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Countries in the Global South are particularly vulnerable to social and political violence. This paper suggests that such violence makes certain recalcitrant economic interests more open to taxes and spending on social welfare. Using results from a survey experiment of business owners and operators in Mexico, we show that relative to more innocuous institutional weaknesses, concerns over violence generally increase support for anti-poverty spending and decrease support for tax cuts. To build a theory, we explore heterogeneous effects and textual data. The findings suggest that business interests see anti-poverty spending as a tool for shoring up costs of violence in consumer markets, with some leaders even extending support to welfare-enhancing taxes. However, violence can create challenges in labor markets that increase operational costs, leading some business interests to resist tax policies that ask them to help fund social programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore how the reception of remittances affects perceptions of the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States. Scholars have claimed that the economic benefits of the relationship with the US prevail over imperialistic concerns as a result of the asymmetry of power between the two countries. Empirical research shows that Latin American public opinion is indeed more supportive of the US than theory indicates. However, we identify two gaps in this literature. First, scholars have explored the determinants of generic expressions of sentiment toward the US, overlooking more concrete instances of cooperation between the two countries. Second, scholars have focused on trade and investment and have ignored how the material gains of emigration shape attitudes toward the US. The present paper fills these two gaps by using novel survey data on the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the US. On one hand, we find that while the reception of remittances correlates positively with good sentiments toward the US, the recipients of remittances are consistently more opposed to cooperation with the US in the fight against drug trafficking. We argue that this finding can be explained by the different nature of the migratory phenomenon, and the connection between anti-drug trafficking policies and the close scrutiny of illegal flows of money and people. En este artículo estudiamos cómo la recepción de remesas afecta las percepciones de la relación bilateral entre México y los Estados Unidos. Diversos autores afirman que los beneficios económicos de la relación con los Estados Unidos prevalecen sobre preocupaciones imperialistas, que resultan de la asimetría de poder entre los dos países. La investigación empírica muestra que la opinión pública latinoamericana valora con más entusiasmo a los Estados Unidos de lo que muchas teorías predicen. Identificamos dos temas poco explorados en esta literatura. Primero, los estudiosos del anti-americanismo se han centrado en entender sentimientos genéricos hacia los Estados Unidos, pasando por alto ejemplos más concretos de cooperación entre los dos países. Segundo, la mayoría de los autores se han focalizado en el comercio y en las inversiones ignorando de forma sistemática cómo los beneficios asociados a la emigración pueden moldear las actitudes hacia los Estados Unidos. Nuestro trabajo llena estos dos vacíos usando nuevos datos de opinión pública. Por un lado, encontramos que la recepción de remesas se correlaciona positivamente con sentimientos positivos hacia los Estados Unidos. Por otro lado, encontramos que los receptores de remesas se oponen a una mayor cooperación con los Estados Unidos en la lucha contra el tráfico de drogas. Nuestro argumento es que este resultado contradictorio tiene que ver con la naturaleza específica del fenómeno migratorio y con la conexión entre las políticas antidrogas y el escrutinio de los flujos ilegales de personas y de dinero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine the demand-and-supply dynamic of security policies. We argue there are two informational shortcuts through which voters process policy alternatives and choose among them: (1) their own personal experiences with violence and (2) candidates’ profiles. We test our argument through an original survey experiment conducted in Mexico. We model voters’ decisions to support candidates campaigning over a variety of security proposals. Our survey design takes advantage of recent developments in network models to better measure the effects of crime exposure on voters’ preferences. We find that higher exposure to crime victimization is associated with increased support for only some iron-fist policies, therefore highlighting the importance of unpacking security policies instead of generalizing the results of crime exposure. We show null effects of partisan advantages and reveal the role of non-partisan heuristics, such as the candidate’s professional experience, in preferences for security policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Latin America, deep social inequalities coexist with persistent, high-level criminal violence. Facing competing needs and budget constraints, citizens in the region have to prioritize among different policy choices. We analyze how perceptions of insecurity and crime victimization shape attitudes toward budgetary priorities in social and security policies. Our analysis relies on original data from Mexico and Brazil, two countries exhibiting increased violence at the national level, albeit with important regional variation. We find that exposure to crime takes its toll on citizens' policy priorities. In both Mexico and Brazil, citizens who feel insecure seem to prioritize public expenditure on the police over social investment policies. Victims of criminal violence are, however, mostly indifferent as to budgetary allocations across the security and social policy fields, suggesting that their spending priorities might diverge from these two spheres of government action or give rise to policy indifference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With 33 journalists killed since the beginning of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's presidential term in December 2018, Mexico heads the list of the most violent countries for journalists in Latin America—and that of countries not at war. While journalist organizations demand a meaningful protection apparatus to safeguard their physical safety, official corruption, and criminal impunity continue to escalate the pressures to which media staff are exposed, especially in Mexican states where cartels and criminal groups have the largest footprint. This study aims to precisely identify the pressures, both internal and external, facing journalists who report on organized crime in Mexico. To do this, we drew from the Hierarchy of Influences Model, and interviewed 22 Mexican journalists who work on the organized crime beat in the country's capital and in the most violent states in the Republic. The results suggest that the most influential forces they face are associated with the organizational level (such as editorial line or institutional censorship), and the extramedia level (e.g., anti-press violence from cartels/authorities, and government advertising contracts). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains the emergence of vigilante organizations? Throughout the world, vigilantes emerge to illegally punish perceived criminals, often leading to serious consequences. However, the literature presents partial and conflicting explanations for this phenomenon. This article argues that local economic inequality creates a situation ripe for vigilante organizations. Inequality creates demand for vigilantism because poorer citizens feel relatively deprived of security compared with wealthier neighbors who have advantages regarding private and public security. In addition, inequality suggests a patron-and-worker distribution of labor, and this is ideal for organizing a particular type of group, the patron-funded vigilante group. Empirical tests use original data on the 2013 wave of Mexican vigilante organizations, present in 13 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities. Municipal-level income inequality is robustly associated with organized vigilantism. Less support is found for competing explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organized crime and drug cartel violence are major problems in some Latin American countries. This study examines the relationship between fear of crime and daily routines. It fills a gap in the international literature by testing the mediating effect of the war on organized crime (WOC) in Mexico. Integrating conventional individual and neighborhood characteristics with a local context variable, such as the intensity of the WOC and drug violence, provides a more complete view for understanding fear of crime in this country. Based on a national victimization survey, it was found that respondents in areas gravely affected by the WOC and drug violence were also more negatively affected in their daily routines after controlling for a set of classic correlates of fear of crime and perceived risk of victimization. However, no evidence was found to support that the current WOC mediates the relationship of fear of crime and perceived risk of victimization with daily routines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some territories ravaged by intense levels of criminal violence while others are relatively peaceful? This research contributes to an understanding of the escalation and diffusion of drug violence in Mexico from 2000 to 2010 by formalizing the interactions between the state and organized criminals and by relying on a large database of event data containing more than 1.6 million observations. Results based on spatial econometrics provide evidence of the spatial diffusion of violence. In congruence with the theoretical expectations, the results show that the disruptive effect of law enforcement is an important catalyst for the intensification of violence between criminal organizations, especially when deployed in areas hosting a high concentration of criminal groups. This relationship holds for a broad menu of violent and nonviolent law enforcement tactics. The analysis also reveals that other broadly held factors (international, geographic, and socioeconomic characteristics) have a modest effect on the dynamics of drug-related violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]