Instability and political violence in Chiapas: Between inequality, ethnicity and gender

Abstract

This study will explore the hypothesis widely accepted between 2016 and 2018 in local and national newspapers that the issue of gender in the municipal presidency was practically the only variable that explains the outbreaks of political violence in Chiapas. The study is more quantitative than qualitative and is based on recent literature regarding possible explanations for political violence. The decision to conduct this quantitative study responds to the interest in operationalizing the set of variables identified in the literature on political violence, in order to explore new possible explanations for the outbreaks of violence directed against mayors in Chiapas. This is an exploratory, non-conclusive study, whose main purpose is to open up lines of research that can be developed in future work. In this sense, it is recognized that the Chiapas context presents a significant complexity that cannot be fully grasped through exclusively quantitative approaches, so this analysis should be understood as an initial approximation within a field that requires greater depth and methodological plurality.