Fuerza Civil: Capital Accumulation and Social Control in Nuevo León, Mexico

• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20975011
• Author: Matthew Heath,Markus Buderath
• Date: 01 January 2021
• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20975011

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 236, Vol. 48 No. 1, January 2021, 163–183

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20975011

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

163

Fuerza Civil

Capital Accumulation and Social Control in

Nuevo León, Mexico

by

Markus Buderath and Matthew Heath

Policing is central to the promotion and enforcement of neoliberalization efforts across

the globe. The militarization and police reform associated with the Mexican drug war

must be viewed in this context. Examining Nuevo León’s highly militarized semiprivate

police force, the Fuerza Civil, reveals that political-economic objectives are inextricably

linked to policing reform in the Mexican border state and highlights the role of the city’s

industrial elite in these processes.

La vigilancia policial es fundamental para la promoción y aplicación de los esfuerzos de

neoliberalización en todo el mundo. La militarización y la reforma policial asociadas a la

guerra del gobierno mexicano contra las drogas deben ser consideradas en este contexto.

Un análisis de la fuerza policial semiprivada y altamente militarizada de Nuevo León,

conocida como la Fuerza Civil, revela que los objetivos político-económicos están inextri-

cablemente vinculados a la reforma policial en este estado fronterizo mexicano y destaca el

papel de la élite industrial de la ciudad en estos procesos.

Keywords: Monterrey, Neoliberalism, War on drugs, Policing, Economic develop-

ment

Policing, understood here as the act of fabricating and maintaining a social

order (Neocleous, 2000a), plays an essential role in the global reproduction of

capitalism. As Mark Neocleous (2000b: 21) remarks, “police as an institution

has been central to the historically massive operation on the part of the state to

consolidate the social power of capital . . . and administer the class of poverty

thereafter.” This paper draws primarily on the works of Neocleous and Dawn

Paley to provide a theoretical context for the Fuerza Civil, a highly militarized

semiprivate police force in Nuevo León, Mexico. Those scholars argue that

militarization and police reform as they occur in the context of the U.S.-backed

Markus Buderath holds a Master’s degree in conflict studies from Utrecht University and is cur-

rently studying at the Free University of Berlin’s Institute for Latin American Studies. Matthew

Heath studied international relations at the London School of Economics and holds a Master’s in

conflict studies from Utrecht University. The fieldwork for this paper was conducted by Markus

Buderath in the context of producing his Master’s thesis. The authors thank Lauren Gould, Chris

van der Borgh, and Jolle Demmers for their extensive feedback and Bernardo Barrera and Jesús

Rodríguez for their support throughout the fieldwork phase. They also thank Charlotte Andrews

and Olav Hofland and the journal editors for their insightful comments on previous versions of

this article.

975011LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20975011Latin American PerspectivesBuderath and Heath / Capital Accumulation and Control In Nuevo León

research-article2020

164 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

war on drugs in Latin America illustrate the centrality of policing to the

neoliberal project.

Since the decline of the import-substitution model in the 1980s, the Mexican

economy has been subjected to ever more substantial liberalization efforts.1 The

implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in

1994 marked a significant turning point in this process, as did the Mexican

government’s decision in 2013 to reform the energy sector and open it up to

foreign investment (León etal., 2014). Concurrently, the Mexican drug war has

produced an increasingly militarized response from the state, resulting in sub-

stantial police and penal reforms supported by the United States (Paley, 2014).

In this article we argue that these developments should be viewed not sepa-

rately but as complementary features of neoliberalization, understood here as

a “transnational political project aiming to remake the nexus of market, state and

citizenship from above” (Wacquant, 2010, quoted in Becker and Müller, 2013:

77) in such a way as to prioritize economic development over social and wel-

fare concerns and facilitate privatization. Therefore, we argue that understand-

ing the drug war as a catalyst for neoliberalization constitutes a useful

conceptual approach for assessing these restructuring processes, which depend

heavily on policing and the “fabrication of social order” (Neocleous, 2000a).

More specifically, the drug war creates the necessary conditions for policy

changes and economic development projects that would otherwise be regarded

as controversial, and it must therefore be viewed as a mechanism through

which neoliberalization efforts in Mexico can be more easily enforced.

The Fuerza Civil was founded in 2011 as a collaborative effort between the

city’s industrial elite and the state government in direct response to escalating

violence in the years preceding its formation. By exploring the interplay

between (1) the politics surrounding the Fuerza Civil’s formation, (2) local

power relations in the neoliberal state, and (3) economic policy in the context

of the war on drugs, this article aims to shed light on the motives of, and oppor-

tunities sought by, the actors involved in the formation of the Fuerza Civil. By

doing so, we position the Fuerza Civil within the framework of governance in

Nuevo León and, by extension, within the wider academic debate concerning

neoliberalization and the war on drugs in Mexico.

The article will proceed as follows: First, we outline the theoretical underpin-

nings of our research and then set out our methodological approach. Next, we sum-

marize the historical and social context surrounding the Fuerza Civil’s formation

and the logistics of its formation and operations. Following that, we examine the

role of militarization and police reform in attracting foreign investment and creating

a favorable environment for large-scale economic development projects. Finally, we

conclude that the Fuerza Civil goes beyond a typical public-private partnership,

with local business leaders adopting symbols and practices of the state in order to

take an active role in securing economic policy objectives in Nuevo León.

CONCEPTUALIZING OUR CASE

We view contemporary developments in Mexico in the context of “capital-

ism’s chronic problem of overaccumulation” and its propensity for crises,