Making or Breaking Citizens? Criminal Organizations and State-Society Relations

abstract: When do groups of citizens organize to resist criminal group presence, and what form does their resistance take? Criminal groups operate across the globe, imposing a variety of costs on local communities. Confronted with these conditions, citizens can either accommodate or contest; when they contest, they choose either to engage or to avoid the state. This article leverages variation in three municipalities across Mexico to illustrate how and why communities react differently to the presence of criminal organizations. While the degree of criminal competition and the strength of preexisting civil society drive whether groups of citizens contest, the degree of local state autonomy from criminal groups shapes the form—state centered or nonstate—that contestation takes. Organized crime is broadly considered an impediment to functioning democracy, but this article demonstrates that its presence can also push citizens in some cases to organize and engage with the state in ways that bolster democracy.