Crime & Drugs

Despite media hoopla, cross-border crime -- illegal drugs sales, evasion of taxes, intellectual property theft, and money laundering -- is hardly a new phenomenon. For much of history, moreover, the United States was as much perpetrator as victim. Recognizing this awkward truth should help cool down overheated debates about today’s transnational problems and how to respond to them.

At first, Mexico's recent presidential election looked unpromising: the PRI, the country's long-dominant party, crept back into office, but with only 38 percent of the vote and no majority in Congress. Yet the campaign revealed just how much Mexicans actually agree on, and the new government is likely to pass long-overdue reforms.

The link between crime and the state is neither as new nor as scary as Moisés Naím depicted it, argues Peter Andreas; after all, criminals have been corrupting governments for centuries. Naím responds that mafia states are unprecedented and worrisome.

Hollywood representations of the mob often paint gangsters' stories as dark but familiar versions of the American dream: the outsider's acquisition of wealth and respect. Such whitewashes make for terrible history, but as HBO's Nucky Thompson would say, "never let truth get in the way of a good story.