Paramilitarism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uğur Ümit Üngör
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Institutional Support ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Global Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
Violence Against Civilians ◽  
Legitimate Violence ◽  
Violent Conflicts

From the deserts of Sudan to the jungles of Colombia, and from the streets of Belfast to the mountains of Kurdistan, paramilitaries have appeared in violent conflicts in very different settings. Paramilitaries are generally depicted as irregular armed organizations that carry out acts of violence against civilians on behalf of a state. In doing so, they undermine the state’s monopoly of legitimate violence, while at the same time creating a breeding ground for criminal activities. Why do governments with functioning police forces and armies use paramilitary groups? This book tackles this question through the prism of the interpenetration of paramilitaries and the state. The book interprets paramilitarism as the ability of the state to successfully outsource mass political violence against civilians that transforms and traumatizes societies. It analyzes how paramilitarism can be understood in a global context, and how paramilitarism is connected to transformations of warfare and state–society relations. By comparing a broad range of cases, it looks at how paramilitarism has made a profound impact in a large number of countries that were different, but nevertheless shared a history of pro-government militia activity. A thorough understanding of paramilitarism can clarify the direction and intensity of violence in wartime and peacetime. The book examines the issues of international involvement, institutional support, organized crime, party politics, and personal ties.

Beyond Istanbul's ‘Laz Underworld’: Ottoman Paramilitarism and the Rise of Turkish Organised Crime, 1908–1950

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
RYAN GINGERAS
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
Drug Trade ◽  
General Survey ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Global Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
Imperial Politics ◽  
Modern Turkey

AbstractAlthough the Turkish mafia is increasingly recognised as a powerful force in the ongoing trade in weapons, narcotics and people in Europe and beyond, there are few critical histories of organised crime's origins in Turkey. Rather than present some pedantic general survey of the history of organized crime in modern Turkey, this essay attempts to address two broader critical points of departure. First, how did Anatolia's journey from imperial to republican rule impact, and how was it impacted by, criminal gangs? Second, how do we situate the experience of modern gangs in Turkey in a global context? In attempting to answer these questions, this paper looks at the development of criminal syndicates among Laz migrants in the greater Istanbul area during the first half of the twentieth century. The case of the Laz shows particularly how war, migration, imperial politics, urbanisation and the rise of the international drug trade shaped the parallel development of organised crime and the nascent Turkish Republic.

Terrorism in Spain

2020 ◽  
pp. 81-99
Author(s):  
Diego Muro
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Terrorist Group ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Intelligence Services ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Violence Against Civilians

Spain has experienced four waves of terrorism during the twentieth century: anarchist, nationalist, left-wing, and religious. This chapter examines the variety and intensity of terrorist incidents of the last two waves, as well as the counter-terrorist efforts since 1975. The argument is structured as follows: First, the chapter accounts for the longevity of the main campaigns of indiscriminate violence against civilians. Second, it evaluates the interaction between the security and intelligence services and the various clandestine groups, and argues that the process of democratization increased the effectiveness of counterterrorism, particularly against ETA. The section further argues that collective security is a relational act that brings two self-interested actors—the state and the terrorist group—into conflict with each other, and that it is not possible to study campaigns of political violence in isolation. Third, the chapter critically assesses the security threat posed by Salafi jihadist cells, which were responsible for the attacks on Madrid (2004) and Barcelona (2017), and examines the ongoing agenda of countering and preventing violent extremism in Spain.

scholarly journals Violence and value in the migratory passage through Central America: The Cadereyta massacre (2012) and the struggle to have the bodies returned

2020 ◽  
pp. 263300242097096
Author(s):  
Sergio Salazar Araya
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
The State ◽  
Dynamic Configuration ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
History Of ◽  
Border Areas ◽  
Migratory Movements ◽  
Circulation Dynamics ◽  
Migratory Corridor

This article shows the relationships laden with violence within the dynamics of cross-border mobility from the history of nine Hondurans and their grieving families. The case occurs in the broader context of the crude contemporary production of the Central America–Mexico migratory corridor, as well as the different forms of conflict that emerge around it. This context is marked by a logic of terror and death that becomes a structuring condition of the contemporary dispute for space, especially in the border areas, among diverse actors that include the state, organized crime, and migratory movements. In this transnational field, the dispute for space, rather than for the control of a perimeter territory, takes place around the control of certain specific circulation dynamics that are vertebral in the regional configuration of the capitalist global model: the movement of people and goods. These complex and dynamic territorialization processes are taking place along with the dynamic configuration of sovereignty, in which the operation of organized crime, migratory mobility, and the processes of formation of the state define a field of power characterized by a logic of war.

Mexico’s Living Dead

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa-Linda Fregoso
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
The State ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Social Violence ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Organized Crime Groups ◽  
The Impact

In September 2014, I was as a judge for the Hearing on Feminicide and Gender Violences organized by the Permanent People’s Tribunal in Chihuahua, Mexico. Although the levels of social violence and insecurity have touched the lives of everyone, the impact has been most devastating for women. For three days we heard testimonies from victims of feminicide, disappearances and trafficking, structural violence, forced exile, domestic violence, sexual violence, and persecution as human-rights defenders. We heard repeated references to the police’s and military’s long history of violating human rights with impunity, to the complicity of the state authorities with organized crime, to cartel infiltration at all levels of government, to a <i>narco-maquina</i> (narco-machine) currently ruling Mexico. It became exceedingly difficult to determine whether it was agents of the state or organized crime groups that were perpetrating these crimes against humanity.  

scholarly journals “We Had to Pay to Live!”

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-164
Author(s):  
Wil G. Pansters
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Drug Trafficking ◽  
The State ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Interventions ◽  
Political Economic

This article examines the emergence of self-defense forces (autodefensas) in Michoacán (Mexico) in the context of relationships between drug trafficking and the state, concentrating on the recent history of fragmentation, disorder, and violence. It traces how these processes generated comprehensive criminal sovereignty projects, which then triggered the emergence of armed defense forces in both indigenous and mestizo communities. Recent developments in Michoacán are described in light of anthropological theorizing about the relations between sovereignty, state-making, and (dis)ordering. The analysis elucidates the triangular dynamics of sovereignty-making among organized crime, the state, and armed citizens. Special attention is given to state interventions to dismantle de facto self-defense sovereignties because these have created an unstable and violent situation. It is argued that sovereignty-making is territorial and historical, and that it is embedded in political, economic, and cultural identities.

The Organization of Paramilitarism

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-182
Author(s):  
Uğur Ümit Üngör
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Complex Interaction ◽  
The State ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
Violence Against Civilians ◽  
Analytical Category ◽  
Violent Conflicts

How is paramilitary violence organized? Many studies of violent conflicts have demonstrated the central role of paramilitaries in the perpetration of violence against civilians. The organization of the violence is a crucial analytical category to be examined. Mass violence is often carried out according to clear divisions of labor: between the civil and military wings of the state, but also crucially between military and paramilitary groups. This chapter examines how states spawn and deploy paramilitary units. It does so by approaching paramilitarism from the perspective of the parastate: the complex interaction between security agencies, political parties, and communities that constitute the sociological infrastructure behind paramilitarism. The chapter analyzes how otherwise neutral and technocratic institutions, organizations, and agencies have collaborated in creating or condoning paramilitary forces. The chapter also discusses the violence that paramilitaries have committed, through a comparison of three massacres: the Bahia Portete massacre in Colombia (2004), the Cizre massacre in Turkey (1992), and the Trnovo massacre in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995). The chapter closes with a discussion of a key element of paramilitarism: plausible deniability.

scholarly journals Criminal Politics: An Integrated Approach to the Study of Organized Crime, Politics, and Violence

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 967-987 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Criminal Violence ◽  
Organized Violence ◽  
Criminal Organizations ◽  
The Relationship

Over the last decade, organized criminal violence has reached unprecedented levels and has caused as much violent death globally as direct armed conflict. Nonetheless, the study of organized crime in political science remains limited because these organizations and their violence are not viewed as political. Building on recent innovations in the study of armed conflict, I argue that organized criminal violence should no longer be segregated from related forms of organized violence and incorporated within the political violence literature. While criminal organizations do not seek to replace or break away from the state, they have increasingly engaged in the politics of the state through the accumulation of the means of violence itself. Like other non-state armed groups, they have developed variously collaborative and competitive relationships with the state that have produced heightened levels of violence in many contexts and allowed these organizations to gather significant political authority. I propose a simple conceptual typology for incorporating the study of these organizations into the political violence literature and suggest several areas of future inquiry that will illuminate the relationship between violence and politics more generally.

fifty years of electronic music in israel

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-180
Author(s):  
robert j. gluck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Music Composition ◽  
Institutional Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Israel

the history of electronic music composition, technologies and institutions is traced from the founding of the state of israel in 1948. core developments are followed beginning with the founding generation including joseph tal, tzvi avni and yizhak sadai, continuing with the second and third generations of musicians and researchers, living in israel and the united states. the institutional and political dynamics of the field in this country are explored, with a focus on the challenges of building an audience and institutional support, as well as prospects for the future.

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