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148
The Dynamics of Criminal Governance:
Networks and Social Order in
Rio de Janeiro*
ENRIQUE DESMOND ARIAS
Abstract. Academic analyses of crime and policing in Latin America have generally
focused on the failure of state institutions to guarantee a rule of law. This study,
however, argues that the persistently high levels of violence in Rios favelas
[shantytowns] result not from the failure of institutions but, rather, from networks
that bring criminals together with civic leaders, politicians, and police. These
contacts protect trackers from state repression and help them build political
support among the residents of the where they favelas operate. Rather than creating
parallel states outside of political control, then, these networks link tracker
dominated favelas into Rios broader political and social system.
Over recent years drug trackers based in Rio de Janeiros favelas have
attacked government buildings, bombed buses, and successfully ordered
widespread business closings.
1
An outraged press and parts of the academic
establishment have declared in response that parallel powers, authorities,
or states have emerged in the citys favelas.
2
These claims, however, often
Enrique Desmond Arias is Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at John
Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.
* The author would like to thank Leigh Payne, Michael Schatzberg, Richard Merelman, Jay
Krishnan, Robert Gay, Javier Auyero and Mauricio Font for comments that have helped
strengthen this article.
1
On business closings see R. Penglase, The Shutdown of Rio de Janeiro: The Poetics of
Drug Tracker Violence, Anthropology Today, vol. 21, no. 5 (2005), p. 3.
2
Especially see Antonio Werneck, Elenilce Botari, and Gustavo Paiva Goulart, Beira-Mar
negocia ate m ssil, O Globo, 19 June 2002, p. 14; Vera Araujo, As novas granadas do
traco, O Globo, 9 June 2002, p. 17; Vera Araujo, Favelas proibidas aos PMs, O Globo,
23 June 2002, p. 20; Roberto Kant, As favelas passaram de refugios a feudos (Interview),
O Globo, p. 18; Marcos F. Moraes, 7 A nacao invadida, O Globo, 14 June 2002, p. 7; Zuenir
Ventura, O risco da Colombina, O Globo, 22 June 2002, p. Sec. B 12; Ignacio Cano,
O Estado nunca esteve presente, O Globo, 23 June 2002, p. 23; Costa, 19; Maria Velez de
Berliner and Kristin Lado, Brazil : Emerging Drug Superpower, in Transnational Organized
Crime, vol. 1, no. 2 (Summer), 1995, pp. 23960; For a good synopsis of this perspective see
Francisco Alves Filho and Marcos Pernambuco, No Front Inimigo, Istoe (Sao Paulo),
19 June 2002, pp. 2437. The cover of this edition of Istoe carries a picture of a young
masked man with no shirt on carrying a shotgun with a presidential sash in green and
yellow hanging across his chest.
J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 38, 293325 f 2006 Cambridge University Press 293
doi:10.1017/S0022216X06000721 Printed in the United Kingdom
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