The objective of this Session is to reflect on the political economy of violence in Mexico and Central America. Although it is undeniable that organized crime is part of the issue, the argument that criminal groups are the sole actor behind violence in the region is not satisfactory. We want to "bring politics back in" and to offer a more complex picture of a phenomenon that cannot be understood through a zero-sum game analysis of “crime” vs. “politics”.

A talk by Dr. Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, Markus Hochmüller, Gema Kloppe-Santamaría, Romain Le Cour Grandmaison and Sandra Ley

Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California San Diego, Pembroke College Oxford, Loyola University Chicago/Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies, Noria Research / Paris-1 Panthéon Sorbonne - and CIDE