Zavala contends that the Mexican state, in coordination with U.S. intelligence and security agencies, invented the modern concept of the "Drug Cartel" as a political tool. According to him, the hyper-violent, decentralized, omnipotent cartels we see in Netflix series and news headlines do not actually operate as business entities. Instead, he argues:
The fluorescent lights of the university library hummed with a monotony that usually lulled Mateo to sleep. But tonight, adrenaline kept his eyes wide open. It was 2:00 AM, three days before his thesis on Mexican narco-literature was due, and he was hitting dead ends everywhere.
"Los cárteles no existen" es una obra del investigador y cineasta mexicano Oswaldo Zavala que cuestiona narrativas dominantes sobre la violencia y el crimen organizado en México. El título propone una hipótesis crítica: la categoría "cártel" como explicación unívoca de la violencia es problemática porque oculta interlocutores estatales, económicos y transnacionales, reduce complejidades sociales a etiquetas mediáticas y legitima respuestas securitarias. El libro combina análisis político, estudios de caso y reflexión sobre representación mediática y cinematográfica.
