Criminal Governance in Latin America: An Assessment of its Prevalence and Correlates

65 Pages Posted: 23 Dec 2022 Last revised: 11 Apr 2024

See all articles by Andres Uribe

Andres Uribe

University of Chicago - Department of Political Science

Benjamin Lessing

University of Chicago - Department of Political Science

Noah Schouela

University of Chicago - Department of Political Science

Elayne Stecher

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Date Written: December 14, 2022

Abstract

In communities throughout Latin America, criminal organizations provide basic order, as much or more than the state. Although rich, multidisciplinary research on criminal governance has illuminated its dynamics in hundreds of specific settings, a systematic assessment of its prevalence and correlates is lacking. We leverage novel, nationally representative survey data, validated against a compendium of qualitative sources, to estimate country-level prevalence of criminal governance and explore its correlates. Across 18 countries, 14% of respondents reported that local criminal groups provide order and/or reduce crime. Based on this, we conservatively estimate that between 77 and 101 million Latin Americans experience criminal governance today. Counterintuitively, criminal governance is positively correlated with both perceptions of state governance quality and objective measures of local state presence. These descriptive results, demonstrating the pervasiveness of “duopolies of violence”, are consistent with case-specific findings that state presence — rather than absence — drives criminal governance.

Keywords: Criminal governance, state capacity, Latin American politics

JEL Classification: K42, O17, O54, P37

Suggested Citation

Uribe, Andres and Lessing, Benjamin and Schouela, Noah and Stecher, Elayne, Criminal Governance in Latin America: An Assessment of its Prevalence and Correlates (December 14, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4302432 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4302432

Andres Uribe (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Department of Political Science ( email )

1101 East 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

Benjamin Lessing

University of Chicago - Department of Political Science ( email )

Chicago, IL 60637
United States

Noah Schouela

University of Chicago - Department of Political Science ( email )

1101 East 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

Elayne Stecher

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

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