In contrast to analyses that view systemic violence in Mexico as simply the result of drugs and criminality, a deviation of a well-functioning market economy and/or a failing and corrupt state, Muñoz Martínez argues in Uneven Landscapes of Violence that the nexus of criminality, illegality and violence is integral to neoliberal state formation. She argues that it was through this nexus that dispossession took place after 2000 in the form of forced displacement, extortion and private appropriation of public funds along with widespread violence by state forces and criminal groups. Further, she explores the manner in which the neoliberal emphasis on the rule of law to protect private property and contracts further reshaped the boundaries between legality and illegality, concealing the criminal and violent origins of economic gain.
