1

Violence, Markets and Drugs:

Explaining the Variation in Levels of Drug-related Violence 1

David R. Mares

Abstract

This paper proposes a framework for understanding variations in levels of violence in illegal

drug markets. I proceed through three sections and a conclusion. The first section is a literature

review examining the characteristics and nature of violence in the illegal drug trade,

distinguishing its systemic elements from the violence of individuals and terrorists. A second

section presents the framework for analyzing violence in the illegal drug trade. The third section

provides brief discussions of counter-intuitive cases: high levels of violence in El Salvador

despite gangs being marginal players in the drug trade and low levels of violence in Bolivia

despite the country being a producer of illegal coca leaf and bazuco, the presence of Colombian

and Brazilian drug trafficking organizations, and constituting an important transit country for

illegal drugs from Colombia, Peru and Paraguay. These cases provide illustrations of the points

made in this article and are not intended as tests of the propositions, which must await future and

more detailed research. The conclusion suggests avenues for research considering the framework

I develop and the revelations from the two cases.

Keywords: Violence, Crime, Drugs, Illegal Trade

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Introduction

Latin America is the most violent region in the world.2 That violence manifests itself in several

ways, but what particularly draws attention are the horrendous levels of violence linked to the

illegal drug trade. It is widely recognized among academics who study violence itself rather than

just illegal drug markets, that illegal markets are not inherently places of high rates of violence.

Yet the relationship between the drug trade and drug related violence is incorrectly specified by

government, the police, media, social groups and most academics studying the illegal drug trade

as the result of the illegal drug trade. Some analysts who focus on Latin America’s drug trade as

well as non-governmental organizations even postulate that legalizing the drug trade is the only

answer to the violence (Carpenter, 2011).

But drug-related violence is neither constant, nor sufficiently explained by the mere existence of

an illegal drug trade. Violence in illegal drug markets is rare in Western Europe, Canada,

Australia and Japan despite millions of consumers, undoubtedly thousands of dealers and even

important sources of production in the first three areas. Madrid, gateway to Europe for many

drugs transiting from Africa and Latin America, experiences little drug-related violence, nor does

Vancouver, gateway for Asian produced drugs into North America. 3 The United States, with an

illegal drug market worth annually more than $100 billion, probably the largest number of drug

dealers in the world, and a significant producer of illegal drugs, 4 has little drug-related violence

compared to Latin America. The U.S. experienced relatively high levels of drug-related violence

in the 1980s (as well as in the 1920s when alcohol was illegal) but those levels have declined

consistently beginning in the 1990s and despite epidemic spikes in the markets for

methamphetamine, MDMA and now illegal opioids. To complicate matters further, Mexico has

been involved in the marijuana and heroin trade for more than half a century, and the cocaine
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trade for two decades, yet it has never before experienced this level of violence. Empirical data

clearly demonstrate that around the drug-consuming, drug-dealing, drug-producing and drug

money-laundering world large scale outbreaks of violence are sporadic rather than consistent

(Jacques and Wright, 2008).

The levels of violence in many Latin American drug producing, transit and consuming countries

escalated so fast and to levels so high that civil society and policymakers have desperately

grasped at ‘common sense’ straws – whether implementing a ‘mano dura’ strategy, blaming

systemic corruption in the polity or police, or hoping that legalization of drugs will bring peace.

This high level of violence generates erroneous claims of causality, declarations of ‘war against

drugs’ and analogies to civil war by politicians, media and the police and acceptance of such

views by the public. By misunderstanding the phenomenon, public discourse and policy make

little progress in controlling the violence has devastated communities and, indeed, entire

countries.

The tasks necessary to gain understanding of the complexity of the relationship between violence

and illegal drug markets are both theoretical and empirical. The pioneering work of Becker

(1968) and Schelling (1967, 1971) in the 1960s, and Goldstein (1985) and Reuter (1983; Reuter

and Haaga 1989) in the 1980s, give us theoretical reasons for beginning to understand why the

illegal drug trade is not inherently characterized by high levels of violence. Felbab-Brown’s

provocative empirical work (2013), as well as Reuter and his various collaborators (Reuter and

Kleiman 1986; Reuter, MacCoun and Murphy 1990; Reuter 2009; Levi and Reuter 2006, 289-

375; Bushway and Reuter 2009, 389-451), span the globe demonstrating how theoretical insights

into criminal organizations reveals counter-intuitive dynamics at work in illicit markets. Despite

the power of these rational institutionalist theories we also need to push forward on
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understanding the relationship among factors that cross theoretical boundaries to explain the

variation in drug-related violence rates over time and across place.

This paper proposes a framework for understanding variations in levels of violence in illegal

drug markets. I proceed through three sections and a conclusion. The first section is a literature

review examining the characteristics and nature of violence in the illegal drug trade,

distinguishing its systemic elements from the violence of individuals and terrorists. A second

section presents the framework for analyzing violence in the illegal drug trade. Here I focus on

how the costs and benefits of use of violence by Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) affect

the decision to engage in violence. But this is not simply an economic model. The elegance of

economic theories needs to be complicated by the nuances from civil society, criminal groups,

markets and states. Only a sophisticated and comprehensive framework can provide the

analytical insights necessary to develop policy that will diminish violence rather than contribute

to its occurrence. The third section provides brief discussions of counter-intuitive cases: high

levels of violence in El Salvador despite gangs being marginal players in the drug trade and low

levels of violence in Bolivia despite the country being a producer of illegal coca leaf and bazuco,

the presence of Colombian and Brazilian drug trafficking organizations, and constituting an

important transit country for illegal drugs from Colombia, Peru and Paraguay. These cases

provide illustrations of the points made in this article and are not intended as tests of the

propositions, which must await future and more detailed research. The conclusion suggests

avenues for research considering the framework I develop and the revelations from the two

cases.

Thinking About Drug Trade Violence

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The violence that dominates discussions of drugs and violence in Latin America is not the

violence by addicts either out of control or looking for money for their next fix, or of crazed foot

soldiers of criminal organizations unable to follow orders on when and where to use violence

(Goldstein 1985; Ungar 2011, 14-16). Nor is the link to terrorism or the use of models of terrorist

behavior particularly useful for understanding general violence in the illegal drug trade (e.g.,

Naylor 2002). Violence from these sources exist, but there are not enough of these incidents to

account for the homicide rates that draw our attention to Latin America (Cf. Heinemann and

Verner 2006). Rather, it is the large-scale violence by organizations involved to some degree in

the illegal market that drives the alleged causal connection between drugs and violence.

In the dominant formulation drugs cause violence because the attraction of profits is so large.

That logic means that this violence is not sporadic and irrational, but strategic. Accepting the

idea of strategic opens up avenues for research from a cost/benefit perspective. Strategic,

however, does not mean that the costs and benefits are correctly calculated, nor that the goal is

only to make money. Rather, strategic means that the violence is instrumental even if the goal is

identity formation or personal and organizational reputation and the decision-making process is

ambiguous and not entirely controlled by a centralized authority structure.

The strategic use of violence means that when criminals perceive the risks of violence to

outweigh the benefits of using it to pursue their criminal activities, they will limit recourse to

violence. Focusing on costs, the effectiveness of police and the judicial system is thus argued to

be a significant determinant in whether illicit markets become violent or not. Kleemans

demonstrates that this argument explains the difference in criminal violence between low levels

in most of Western Europe and higher levels in Italy and the U.S. (2007, 161-215). Turning to

the very high levels of violence in Latin America, corruption and incompetence in the criminal
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justice and political systems are the prime factors utilized to explain why the costs of violent

crime in most of Latin America are so low. The point of using a strategic analysis is NOT that

OC can be eliminated by effective policing (no free society can be cleansed of all crime), but that

OC can be incentivized to engage in minimal levels of violence (Felbab-Brown 2013).

A deeper look at the strategy of criminal violence brings to the fore the idea of ‘systemic

violence’– lacking recourse to legal means to increase one’s sense of security, enforce contracts

or resolve interpersonal issues makes it more likely that violence will be used by participants in

that illegal market (Goldstein 1985; Jacques and Allen 2015, 87-89). Reuter (2009) highlights

three factors in systemic violence. The organizational characteristics of groups have an impact

on how much and against whom violence is used. Loosely organized groups are most likely to

use violence inward as a means of disciplining members and violence can be a means by which

one ascends whatever hierarchy within the group. In contrast, large criminal organizations are

more likely to generate trust within it, be able to use non-violent means to ensure behavior, and

have clearer metrics for rising within the organization (also Stevens and Bewley-Taylor with

Dreyfus 2009; Friman 2004). This doesn’t make larger more complex organizations peaceful;

they are just more likely to use their violence against rivals or the government. The structure of

the market impacts the propensity to use violence. Local markets in which interpersonal

relationships guide transactions both provide non-violent means to work out issues and make

control of specific places for retail sale less important since seller and buyer can meet in many

different places. Finally, the intensity of law enforcement makes organizations worry more about

internal informants or members’ plea bargaining to get reduced sentences. This factor drives

violence inward.
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The structure of illegal markets has other consequences for how and when violence is used.

Snyder and Durán-Martínez point out that the structure of illicit markets influences the structure

of state-sponsored protection rackets, and thus the propensity for violence (Snyder and Duran-

Martínez 2009, 259). They also note that when corrupt law enforcement or politicians have not

been deterring crime but rather protecting it, the levels of violence can be low and rise with

reforms of policing that subvert the state-sponsored protection rackets (2009, 253-273). Felbab-

Brown (2013) points out that, ceteris paribus, intense law enforcement can create spikes in

violence between criminal groups. She also demonstrates that if law enforcement does not

weaken all groups equally and simultaneously, stronger groups will see an opportunity to attack

their newly weakened rivals (also Schaefer, Bahney and Riley 2009; Rios 2013).

But given that the market is embedded in a society the level of systemic violence will be

influenced by the social interactions that occur within that society and not simply by state level

incentives regarding the use of violence. These social interactions can be usefully conceptualized

as ‘social capital’ - “the set of rules, norms, obligations, reciprocity, and trust embedded in social

relations, social structures, and society’s institutional arrangements that enables members to

achieve their individual and community objectives” (Lederman, Loayza and Menéndez, 2002).

The three most widely used metrics to measure social capital are participation in social

organizations, attitudes of civic cooperation, and the sense of interpersonal trust.

Several studies using the concept of ‘social capital’ suggest that, despite some measurement

issues, the link between social capital and violent crime is complex and causal. Social capital can

decrease a sense of insecurity in society or within a group and it can also increase confidence in

others, thereby diminishing the need for strong discipline within the society or group. At the

level of the individual, social capital should also mitigate feelings of alienation and make
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individuals less risk acceptant for the benefits ostensibly offered by violence. Social capital can

also contribute to political capital, and thus to the support for effectively functioning

democracies (Booth and Richard, 2009). Effective governments with citizen support can increase

governmental ability to identify, capture and punish criminals and thus affect the propensity of

criminals to engage in violent crime. (Lea 2010)

Social capital defined as perceptions of social trust and membership in voluntary associations,

has been found to help explain homicide rate variation even within a nation and after accounting

for age, income, level of urbanization, and region. The relationship between social capital and

violence, however, may be non-linear, with feedback mechanisms whereby violence undermines

social capital, making violence more likely to escalate (Galeaa, Karpatia and Kennedy 2002,

1373-1383). Consequently, once the level of violence reaches some threshold, the impact of

improvements in social capital needs to be complemented by other factors to mitigate violence.

Age, region, and level of urbanization would be hard to modify, but income improvements

through development or redistribution can be achieved in the short-medium term.

At this point, however, the social capital argument is not robust, but seems to depend on the

measurement and data set utilized. Lederman, Loayza and Menéndez (2002, 511-512) found that

participation in or attitudes regarding social interactions could not be verified as statistically

significant social capital variables. Rather, they found that trust was an important factor

accounting for the occurrence of violent crime even after controlling for a variety of other

variables. In their analyses of the impact of social capital for its implications for democracy in

eight Latin American countries, Booth and Richard (2009) find that trust is not a statistically

significant contributor, and argue that “In this region where the rule of law is often weak,

consumer protection flawed, corruption fairly high, and democratic institutions still young, little
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trust has developed among citizens”. Moriconi (2018) examines cultural factors that could affect

trust but though he documents increasing violence in Argentina he does not explain why with

such a depth of cultural perversion regarding legitimacy norms Argentina ranks comparatively

low for violence in the region.

Social capital can be created in the context of weak state institutions and this has important

implications for the study of violence. Spaces are not ungoverned, and when the state is

incompetent, inefficient or simply corrupt and does not deliver the public goods of citizen

security and pathways to legitimate prosperity, organized crime will compete for governance and

create distinct forms of social capital (Keister 2014; Schultze-Kraft, Chinchilla and Moriconi,

2018). Once OC has inserted itself into this role it becomes more difficult for the state’s security

apparatus (police and judicial system) to combat crime as local populations find it in their

interest to help OC avoid police or fail to provide evidence for prosecution (Felbab-Brown 2013;

Arias 2006; Lederman, Loayza and Menéndez 2002; Lea 2010).

We should consider one more factor from the literature on criminal violence – our perception of

its occurrence. Studies on crime demonstrate that the public’s perception of the prevalence of

crime may often be at odds with the reality of it, with crime rates including homicides falling yet

citizens feeling more insecure (Pew Research Center, 2018). Studies also demonstrate the

underreporting of murders (Maltz 1999; Wittebrood, Junger 2002, 153-173). Thus the visibility

as well as perception of criminal violence is a factor to consider when thinking about the

variations in levels of violence in illicit drug markets. The balance between ‘hiding in plain

sight’ and engaging in activity that draws attention (e.g., violence) is fragile because it depends

on factors beyond the control of participants in the illegal drug trade – technological advances

that contribute to shielding behavior from those who would punish those engaged in illegal
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activities if they were aware of them (Mares 2009). Durán-Martínez (2015 and 2017) argues that

drug traffickers’ strategies to publicize their use of violence can vary over time, depending upon

their relationship to state power. When the state protects criminals their use of violence raises the

cost to government of such protection because the violence frightens citizens, who then pressure

their government to respond to the violence. Alternatively, when the state is effective, criminals

hide their violence because they do not want to draw the attention of law enforcement (also

Kleemans 2007)

A Framework for Analyzing Violence in the Drug Trade

This review of the literature on illicit drug markets and violence indicates that the level of

violence is not inherent in the fact of illegality. Rather, variations in such levels are affected by

the organizational characteristics of criminal groups, the structure of illegal markets, the type and

range of social capital, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system and the degree of risk

acceptance of the leaders of the criminal groups. These five broad determinants of when

systemic violence is likely to occur interact and can to some degree influence the weight of each

other in a specific context.

Reuter makes a very important point: the drivers of violence and the identity of victims differs

dramatically in the US and Mexico. He notes that data and analytic frames for analyzing

variations in violence are lacking and argues that we may engage in counter-productive policies

as a result, among which he includes the violent crackdown in Mexico (Reuter 2009). Those

counter-productive policies can also include bringing in the military to help a police response

when the government has not developed the normative, legal and administrative capacity to

subordinate the military to civilian control (Mares 2003).

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The decision to use violence instrumentally is thus context specific. We need to bring our

knowledge about violence and crime into a framework able to provide more comprehensive and

complex answers to the question of why a global illegal market would manifest itself so violently

in one particular region. The claim is not that Latin America suffers from some ‘unique’

variables that are not present in other regions. The same determinants should be operable in all

regions if the logic of the arguments regarding crime and violence are correct; what should

matter is how those determinants manifest themselves and combine in some, but not all, Latin

American countries.5

When constructing testable hypotheses concerning the drug trade in Latin America and its

relationship to violence some key factors need to be examined closely.

The structure of illegal drug markets. Competitive markets drive down rents and the

characteristics of illicit drugs should mean, ceteris paribus, that they are exchanged in

competitive markets. Therefore, barriers to entry are low because they are relatively easy to

produce, capital requirements are low, and the individual size and weight of most illegal drugs

(marijuana is the exception) make transportation cheap and easy to conceal.

Effective government policy that makes these substances illegal has a perverse impact on the

competitiveness of drug markets. On the one hand, illegality supports competitiveness. At the

retail level, a dealer worries about a buyer potentially being an undercover agent or quickly

turning state’s evidence if caught herself and turning in her supplier. Consequently, there is an

incentive at the retail level to limit the number of people to whom one sells as a means of

lowering the probability of being arrested.

A variety of studies of retail drug trafficking support this deduction. Effectively functioning

states do not have “a” drug market, but multiple drug markets, even for the same substance; and
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the markets are not necessarily large or formally organized. We do not yet have detailed analyses

of Latin American retail drug markets, but with the increase in consumption across the region

(Brazil is now the second largest consumer of cocaine after the U.S.) studies of drug markets in

the U.S., Europe and elsewhere could be suggestive of what we might find in Latin America.

For example, a study of a four-block area in Brooklyn uncovered four parallel but separate

markets, one ethnically based, another geared toward working persons, a third characterized by

users/dealers selling to other users/dealers, and prostitutes hustling sex for drugs for themselves

and their partners. Though many buyers are willing to buy from sellers representing different

markets, sellers “prefer to define a market and to locate and retain repeat customers [in order] to

increase business and reduce the probability of arrest” (Johnson, Hamid and Sanabria 1991, 67;

also Denton and O’Malley 1999, 513-530; Waldorf and Murphy 1995, 11-32; Reuter and Hagga

1989, xii, 39-40). Neither is the scourge of synthetic opium use via the prescription drug

OxyContin the result of monopolistic organized crime; rather it is a decentralized process that

spreads mainly by word of mouth and is partly fueled by well-intentioned primary care doctors

trying to stay up to date with advances in pain medication and keep a client base that demands

such medication (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2014; SAMSHA 2014).

The same logic creating competition should ideally apply across the value chain of illegal

psychoactive substances. Producers, their suppliers, regional buyers, international traffickers,

national distributors and regional distributors all must deal with operating in social contexts in

which the penalty for interacting with unreliable partners or clients would be high. Illegality,

however, also carries with it factors that work to undermine competitiveness. Illegality means

higher prices for the substances, as producers and distributors seek to compensate for the risks

associated with producing and selling illegal products. The higher profits generated by illegality
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imply that there are rents to be had, potentially stimulating a drive to capture those rents by

monopolizing a segment of the value chain from producer to consumer.

The effectiveness of criminal justice institutions counters the drive for creating oligopoly to

capture the rents inherent in illicit markets. Driving out competitors from a lucrative market

requires forcing them to cede operations or pay a tax to someone, which they would only do if

threatened with violence. Criminal organizations need to discipline members not to defect to

competitors or plea bargain if they are arrested. But using violence publicizes the threat of the

criminal group in the eyes of the citizenry, and thus their pressure on the government to pursue

that criminal group in particular.

The probability of getting punished is dependent upon law enforcement’s ability to arrest a

suspect with sufficient evidence for a penalty to be applied; how compelling such evidence is

required to be will depend upon the formal and informal characteristics of the legal system

within which one operates (The Sentencing Project 2018). Penalties for getting caught violating

the drug laws also vary not only across countries, but among subnational units (e.g., state and

local legal codes). Penalties vary dramatically across countries and socio-economic strata as well

(Mustard 2001, 285-314). Judges and juries (where they exist) need to be uncorruptible to

convict and penitentiaries need to be run by the state in ways that deprive inmates of their

freedom to continue to participate in criminal activities. Effective criminal justice systems can do

all these.

Greater the rents to be had, the more effective criminal justice institutions need to be. Because

the drug trade is so lucrative, advocates of the OC model expect that a new criminal organization

will seek to replace the one that was dismantled by law enforcement, thus making continuous

effective pursuit of organized crime a necessity (Williams and Savona 1996; Farer 1999). That
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pursuit relies not only on having ‘political will’ but also appropriate legislation and sufficient

resources to detect and punish organized crime. Thus a government with low levels of corruption

and which effectively provides public goods in other arenas can still have a society that is

victimized by organized crime if the criminal justice system lacks the proper legislation and

adequate implementation resources (Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and

Corruption N.D.; McDermott 2018:11). Following this logic, in 2000 the UN created the

Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and provides technical assistance to enhance

the performance of law enforcement and judicial bodies in accordance with the Convention,

promote international cooperation in the fight against organized crime and assess and help revise

national legislation (United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention 2003;

Williams and Savona, 1996). But as Lea (2010) notes, it is not just administrative and

professional competence that matters, but the relationship that police, the government and

criminals have with local communities that determines the effectiveness of the criminal justice

system.

The risk of death. The ultimate risk associated with violence in the illegal drug trade is premature

death. But the risk of death is mitigated by using one’s wealth to create a security perimeter

against the threat of others’ violence – bodyguards, fortified vehicles and living compounds,

even plastic surgery to change one’s appearance. The risk acceptance of participants regarding

death is also a factor. Some leaders of criminal organizations are willing to go out in a blaze of

glory and bask in the idea that narcocorridos (ballads to drug dealers) will give them

immortality. Yet others wish to use their illegal gains to fund outwardly appearing legitimate

sources of wealth and live respectably to old age. Clearly, these two personalities will weigh the

risk of death differently. If any of the leadership are young, they tend to be more risk acceptant. 6
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The risk acceptance of youth can be influenced by their perception of life’s prospects. Social

programs targeted to this group (e.g., conditional cash transfers) rather than broad redistribution

programs may have an impact on their propensity to criminal, especially violent, behavior

(Lance 2014; Antillano, Pojomovsky, Zubillaga, Sepúlveda and Hanson 2016)

Two Suggestive Cases: MS-13 and Bolivia

Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) is one of the most feared gangs in the world with a reach beyond its

home base in El Salvador to Honduras and increasingly in the U.S. The gang originated in the

U.S. (Los Angeles and California prisons) and proliferated when members were deported back to

El Salvador. The gang offered its adherents an identity constructed around many themes, of

which violence is one of the most powerful. The structure of the gang is a loose federation of

cliques, in which commands even regarding the use of violence are generated sporadically and

adhered to chaotically. Though it has engaged in a few high profile uses of violence in the U.S.,

its propensity to use violence here is lower than in El Salvador and Honduras. MS-13, despite its

reputation for violence, is a minor player in the illicit drug markets of Central America and the

U.S., serving mainly as local protectors for trafficking groups operating in Central America. In

California, they followed the lead of the Mexican Mafia rather than simply responding to

opportunities in illegal markets (Dudley 2018).

What does the MS-13 example suggest about violence and the drug trade? The illicit drug trade

is marginal to the development and use of violence by this feared criminal group; were MS-13 to

increase its role in that trade we would still need to understand that its violence is not due to the

drug trade but springs from the development of an MS-13 identity. The experience of MS-13

also illustrates the importance of the institutional context for the propensity of a criminal group

to use violence: the effectiveness of the criminal justice system and social capital of broader
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society in the U.S. compared to El Salvador and Honduras leads MS-13 to significantly moderate

its violence even as it seeks to expand membership. The organizational characteristics also

matter in whether the instrumental use of violence is systematic: the ambiguity in clique’s

interpretations of who has committed what transgressions means that violence is not used

systematically.

Bolivia remains an important actor in production and trafficking, despite the efforts of the

Morales government to legitimize coca and the legal products made therefrom. Bolivia continues

to produce coca leaf far above the demands of legitimate domestic market and the government of

Evo Morales sends soldiers out to eradicate crops. Bolivia suffers from many of the factors

contributing to violence in the drug trade in other Latin American countries. Corruption in the

police forces reached levels significant enough that the Morales government has tried to

encourage whistleblowers and strengthen disciplinary and procedural codes. The prison system is

corrupt, with drugs rampant and periodic violence characterizing life within the prison, and

criminals more likely to establish links that permit increased criminal behavior rather than

rehabilitation. The judiciary was also seen as rife with corruption and mass firings and sanctions

have been used to discipline judges. The government also took significant action against crime,

including drug-related crime. It adopted legislation to shoot down suspected drug planes, has

nearly doubled the prison population since Morales took office in 2006 and has the second

highest pretrial detainee rate in the world, constituting 86% of the total prison population

(InSight Crime 2016).

But the level of violence associated with the production and transit of the coca leaf to foreign

cocaine labs is low (cocaine labs have not proliferated inside Bolivia). The eastern city of Santa

Cruz near the Brazilian border is a center for drug trafficking and suffers from periodic violence
 17

related to the drug trade, but it has avoided the levels of violence found in other Latin American

cities heavily involved in the illicit drug trade.

What suggestions can we draw from the Bolivian experience under Morales? The low level of

violence is likely explained by the apparent decision of the government not to target transit crime

nor confront growers, plus the relatively low value of the coca leaf and the dispersion of

production across vast parts of the country. The experience of communities in fighting neo-

liberal government policies before the Morales government, legal unions of coca growers (where

Morales himself forged his political career), and the continued willingness of communities to

confront the Morales government on policies with which they disagree (cf. Achtenberg 2011),

indicate that social capital is high. The Morales government may also benefit from its historic

character in a manner consistent with a path-dependent explanation (cf., Chinchilla 2018).

Indigenous communities may not consider it legitimate to engage in violence to defend or

expand the illegal drug trade against the first indigenous-led government and one that has

recognized the legitimate cultural role of coca and legalized its production in thousands of

hectares. It is telling that the rural indigenous communities demonstrate with marches and

blockades against government policies they wish to reform (especially regarding the

environment in which they live), but coca eradication has not generated such protests under

Morales.

Conclusion – Avenues for Research

Understanding the dynamics of drug trade related violence is of fundamental importance for

Latin America. The empirical evidence demonstrates that a state can have a competitive drug

market, effective criminal justice institutions, strong social capital and suffer low levels of drug

related violence. It is not the drug market per se that is ‘responsible’ for the high levels of
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violence we find periodically in Colombia, Brazilian favelas, and Mexico. Nor is it simply

poverty, corruption, or a lack of policing capacity. It is the interaction among these factors that

matters. For example, if social capital were high, policing’s capacities could be lower and OC

could find the strategic use of violence to be beneficial in fewer circumstances. On the other

hand, corruption and incompetence in the criminal justice system could diminish social trust as

more people choose to remain in the perceived safer environment of their own home rather than

associate with others outside the home. What matters is the overall combination; we need

empirical studies to illustrate how combinations vary by context.

The power of an organized crime group needs to be conceptualized not just in terms of its

firepower and membership. These variables are the result of the organization’s ability to launder

money, purchase weapons, ammunition and powerful vehicles, establish safe spaces for the

leadership and gather intelligence regarding the market, rivals, and government. We can

hypothesize that any effective strategy to weaken the organization’s ability to use violence will

have to diminish its capacity to successfully accomplish these other tasks as well. Again, we

need empirical work in Latin America analyzing the connections among these criminal activities

as they relate to the propensity to use violence and not just to the existence of drug trafficking

organizations.

This paper did not address the issue of international cooperation, but given Latin America’s

interconnectedness at the societal level, a full treatment of the violence issue should examine

how types and levels of regional cooperation can increase the costs and benefits to the use of

violence in the drug trade. Though Latin American governments place a high priority on national

sovereignty organized crime does not. Safe havens, money laundering, weapons trafficking and

the international drug trade itself all cross borders within Latin America. It is a particularly
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interesting time to study the impact of the U.S. on Latin American drug policies since many

countries are moving in the direction of harm reduction policies opposed by the U.S. federal

government, including legalization of marijuana in Uruguay.

Group-specific and society-wide social capital needs to be disaggregated (Lederman, Loayza and

Menéndez 2002, 5122). The violent experience of MS-13 strongly suggests that violence used

for disciplinary purposes or to promote an organization’s role in the illicit drug trade is not the

only way violence helps to keep the group together. Rather, in its social construction of identity

MS-13 has used violence not only in its original locales but in its international expansion, despite

repudiation by the larger society and repression by governments. In such cases, violence may be

incidental to the drug trade, rather than driven by it.

If we follow Booth and Richard (2009) most Latin American countries would be expected to

have low society-wide social capital as a result of generations of political polarization,

government corruption and repression and high levels of inequality. A new generation growing

up under the current wave of violence can be expected to further undermine society-wide social

capital and generate more subgroup social capital. Unfortunately, in some cases that subgroup

social capital will contribute to the use of violence as either an identity-forming variable or for its

strategic use in the illicit market. But studies of community activism in fighting corruption and

extractive companies in the mining and hydrocarbon sectors suggest that social capital in the

region could be thriving. We need to think about how to harness that social capital to the fight

against violence in the drug trade.

Finally, the elements of the framework for analysis proposed here require better measures and

data. We need longitudinal data to permit comparative study of homicide rates distinguished by

drug producing, transit or consuming levels and compared with countries where these levels are
 20

significantly lower. Although measurement and data is affected by politics (Andreas and

Greenhill 2010) evidence-based scholarship demands it.

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1
. Acknowledgments to be included after review
2
. The homicide rate is the best proxy available for determining the level of violence in a society

because it is less underreported than other crimes and is roughly comparable across most countries. The

region scores highest on a variety of measures of homicide: intentional homicide, intimate

partner/family related; use of firearms, and homicide rate within prisons. Three of the top five

subregions for homicide include Central America (including Mexico), South America and the

Caribbean. In addition, the region has the highest rate of impunity for homicide, as measured by the

rate at which murderers are convicted convictions are generated for homicides. The UNODC attributes

some of this difference to the fact that more homicides in the region are connected to organized crime

and gangs and notes that the impunity rate in the region has been rising since 2007. UNODC, Global

Study on Homicide Vienna, Austria 2013, pp. 11, 12, 15, 18

3
. For an overview comparison of all aspects of the drug trade, see the annual World Drug Report by

the UN Office of Drugs and Crime

4
. For the value of the market, How Big is the U.S. Market for Illegal Drugs? Santa Monica, CA:

RAND Research Brief, 2014; for production, see the annual UNODC World Drug Reports. I deduce

the number of drug dealers from two factors: the number of current users in 2013 was more than 24

million (“Drug Facts” NIH, NIDA) and U.S. law enforcement impact on the risk behavior of

distributors and retailers of illegal drugs, as discussed below.

5
. For a description of the many factors at work in Mexico and the cacophony of theories purporting to

explain the outbreak of high levels of violence in the drug trade see Christopher Paul, Colin P. Clarke

and Chad C. Serena, Mexico Is Not Colombia: Alternative Historical Analogies for Responding to the

Challenge of Violent Drug-Trafficking Organizations Santa Monica: RAND Corporation. 2014 pp. 17-

28
6
. Reuter 2009 suggests that one reason why the U.S. crack cocaine trade was so violent in the 1980s

was because it was the first time since the 1920s that young males were heavily involved in retail and
distribution of an illegal drug. He notes that Al Capone was 22 when he dominated the illegal alcohol

trade and violence was rampant.