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Organised Crime and Migration
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Notes

table of contents
  1. Series Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Acknowledgements
  6. Introduction
    1. Organised crime and human mobility in the region
      1. The nature of organised criminal groups
      2. Organised criminal groups in Mexico
      3. Organised criminal groups in Northern Central America
    2. Methodology and approach
      1. Fieldwork in Mexico and El Salvador, 2015
      2. Ethical considerations
      3. Data analysis
      4. The morphogenetic approach: a critical realist analytic framework
        1. The Structure–Agency Impasse
        2. Mixed Flows and Transit Migration
      5. Applying the morphogenetic approach in my data analysis
    3. Engagement and contribution
    4. The structure of the book
    5. Notes
  7. 1. Criminal violence as a driver of internal displacement and external migration
    1. Migration out of Northern Central America
      1. Historical context of displacement and migration in the region
      2. Criminal violence as a driver of migration
      3. New in-country migration controls in Mexico – Plan Frontera Sur
    2. Organised criminal groups and an emerging displacement crisis
      1. Criminal violence in Northern Central America
      2. Understanding external migration driven by organised crime as this new factor emerged
      3. Internal displacement caused by gang violence in Northern Central America
      4. Understanding how organised crime was causing this emerging displacement trend
      5. Understanding the role and response of the state as this new wave of displacement emerged
    3. Organised crime and disorganised movement: conceptualising internal displacement in El Salvador and Honduras
      1. Criminal governance: framing the source of risk
      2. Triggers of flight: levels and immediacy of risk
      3. Fleeing risk: who flees, when and how
      4. Seeking safety: strategies in internal displacement
      5. Displacement dynamics: ostensibly random, fundamentally precarious
      6. Decision-making underpinned by the same logic
    4. Why people leave their country because of criminal violence and persecution by organised criminal groups
      1. Factors that contribute to external flight
        1. Different Levels of Risk, Different Patterns of Mobility
        2. Why Internal Displacement May Not Be Viable
      2. Personal experience of threats or violence and the decision to migrate
        1. Internal Displacement Abandoned in Favour of External Migration
        2. No Internal Displacement Before External Migration
        3. Pre-Emptive External Migration
        4. New Understanding About How Criminal Violence Causes External Flight
    5. Agency and decision-making in displacement caused by criminal violence
    6. Notes
  8. 2. Transit and trajectory through Mexico: navigating risk and finding protection
    1. Locating decisions in transit migration
    2. “I never knew we had a right to be safe”: the right to seek international protection as an influence on migration trajectory
      1. Factors that contribute to determining destination or making asylum claims
      2. Rights information, decision-making and trajectory: morphogenetic analysis
        1. Rights Information and Changes in Destination
        2. Unchanged Destination or Temporary Changes to Plans
      3. How receiving rights information during transit affects migration trajectory
    3. Risk and violence during transit and their impact on migrants’ agency
      1. Migrant experiences in southern Mexico, 2015
      2. Prior knowledge of risk during transit
      3. Criminal attacks during transit
      4. Decision-making following criminal attacks
        1. No Changes to Planned Destination Following Criminal Attacks
        2. Changes to Planned Destination Following Criminal Attacks
      5. Decision-making of those who had fled criminal violence and persecution
      6. How criminal abuse during transit affects migrant agency
    4. Decision-making in transit as part of the migration journey
    5. Notes
  9. 3. Organised crime groups as a threat to migrants during transit
    1. Locating criminal violence and abuse in the transit state
    2. Transit migration: the nature and source of vulnerability and abuse
      1. The vulnerability of people in transit
      2. Violence against migrants in transit: abuse and its systematic nature
      3. The situation in southern Mexico after Plan Frontera Sur
        1. Migrant Agency: Self-Protection Strategies
      4. Perpetrators, operational models and territorial control
      5. The state: impunity, corruption and collusion
      6. Characterising violence during transit migration as structural violence
      7. Contextual factors that enable criminal abuse during transit
    3. The development of organised crime as a structural force during transit: morphogenetic analysis
      1. First phase: organised crime evolves as structural factor in transit migration
      2. Second phase: impact of new migration controls on criminal activity
      3. The causal role of policy
    4. Criminal abuse, policy-driven harm and the role of the state
    5. Notes
  10. 4. People-smuggling through Mexico and the role of organised crime and corruption
    1. Conceptualising people-smuggling
      1. People-smuggling and state integrity
    2. People-smuggling and organised crime in Mexico and Central America
      1. People-smuggling in the region: its role and evolution 2000–15
      2. Criminal actors involved in people-smuggling
      3. The impact of Plan Frontera Sur (2014–16)
      4. Transcontinental links
    3. Migration controls and the evolution of people-smuggling and organised crime: a morphogenetic perspective
      1. The evolution of people-smuggling in Mexico and Central America: morphogenetic analysis
        1. First Phase: Post-2001 Migration Controls
        2. Second Phase: Mexican Security Policy After 2006
        3. Third Phase: The Implementation of Plan Frontera Sur in 2014
      2. Impact of migration controls on people-smuggling and related corruption
    4. Migrant agency in the context of people-smuggling
      1. Migrant agency: constrained by circumstance
      2. Migrant agency: transforming power and emergent properties
        1. First Phase: Agency Leads to Structural Elaboration in Transit State
        2. Second Phase: Agency Continues Despite Previous Structural Elaboration
      3. Impact of agency on the deployment of policy and on its efficacy
    5. People-smuggling, corruption and state integrity
    6. Notes
  11. 5. Law, policy and the state: accountability for adverse consequences, criminal activity and corruption
    1. Externalisation of migration controls under Plan Frontera Sur
      1. Developing perspectives on policy outcomes
    2. Locating understanding about the consequences of policy, the acts of non-state actors and state accountability
      1. Adverse policy outcomes and policy gaps
      2. The externalisation of migration controls and the transit state
      3. State accountability
    3. Deportations under Plan Frontera Sur: state obligations versus policy outcomes
      1. Obligations to those with potential international protection needs
      2. Implementation of Plan Frontera Sur: a morphogenetic perspective
      3. Adverse consequences of Plan Frontera Sur
      4. Deportations that may not meet legal obligations
      5. Financial incentives
      6. Implications of political pressure and financial incentives
    4. The state, abuse by organised crime and impunity
      1. State responsibility for acts of non-state actors: due diligence and beyond
      2. Morphogenetic perspective on state inaction: from tolerance to impunity
      3. Impunity and the foreseeable adverse consequences of policy: insight from morphogenetic analysis
      4. Implications of ‘collateral damage’ for notions of state accountability
    5. The state and people-smuggling: the nexus of migration and corruption
      1. Coexistence and collusion
      2. Weakened state integrity
      3. Implications of corruption for notions of state responsibility
    6. The dimensions of the state’s role and responsibility
    7. Notes
  12. Conclusions and reflections
    1. Contributions to knowledge and understanding about the empirical situation
      1. Displacement and migration caused by organised crime in Northern Central America
      2. Abuse during transit in Mexico
      3. People-smuggling through Mexico
      4. Policy and state responsibility
    2. Morphogenetic approach: a tool for analysis and synthesis
    3. Contribution to broader academic debates
      1. Agency, decision-making and displacement dynamics in forced migration
      2. Policy gaps and adverse consequences
      3. State accountability
      4. Synthesising these debates
    4. Final reflections
      1. The evolving situation in Mexico and Central America
      2. Global relevance
      3. Future research directions
    5. Notes
  13. Bibliography
  14. Index

Available to purchase in print or download for free at https://uolpress.co.uk

First published 2026 by University of London Press Senate House, Malet St, London WC1E 7HU

© Victorie Knox 2026

The right of Victorie Knox to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is freely available in an open access edition with funds received from the 2024 Arcadia Open Access Publishing Award, granted to the University of London Press by the American Council of Learned Societies with generous support from Arcadia.

This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.

Any third-party material reproduced in the book is not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in the image or text’s credit line. To reuse third-party material not published under the same licence as the book you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holder.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library.

ISBN 978-1-912250-68-4 (hardback)

ISBN 978-1-912250-69-1 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-912250-72-1 (.epub)

ISBN 978-1-912250-71-4 (.pdf)

ISBN 978-1-912250-70-7 (.html)

DOI https://doi.org/10.63674/aoth5004

Cover image: Man in black jacket standing on train rail during daytime. Photo by neda borhanfard on Unsplash.

Cover design for University of London Press by Nicky Borowiec.

Book design by Nigel French.

Text set by Westchester Publishing Services UK in Meta Serif and Meta, designed by Erik Spiekermann.

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