The Centre is pleased to announce the publication of Elites and Violence in Latin America: Logics of the Fragmented Security State by our Research Professor Jenny Pearce supported by the LSE Annual Fund. The publication is the first in our Working Paper Series as part of the network on Violence, Security, and Peace-building in Latin-America. Through collaboration with the Institute of Latin American Studies of the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, and the Centre on Conflict, Development, and Peacebuilding (CCDP) at the Graduate Institute Geneva the Working Paper Series aims to inform policy debates on Latin America’s pathways to peace, and produce lessons relevant to other situations of violence, war, and post-war.
Drawing on more than 70 interviews with oligarchic elites from Colombia and Mexico, the paper looks at how the conditions for violence and its reproduction are generated by logics of elite power and wealth accumulation. Looking at the direct and indirect relationships between elites and varied forms of violence, exploring how they have affected the nature of the state in Latin America, the diffusion of criminal violences, and the emergence of micro criminal orders in many parts of the region, the paper offers propositions for further empirical research into these logics and discusses how social action against violences should extend to de-sanctioning violence as a phenomenon.