A Senior Capstone Experience by Esmeralda Chavez Jimenez ’24

Submitted to the department of International Studies

Advised by Dr. Christine Wade

Contributor Biography: Esmeralda Chavez Jimenez graduated from Washington College with a Bachelor’s degree in International studies, with minors in Near Eastern Studies, Peace & Conflict Studies, Latin American Studies. After graduation she interned at the National Endowment for the Humanities at the Office of Federal State Internships and plans on attending graduate school for a master’s degree in international development.

Description: The rise of organized criminal groups (OCGs) and drug trade organizations (DTOs) in Mexico has become a transnational concern that quickly spread within the past twenty-years with no indication of fading. Most political scientists and policies in the past have focused on the king-pin approach to tackle the increase of OCGs and DTOs in Mexico, centered on capturing leaders and an increase of state militarization such as ‘Plan Mexico’ under the Merida Initiative. However, this has led to the fragmentation of the main OCGS, an increase of new competing OCGs for turf, and increase of violence in the country. A bottom-up approach on how OCGs interact with communities of rural areas where they experience the most control and dominance has been overlooked. As such, the following argues that the presence of a fragile state and the creation of subcultures by OCG’s may legitimize them as political actors and make them more difficult to dismantle or disrupt. In the case of Mexico, the weak state, and the development of narcocultura have legitimized OCGs & DTOs throughout the country. This analysis is of the various ways in which the subculture has become embedded in the mainstream culture that reveal that Mexican DTOs are a multidimensional phenomenon that use music and aesthetics to create messages around socio-cultural issues and critique the state. This, in turn, creates popular legitimacy for these groups, which become deeply embedded in society. 

Read Esmeralda’s SCE below: