Workshop organisé par Arturo Alvarado, chercheur-résident 2020-2021, avec le soutien de l'IEA de Paris.

Présentation

The workshop focuses on the challenges posed by organized criminal organizations for democracy and the governance of cities and countries.

A group of experts on organized crime and urban studies explores the current trends of governing cities and nations from a comparative, international perspective. In particular they analyse how a wide variety of criminal organizations affect the economy, society and governments in many different ways.

In certain regions of the world, criminal groups control territories and cities, influencing political processes. Criminal organizations and their  structures  range from local gangs, mafias or paramilitaries to large-scale transnational criminal associations and similar groups.

Some of these actors use forms of extreme violence and engage in war-like confrontations to control territories. Others tend to enter into ostensibly non-violent arrangements with authorities and political elites, such as conditional agreements or some kind of associations (co- optation, capture).

These criminal actors also interact and affect the composition of civil society both at macro- and micro- territorial levels. This raises the question about the role that other urban and national associations, like churches or NGOs, could play in improving civil society and restoring the rule of law.

The workshop addresses the following questions:

• To what extent have organized criminal organizations eroded the democratic governability of cities and states?

• How do criminal actors transform the government of states and societies?

• What are the responses of different actors (governments, police, illicit agents, citizens) to criminal interventions?

"Criminal Violence and Governance of Cities and Nations"