convergence

Sullivan
state institutions to gain control of the illicit economy. Essentially, they are waging a “criminal
insurgency” against the states and their institutions. In doing so, they are becoming political
as well as economic actors. Criminal insurgency is a battle for power; essentially it results in
a struggle for who governs. 28
Criminal insurgencies can exist at several levels:
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• Local insurgencies in a single neighborhood or “failed community” where gangs
dominate local turf and political, economic, and social life. The criminal enterprise
collects taxes and exercises a near-monopoly on violence. TCOs and gangs foster
a perception that they are community protectors (i.e., “social bandits”). The criminal
gang is seeking to develop a criminal enclave or criminal “free-state.” Since the
nominal state is never fully supplanted, development of a parallel state or “dual
sovereignty” is the goal.
• A battle for the parallel state where cartels and gangs battle over their own operational
space, but violence spills over to affect the public at large and the police and
military forces that seek to contain the violence and curb the erosion of governmental
authority in the criminal enclave or criminal enterprise.
• Combating the state where criminal enterprises directly confront the state to secure
or sustain an independent range of action. The cartels are active belligerents against
the state.
• State implosion when high-intensity criminal violence spirals out of control. This potential
would be the cumulative effect of sustained, unchecked criminal violence and
criminal subversion of state legitimacy through endemic corruption and co-option. 29
Criminal insurgency is directed toward retaining freedom of action for the criminal
enterprise. TCOs and gangs may directly attack the state to co-opt or corrupt its political
processes. The tools or methods of criminal insurgency include:
• symbolic and instrumental violence including attacks on journalists, police, the
military, and elected and judicial officials (targeted assassinations and mass attacks)
• exerting control over turf through violence and social cleansing, resulting in refugees
and internally displaced persons
• information operations including corpse-messaging, narcocorridos, narcomantas/
narcopintas (banners and graffiti), narcomensajes (communiqués), manefesacions
(demonstrations), narcobloqueos (blockades), and leventons (express kidnappings)
• utilitarian provision of social goods
• resource extraction