Vigilante Self‐defense Organizations Against Cartels (Mexico)

Abstract

Organized vigilante movements mobilized in Mexico in the context of the significant increase in violent crime following President Felipe Calderón's (2006–2012) declaration of a war against drug cartels. Within a few years of the intensification of this war, over 20,000 civilians organized what they called autodefensas , or “self‐defense” groups, against violent criminal cartels. By 2012, there was a sharp rise in the number of their collective actions and, by 2014, 9 of 32 federal entities (all but Mexico City are states) had at least one such group. The vast majority of the mobilizations, however, took place in just two Pacific southern states: Michoacán and Guerrero. The main protagonists of this movement were rural men, and while most in Guerrero were indigenous, the vast majority of Michoacán's vigilantes were not. Some women and children also participated in the movement in both states, and newspaper reports indicate that a few migrants living in the US returned to Mexico to help rescue towns from the cartels. At first the vigilantes armed themselves with sticks, machetes, and hunting rifles, but by the movement's heyday in 2013 and 2014, many activists especially in Michoacán carried assault rifles. Movement activity declined in 2015, though there remain pockets of organized vigilante activity in 2021.