Seminar on ‘Beyond Pax Mafiosa: Apparent Peace, Human Rights, and Organised Crime in Mexico’ (Professor Trevor Stack)

Join us in Edward Wright F61 for a talk by Trevor Stack (Spanish & Latin American Studies) on ‘Beyond Pax Mafiosa: Apparent Peace, Human Rights, and Organised Crime in Mexico.’ 

This paper compares three Mexican municipalities where residents claimed to live in peace despite the enduring presence of organised crime. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research, Stack proposes a typology of apparent peace that moves beyond the popular but analytically limited notion of pax mafiosa. Using human rights as a normative framework, he evaluates three dimensions of apparent peace: the scope of rights protected, their universality, and whether the State fulfils its obligation to guarantee them. Stack identifies key explanatory variables, including the political economy of local industries, the visibility of violence in public discourse, and the roles of the Catholic Church and the media. The cases reveal that apparent peace is sustained through varying configurations of silence, state (in)action, and elite economic interests. These findings nuance dominant models of criminal governance and offer policy insights for designing context-specific interventions in settings where armed actors exercise de facto authority.

All are welcome – we’re a friendly, interdisciplinary group open to PhD students and staff alike!