Over the past decade, stories on the terrifying effects of intercartel conflicts and the war on drugs have saturated news coverage of Mexico. Barely a week goes by without the gruesome details of another mass grave, citywide shootout, or tragic kidnapping hitting the news. Most journalists now estimate the sexenio death toll as pushing 60,000; repentant insiders, with their tales of undiscovered desert narcofosas, hint at a far higher number. Yet this was never meant to be. For decades, social scientists portrayed Mexico’s one-party system and its stumbling path to democratization as exceptionally pacific, untainted by the violence and civil conflicts that plagued other twentieth-century Latin American states. Of course there were exceptions: León in 1946, Tlatelolco in 1968, the Halconazo in 1971, Acteal in 1997. But that’s what they were — exceptions. In general, the Mexican state endured through a blend of economic growth, modest redistribution, mass clientelism,...
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