Yucatan as an Exception to Rising Criminal Violence in Mexico

Abstract

Yucatan state's homicide level has remained low and steady for decades and criminal violence activity is low, even while crime rates in much of the rest of the country have increased since 2006. In this research note, we examine five main theoretical explanations for Yucatan's relative containment of violence: criminal competition, protection networks and party alternation, vertical partisan fragmentation, interagency coordination, and social cohesion among the Indigenous population. We find that in Yucatan, interagency coordination is a key explanatory variable, along with cooperation around security between Partido Revolucionario Institucional and Partido Accion Nacional governments and among federal and state authorities.