Resisting Extortion

New ethnographic data leads to insights into the widespread yet understudied phenomenon of criminal extortion in Latin America.

Eduardo Moncada (Author)

9781108824705, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 January 2022

300 pages
22.7 x 15.5 x 1.7 cm, 0.42 kg

'Resisting Extortion is a careful, thorough, and extraordinary reexamination of how people create security where the state cannot ensure the rule of law. Moncada's multicountry ethnography of extortion and security networks should be on the reading list of any scholar working with themes of security, violence, organized crime, the rule of law, or qualitative political science.' Calla Hummel, Latin American Politics and Society

Criminal extortion is an understudied, but widespread and severe problem in Latin America. In states that cannot or choose not to uphold the rule of law, victims are often seen as helpless in the face of powerful criminals. However, even under such difficult circumstances, victims resist criminal extortion in surprisingly different ways. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in violent localities in Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico, Moncada weaves together interviews, focus groups, and participatory drawing exercises to explain why victims pursue distinct strategies to resist criminal extortion. The analysis traces and compares processes that lead to individual acts of everyday resistance; sporadic killings by ad hoc groups of victims and police; institutionalized and sustained collective vigilantism; and coordination between victims and states to co-produce order in ways that both strengthen and undermine the rule of law. This book offers valuable new insights into the broader politics of crime and the state.

Part I. Resistance to criminal extortion: 1. Introduction
2. Explaining variation in resistance to criminal extortion
Part II. Everyday resistance and piecemeal vigilantism
3. Everyday resistance
4. Piecemeal vigilantism
Part III. Collective vigilantism and the co-production of order: 5. Collective vigilantism
6. The co-production of order
7. Summing Up and Next Steps.

Subject Areas: Criminology: legal aspects [LAR], Comparative politics [JPB], Political science & theory [JPA], Crime & criminology [JKV], Anthropology [JHM], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Hispanic & Latino studies [JFSL4]