Mini-Conference on Democracy and Organized Crime: Crime-State Symbiosis: New Theories and Evidence

Session Submission Type: Featured Paper Panel: 30-minute Paper Presentations

Part of Mini-Conference

• Mini-Conference on Democracy and Organized Crime

Session Description

Crime--State relations are paradoxical. States define what is "criminal", and usually direct repressive force against it, yet such force can inadvertently strengthen criminal groups. Conversely, some criminal activity--especially criminal governance--may distance the state, while simultaneously benefitting it. Crime--State relations can thus be antagonistic at one level and symbiotic at another. This panel presents new formal theories of symbiosis and novel empirical study of its effects.

Sub Unit

• Division 21: Conflict Processes

Individual Presentations

• Persistent Duopolies of Violence: How the State Gets Drug Gangs to Govern for It - Benjamin Lessing, University of Chicago

• A Model of State-Crime Relations: Crackdown, Collusion, or Omission? - Heesun Yoo, Emory University

• Unfolding State Capture by Legalized Non-state Armed Actors in Colombia - Javier Osorio, University of Arizona; Enrique Desmond Arias, Baruch College, CUNY; Camilo Pardo, George Mason University

Chair

• Benjamin Lessing University of Chicago

Discussants

• Gemma Dipoppa Brown University

• Martin Castillo Quintana University of Chicago

• Dorothy Kronick University of California, Berkeley