The Mexican government and the self-defender’s groups in Michoacán:

Contrasts based on a securitization framework

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to analyze the securitization’s moves about the organized crime, especially when two actors are simultaneously managing it; because of that it has been decided to set out the Mexican case, particularly upon the context in the Michoacán region, where the self-defender’s groups were challenging –but also contributing to– the federal government. In order to do so, this process will be analyzed from a securitization framework because it will show the divergences between the discourses of these two actors, mainly through the establishment of five variables: the context, the securitizing actors, the referent object, the threat and the reaction to this last one. At the end, the differences between the conceptions and strategies from both actors will be useful tounderstand the audience’s varied behaviors, the organized crime’s competing social imaginaries and the actions undertook by the federal government.