The Impact of Armed Groups on Civilians

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel explores the impact of violent state and non-state actors on citizens across Latin America, specifically Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela. It examines how people are affected by and respond to the presence of gangs, drug cartels, rebels, paramilitary and rebel groups as well as military and police forces in their territory. In both rural and urban areas, these actors generate (drug-related) violence, terror and social control, yet also assume governance functions. We discuss how citizens suffer, adapt to or resist these dynamics, and in which instances they decide to support the armed groups.

Sub Track

• Defense, Violence, and (In)security

Chair

• Reynaldo T Rojo Mendoza, University of Pittsburgh

Individual Presentations

• Support for Torture. Experimental Evidence from the Mexican War on Drugs - Francisco Javier Osorio Zago, John Jay College, CUNY

• Drugs, Oil, and Insurgency in Colombia - Susan V Norman, College of William and Mary

• Fragile Alliances among Violent Non-State Actors: Violence, Fear and Uncertainty in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela - Annette I Idler, Oxford University

• Monopolies of Violence: Gang Governance in Rio de Janeiro - Nicholas Barnes, University of Wisconsin/Madison

• Policing and the Construction of “Micro-Citizenships” in Vulnerable Communities - Yanilda M Gonzalez, Harvard University

Discussant

• Angelica Duran Martinez, University of Massachusetts-Lowell