Resisting Extortion: A Comparative Perspective from Latin America

• In Event: Comparative Perspectives on Responses to Crime and Insecurity

Abstract

Across the developing world people experience organized crime not through spectacular acts of violence but instead through the everyday victimization associated with criminal extortion. Victims in contexts where the state is unable or unwilling to uphold the rule of law are popularly depicted as helpless in the face of powerful criminal actors. This paper challenges the conventional view by showing that even under such difficult circumstances victims resist criminal extortion in surprisingly different ways, including quiet everyday resistance, periodic acts of violence in tandem with elements of the state, and collective armed violence that targets both criminals and state actors. Why do victims that face similar forms of criminal victimization resist in such different ways? I find that the intersection between the organizational cohesion of victims and whether the police are autonomous from criminal actors shapes the strategy of resistance available to victims. I argue that the intersection between these factors helps to account for variation in the structure, practices and sustainability of distinct strategies of resistance. Drawing on fieldwork in Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico, this paper marshals ethnographic data from interviews, focus groups and participatory drawing exercises to help explain why victims pursue such contrasting strategies of resistance to criminal extortion. The findings build on and extend the literatures on criminal politics, violence and state-society relations.

Author

• Eduardo Moncada, Barnard College, Columbia University