re: What do liberals consider the reason south of border nations are failed states

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How does a violent culture avoid violence?

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Well firstly, you need to let groups win. The reason why Europe has found relative peace was that they had centuries of warfare, from the Hundred Years War onward to WWII, was that there were clear winners and losers. That's an oversimplification, but preventing conflict and letting groups remain who still have claims is almost always going to ensure further violence. For the nation-state system that's been in place since Westphalia, you need to develop nation-states that are mostly organic. After all the coups and juntas in South America, you have had relative peace, and with that the creation of wealth. Brazil, for example, might reach a GDP of 2 trillion in the next five years, and their poverty rate is now below 5%.

But all human cultures have strains of violence, because humans are innately violent, and designing institutions with the belief that they are not violent is a surefire way to ensure more violence. I'd argue that ending the Drug War, with the effects it has had on the Northern Triangle, is important for ending endemic, organized violence in Central America.