Violence and criminal order: the case of Ciudad Juarez

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, suffered an explosion of criminal violence between 2008 and 2012 that cost the lives of more than ten thousand people, earning it notoriety as the world's "murder capital." Just a few years later, however, levels of violence had dropped back to pre-2008 levels, decreasing by more than 85 percent. Existing political, economic, and sociological theories provide compelling narratives about the origins of Mexico's drug-related violence, but have much more difficulty explaining why violence might suddenly decrease to normal levels again. They also fail to explain how violence itself shapes mechanisms of formal and informal order, often leaving institutional legacies that can be both negative and positive. Based on research conducted since 2008, this paper argues that criminal violence in Ciudad Juarez, while initially begetting only more violence, gradually reconstituted the criminal order in such a way that peaceful interaction among competing criminal groups became possible.