![]() ![]() What we will attempt to accomplish in this analysis is to understand what is happening in Michoacán from an operative point of view, with the intended purpose of answering simple but essential questions regarding the relevant actors: meaning the different levels of government and their armed forces, the autodefensas in all their shapes, as well as the criminal groups who have a presence and conduct their activities in the area. Both sides contributed to the gradual destruction of an already frayed social fabric. ![]() Finally, a region and its inhabitants who had been for many decades part of a system where the only useful political recourse has been violence, sometimes in its cruelest form, used by both the authorities and criminal groups. Secondly, in what may be a unique context in recent Mexican history, defined not by a power vacuum or the absence of a government, but rather, by a process of atypical state making, since it has been accomplished by non-state actors who do not seek the overthrow of the government. What makes Michoacán different is precisely this rupture, a phenomenon that became a reality when the self-defense groups arrived on the scene. How did these dynamics start? First of all, the complexity of the situation in a region where several political, economic and social interests overlap, tangle up and reached a breaking point. This process of dialogue is characterized by its high degree of instability, in a context where all parties need each other, but do not trust each other. These ongoing dynamics, even though they are very much political in nature, are treated by the federal government exclusively in terms of violence, focusing solely on armed interlocutors 4. What can be observed is a phase of “democratization of violence”, as opposed to the near monopoly previously exerted by the Knight Templars ( Caballeros Templarios) 3. This process is relatively recent and is presently evolving right before our eyes 2. The term “reconfiguration” allows us to understand and lay the numerous dynamics at stake: 1. Ever since the self-defense groups appeared in February 2013, Michoacán finds itself in a profound political reconfiguration process mainly led by armed groups, be they the diverse self-defense groups ( autodefensas) themselves, the various cartels that operate in the region or the myriad of Mexican armed forces. ![]()
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