Crime and Politics: The Militias in Rio de Janeiro as Actors of the Electoral Process

• In Event: Subnational Electoral Politics and Policymaking

Abstract

Social violence in Latin America has shown different experiences of non-state armed groups (paramilitaries, guerrillas or drug traffickers) who exercise power over certain territories for economic and political purposes (BARRERA, ARANA y ROSERO (Ed). Conflicto Violencia Política y Sociales en América Latina Bogotá:Clacso, 2007). In all cases, relationships have been developed between these groups and the state apparatus, either by corruption or by the convergence of political interests in the repression of dissident groups. In several Latin American countries (Colombia, Mexico, Brazil) groups, called "self-defense", were formed by armed citizens, police and military, which, on the pretext of ridding communities of the power of traffic, began to exercise an economic and political monopoly over them. In Rio de Janeiro, these groups ("militia"), which emerged in the 2000s, would be in control of 37% of the thousand slums of Rio de Janeiro, installing a kind of “neofeudalism” in the city (REAMES, B.N. 2007. Neofeudal Aspects of Brazil’s Public Security. Comparative Policing, nov., pp.61-95). Unlike traffickers, militias, more organized, developed a political-electoral strategy that involves the election of their leaders as local parliamentarians, as well as supporting other candidates. In the last election (2014), the police drew up a list with 30 names of candidates linked to militias. The available electoral data show an increasing political power of the militias, based on the recreation of "urban electoral corrals" that can either serve as an electoral fief for a militia leadership, or be negotiated (“sold”) with outside candidates. The results demonstrate that in four years militia have become a significant actor in local politics of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Author

• Geraldo T Monteiro, Iuperj/UCAM