Violent Nonstate Actors and the Emergence of Hybrid Governance in South America

Abstract

In several Latin American countries, social violence has risen to warlike levels. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to the extent of social violence and the new (informal) forms of governance generated by the so-called violent nonstate actors (VNSAs). Where a state's forces fail to provide for the physical protection and social security of its citizens, some areas are governed by a mix of formal (vertical) and informal (horizontal) forms of governance, mixing state and nonstate actors. In these socially bounded spaces, nonstate actors produce and distribute public goods similarly as the state does. In this article, we explore how hybrid governance has appeared in the South American region, considering the operation of two regional VNSAs, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) in Brazil and the Bandas Criminales (BACRIM) in Colombia. We show that such VNSAs are significant agents for security governance, as they challenge preconceived notions of state authority (legitimacy). Em várias nações latino-americanas, a violência social atingiu níveis semelhantes aos da guerra. No entanto, pouca atenção tem sido dada à extensão da violência social e às novas formas (informais) de governança geradas pelos chamados atores não-estatais violentos (VNSAs). Onde os estados falham em prover a proteção física e a segurança social de seus cidadãos algumas áreas são governadas por uma mistura de formas de governança formal (vertical) e informal (horizontal), misturando atores estatais e não estatais. Nesses espaços socialmente delimitados, atores não-estatais produzem e distribuem bens públicos de forma semelhante ao Estado. Neste artigo, propomos explorar como a governança híbrida apareceu na região da América do Sul, considerando as operações de dois VNSAs regionais, o Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) no Brasil e as Bandas Criminais (BACRIM) na Colômbia. Mostramos que tais VNSAs são agentes significativos para compreender a governança securitária na região, visto que desafiam noções preconcebidas sobre a autoridade estatal (legitimidade).

Ruling Violently

“…Rather, they can build a new kind of "social sovereignty" that renders them capable of structuring "practices and agency in a given area of social life" (Latham, 2000: p. 3). This type of sovereignty undermines states' authority over the people through deeply ingrained, yet informal modes of governance, often also alienating the state from the citizenry (Lilyblad, 2015;Villa, Braga and Ferreira, 2021;Zizumbo-Colunga, 2019;Ferreira and Richmond, 2021).…”

“…Building on a conceptual framework drawn from the emerging literature on criminal governance (Alda Mejías, 2021;Arias, 2017;Lessing, 2020;Ferreira & Richmond, 2021;Sampó, 2021;Villa et al, 2021), we enquire into two broad mechanisms by which criminal organizations establish control: coercion and legitimacy. Coercion refers to the threat or the actual use of violence to accomplish the organization's goals.…”

Enablers of Cocaine Trafficking: Evidence of the State-Crime Nexus from Contemporary Honduras

“…One of the difficulties surrounding the conceptualisation of the state as a sovereign territorial entity still concerns the qualities that this should have. For the purpose of the article, I identify state sovereignty as the state's ability to hold the monopoly over legitimate means of violence (Williams 2002), to control actors and activities across its borders (Thomson 1995); and the recognition by internal and external actors of state institutions as legitimate political authorities (Duarte et al 2021). Recent works have, however, underlined the need to overcome such theories in the light of global interdependencies in governance, technology and economic activity, and of the different actors that can exert forms of authority on a certain territory.…”

Delegation, Sponsorship, and Autonomy: An Integrated Framework for Understanding Armed Group–State Relationships

“…30 Autonomous armed groups are those either (1) fully independent of state influence, (2) lacking relationships with states other than potentially fighting them, and/or (3) entering into relationships with weak states compared to which they have greater or symmetrical power in their areas of operations. In many parts of Latin American countries (Duran-Martinez 2015;Villa, Braga, and Ferreira 2021) or in Russia (Stephenson 2017), for instance, gangs or criminal organizations have equal or greater power and control compared to the state, and may engage in varying cooperative, co-optive, or conflictual relationships with state actors-or they may even be left to their own devices in areas where the state is unwilling to or uninterested in projecting power. 31 An armed group-state alliance, as with an interstate alliance, may lead one or both actors to lose autonomy by being "chain-ganged" (e.g., Snyder 1997) into a conflict they would otherwise have avoided, and so stronger states are only likely to ally with armed groups over which they can exercise significant leverage in a delegation relationship.…”