Drug War Mexico: Politics, Neoliberalism and Violence in the New Narcoeconomy focuses on the interpenetration of political and criminal worlds that has facilitated the institutionalisation of organised crime in Mexico. Watt and Zepeda lead the reader through the history of collusion between state (and international) actors and Mexican entrepreneurs-cum-drug-traffickers. Their methodology relies heavily on investigative journalism. They tell us that ‘as media organisations like Reforma collate data in a seemingly more thorough and systematic manner than government agencies, we have for the most part opted to use their figures’. Offering a respite from the too-common reduction of Mexico's violence to particular actors (drug lords, gangs, cartels), Drug War Mexico offers a historical and structural context to the ‘expansion of powerful drug cartels and the consequent escalation of violence in Mexico’ that includes race-based construction of drug abuse, land reforms favouring domestic and foreign elites, and the paradox of US demand coupled with incentives for criminalisation tied to Mexico–US relations.

When the authors choose to focus on actors, they are more likely to choose ‘bankers and business elites, who have aided traffickers in laundering monies or investing their fortunes’, or the instrumentalism of government elites, including ‘corrupt politicians, who have relied on misinformation and misleading propaganda to implement policies that at times had less to do with the eradication of illegal crops and interdiction of contraband than with the empowerment of elite political and business interests’. Equally important, the authors acknowledge the humanity of people involved in Mexico's narcotics industry, inquiring about their motivations and alternative livelihood options. Both are structured by government policies that have increased the impoverishment of the average Mexican in the last three decades.

Watt and Zepeda describe trafficking organisations flourishing in the concomitant environment, characterised on the one hand by vulnerable people looking for work, and on the other by ‘an extralegal environment in which those best able to resort to force and violence’ were able to capitalise on the opportunities of the ‘free market’. Important linkages are drawn between Mexican and American domestic policies: ‘Neoliberalism pushed the Mexican economy further towards integration with that of the United States … Mexico thus became more dependent on the USA, closer economic ties entailing closer political links and cooperation, which allowed the US government to become increasingly involved in Mexico's drug policy … Neoliberalism had the effect of putting ever more small agriculturalists out of business while the burgeoning market for marijuana and poppies provided practically their only viable alternative to bankruptcy and flight from the land’ (p. 67).

Aside from focusing attention on the structural causes of violence in Mexico – free-trade policies, migration and employment (p. 181) – the authors critique Plan Merida, the foreign assistance package to Mexico which continues – despite disingenuous claims to the opposite – to focus on anti-drug and public security measures, primarily law enforcement training and equipment (such as helicopters and weapons). Merida gives very minimal levels of support to civil society and human rights organisations, local citizen councils and community-based strategies to help them prevent violence and support rehabilitation of criminal offenders.

Drug War Mexico is overall an excellent regional analysis of the drivers and dynamics of violence related to illicit economies and networks. That is the book's stated intent, and so the following critique is perhaps unfair – one book cannot and should not attempt everything. Still, the violence in Mexico and the Americas is also driven by root causes at the global level, namely the global market for illicit drugs and the global drug prohibition regime. Regional and global policies are interpenetrated, each influenced by – and influencing – the other. Interesting, un-posed questions remain: can illicit networks in Mexico be reduced without disrupting the global drug market? What potential impact would a regional decriminalisation regime have on the future of global prohibition? A global lens would extend even further the authors' argument that effective strategies include targeting ‘financial structures through which organised crime prospers’, which means ‘intervening in major corporations … regulating illegal financial practices, and prosecuting white collar criminals’ (p. 212).

Drug War Mexico is nonetheless an excellent investigation of Mexico's widely misunderstood conflict – and a timely one. Tens of thousands of lives into the ‘drug war’, correcting the lens of our analysis cannot come too soon.