A Tale of Two Mexican Border Cities: The Rise and Decline of Drug Violence in Juárez and Tijuana

This paper examines the tale of the two cities, Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana. These two municipalities are the largest of Mexico's metropolises along the country's roughly 2,000-mile frontier with the United States, the longest land border between the "global north" and the "global south." This narrative builds on several years of research regarding Mexico's rule of law challenges, during which the author conducted multiple field research trips to both Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana. By virtue of their status as border cities, both lie at the fringes of the state and the very limits of its coercive monopoly on force. Consequentially, these are two cities that also stand at the frontiers of globalization, thanks to the opening of trade, new technologies, and infrastructure that has expanded flows of commerce, capital, and people across the US-Mexican border. This article examines the factors that contributed to the eruption of enormous violence in both cities around 2008, and the factors that contributed to its gradual reduction in both places. The author explains that the socio-economic context in these two border cities has deprived individuals of educational and employment opportunities, while the international market for illicit drugs has helped to fill the gap. Ultimately, though, the author argues that violence among drug trafficking organizations resulted from splits and the breakdown of alliances attributable to dynamics within and among these organizations, as well as newfound pressures from US and Mexican law enforcement. The author contends that the reduction of violence can be attributed to the gradual monopolization of control over organized criminal activities by the Sinaloa cartel.