TY - JOUR
T1 - Making Sense of Electoral Violence
T2 - The Narrative Frame of Organised Crime in Mexico
AU - Schedler, Andreas
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2022/8/19
Y1 - 2022/8/19
N2 - Since the inauguration of Mexican democracy in 2000, organised criminal violence had been leaking into the political arena. Yet, it escalated in the 2018 elections, when dozens of local candidates were killed. In most of these cases, the concrete perpetrators and motives remained in the dark. How did Mexican society make sense of this opaque, unprecedented wave of electoral violence? On the basis of a qualitative content analysis of over 1, 200 news reports, I examine the structuring power of a shared narrative: the frame of organised crime. By conceiving candidate killings as economic violence within the criminal community, this commonsensical frame of interpretation permitted Mexican society to 'normalise' these killings as 'business as usual' by criminal organisations.
AB - Since the inauguration of Mexican democracy in 2000, organised criminal violence had been leaking into the political arena. Yet, it escalated in the 2018 elections, when dozens of local candidates were killed. In most of these cases, the concrete perpetrators and motives remained in the dark. How did Mexican society make sense of this opaque, unprecedented wave of electoral violence? On the basis of a qualitative content analysis of over 1, 200 news reports, I examine the structuring power of a shared narrative: the frame of organised crime. By conceiving candidate killings as economic violence within the criminal community, this commonsensical frame of interpretation permitted Mexican society to 'normalise' these killings as 'business as usual' by criminal organisations.
KW - Mexico
KW - blame attribution
KW - electoral violence
KW - frame analysis
KW - normalisation
KW - organised crime
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85138369635&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0022216X22000499
DO - 10.1017/S0022216X22000499
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85138369635
SN - 0022-216X
VL - 54
SP - 481
EP - 507
JO - Journal of Latin American Studies
JF - Journal of Latin American Studies
IS - 3
ER -