Stanford University

The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Afghanistan

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Speaker bio:

Karl Eikenberry is the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and a faculty member of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University.  He is also an affiliated faculty member with the Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law, and researcher with The Europe Center.

Prior to his arrival at Stanford, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from May 2009 until July 2011, where he led the civilian surge directed by President Obama to reverse insurgent momentum and set the conditions for transition to full Afghan sovereignty.

Before appointment as Chief of Mission in Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry had a thirty-five year career in the United States Army, retiring in April 2009 with the rank of Lieutenant General.  His military operational posts included commander and staff officer with mechanized, light, airborne, and ranger infantry units in the continental U.S., Hawaii, Korea, Italy, and Afghanistan as the Commander of the American-led Coalition forces from 2005-2007. 

He has served in various policy and political-military positions, including Deputy Chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium; Director for Strategic Planning and Policy for U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith, Hawaii; U.S. Security Coordinator and Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation in Kabul, Afghanistan; Assistant Army and later Defense Attaché at the United States Embassy in Beijing, China; Senior Country Director for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and Deputy Director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Army Staff.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, has master’s degrees from Harvard University in East Asian Studies and Stanford University in Political Science, and was a National Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Ambassador Eikenberry earned an Interpreter’s Certificate in Mandarin Chinese from the British Foreign Commonwealth Office while studying at the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense Chinese Language School in Hong Kong and has an Advanced Degree in Chinese History from Nanjing University in the People’s Republic of China. 

His military awards include the Defense Distinguished and Superior Service Medals, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Ranger Tab, Combat and Expert Infantryman badges, and master parachutist wings.  He has received the Department of State Distinguished, Superior, and Meritorious Honor Awards, Director of Central Intelligence Award, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award.  He is also the recipient of the George F. Kennan Award for Distinguished Public Service and Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal.  His foreign and international decorations include the Canadian Meritorious Service Cross, French Legion of Honor, Afghanistan’s Ghazi Amir Amanullah Khan and Akbar Khan Medals, and the NATO Meritorious Service Medal.

Ambassador Eikenberry serves as a Trustee for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Asia Foundation, and the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the Council of American Ambassadors, and was previously the President of the Foreign Area Officers Association.  His articles and essays on U.S. and international security issues have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, American Foreign Policy Interests, The New York Times,  The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and The Financial Times.  He has a commercial pilot’s license and instrument rating, and also enjoys sailing and scuba diving.

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Karl Eikenberry William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at CISAC, CDDRL, TEC, and Shorenstein APARC Distinguished Fellow; and Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Retired U.S. Army Lt. General Speaker FSI
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A Postscript to the 1943 Cairo Conference: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Chinese Dilemma

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 Abstract:

That the Cairo Conference has been overshadowed by the wartime summits at Teheran and Yalta is understandable given the start of the Cold War in Europe almost immediately after the German surrender in May 1945. To understand the collapse of relations between the Anglo-American allies on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other, it is important to look at the conferences at Teheran and Yalta, the interactions between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, the understandings they reached, and their misunderstandings. That said, the Cairo Conference also marked an important turning point in the relations between the allies in the war against Japan: China, Great Britain, and the United States, the consequences of which were critical to the defeat of Japan and the post-war order in East Asia.

The interaction of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Chiang in Cairo is every bit as compelling from a human interest perspective as the interplay between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Teheran and Yalta, albeit less studied, and offers a sobering reminder of what can happen when policy is made at the very highest level by individuals who know relatively little about the culture of their partners and are not able to separate myths and stereotypes from realities. Summit conferences may make for good theater, but do not necessarily result in good policies as an examination of the Cairo Conference reveals.

Each of the parties at the Cairo Conference came with their own agendas, frequently contradictory. Generalissimo and Madame Chiang hoped to obtain a commitment to make the China-Burma-India theater of war the focal point in the war against Japan, a matter not only of strategic importance to them but also of poetic justice. They also sought to redress grievances against Japan and Great Britain in the post-war era. Roosevelt hoped to buoy the ego and spirits of Chiang and to insure that the Kuomintang regime would not make a separate peace with Japan thus allowing the Japanese to redeploy the nearly one million troops they had stationed in China. Churchill had no real interest in meeting with Chiang and his wife at Cairo at all, but felt obliged to humor Roosevelt and to make sure that no agreements would be reached in Cairo that would in any way prejudice British colonial interests in Southeast Asia in the post-war era. Given these conflicting agendas, it is no wonder that none of the participants would be satisfied with the results of their labors in Cairo.

 

Speaker Bio:

Ronald Heiferman is Professor of History and Director of the Asian Studies Program at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, and a Fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University. He has also taught at Connecticut College and the City University of New York. Dr. Heiferman was educated at Yale and New York University (Ph.D.). Professor Heiferman has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books, including Flying Tigers (New York: Ballantine, 1971), World War II (London: Hamlyn, 1973), Wars of the Twentieth Century (London: Hamlyn, 1974), The Rise and Fall of Imperial Japan (New York: Military Press, 1981), the Rand-McNally Encyclopedia of World II (New York: Rand-McNally, 1978), and The Cairo Conference of 1943: Roosevelt, Churchill, Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang (McFarland, 2011). His latest book, The Chinese Idyll of Franklin D. Roosevelt, will be published in 2014. Professor Heiferman was a Yale-Lilly Fellow in 1978, a Yale-Mellon Fellow in 1984, and has also been the recipient of five National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships: Duke University (1974), University of Chicago (1977), Stanford University (1980), Harvard University (1987), and the University of Texas (1991).

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Ronald Heiferman Professor of History and Director of the Asian Studies Program Speaker Quinnipiac University
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Former FBI director to bolster security research at Stanford

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Robert Mueller became director of the FBI one week before 9/11 and spent the next 12 years adding global terrorists to the agency’s most-wanted list of gangsters, kidnappers and bank robbers – and aggressively hunting them down.

Now, two months after leaving the job that allowed him to transform the FBI and focus its agents more on counterterrorism and emerging threats like cyber crimes, Mueller will work closely with Stanford scholars to better understand the challenges and issues surrounding international security and online networks.

At the invitation of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Law School, Mueller will spend the current academic year as a consulting professor and the Arthur and Frank Payne Distinguished Lecturer.

He will also visit the Haas Center for Public Service and meet with students to discuss leadership and service around cybersecurity, and work through FSI to train and mentor undergraduate students.

"I look forward to working with the students and faculty of Stanford to address critical issues of the day, including counterterrorism, cybersecurity and shepherding institutions through transition,” Mueller said. “Having worked on these issues as FBI director over the last several years, I hope to pass on the lessons I have learned to those who will be our leaders of tomorrow.  For my part, I hope to gain fresh insight and new thoughts and ideas for the challenges our country continues to face."  

Mueller will make several visits to Stanford, spending about 30 days on campus during the academic year. His first visit comes next week, and will be marked by his delivery of the Payne lecture on Nov. 15. The public talk will focus on the FBI’s role in safeguarding national security. It will be held at 4:30 p.m. at the Koret-Taube Conference Center in the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building.

“Bob Mueller is an extraordinary public servant who will bring an enormously important perspective to some of the most complex security issues in the world,” said FSI Director Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar. “We’re excited that he can help shape our research agenda on cybersecurity and other security issues.”

Mueller will spend the year working with FSI and Stanford Law School scholars to develop research agendas on emerging issues in international security. He will hold graduate seminars and deliver a major lecture at the law school and work with students and fellows at the Haas Center, the law school and the Graduate School of Business. He will also mentor honors students at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

"Robert Mueller has been a federal prosecutor and the nation’s leading law enforcement official during very difficult times.  We are thrilled he will be interacting with our students and faculty because he has much to teach us,” said M. Elizabeth Magill, dean of the law school. "His unique perspective on the intersection of law and international security will be tremendously beneficial to our community.  We are delighted to welcome Director Mueller back to Stanford Law School."

As the FBI’s chief, Mueller created a dedicated cybersecurity squad in each of its field offices and dedicated about 1,000 agents and analysts to fight Web-based crimes. At Stanford, he will bring together academics and practitioners with an eye toward creating an unofficial diplomacy dialogue.

“Should a terrorist utilize cyber capabilities to undertake an attack, it could be devastating,” he said just before leaving the FBI in September. “We have to be prepared.”

Mueller received a bachelor’s from Princeton in 1966 and a master’s in international relations from New York University a year later. He fought in Vietnam as a Marine, leading a rifle platoon and earning the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. After leaving the military, Mueller enrolled at the University of Virginia Law School and received his law degree in 1973.

He began his law career as a litigator in San Francisco, and in 1976 began a 12-year career serving in United States Attorney’s offices in San Francisco and Boston focusing on financial fraud, terrorist and public corruption cases. He worked for two law firms before returning to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., where he was a senior homicide investigator.

He was named U.S. Attorney in San Francisco in 1998, and held that job until President George W. Bush tapped him to lead the FBI. His first day on the job was Sept. 4, 2001.

“When I first came on board, I thought I had a fair idea of what to expect,” Mueller said during his farewell ceremony at the FBI ‘s headquarters in Washington “But the September 11 attacks altered every expectation.”

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The Changing Field of Power in Post-Martial Law Taiwan

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Abstract:

Professor Gold will make a presentation that is part of a larger book project that applies the theory of fields as elaborated by Pierre Bourdieu, Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam to the remaking of Taiwan since the end of martial law in 1987. He argues that political democratization is only one part of the larger dispersal of all forms of power (what Bourdieu terms “capital”) away from the tight centralized control of the mainlander—dominated KMT to broader segments of Taiwan’s society. This talk will look at this process of the breakdown and reconstruction of the old order of various fields, in particular the political, economic and cultural fields, and the effect of this on the overarching field of power.

 

Speaker Bio:

Thomas B. Gold is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Executive Director of the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies, whose executive office is at Berkeley and teaching program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He received his B.A. in Chinese Studies from Oberlin College, and M.A. in Regional Studies – East Asia and PhD in Sociology from Harvard University. He taught English at Tunghai University in Taiwan. He was in the first group of U.S. government-sponsored students to study in China, spending a year at Shanghai’s Fudan University from 1979-1980. Prof Gold’s research has examined numerous topics on the societies on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. These include: youth; guanxi; urban private entrepreneurs (getihu); non-governmental organizations; popular culture; and social and political change. He is very active in civil society in the United States, currently serving on the boards of several organizations such as the Asia Society of Northern California, International Technological University, Teach for China, and the East Bay College Fund.  His books include State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle, and the co-edited volumes Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature ofGuanxi, The New Entrepreneurs of Europe and Asia: Patterns of Business Development in Russia, Eastern Europe and China, and Laid-Off Workers in a Workers’ State: Unemployment With Chinese Characteristics.  

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Thomas B. Gold Professor of Sociology Speaker UC Berkeley
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Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective

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The Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective was inaugurated in 2013 within Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. It aims to investigate problems with American democracy, including polarization and gridlock, poor governance, and declining trust in government institutions. It also analyzes policy initiatives and institutional reforms that have the greatest potential to address those features of American democracy that are most impairing its performance.

Reporting from Cuba: How Pixels are Bringing Down the Wall of Censorship

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*****LIBERATION TECHNOLOGY SPECIAL EVENT****
Change of location- now in Bechtel Conference Center
Encina Hall

A livestream will be available for this event. To watch please click here. 

Co-sponsored by the Association for Liberation Technology, the Center for Latin American Studies and the Stanford Human Rights Center 

Yoani Sánchez was born in 1975 in a tenement in Central Havana and, on starting school, she proudly put the Little Pioneer scarf around her neck, vowing to “Be like Che!” Fourteen when the Berlin Wall fell, her adolescence was marked by what Fidel Castro called “a special period in a time of peace,” a time of terrible scarcity and broad disillusionment.

At the University of Havana Yoani’s incendiary thesis, Words Under Pressure: A Study of the Literature of the Dictatorship in Latin America, eliminated the idea of an academic career. Already married—to Reinaldo Escobar, an ousted-journal­ist-turned-elevator-mechanic—and a mother, she cobbled together a living as a Spanish teacher and tour guide. In 2002, Yoani decided to emigrate, but in 2004 she returned to Cuba. “I promised myself that I would live in Cuba as a free person, and accept the consequences,” she said. All of her work since then has been a keeping of that promise.

Yoani launched her blog, Generation Y, in April of 2007; later that year a Reuters article brought her to the attention of the world. In 2008 she won Spain’s Ortega y Gasset Prize for digital journalism and Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Recognition and awards followed, including an interview with Barack Obama, posted in her blog, and nomination by the Norwegian government for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.

Yoani is now the journalist she always wanted to be, one deeply immersed in technology. She started The Blogger Academy in her apartment in Havana and runs frequent courses in Twitter. She has published a manual on WordPress, and she works as a correspondent for Spain’s El Pais newspaper. Yoani plans to launch a newspaper in Havana, and is currently working toward that goal.

A livestream will be available for this event. To watch pleaseclick here.  

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Yoani Sanchez Blogger "Generation Y", Journalist and Publisher in Cuba Speaker
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In Rio's slums, Stanford students examine social policy up close

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In June 2013, Beatriz Magaloni, associate professor of political science and director of the Program on Poverty and Governance (PovGov) at the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law led the Stanford Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP) to Brazil. The three-week seminar entitled, “Rio de Janeiro: A Cultural and Political Social History,” drew 15 outstanding and diverse Stanford undergraduate students eager to experience life in Latin America’s largest country. The trip allowed the group to learn more about the political and social factors that have transformed - and continue to shape - life in economically marginalized sections of Rio.

Despite recent efforts to fight poverty and accelerate income redistribution, Brazil suffers from high levels of income inequality. In Rio, one of Latin America's largest cities, the results of this inequality are even more profound. There are roughly 763 favelas – urban slums- in Rio that are home to approximately 1.5 million people. The local government has tolerated, but never incorporated favelas into the formal city, leaving residents to organize public services such as electricity, running water or garbage collection in their neighborhoods. As a result of the virtual absence of the state, favelas have long been notoriously violent areas and breeding ground for criminal organizations, specially drug trafficking.

Students at Rocinha, with Paulo Amendoim, their local guide, showed them the highlights of the neighborhood including food, dance and pipa (kite flying).

In 2008, the state of Rio de Janeiro embarked on an unprecedented effort to take back the territories in favelas controlled by criminal organizations ahead of the upcoming World Cup and Summer Olympics, as well as securing favela citizens’ rights to freely move across their own communities. The Pacifying Police Units (UPPs) is at the center of the policy, with 24-hour patrolling and community policing every day. UPP officers focus on breaking down negative police stereotypes by working closely with the population – teaching classes, coaching sport teams, hosting events and organizing forums where community members can express their needs and concerns. The “pacification” process has already involved 31 favelas, with 70 more to come by the 2016 deadline.

Aligned with the ongoing research being carried out by Magaloni and her team at PovGov, the goal of the BOSP seminar in Rio was to introduce students to this important development and analyze how it has impacted the complex social dynamics found within the city. The students explored some of the implications to favela residents in terms of security, local governance, the preservation and dissemination of culture, as well as prospects for economic and social development in “pacified” territories.

The in-country seminar included an introduction to the Portuguese language and cultural activities, including field trips and lectures by experts on a variety of fields including: criminal violence, public security, local history and culture, social entrepreneurship, local governance and public policy. Speakers that participated in the program included: representatives of non-profit organizations such as Viva Rio and the Observatory of Favelas; officials from the Military State Police, including former UPP Commander Colonel Paulo Henrique; as well as university professors from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro and Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, including criminal violence expert and director of the Laboratory for the Analysis of Violence, Dr. Ignacio Cano.

 

“That hope, warmth, and resilience that the communities had in each favela is a something that still sticks with me, and leaves me optimistic that social change will occur. At the same time it gives me passion to go back, and not only witness the change in future of the favelas, but also be part of it, which is why I'm now taking Portuguese at Stanford!" 

                      - Daniela Olivos ‘16

 

In order to provide students with a more inclusive perspective of the pacification process on the ground, the PovGov team - working alongside local guides and community leaders - planned visits to the “pacified” favelas of Rocinha, Complexo do Alemão and Morro Dona Marta. During these visits the students had the chance to visit the UPP headquarters, talk to the UPP captain, and participate in a community work initiative with Coral Tintas - one of Brazil’s largest paint manufacturing companies committed to improving favelas by providing free paint for locals to renew the facades of houses and buildings. The students also visited the BOPE headquarters, Rio’s elite squad police unit, and Jongo da Serrinha, an NGO that seeks to preserve the tradition of Jongo - a style of music and dance - through a children’s daycare and education center. Additional day-trips and sightseeing tours included: the Rio Art Museum, the Imperial Museum of History, as well as many of Rio’s famous beaches.

According to student participant Marilyn Travis ('16), “Going to Brazil this summer was the trip of a lifetime. We were very lucky to have gifted faculty and staff who worked hard to put together such a rich program. This opportunity has literally shifted my frame of mind on many issues I was previously naive about. I have gained a more global perspective and had the opportunity to contemplate the affects of mega events on marginalized people.”

To view images from the trip please click here.  

 

About the Program on Poverty and Governance

The Program on Poverty and Governance at CDDRL explores factors that affect good governance and poverty alleviation in Latin America, with a focus on Brazil and Mexico. Led by Beatriz Magaloni, associate professor of political science at Stanford University, the program conducts empirical research, bringing together experts from across the disciplines of political science, economics, law, medicine and education to increase understanding of the complex causal linkages between political institutions, the quality of governance, and the capacity of developing societies to meet basic human needs. One of the research platforms, “Governance and Criminal Violence,” studies ways to rebuild the social fabric in violent places where the society does not trust law enforcement and government institutions, with the Pacification of favelas of Rio as a case study.

 

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Students engage in community renovation at a favela in Rio.
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Do National Human Rights Institutions Work?

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Abstract: 

Do human rights institutions work? To answer this question we examine the effect of these institutions on two kinds of outcomes: physical integrity rights (freedom from torture, government-sponsored killing, political imprisonment, and the like) and civil and political rights (freedoms of speech, assembly, movement, and religion, as well as voting and workers' rights). Our analysis covers up to 143 countries, including some of the world's worst abusers, over the period 1981 to 2004. We arrive at two main conclusions. First, national human rights institutions improve physical integrity outcomes but not civil and political rights practices. This finding reflects a greater worldwide focus on extreme violations such as torture, but also points to widespread resistance among non-Western governments to "Western" civil and political rights standards. Second, we find that time matters: the establishment of a human rights institution contributed initially to greater reports of physical integrity abuses, but practices improved significantly after only four or five years. These institutions shine a bright spotlight on countries negative practices, making it more likely that abuses are detected and cataloged. Over time, however, they help to curb egregious human rights violations. Our findings suggest that human rights institutions are not just futile exercises in governmental hypocrisy; rather, they work to improve human rights practices regardless of the intent of governments.

Speaker bios: 

Francisco Ramirez is Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology at Stanford University where he is also the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the Graduate School of Education. His current research interests focus on the rise and institutionalization of human rights and human rights education, on the worldwide rationalization of university structures and processes, on terms of inclusion issues as regards gender and education, and on the scope and intensity of the authority of science in society. His comparative studies contribute to sociology of education, political sociology, sociology of gender, and sociology of development. His work has contributed to the development of the world society perspective in the social sciences. Ramirez received his BA in social sciences from De La Salle University in the Philippines and his MA and PhD in sociology from Stanford University. 

His recent publications include “Conditional Decoupling: Assessing the Impact of National Human Rights Institutions” (with W. Cole) American Sociological Review 702-25 2013; “National Incorporation of Global Human Rights: Worldwide Expansion of National Human Rights Organizations, 1966-2004” (with Jeong-Woo Koo).  Social Forces. 87:1321-1354. 2009; “Human Rights in Social Science Textbooks: Cross-national Analyses, 1975-2008” (with J. Meyer and P. Bromley). Sociology of Education 83: 111-134.  2010; “The Worldwide Spread of Environmental Discourse in Social Science Textbooks, 1970-2010 (with P. Bromley and J. Meyer) Comparative Education Review 55, 4; 517-545. 2011; ‘The Formalization of the University: Rules, Roots, and Routes” (With T. Christensen) Higher Education 65: 695-708 2013; and “The World Society Perspective: Concepts, Assumptions, and Strategies” Comparative Education 423-39 2012.

 

Wade Cole is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Utah. His current work focuses on (1) the impact of global human rights norms, treaties, and institutions on a range of country-level practices including bodily integrity rights, civil and political rights, labor rights, women’s rights, racial discrimination, measures of wellbeing, and governmental redistributive efforts; and (2) the rise and possible demise of minority-serving and women’s colleges in the United States, with an interest in how the varied and often contradictory ways that African Americans, American Indians, Hispanics, and women were incorporated into the American polity shaped the emergence, development, and purposes of postsecondary institutions catering to these groups. Cole holds a BA in political science from Western Washington University and a PhD in sociology from Stanford University. 

Recent publications include “Conditional Decoupling: Assessing the Impact of National Human Rights Institutions, 1981 to 2004,” American Sociological Review 78(4):702–725 (with Francisco Ramirez); “Strong Walk and Cheap Talk: The Effect of the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights on Policies and Practices,” Social Forces 92(1):165–194; “Government Respect for Gendered Rights: The Effect of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on Women’s Rights Outcomes, 1981–2004,” International Studies Quarterly 57(2):233–249; and “Human Rights as Myth and Ceremony? Reevaluating the Effectiveness of Human Rights Treaties, 1981–2007,” American Journal of Sociology 117(4):1131–1171. He is also author of Uncommon Schools: The Global Rise of Postsecondary Institutions for Indigenous Peoples (Stanford University Press, 2011).

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Wade Cole Assistant Professor of Sociology Speaker University of Utah
Francisco Ramirez Professor of Education and CDDRL faculty Speaker Stanford
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The Logic of Violence in Drug Wars: Cartel-State Conflict in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia

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Why have militarized interventions to curtail violence by drug cartels had wildly divergent results? In the past six years, state crackdowns drove a nine-fold increase in cartel-state violence in Mexico, versus a two-thirds decrease in Brazil. Prevailing analyses of drug wars as a criminal subtype of insurgency provide little traction, because they elide differences in rebels’ and cartels’ aims. Cartels, I argue, fight states not to conquer territory or political control, but to coerce state actors and influence policy outcomes. The empirically predominant channel is violent corruption—threatening enforcers while negotiating bribes. A formal model reveals that greater state repression raises bribe prices, leading cartels to fight back whenever (a) corruption is sufficiently rampant, and (b) repression is insufficiently conditional on cartels’ use of violence. Variation in conditionality helps explain observed outcomes: switching to conditional repression pushed Brazilian cartels into nonviolent strategies, while Mexico’s war “without distinctions” inadvertently made fighting advantageous.

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