SUMMARY

The outbreak of fighting between different drug-trafficking gangs in Mexico can be understood against the background of changes in the Mexican political landscape during the last decades. During the 1980s, there was a loose network of drug smugglers controlling their own "plaza" for drug trafficking. Governmental authority was highly centralized under PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Institutional Revolutionary Party) rule and by bribing high officials, the drug smugglers could control their businesses without getting interrupted by the authorities. When single-party rule started to give way to local opposition these networks and relationships were transformed, to the advantage of some actors but to the disadvantage of others. The drug cartels started to fight each other for control over territory and previous alliances fell apart.

Both the Jalisco Cartel New Generation and La Resistencia were formed out of the remnants of the Milenio faction of the Sinaloa cartel which had been run by the Sinaloa Cartel’s number two commander, Ignacio “El Nacho” Coronel Villarreal. Allegedly cracks began to form within the Milenio Cartel and when Coronel was killed in late July 2010, the cartel ultimately split into two factions: the Jalisco Cartel New Generation and La Resistencia.

The two groups were based in Jalisco state on the western coast of Mexico and in 2011 they started to challenge each other for the control of the drug trafficking in the state. Multiple people were shot and executed, grenades were thrown into a nightclub and armed men entered a hospital at one point killing their rivals.

The non-state conflict between the Jalisco Cartel New Generation and La Resistencia was first included in UCDP data in 2011.