Bootstrap Justice: The Search for Mexico's Disappeared

Since 2006, more than 85,000 people have disappeared in Mexico. These disappearances remain largely unsolved: disappeared people are rarely found, and the Mexican state almost never investigates or prosecutes those responsible. Despite this, people not only continue to report disappearances, but many devote their lives to answering the question, "where are they?" Given the risks and institutional barriers, why and how do people mobilize for justice in states with rampant impunity and weak rule of law?

In Bootstrap Justice, Janice Gallagher leverages over a decade of ethnographic research to explain what enables the sustained mobilization of family members of the disappeared and analyze how configurations of political power between state and criminal actors shape what is possible for them to achieve. She follows three families from before the disappearance of their loved ones through their transformations into sophisticated and strategic victim advocates and activists. Gallagher supplements these individual narratives with an analysis of the evolving political opportunities for mobilization within Mexico.

By centering the perspectives of people whose lives have been upended by the disappearance of their loved ones, Bootstrap Justice offers a unique window into how citizens respond to weak and corrupt institutions. Gallagher focuses on the overlooked role of informal relationships and dynamics in shaping substantive legal and human rights outcomes and highlights how pioneering independent and creative work-arounds can compensate for state inaction. While top-down efforts, such as judicial reforms, technical assistance, and changes in political leadership are important parts of addressing impunity, policymakers and scholars alike have much to learn from the bottom-up--and by following the path that citizens themselves have worn within the labyrinth of state judicial bureaucracies.

Janice K. Gallagher is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, and during AY 2021-22, she is a Democracy Visiting Faculty Fellow at Harvard University's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Gallagher specializes in comparative politics with a focus on state-society relations and human rights in Latin America. Her research includes extensive fieldwork in Mexico and Colombia, and she has previously worked as a human rights accompanier in Colombia.