Abstract
Crime is inherently political. Yet criminologists spend insufficient time researching and reflecting on the various political considerations that define crime and on how law enforcement actors interface with criminal actors, especially in the Global South contexts (Ciocchini & Greener, 2021). Hernán Flom's The Informal Regulation of Criminal Markets in Latin America fills that gap by contributing to a growing literature, written largely by political scientists. Flom, like many of these authors, is either from or has extensive first-hand experience in the countries he documents. This on-the-ground interaction provides clear and considered expositions of the nexus between politics and crime.
Flom's book is timely as insecurity in Latin America has been an increasing concern since the turn of the century (Bergman, 2018). The violence and its links to the drug trade were thrust into an international spotlight with the August 2023 assassination of Ecuadorian political candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, two weeks before the country's election. An outspoken critic of Ecuador's former president and the drug trafficking organizations in Ecuador, Villavicencio was threatened by gang leader Jose “Fito” Adolfo Macias in the week leading up to the murder. Ecuador's interior minister, Juan Zapata, noted that those arrested for Villavicencio's assassination were linked to organized crime (Piedra Silva, 2023).
Such violence is not new; indeed, Flom documents an unsuccessful 2013 assassination attempt by police involved in the drug trade in Rosario, Argentina, one of the four cities he studied in Argentina and Brazil. His book digs deeply into the dynamics between politicians and criminal actors and how variances in those dynamics result in distinct outcomes. In doing so, Flom's analysis goes beyond the violence of criminal actors, or the police as “street corner politicians,” whose activities determine how crime unfolds (Muir, 1979). Flom provides a multi-level account of formal and informal political arrangements within weakly institutionalized democracies, and how these arrangements influence the drug trade and how it is, and is not, effectively controlled.
Flom shows how, in most cases when accountability is lacking, police not only facilitate and participate in criminal activity but also influence the politicians and policies that seemingly ought to govern police behavior. The police often have immense power since accountability is typically borne by political actors and not police leadership. Flom demonstrates, within the context of Brazil and Argentina as developing countries, who is able to affect policy and what conditions lend themselves to policy development. He argues that crime is indeed regulated, but the most effective controls are most frequently in the form of informal regulation.
Flom advances four case studies to support his typology of four informal regulatory arrangements: coordinated coexistence, protection rackets, particularistic negotiations, and particularistic confrontations. The categories, elaborated through the book, are useful and map onto events and interactions seen elsewhere in the Global South (and even, to some extent, in the Global North). Before discussing their value, however, two shortcomings of this work need consideration.
First, while the book generally paints a good portrait of the cities it canvasses, further national historical context of the events leading up to the periods studied would allow a non-expert reader to better understand the dynamics at play. Both Argentina and Brazil are young democracies; both have had violent and tumultuous periods orchestrated by the state. Students of and people from Latin America may not need this context to appreciate the lessons presented in this work, but such context would have made the lessons more accessible to a broader lay audience.
Second, Flom never discusses particularism and why he deploys the term. He implies that particularistic negotiation and confrontation are based on the relational dynamics of the politicians and the police, and the parties involved act in a self-interested way. He explicitly states that particularistic confrontation and negotiation are both uncoordinated informal regulatory regimes, leaving one to wonder why that term was not used instead. Why “particularistic” is deployed and what it might be in contrast to (e.g., universalistic), and those implications, are never expanded on. Perhaps this term resonates with political scientists, but, for me, the term “particularistic” failed to embody the mechanics of the concepts it is used to describe. The book would be accessible to a broader audience if the author had spent some time teaching that concept to the reader.
Those reservations aside, the categories are useful, and Flom does teach us the dynamics that lead to each across four chapters. By drawing on interviews from policymakers, police, and criminal actors, and on the work from academics who write in Portuguese or Spanish, Flom provides comprehensive coverage of the thinking that predates this book. Thus, Flom makes these concepts available to readers who may not otherwise be able to access them.
Flom first focuses on the uncoordinated regulatory regimes. The first case study involves the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and develops the idea of particularistic confrontation, to describe the dynamics in the city from 1983 until 2007. The circumstances that lead to confrontation include high political turnover, fragmented government with various political parties having sway, and a corrupt police force that accepts payoffs from nearly anyone. These circumstances result in high levels of violence by both the actors involved in the drug trade and the police.
The second case features Rosario, Argentina, and develops the idea of particularistic negotiation, which includes “dispersed deals [between the government and] drug dealing gangs, which destabilized the drug market and increased criminal violence” (p. 96). A period of political instability at the state level, during which leadership shifted frequently, led to particularistic negotiation. The presence of non-linear leadership indicates that the democratic process was respected and there was transfer of power; however, the police gained autonomy from their political masters and politically outmaneuvered the politicians in charge of government. The police engaged in corrupt practices, but, unlike the particularistic confrontation scenario in Rio de Janeiro, the police did not engage in violence to maximize the rents they could extract, and they did maintain favorable status. Nonetheless, criminal violence was high, and this violence was sometimes facilitated by the police who would pit groups against each other.
The third case focuses on Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the concept of coordinated protection rackets: law enforcement enforces a strict and stable regulatory environment that criminal actors must navigate by making corruption payments. This case involves a tremendous amount of political stability; the relationships between the politicians and the police are hierarchical; the police affect control, and the politicians receive kickbacks from corrupt activities. The consistent control ensures that violence is low; generally, neither police nor criminals seek to break the peace in order to keep the crime income flowing. This kind of arrangement is commonly seen in illiberal situations, including much of 20th century Mexico where politicians and law enforcement engage in corrupt practices to enrich themselves and to facilitate the drug trade, while effectively regulating it (Snyder & Durán Martínez, 2009).
The final case features São Paulo, Brazil, and the concept of coordinated coexistence. São Paulo is distinct from the other case studies; the governments had a high degree of stability, with a single political party in charge since 1994, and an appetite to reduce police corruption through reform. At the same time, in the world of criminal enterprise, a single prison gang, the PCC, developed an effective monopoly on the drug trade. Because the police had a high degree of accountability, their capacity to engage in corrupt practices was limited. This limitation along with the business interests of a consolidated criminal enterprise led the police and the PCC to come to an accord to minimize conflict. Consequently, while the drug trade continued, there were low levels of violence.
While each chapter unpacked a new concept, Flom shows that these statuses are not static, with each location experiencing more than one over time. No arrangement eliminated the drug trade, but all regulated it. Each arrangement impacted the degree of violence that was associated with the trade and the accountability of the police. Flom's typology provides a good starting point to assess the likely outcomes for countries with weak institutions and significant organized criminal enterprises operating within or through them. Flom's book illustrates an unvarnished reality of the role state actors play in the commission of illicit enterprise. Although this topic is not frequently considered in western contexts, given western interference in developing economies, it is an important topic. The question of accountability and the limits to which accountability can be plausibly pushed in the course of building instructional wherewithal is an important one that the book raises but fails to explore fully.
Finally, Flom's book raises several questions that criminologists ought to consider. These include how politics at various levels of government and state operation precipitate into distinct regulatory regimes and influence criminal behavior. Such a consideration is critical when an honest assessment—which is more likely to be the case than not—indicates that prohibition is untenable. In short, The Informal Regulation of Criminal Markets in Latin America should be read to seed a discussion of formal and informal regulation, accountability, and how political forces ultimately shape criminal behavior.
