The Production of Rogue State Fragments as Organisational Assets: How a Mexican Criminal Actor lets the Illicit-Licit-Divide go up in Smoke

Characteristic for accounts on Organized Crime is an underlying taken-for-grantedness of the licit-illicit-divide. This paper argues that the largely unquestioned distinction between the “upper-“ and “underworld” frequently is much less clear-cut – and thus requires fundamental revision so as to better reflect empirical realities. One case highlighting this necessity is the one of the Mexican region of Tierra Caliente, or Hot Land. For its inhabitants, constitutionally bound state rule – the ultimate manifestation of the “licit” – has constituted a historical fiction at best. Instead, the region has been characterized by the existence of a system of alternative governance that has, under the substantial involvement of state actors, produced a flourishing Drug Production and Trafficking sector. This paper draws on extensive data obtained during a year-long field work period in Mexico to depict the latter system. It furthermore sustains that the dissolution of the boundary between the licit and the illict has been taken to another level, a phenomenon mostly clearly embodied in the rise of the so called Knights Templar. Special attention is thus paid to this illicit actor’s capacity to produce, on a generalized level, rogue state fragments which are subsequently absorbed into its pool of organizational assets.