Table of Contents

Introduction - Kees Koonings and Dirk Kruijt 1. Armed actors, organised violence and state failure in Latin America: a survey of issues and arguments - Kees Koonings and Dirk Kruijt 2. The military and their shadowy brothers in arms - Dirk Kruijt and Kees Koonings 3. Policing extensions in Latin America - Kees Koonings and Dirk Kruijt 4. Civil defence forces: Peru's Comites de Autodefensa Civil and Guatemala's Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil in comparative perspective - Mario Fumerton and Simone Remijnse 5. Violence as market strategy in drug trafficking: the Andean experience - Menno Vellinga 6. Armed actors in the Colombian conflict - Francisco Leal Buitrago 7. Venezuela: the re-militarization of politics - Harold A. Trinkunas 8. A failed state facing new criminal problems: the case of Argentina - Marcelo Sain 9. Urban violence and drug warfare in Brazil - Alba Zaluar 10. Youth gangs, social exclusion and the transformation of violence in El Salvador - Wim Savenije and Chris van der Borgh 11. Violence and fear in Colombia: fragmentation of space, contraction of time and forms of evasion - Luis Alberto Restrepo Epilogue : violence and the quest for order in contemporary Latin America - Patricio Silva

Promotional Information

This volume deals with the threat to democracy and the rule of law posed by organised violence in Latin America.

About the Author

Kees Koonings is associate professor of development studies and Dirk Kruijt is professor of development studies at Utrecht University. They are the editors of Political Armies (Zed Books, 2002) and Societies of Fear (Zed Books, 1999). The contributors are Latin Americanist scholars.

Reviews

..the book will interest scholars concerned generally with Latin American society and politics. It would be relevant and timely for those interested in the issue of arms proliferation in particular if the editors decide to pursue this interesting academic discussion further...
*Anne Thurnin, Journal of Peace Research*

Will be indispensable to anyone with a closer interest in this subject, including those readers from outside the scholarly world.
*Klaus Weber, Iberoamericana VII*