Neither peace nor justice? On transitional injustice in economic civil wars

Abstract

Given the persistence of organized criminal violence in Mexico, scholars have raised the possibility of overcoming it through transitional justice measures. We try to assess the viability of such a strategy in two steps. First, we draw a conceptual map of organized societal violence that allows us to identify so-called narcoviolence as an economic civil war, distinct from political civil wars. We then discuss the applicability of justice measures to the Mexican context. Although we identify important analogies, we end up highlighting an insurmountable obstacle: justice measures can only work as a pacifying strategy if the state that strives to disarm criminal gangs had the capacity to ensure that their disarmament was permanent.