The Politics of Negotiating with Gangs. The Case of El Salvador

Abstract

This paper explores the dynamics of negotiations between the Salvadoran government and the street gangs, called maras. The paper argues that state negotiations with criminal groups can occur when organized crime is a significant part of the social and political order. This tacit order allows a great deal of coordination between and within criminal organizations and the focus of negotiations from the state's point of view is limited to the management of violence, not the dismantling of gangs' territorial control. This article draws on seventeen in‐depth interviews with middle‐level gang leaders, government officials, and participants of the truce negotiations from 2012 to 2016; it also relies on public information published by Salvadoran journalists and government sources about the truce.

Pandemic Micropolitics in Latin America: Small Business and the Governance of Crisis From Above and Below in El Salvador

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“…This was soon confronted with alternative and contentious non-state approaches to governance “from below' in El Salvador as hybrid political order. Various territories are co-governed by both the State and the three (formerly two) street gangs [ Mara Salvatrucha (MS13), Eighteen Street Gang – Revolucionarios (18R), and the Eighteen Street gang – Sureños (18S)], and other associations that negotiate security and economic arrangements both with the State and the gangs (Bergmann, 2020; Cruz, 2019; Mercado et al, 2021). The relationship between the gangs and the State changed profoundly with the 2012 gang-truce, where the then two main gangs (MS13 and 18) agreed to reduce homicides in exchange for improved conditions in prisons.…”

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“…La tregua de 2012, según los informantes, permitió reorganizar y fortalecer a las pandillas con la complicidad del gobierno, ya que en 2016 se comprobó que ésta, además de ser elaborada por el gobierno, estaba plagada de impunidad y corrupción por parte de los funcionarios involucrados (Cruz 2018;Roque 2017). Algunos informantes corroboran los beneficios y prebendas que dio la tregua para pandilleros y funcionarios.…”