Security and Violence in the Global South

This Section aims to analyze how private and public agents plan and pursue different strategies in order to ensure security in an environment where the legitimate means of force are disperse, since they are not exclusively concentrated under the umbrella of state authorities. Rather than a zero-sum game between armed state and non-state agents, both can reinforce each other and contribute to the state reconfiguration. Actually, dualistic categories such as state and non-state actors may not accurately represent ongoing dynamics. Whether it is in a poor slum in Brazil or in an industrial city in Mexico, delivering security is a defiant issue that may blur the traditional lines separating state and society. Criminal youth gangs in Central America, drug trafficking groups around the world, community police and self-defense groups operating in diverse fields such as Colombia or Pakistan are some examples of how threats and protection notions are constantly being redefined by actors. This Section will receive proposals on the administration of violence and protection in the global south (Latin America, Africa, Asia), whether it is by state and non-state actors, legal or illegal ones. We encourage contributions of different geographical regions, not limited to Latin America, that will allow us to comprehend state functioning in a violence-dispersed environment, though four different lens: public policy and the regalien state, redefinition of thresholds of tolerance towards violence, privatization of protection and the coproduction of violence from the bottom-up. PANEL ONE: Public policy: the regalien state on action? The state as a classic protection supplier would be at the center of this panel. Thus, the analysis of security public policy, from different approaches, will lead us to discuss the limits and scopes of the regalien state. Rather drug policy or budgetary strategies as the policy studied, contributions must be oriented to discuss the role of the state agents as protection suppliers as well as identify other actors that take part in public policy process. PANEL TWO: Redefining the thresholds of tolerance towards violence Contributions to this Panel should discuss alternative paths adopted by agents on security that reflects the existence, working and shifting of thresholds of tolerance towards violence. The dispersion of violence can lead to the redefinition of moral geographical borders and, consequently, of the legitimate or illegitimate means and associated levels of violence. This Panel proposes to discuss in which situations state agents may tolerate and coexist with violence, and under which circumstances these definitions may change and vary, engendering security responses. PANEL THREE: Non-state actors as protection suppliers This Panel aims to explore the conditions of the protection market as a field where private or semi-private security strategies take place. The contributions could analyze either regulated security suppliers (such as private security firms) or informal/illegal protection mechanisms implemented by violent actors. Thus, the non-state protection suppliers could be analyzed from different points of entrance, such as their profile and activities, their link with state agents or agencies, their rapport with violence or violent means of achieving security. PANEL FOUR: Coproducing security policy from the bottom-up: grassroots movements, civil society and the media When non-state agents react to public policy being implemented in the security realm, they also influence the conditions in which public security policy is produced. Certainly limited, but not insignificant, diverse groups such as family’s victims associations, alternative media channels denouncing state agents brutalities and NGOs that advocate for human rights contribute to define the grounds of reception of public action and, consequently, to change how security may be attained in a dispersed-violence environment. This Panel encourages contributions assessing the collective strategies adopted by non-state groups to set public policy agenda and action in themes related to security and violence in the Global South.