Violent Democracies in Latin America. Edited by Enrique Desmond Arias and Daniel M. Goldstein

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 892-893
Author(s):  
Steven L. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
The State ◽  
Urban Violence ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Drug Cartels

It is impossible to look at contemporary Latin America and not be struck by the prevalence of violence, whether in the form of drug cartels in Mexico, criminal gangs in Central America, the long-term conflict in Colombia, or urban violence in Brazil. Further, the headliners of violence from these locations obscure a more complex set of interactions that include not just traditional criminal elements but also various social actors and the state itself. This plural violence in the region is the focus of Violent Democracies in Latin America, the volume edited by Enrique Desmond Arias and Daniel M. Goldstein.

Fear and Loathing in Central America

2020 ◽  
pp. 295-306
Author(s):  
Russell Crandall
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
The State ◽  
Drug Trade ◽  
Economic Action ◽  
Criminal Organizations ◽  
The World

This chapter begins with Nils Gilman's seminal essay “The Twin Insurgency,” stating that gangs aim to carve out de facto zones of autonomy for themselves by crippling the state's ability to constrain their freedom of economic action. It talks about gangsters in Latin America that took advantage of the vulnerability of the states they operated in to such a degree that they frequently became shadow powers. It also details how gangs terrorized their host societies, using corruption, extortion, and bullets as their weapons of choice. The chapter cites the statistics that emphasized that the most violent cities in the world were in Latin America, clarifying that the statistics were a result of the impunity enjoyed by the region's criminal organizations, primarily those with ties to the illicit drug trade. It discusses how drug gangs often served as the de facto administrator of social services in slums, where the state failed to provide much of anything.

British Long-Term Investment in Latin America, 1865-1913

1968 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irving Stone
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
World War I ◽  
Central America ◽  
Early Period ◽  
World War

Following a review of the early period of British investment in Latin America (1822–1865) and a discussion of previous estimates of British capital exports to South and Central America before World War I, Professor Stone presents new and revised data concerning the composition and distribution of British holdings by amount, industry, and region.

Territorial gangs and their consequences for humanitarian players

2010 ◽  
Vol 92 (878) ◽  
pp. 387-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Bangerter
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
Urban Violence ◽  
Education Services ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Humanitarian Organizations ◽  
The People ◽  
Per Se

AbstractTerritorial gangs are among today's main perpetrators of urban violence, affecting the lives of millions of other people. They try to gain control of a territory in which they then oversee all criminal activities and/or ‘protect’ the people.Such gangs are found to differing degrees on every continent, although those given the most media attention operate in Central America. The violence that they cause has a major impact on the population in general and on their members' families, as well as on the members themselves.Humanitarian organizations may find themselves having to deal with territorial gangs in the course of their ‘normal’ activities in a gang's area, but also when the humanitarian needs per se of people controlled by a gang justify action.This article looks at some courses of action that may be taken by humanitarian agencies in an environment of this nature: dialogue with the gangs (including how to create a degree of trust), education, services, and dialogue on fundamental issues. Such action only makes sense over the medium to long term; it may have a very positive impact but only allows the symptoms of a deep-seated problem to be treated.

Islam, Law, and the State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominik M. Müller
Keyword(s):  
Legal Pluralism ◽  
The State ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Corporate Workplace ◽  
New Directions

In the ever-growing corpus of anthropological scholarship addressing Islam and Muslim lifeworlds, comparably few studies centre on the intersections of Islam, law, and state power. This chapter begins with an introduction to some classical legal anthropological works that were influential in fields such as Islamic courtroom ethnography, disputing, and legal pluralism and that reflected on positivistic reconfigurations of the sharia caused by (post)colonial forces, most of which were not overly interested in the state as a core object of empirical and analytic enquiry. The chapter then shifts attention to more recent works that have opened up new directions and dealt increasingly with Islam’s intricate and contingent relationships with law, the state, and wider legal politics in specific contextual settings, factoring in overlapping sovereignties such as marketization in the religious and political field. These studies address, for example, the (trans)formation of sharia norms in corporate workplace settings, halal politics and related state-market dynamics, and the societal workings of state attempts to govern and bureaucratize Islam. They derive their strength from long-term ethnographic endeavours that follow social actors into spheres where they render the sharia meaningful, often in ways that would not immediately be associated with law or legal studies as a result of European-rooted secular distinctions. These and other emerging fields offer sociolegal scholars a range of timely and often understudied avenues for future research that could potentially hold significance for broad readerships within and beyond anthropology and sociolegal studies.

Power Projects and Covid-19: A Practical Analysis of the Relevance of Force Majeure Clauses under the Standardised Power Purchase and Implementation Agreements of Uganda

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-193
Author(s):  
Aisha Naiga ◽  
Loyola Rwabose Karobwa
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
The State ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Force Majeure ◽  
Practical Analysis ◽  
Energy Justice

Over 90% of Uganda's power is generated from renewable sources. Standardised Implementation Agreements and Power Purchase Agreements create a long-term relationship between Generating Companies and the state-owned off-taker guaranteed by Government. The COVID-19 pandemic and measures to curb the spread of the virus have triggered the scrutiny and application of force majeure (FM) clauses in these agreements. This article reviews the FM clauses and considers their relevance. The authors submit that FM clauses are a useful commercial tool for achieving energy justice by ensuring the continuity of the project, despite the dire effects of the pandemic. Proposals are made for practical considerations for a post-COVID-19 future which provides the continued pursuit of policy goals of promoting renewable energy sources and increasing access to clean energy, thus accelerating just energy transitions.

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