MILITARY COLLABORATION WITH THE BORDER PATROL IN THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER REGION: INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS IMPLICATIONS.

EL Paso (Tex.); TEXAS; UNITED States

This article focuses on the inter-organizational collaboration between the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. armed forces. The conceptual focus draws on complex organization theory. The realm of inter-organizational relations coincides with what "new institutionalism" scholars term an "organizational field," which is an array of complex organizations working on the same or similar topics that interact and basically constitute a sort of organizational peer group. Moreover, members of an organizational field tend to become similar to each other, in part due to pressure from other organizations. That is, within the surrounding environment to which organizations adapt — a general proposition of both organizational ecology and the "old institutionalism" perspectives — a crucial part is actually other organizations. The principal methodology used for this research was the broader case study approach which combines the use of multiple qualitative methods and data sources. Specifically, the study draw upon military documents, military journals, border region press, congressional documents, qualitative interviews and author's observations based on four years of fieldwork in the El Paso, Texas.