joaquin El Chapo Guzman was captured on February 22, 2014.
This strategic scenario is reminiscent of Pablo Escobar’s reign of narco-terror in Colombia. Though for different reasons (to avoid extradition), the Medellin Cartel boss used car bombings to pressure the government. Both groups (cartel and government) were strong. The Medellin Cartel served as a resource-rich parallel government in some areas of the country. The military, meanwhile, was the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid (Bowden 2007).
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Dulin, A.L., Patiño, J. The logic of cartel car bombings in México. Trends Organ Crim 17, 271–289 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-014-9230-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-014-9230-z