How does the municipal administration govern in the midst of violence in Badiraguato, Sinaloa, a municipality considered to be Mexico’s national “cradle of drug trafficking”? One strategy, used by the current administration in Badiraguato, Sinaloa, is to make tourism the main economic objective while inhabitants’ daily movements put them at risk; to make road safety a priority while homicides are a recurring occurrence in daily life; to encourage “social bonding” through development programmes while inhabitants’ main source of income locks them into an economy that is repressed by a different level of the state. This approach of addressing solvable problems is a subtle game, taking the context into account in order to better avoid it and never name it. By relying on programme-based development engineering – and on its depoliticising and decontextualising potential – elected officials and civil servants of Badiraguato are managing to produce an agenda and routine that are impervious to the outbursts of violence that affect the municipality. These practices constitute a mode of government which, by dodging the most prevalent social dynamics, ensures a stable administration in a context of violence and uncertainty.