Maxwell School News and Commentary

A whole series of sort of mid-tier and lower level and smaller kind of up-and-coming, wannabe cartels are trying to set up shop in this terrain," says Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations. "They're striking deals with each other, with the big players."

Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations, says Thursday’s apparent capitulation to the Sinaloa Cartel was "sending a loud message to other organized crime networks…that if they show up with enough firepower to a fight, they will win and get their way because the government does not have the wherewithal to fight back."

Pentecostals deeply value the changes their new faith facilitated in their personal life, says John Burdick, professor of anthropology. They are primarily focused on personal salvation and disinclined to embrace political movements advocating radical change.

"What is incontrovertible is that the Sinaloa Cartel won yesterday’s battle," said Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations. "Not only did they get the government to release Ovidio, they demonstrated to the citizens of Culiacan as well as the rest of Mexico who is in control."

Mary Lovely, professor of economics, says "the effect of the agreement is going to be swamped by whatever happens next with the economy," about the trade deal.

"Because of the fact that it has a horizontal leadership structure, the decentralized network of bosses, a lot of local gangs with specialized duties that are affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel, what we're witnessing is sort of a moment of transition," says Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations.

"Since Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón declared the start of the Drug War in 2006, both the U.S. and Mexico’s security forces have aggressively pursued what is referred to as the kingpin strategy: they go after the 'head’ with the intent of weakening the ‘body,’" says Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations.