Popular Image of Outlaws and the State: Organized Crime and Violence Seen Through Popular Songs
This paper compares Mexican drug cartels with Japanese yakuza to understand why Mexico has suffered narco-related violence since the 2000s. We focus on the role of social norms, which, combined with nature of the State, geography and other factors, encourage or deter violence among criminal organizations. Our methodology is to compare norms expressed in lyrics of popular songs of the two countries. Especially two veteran popular singers are selected as a comparative case study: Tigres del Norte, best corrido singer of Mexico, and Saburo Kitajima, great enka singer of Japan. In Mexico narcocorrido has transmitted harsh, complicated realities of the drug trafficking and often represent Mexican people’s distrust in the State and formal rules. In Japan also do we find many songs which refer to yakuza. But, on the whole, they convert real yakuzas into an idealized, chivalrous outlaw who does not challenge the established order. Such an obvious difference of norms expressed in popular songs can explain why Mexico has been stricken by the excessive violence and Japan has not when the State of each country changed its policy towards organized crime from conditional tolerance to elimination.
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