Ebook: Mexico: narco-violence and a failed state?

The revolutionary church -- Wars, prohibition, and the antecedents of narco churches -- Two narco churches emerge -- The weakening of the revolutionary church -- Diaspora of the narco churches -- Calderón's anti-drug strategy -- Crusade against evil antagonists -- Emerging and new narco sects -- Los Zetas and La Familia -- U.S.-Mexican narcotics policy: the Mérida initiative and beyond -- Prospect for Mexico's becoming a failed state.;Bloodshed connected with Mexican drug cartels continues unabated. Savage narcotics-related decapitations, castrations, and other murders have destroyed tourism in many Mexican communities and such savagery is now cascading across the border into the United States. The author explores how this spiral of violence emerged in Mexico, its impact on the country and its northern neighbor, and the prospects for managing it. He also considers the possibility that Mexico may become a failed state, as feared by opinion-leaders, even as it pursues an aggressive but thus far unsuccessful crusade against the importation, processing, and sale of illegal substances. Becoming a 'failed state' involves two dimensions of state power: its scope, or the different functions and goals taken on by governments, and its strength, or the government's ability to plan and execute policies. The Mexican state boasts an extensive scope evidenced by its monopoly over the petroleum industry, its role as the major supplier of electricity, its financing of public education, its numerous retirement and health-care programs, its control of public universities, and its dominance over the armed forces. But the state has not yet taken control of drug trafficking, and its strength is steadily diminishing in the light of it. Thus, this explosive book is not only a study of drug cartels, but also of state disintegration. -- from Book Jacket.