Armed Actors and Governance in Latin American and the Caribbean - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Armed Actors and Governance in Latin American and the Caribbean Enrique Desmond Arias Associate Professor School of Public Policy George Mason University

Context, Data, and Methods • Crime in Latin America – 27.5 Homicides per 100,000 Inhabitants compared to 1.0 in Western Europe and 6.9 in North America – Across Latin America approximately 50% of citizens would support a military coup under high crime conditions • State Failure and Disjunctive Democracy – Generalized or Linear Conditions of Disorder or Difference – Teleological, Based in Idealized Norms • Democratic Governance • Liberal Democracy – Rule of Law Reforms – No Concrete Picture of Governance Processes on the Ground and their Impact on Wider Politics

Crime and Governance in Latin America Plural Governance • Governance Emerges as a Result of Contacts between Armed Actors and State – These Systems are Socially, Economically, and Politically Embedded – Different Types of Localized Armed Dominance Generate Varying Forms of Governance at the Local – Level These System Have Different Effects in Terms of the Freedoms they Afford to Local Residents – Few Linear Relationships – Interferes with standard ways of understanding policy development and implementation – Key Theoretical Puzzle: Governance Failure or Alternative Forms of Governance? • Three Country, Six Neighborhood Study • Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Rocinha; Rio das Pedras • Medellin, Colombia – Comuna 1; Comuna 13 • Kingston, Jamaica – Denham Town; Hampstead Park-Back Bush • Approximately 250 qualitative interviews and participant of observation research •

Forms of Local Political Criminal Organization III: Consolidated II: Shared Criminal Criminal Dominance / Civic Leadership Degree of Criminal Consolidation IV: Diffuse Criminal I: Criminal Disorder Dominance Proximity to State or Counter- State

Organizational Structure in Case Study Sites Dehman Rocinha Town Rio das Pedras III II Comuna Degree of Armed 1 Consolidation Back Bush I Comuna IV 13 Orientation of Local Armed Actors to External Armed Actors

Local Political Regimes Security Movement Organizations Speech Elections Governance Quadrant I: Highly Free but Open and Fair but State Led but Divided Highly Restricted by Encumbered by Possibly Highly Violent Largely Free Constrained by Contention— Open Gunfire Ongoing Open Constrained by Violence Comuna 13 Conflict Public Violence State Led, Restricted by Moderately Free Mostly Open but Constrained by Quadrant II: Moderately Occasional Violence but Often Occasionally Occasional Consolidated Co- Moderately Free Violent and Armed Efforts to Pressured by Armed Actors Violence, Armed Existence--Rocinha Dominate Space Armed Actors Intervene Actors Seek to Control and Benefit Quadrant III: Consolidated Low Violence with Armed Actor Led Rare Major Free and Mostly Controlled Dominance— Highly Controlled Tightly Controlled with State Seeking Denham Town, Rio Interventions by Unencumbered by Armed Actors to Moderate das Pedras, State Comuna 1 Quadrant IV: Restricted by Limited Freedom Divided Occasional Violence but Must Build State Led in Moderately Dominance—Back and Sub-Area Consensus Among Moderately Free Mostly Controlled Cooperation with Violent Bush Control by Different Armed Actors to Armed Actors Groups Mobilize

Policy Development and Implementation Process: State-Society Perspective Embedded Autonomy • – Ostrom; Evans; Tendler; Johnson; Migdal and Collaborators; Davis Interaction between State and Society Key in Effectively Implementing • Policies – State develops policies in collaboration with social actors; works with actors in implementing policies – Where this occurs you get more effective policies and mutually reinforcing legitimacy What happens when criminals dominate territory? • – Can work with, supplant, or compete with both state and social actors – Local system of criminal governance shapes how localized policies are developed and implemented and who benefits from them.

Nature of Local Advocacy Role of State Role of Armed Actors Beneficiaries of Policies Notes Structure Local civic groups Government may need Key actors in Conflict and divided central to advocacy Public; state and civic to deploy force or Quadrant I: Criminal development and structure prevent limit with state and in institutions accrue negotiate truce to Disorder—Comuna 13 implementation of ability to interfere in supporting legitimacy implement certain Policy policy implementation programs Triple Advocacy Structure: Civic Actors Many relationships State gains some Negotiate with State; and the dynamics of legitimacy; criminals gain Criminal Actors advocacy are often some legitimacy; Initiates some policies, Quadrant II: Shared sometimes work clandestine; state Initiates most policies seeks to control residents gain access to Leadership—Rocinha through civic actors; many need armed elements of state policy resources but may have and residents presence to ensure to work with criminals to sometimes make peaceful gain some benefits demands directly of implementation armed actors Criminals negotiate Criminals and those tied Quadrant III: directly with the state to criminals; state State plays secondary State plays role but Consolidated Criminals dominate and hold state office; legitimacy derives from role in policy armed groups have Dominance—Denham policy making and civic groups need criminal legitimacy; implementation and initiative’; generally Town, Rio das Pedras, implementation process criminal permission to residents benefit development little conflict Comuna 1 operate and advocate through relationships in the area with criminals Key here is distribution of goods; criminals Criminals are key local Quadrant IV: Divided Criminals may help to have little power but State plays central role interlocutors through Residents; criminals and Dominance—Back develop policy or offer state needs to be in developing and they have no more state actors tend to Bush assistance in aware of underlying advancing policies power than civic groups jointly accrue legitimacy implementation conflicts and how would ordinarily policies can exacerbate them

Organizational Structure in Case Study Sites Dehman Rocinha Town Rio das Pedras III II Comuna Degree of Armed 1 Consolidation Back Bush I Comuna IV 13 Orientation of Local Armed Actors to External Armed Actors

City Variance of Criminal Organizations Rio de Janeiro Kingston III II Degree of Armed Consolidation I IV Orientation of Local Armed Actors to External Armed Actors

Paths of Armed Governance Degree of Criminal Consolidation Orientation of Local Armed Actors to External Armed Actors

Territorial Recovery Political Criminal Investigations Investigations and Oversight Medellin: RIo: Orion CPI das Rio: UPPs Milícias Community Building II III State Building and and Citizen Participation Refrom Colombia: Plan Cuadrantes Belo Horizonte: Kingston: Fica Vivo PMI São Paulo, Diadema, Bogota Medellin: 2003 Onwards I IV Criminological Peace Social Integration and Capillary State Interventions Building Building

Key Policy Questions • Implemented in contexts of local non-state armed power many policies have the tendency of strengthening armed groups – Importance of reform minded government and actors knowing the terrain they are working on • Connections of these groups into political system often slow or prevent reforms • Need to capillary state building

Thank You • E-mail: earias2@gmail.com • Phone: +1.212.235.8195

In your opinion would a military take-over be justified when there is high crime? Rio das Pedras Rocinha • Yes: 40% • Yes: 18% • No: 44% • No: 69% • DK: 16% • DK: 13%

In your opinion would a military take- over be justified when there is high unemployment? Comuna 1 Comuna 13 • Si: 35% • Si: 48% • No: 62% • No: 52% • NS: 3%

1: An unemployed individual is the brother-in-law of an important politician, and the politician uses his influence to get his brother-in-law a job. Do you think the politician is corrupt and should be punished, corrupt but justified, not corrupt? Denham Town Back Bush • Corrupt and Should be • Corrupt and Should be Punished: Punished: – 30 – 33 • Corrupt but Justified: • Corrupt but Justified: – 23 – 42 • Not Corrupt: • Not Corrupt: – 44 – 24

A person should feel free to live one's own life in one's own way, without worrying too much about how others might be affected. How much do you agree or disagree? 1 Strongly Disagree – 7 Strongly Agree Denham Town Back Bush • Disagree (1-3): • Disagree (1-3): – 33% – 21% • Neither Agree nor Disagree • Neither Agree nor Disagree (4): (4): – 6% – 8% • Agree (5-7): • Agree (5-7): – 60% – 67%