Why are Mexican mayors getting killed by traffickers? The dynamics ...

3.1 Demand side: Bribing, threatening or killing
Definition 2: N decides between paying b, and exerting political violence (k) (i.e. killing A)
The traditional Silver-and-Lead narrative understands killing as a substitute for bribing, and
predicts violence would be more common as traffickers become relatively more powerful than the
state. When traffickers are powerful enough as to posses a system capable of killing politicians,
and state is weak enough as to be unable to enforce law against assassins, costly bribes will be
substituted by killings. Political violence thus is a function of criminals’ power. As the relative
power of the state versus DTOs diminishes, organized crime is supposed to become more violent
(Godson 2003; Baylor and Pimentel (2001)) not only because (a) DTOs have the technology
to kill politicians but because (b) a weak state cannot stop crime organizations from fighting
among themselves. Under this logic, it is the state the one who can keep violence controlled;
an “unleashed” crime is always bloody.
In Mexico, the standard story argues, the arrival of opposition to power undermined the
ability of the government to keep corruption agreements between the hegemonic ruling party
(Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI Partido Revolucionario Institucional) and criminal organizations.
When the government of Vicente Fox, an opposition leader from the National
Action Party (PAN Partido Accion Nacional) took office in 2000, it lacked of the expertise,
power and/or networks to force criminals to conduct their business in peace. By then, the PRI
had held power for more than seventy years, period at which it kept a pax mafiosa by extorting
criminal organizations (Astorga 2006, Mercurio 2006). When Mexican DTOs saw themselves
free from PRI supervision, violence exploited (Ravelo 2001, Gomez 1999).
Preferences for violence though, I argue, are much more subtle than the traditional narrative
argues. Violence is no free lunch. Three things have to be considered: (a) Killing is not always
cheaper than bribing, even for powerful traffickers; (b) criminals do not always find it attractive
to fight violently between each other; and (c) criminals cannot commit to kill with complete
certain, they can only commit to try (very hard) to kill.
Indeed, the balance of power between the state and traffickers matters for violence. Killing
is more common when such action is expected to cause less negative consequences. As Alfredo
Corchado, chief of the Mexican Buro from the Dallas Morning, and one of the most important
reporters of drug trafficking activities in Mexico, told me when I asked him what measures he
took to reduce his chances to be assassinated: “I make sure my batch from the Dallas is very
visible, they would not dare to kill a gringo, it would be too dangerous.” Being a first generation
Mexican American though, he joked: “the good news is that I am a gringo reporter, the bad
one is that nobody could tell (Corchado 2009).” Alfredo is right. Traffickers have not dare
to kill a foreign reporter, but have killed 11 Mexican reporters, and disappeared 7 more since
2007. They also target more local media than higher-profile national media. Only 4 out of the
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