Drug Cartels Do Not Exist

Drug Cartels Do Not Exist

Author	Oswaldo Zavala
Original title	Los cárteles no existen. Narcotráfico y cultura en México
Translator	William Savinar
Subjects	Mexican drug war, Military–industrial complex
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Vanderbilt University Press
Publication date	May 15 2022
Pages	193
ISBN	978-0826504678

Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture is a 2022 non-fiction book by Oswaldo Zavala. The book rejects the common designation of criminal enterprises involved in the Mexican narcotics trade as "cartels".

Publication

The book was written by Oswaldo Zavala, a Mexican journalist and a professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at the City University of New York. It was first published by Malpaso in 2018 as Los cárteles no existen. Narcotráfico y cultura en México. William Savinar's English translation was published in 2022 by Vanderbilt University Press.

Synopsis

In the book, Zavala claims that enterprises in the Mexican narcotics trade have been incorrectly labeled as cartels in order to cast them as threatening the power of the state. He identifies the origin of this erroneous usage, now ubiquitous in journalism, literature, and academia, with US and Mexican authorities seeking to justify military intervention. He argues that these organizations do not meet the definition of a cartel, as they compete against each other on the market rather than colluding, and are neither strictly organized nor significantly individually powerful.

Critical reception

Osiris Aníbal Gómez of the University of Minnesota described the book as "a defiant investigation", "a rigorous research effort" and "an act of hope."