Politics and Violence in Central America and the Caribbean
Politics and Violence in Central America and the Caribbean

Author: Hannes Warnecke-Berger

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-05-23

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 3319897829

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This book develops a comparative study on violence in Jamaica, El Salvador, and Belize based on a theoretical approach, extensive field research, and in-depth empirical research. It combines the Caribbean and Central America into a single comparative research that explores the historical (from the conquista onwards) as well as contemporary causes of violence in these societies. The volume focuses on forms of violence such as gang violence, police violence, every day forms of violence, vigilantism, and organized crime. The analysis provides a theoretical perspective that bridges political economy as well as cultural approaches in violence research. As such, it will be of interest to readers studying development, violence, political, Central American, and Caribbean studies.

Politics and History of Violence and Crime in Central America
Politics and History of Violence and Crime in Central America

Author: Sebastian Huhn

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-12-24

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 134995067X

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This book highlights historical explanations to and roots of present phenomena of violence, insecurity, and law enforcement in Central America. Violence and crime are among the most discussed topics in Central America today, and sensationalism and fear of crime is as present as the increase of private security, the re-militarization of law enforcement, political populism, and mano dura policies. The contributors to this volume discuss historical forms, paths, continuities, and changes of violence and its public and political discussion in the region. This book thus offers in-depth analysis of different patterns of violence, their reproduction over time, their articulation in the present, and finally their discursive mobilization.

Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean
Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author: Tina Hilgers

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-09-14

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1107193176

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This volume examines violence across Latin America and the Caribbean to demonstrate the importance of subnational analysis over national aggregates.

Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean
Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author: Tina Hilgers

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-09-14

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1108140912

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Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean is no longer perpetrated primarily by states against their citizens, but by a variety of state and non-state actors struggling to control resources, territories, and populations. This book examines violence at the subnational level to illuminate how practices of violence are embedded within subnational configurations of space and clientelistic networks. In societies shaped by centuries of violence and exclusion, inequality and marginalization prevail at the same time that democratization and neoliberalism have decentralized power to regional and local levels, where democratic and authoritarian practices coexist. Within subnational arenas, unique configurations - of historical legacies, economic structures, identities, institutions, actors, and clientelistic networks - result in particular patterns of violence and vulnerability that are often strikingly different from what is portrayed by aggregate national-level statistics. The chapters of this book examine critical cases from across the region, drawing on new primary data collected in the field to analyze how a range of political actors and institutions shape people's lives and to connect structural and physical forms of violence.

The Politics of Violence in Latin America
The Politics of Violence in Latin America

Author: Pablo Policzer

Publisher: Latin American and Caribbean S

Published: 2019-07-15

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 9781552389065

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Latin America is one of the most violent regions in the world. It has suffered waves of repressive authoritarian rule, organized armed insurgency and civil war, violent protest, and ballooning rates of criminal violence. But is violence hard wired into Latin America? This is a critical reassessment of the ways in which violence in Latin America is addressed and understood. Previous approaches have relied on structural perspectives, attributing the problem of violence to Latin America's colonial past or its conflictual contemporary politics. Bringing together scholars and practitioners, this volume argues that violence is often rooted more in contingent outcomes than in deeply embedded structures. Addressing topics ranging from the root sources of violence in Haiti to kidnapping in Colombia, from the role of property rights in patterns of violence to the challenges of peacebuilding, The Politics of Violence in Latin America is an essential step towards understanding the causes and contexts of violence-and changing the mechanisms that produce it.

Violence and Crime in Latin America
Violence and Crime in Latin America

Author: Gema Santamaría

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2017-02-21

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0806158816

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According to media reports, Latin America is one of the most violent regions in the world—a distinction it held throughout the twentieth century. The authors of Violence and Crime in Latin America contend that perceptions and representations of violence and crime directly impact such behaviors, creating profound consequences for the political and social fabric of Latin American nations. Written by distinguished scholars of Latin American history, sociology, anthropology, and political science, the essays in this volume range from Mexico and Argentina to Colombia and Brazil in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, addressing such issues as extralegal violence in Mexico, the myth of indigenous criminality in Guatemala, and governments’ selective blindness to violent crime in Brazil and Jamaica. The authors in this collection examine not only the social construction and political visibility of violence and crime in Latin America, but the justifications for them as well. Analytically and historically, these essays show how Latin American citizens have sanctioned criminal and violent practices and incorporated them into social relations, everyday practices, and institutional settings. At the same time, the authors explore the power struggles that inform distinctions between illegitimate versus legitimate violence. Violence and Crime in Latin America makes a substantive contribution to understanding a key problem facing Latin America today. In its historical depth and ethnographic reach, this original and thought-provoking volume enhances our understanding of crime and violence throughout the Western Hemisphere.

The Politics of Violence in Latin America
The Politics of Violence in Latin America

Author: Pablo Policzer

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781552389096

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"Latin America is one of the most violent regions in the world. It has suffered waves of repressive authoritarian rule, organized armed insurgency and civil war, violent protest, and ballooning rates of criminal violence. But is violence hard wired into Latin America? This is a critical reassessment of the ways in which violence in Latin America is addressed and understood. Previous approaches have relied on structural perspectives, attributing the problem of violence to Latin America’s colonial past or its conflictual contemporary politics. Bringing together scholars and practitioners, this volume argues that violence is often rooted more in contingent outcomes than in deeply embedded structures. Addressing topics ranging from the root sources of violence in Haiti to kidnapping in Colombia, from the role of property rights in patterns of violence to the challenges of peacebuilding, The Politics of Violence in Latin America is an essential step towards understanding the causes and contexts of violence--and changing the mechanisms that produce it."--

Armies without Nations
Armies without Nations

Author: Robert H. Holden

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2004-04-01

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0198036515

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Public violence, a persistent feature of Latin American life since the collapse of Iberian rule in the 1820s, has been especially prominent in Central America. Robert H. Holden shows how public violence shaped the states that have governed Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Linking public violence and patrimonial political cultures, he shows how the early states improvised their authority by bargaining with armed bands or montoneras. Improvisation continued into the twentieth century as the bands were gradually superseded by semi-autonomous national armies, and as new agents of public violence emerged in the form of armed insurgencies and death squads. World War II, Holden argues, set into motion the globalization of public violence. Its most dramatic manifestation in Central America was the surge in U.S. military and police collaboration with the governments of the region, beginning with the Lend-Lease program of the 1940s and continuing through the Cold War. Although the scope of public violence had already been established by the people of the Central American countries, globalization intensified the violence and inhibited attempts to shrink its scope. Drawing on archival research in all five countries as well as in the United States, Holden elaborates the connections among the national, regional, and international dimensions of public violence. Armies Without Nations crosses the borders of Central American, Latin American, and North American history, providing a model for the study of global history and politics. Armies without Nations was a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2005.

Linking Political Violence and Crime in Latin America
Linking Political Violence and Crime in Latin America

Author: Kirsten Howarth

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2016-03-10

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1498507204

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This edited collection explores the politics of crime and violence in Latin America through both theoretical reflections as well as several detailed case studies based on empirical, primary research. Its overall aim is to explore common misperceptions and simplifications which are often found in political discourses, policy documentation, as well as some academic work. These simplifications include a focus on gangs, narrow understandings of organized criminal groups and the knock-on effect that such a focus has on policy making. Instead, the chapters in this book shift the reader’s gaze to more structural explanations and analytical approaches, moving them towards an understanding of how wider historical, economic, cultural and even psychological issues impact the complex relationships between crime, violence, and politics in the region. The detailed case studies also allow for a unique comparative analysis of problems faced throughout the region. While significant differences exist, analysis of the case studies reveals common issues, problems, and debates between countries (including structural violence, militarization, and neo-liberalism). These “golden threads” reveal not only the complexity of crime and violence in the region but also expose the failure of the overly simple “gangsterism” discourse found elsewhere. Finally, and importantly, several of the chapters explore the politics of policy making in relation to these problems, shedding light on the complex reasons for policy failures and highlighting innovative opportunities for change. Whilst shedding light on current problems in the region the book also offers a range of analytical approaches for exploring other cases where crime, violence, and politics collide.

Democratic Politics in Latin America and the Caribbean
Democratic Politics in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author: Jorge I. Domínguez

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780801857522

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"The transformation of politics in Latin America, the consolidation of a democratic consensus in the Anglophone Caribbean, and the able performance of many democratic governments in fashioning economic policies made this book intellectually possible. Most of Latin America's democratic governments have carried economic reforms more effectively than their authoritarian predecessors and have remained stunningly resilient despite many problems. The naysayers have not been proven right. Indeed, even if democratic governments were to be overthrown tomorrow, the history of democratic politics in the 1980s and 1990s is already noteworthy." -- from the Introduction In Democratic Politics in Latin America and the Caribbean, Jorge Domnguez focuses on the successful accomplishments of democratic politics in the region -- a process that nations in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa seek to emulate. Domnguez considers the role of British colonial rule and United States policies. But he also examines the development of parties, other civil institutions, and competitive markets, which lend permanence to democracy. He also discusses the prospects for democracy in Cuba and Mexico. Despite recurrent problems, Domnguez concludes, the outlook is good for stable democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean.