Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T13:04:14.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Killing in the Slums: Social Order, Criminal Governance, and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2020

BEATRIZ MAGALONI Open the ORCID record for BEATRIZ MAGALONI [Opens in a new window] ,
EDGAR FRANCO-VIVANCO Open the ORCID record for EDGAR FRANCO-VIVANCO [Opens in a new window]  and
VANESSA MELO Open the ORCID record for VANESSA MELO [Opens in a new window]
BEATRIZ MAGALONI*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
EDGAR FRANCO-VIVANCO*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
VANESSA MELO*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
*
*Beatriz Magaloni, Professor, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, [email protected].
†Edgar Franco-Vivanco, NCID postdoctoral fellow and MIDAS fellow, University of Michigan, [email protected].
‡Vanessa Melo, Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

State interventions against organized criminal groups (OCGs) sometimes work to improve security, but often exacerbate violence. To understand why, this article offers a theory about criminal governance in five types of criminal regimes—Insurgent, Bandit, Symbiotic, Predatory, and Split. These differ according to whether criminal groups confront or collude with state actors, abuse or cooperate with the community, and hold a monopoly or contest territory with rival OCGs. Police interventions in these criminal regimes pose different challenges and are associated with markedly different local security outcomes. We provide evidence of this theory by using a multimethod research design combining quasi-experimental statistical analyses, automated text analysis, extensive qualitative research, and a large-N survey in the context of Rio de Janeiro’s “Pacifying Police Units” (UPPs), which sought to reclaim control of the favelas from criminal organizations.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 114 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , pp. 552 - 572
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2020 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank residents of Rio’s favelas, whose identity will be kept anonymous, for trusting us to share their experiences. We also thank Mayor Leonardo Nogueira, Colonel Paulo Henrique, Secretary Mariano Beltrame, Colonel Alexandre Leite, Captain Luis Augusto, Terine Husek Coelho, Jose Luiz de Souza Lima, Jailson de Souza, Eliana Souza, Mariluce Mariá de Souza, Cleber Araújo dos Santos, and Marcus Faustini. We thank comments from Robert Blair, Carles Boix, Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, Jonathan Furszyfer, Dorothy Kronick, Horacio Larreguy, Jonathan Mummolo, Luis Rodriguez, Gustavo Robles, Sarah Thomson, Harold Trinkunas, Cesar Vargas, and Alice Wang. We thank the Military Police, the Secretary of Security, and Disque Denuncia for sharing valuable data with us. We thank Veriene Melo, who conducted many interviews with us, and Stephanie Giménez, who facilitated initial exploratory work. We acknowledge Stanford’s Global Development Project and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences for financial support. Replication files are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/7PZHF6.

References

REFERENCES

Amorim, Carlos. 1993. Comando Vermelho. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record.Google Scholar
Amorim, Carlos. 2003. CV-PCC: A Irmandade Do Crime. São Paulo: Editora Record.Google Scholar
Arias, Enrique Desmond. 2017. Criminal Enterprises and Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arias, Enrique Desmond, and Rodrigues, Corinne Davis. 2006. “The Myth of Personal Security: Criminal Gangs, Dispute Resolution, and Identity in Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas.” Latin American Politics and Society 48 (4): 53–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arjona, Ana. 2017. “Civilian Cooperation and Non-Cooperation with Non-State Armed Groups: The Centrality of Obedience and Resistance.” Small Wars and Insurgencies 28 (4–5): 755–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, John, and Dammert, Lucía. 2005. Public Security and Police Reform in the Americas. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Barnes, Nicholas. 2017. “Criminal Politics: An Integrated Approach to the Study of Organized Crime, Politics, and Violence.” Perspectives on Politics 15 (4): 967–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beltrame, José Mariano. 2014. Todo Dia É Segunda-Feira. Rio de Janeiro: Sextante.Google Scholar
Brinks, Daniel M. 2007. The Judicial Response to Police Killings in Latin America: Inequality and the Rule of Law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calderón, Gabriela, Robles, Gustavo, Díaz-Cayeros, Alberto, and Magaloni, Beatriz. 2015. “The Beheading of Criminal Organizations and the Dynamics of Violence in Mexico.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59 (8): 1455–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cano, Ignacio. 2013. “7.1 Violence and Organized Crime in Brazil: The Case of “Militias” in Rio de Janeiro.” In Transnational Organized Crime, eds. Stiftung, Heinrich-Böll and Schönenberg, Regine. Kordula Röckenhaus: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Bielefeld, 179–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
da Silva Lima, William. 2001. Quatrocentos contra um: uma história do Comando Vermelho. Rio de Janeiro: Labortexto Editorial.Google Scholar
Dammert, Lucía, and Malone, Mary Fran T.. 2006. “Does it Take a Village? Policing Strategies and Fear of Crime in Latin America.” Latin American Politics and Society 48 (4): 27–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Paula, Luciana Araujo. 2015. “The ‘Grey Zones’ of Democracy in Brazil: The ‘Militia’ Phenomenon and Contemporary Security Issues in Rio de Janeiro.” Justice spatiale—Spatial justice, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, UMR LAVUE 7218, Laboratoire Mosaïques, Authoritarian spaces, (un)just spaces? 8, http://www.jssj.org/article/les-zones-grises-de-la-democratie-bresilienne-lephenomene-des-milices-et-les-enjeux-securitaires-contemporains-a-rio-de-janeiro/. ffhalshs-01508806f.Google Scholar
Dell, Melissa. 2015. “Trafficking Networks and the Mexican Drug War.” The American Economic Review 105 (6): 1738–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dowdney, Luke. 2005. Neither War Nor Peace. International Comparisons of Children and Youth in Organized Armed Violence. Rio de Janeiro: Viva Rio ISER (Instituto de Estudos da Religião) IANSA (International Action Network on Small Arms).Google Scholar
Dube, Oeindrila, and Naidu, Suresh. 2015. “Bases, Bullets, and Ballots: The Effect of US Military Aid on Political Conflict in Colombia.” The Journal of Politics 77 (1): 249–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durán-Martínez, Angelica. 2015. “To Kill and Tell? State Power, Criminal Competition, and Drug Violence.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59 (8): 1377–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frühling, Hugo. 2007. “The Impact of International Models of Policing in Latin America: The Case of Community Policing.” Police Practice and Research 8 (2): 125–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gambetta, Diego. 1996. The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Glenny, Misha. 2015. Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio. House of Anansi.Google Scholar
Grimmer, Justin, and Stewart, Brandon M.. 2013. “Text as Data: The Promise and Pitfalls of Automatic Content Analysis Methods for Political Texts.” Political Analysis 21 (3): 267–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haugen, Gary A., and Boutros, Victor. 2015. The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hidalgo, Daniel, and Lessing, Benjamin. 2015. “Endogenous State Weakness in Violent Democracies: Paramilitaries at the Polls.” In Working Papers, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge, MA: Google Scholar Article Location.Google Scholar
Holston, James. 2009. Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hough, Mike, Jackson, Jonathan, Bradford, Ben, Myhill, Andy, and Quinton, Paul. 2010. “Procedural justice, trust, and institutional legitimacy.” Policing: a journal of policy and practice 4 (3): 203–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jentzsch, Corinna, Kalyvas, Stathis N., and Schubiger, Livia Isabella. 2015. “Militias in Civil Wars.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59 (5): 755–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Killebrew, Robert. 2011. “Criminal Insurgency in the Americas and beyond.” Prism 2 (3): 33–52.Google Scholar
Lessing, Benjamin. 2015. “Logics of Violence in Criminal War.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59 (8): 1486–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lessing, Benjamin, and Willis, Graham Denyer. 2019. “Legitimacy in Criminal Governance: Managing a Drug empire from behind Bars.” American Political Science Review 113 (2): 584–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyall, Jason. 2010. “Are Coethnics More Effective Counterinsurgents? Evidence from the Second Chechen War.” American Political Science Review 104 (1): 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz, Robles, Gustavo, M. Matanock, Aila, Diaz-Cayeros, Alberto, and Romero, Vidal. 2019. “Living in Fear: The Dynamics of Extortion in Mexico's Drug War.” Comparative Political Studies Published online October 29, 2019. doi: 10.1177/0010414019879958.Google Scholar
Mampilly, Zachariah Cherian. 2011. Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Metelits, Claire M. 2009. “The Consequences of Rivalry: Explaining Insurgent Violence Using Fuzzy Sets.” Political Research Quarterly 62 (4): 673–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miraglia, Paula. 2015. Drugs and Drug Trafficking in Brazil: Trends and Policies. Washington, DC: Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence Latin America Initiative.Google Scholar
Moncada, Eduardo. 2013a. “Business and the Politics of Urban Violence in Colombia.” Studies in Comparative International Development 48 (3): 308–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moncada, Eduardo. 2013b. “The Politics of Urban Violence: Challenges for Development in the Global South.” Studies in Comparative International Development 48 (3): 217–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1993. “Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development.” American Political Science Review 87 (3): 567–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penglase, Ben. 2008. “The Bastard Child of the Dictatorship: The Comando Vermelho and the Birth of ‘Narco-Culture’ in Rio de Janeiro.” Luso-Brazilian Review 45 (1): 118–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perlman, Janice E. 2005. “The Myth of Marginality Revisited: The Case of Favelas in Rio de Janeiro.” In Becoming Global and the New Poverty of Cities. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Popkin, Samuel L. 1979. The Rational Peasant. California: Berkeley University Press.Google Scholar
Riccio, Vicente, Ruediger, Marco Aurélio, Ross, Steven Dutt, and Skogan, Wesley. 2013. “Community Policing in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro.” Police Practice and Research 14 (4): 308–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, Richard, and Durán-Martínez, Angelica. 2009. “Does Illegality Breed Violence? Drug Trafficking and State-Sponsored Protection Rackets.” Crime, Law and Social Change 52 (3): 253–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sousa Silva, Eliana. 2012. Testemunhos da Mare. Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano.Google Scholar
Staniland, Paul. 2012. “States, Insurgents, and Wartime Political Orders.” Perspectives on Politics 10 (2): 243–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, John P. 2000. “Urban Gangs Evolving as Criminal Netwar Actors.” Small Wars and Insurgencies 11 (1): 82–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trejo, Guillermo, and Ley, Sandra. 2018. “Why Did Drug Cartels Go to War in Mexico?” Comparative Political Studies 51 (7): 900–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 1988. “What Is Procedural Justice? Criteria Used by Citizens to Assess the Fairness of Legal Procedures.” Law & Society Review, 103–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Magaloni et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/7PZHF6
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Magaloni et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Magaloni et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 4.9 MB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.