Criminal Governance in Contexts of Relative State Strength

• In Event: The Intersection of Gender, Criminal Violence, and Politics in Latin America

Abstract

Many countries experience the presence of criminal organizations with different degrees of territorial control. In some cases, these organizations develop governance strategies--de facto control over different aspects of social, economic and political life in the territories where they operate. Studies of criminal governance in Latin America assume relative state weakness as an important factor behind the growth and entrenchment of criminal organizations. We build on recent research that challenges this assumption and argue that in Uruguay, a case of relative state strength, criminal governance takes on a particular form: it is circumscribed to the control of illicit markets, as opposed to other spheres of social life. To build our argument, the project employs a mixed-methods design, combining in-depth interviews with community leaders, members of NGOs, state and local authorities, and an extensive public opinion survey (the first of its kind) containing network scale-up questions as a mechanism to assess the prevalence of criminal governance at the local level. Our findings provide support for our argument, approximately 15 to 25 % of our respondents have had some experience of criminal governance. We fail to find evidence of criminal governance beyond mechanisms circumscribed to the control of drug markets. We would expect to find similar dynamics in cases similar to Uruguay.

Authors

• Lucia Tiscornia, University College Dublin

• Verónica Pérez Bentancur, Universidad de la República

• Ines Fynn, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

• Gustavo Diaz, McMaster University