Landowners, politicians, and the threat from below

This chapter surveys the political dynamics that preceded and contributed to paramilitary emergence in Chiapas, Mexico. The chapter demonstrates that as threats to the politically exclusive system seemed more viable, particularly in the reform advocacy of political moderates, hard-liners within the elite and the military moved outside of state structures to protect the system. Resourced by these hard-liner allies, paramilitary groups utilized extrajudicial violence against reform advocates in an effort to obstruct a political opening. The chapter concludes with a brief examination of the continuity and evolution of conflict in the region with the growth in “development” interests.