Sharing the “Truth” About Cartel Violence on the United States Borderlands: An Analysis of the State, the Experience of Power, and the Production of Fear in a U.S. Border City

Abstract

Recently, the illegal movement of drugs and cartel violence across the border has characterized the Mexico and U.S. borderlands. Communities on both sides of the border witness power struggle between the state and the drug cartels. Fieldwork conducted in Eagle Pass, Texas suggests that the U.S. state attempts to control cartel threats through assertion of power and authority over the populace. This paper explores the framework of the state on the U.S. side of border and analyses the states’ local and global methods to assert power. It stresses that the implementation of power results in violence, which engenders fears and worries amongst U.S. border residents. It is argued that these fears, although meant to assert state power in the midst of drug war violence, instead reduce credibility of the state.