Overview

In the aftermath of the greed vs. grievance debate and the new wars paradigm, the focus of conflict studies shifted decisively to understanding ""predatory"" behaviours as the raison d'etre of contemporary conflict. Conflict was viewed as a continuum in which the more you engage in criminal behaviour, the less political you are.This approach has been robustly criticised over the past 15 years; however, in the process, we have been left with unsuitable concepts to handle the complex interactions between civil war, political power and criminality. The departure point here is the understanding of politics and criminality as two historically differentiated domains of human activity. Different, but interrelated, often co-constitutive and overlapping. Here, we empirically and theoretically explore their interactions, connections, and convergences, not focusing solely on irregular actors, thus bringing back the State and elites into this debate.

Full Product Details

Author:   José Antonio Gutiérrez Danton ,  Francisco Gutiérrez Sanín
Publisher:   Manchester University Press
Imprint:   Manchester University Press
ISBN:  

9781526181831

ISBN 10:   1526181835
Pages:   376
Publication Date:   16 December 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General/trade ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Criminality, political power, and conflict: Critical perspectives – José A. Gutiérrez and Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanín 1 Beyond Elias and Tilly: Historical sociology, crime and organised violence – Siniša Maleševic 2 The politics of criminality: The state, opium, and armed groups in Burma – John Buchanan 3 “I have created an idealism”: Explaining public political discourses of the PCC and other organized criminal groups in Latin America – Reynell Badillo Sarmiento 4 Inside the Israel complex: The rise of narco-Pentecostalismin Rio de Janeiro – Kristina Hinz and Doriam Borges 5 Pro-state armed groups in Northern Ireland: Rethinking the position of ‘loyalist’ armed groups in Northern Ireland – John Doyle 6 Killing criminals: Lethal targeting by the paramilitaries in the Colombian civil war – Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanín 7 Greedy peacemakers: Post-FARC-EP trajectories from political crime to politicised common crime – José A. Gutiérrez 8 Resisting and existing with criminalisation: The case of Colombian artisanal and small-scale gold producers – Christoph Kaufmann 9 The necropolitics of criminalisation in the Colombian War on Drugs – Irene Vélez-Torres and Chiara Chiavaroli 10 Amalgamation of special forces and organized crime in Serbia: Curbing the democratic transition after the downfall of Slobodan Miloševic – Kosta Nikolic, Vladimir Petrovic and Danilo Mandic. 11 A heavy hand and a weak arm: Security strategies, political confrontation and state scarcity in Venezuela – Guillermo Sardi and Fernando Garlin-Politis. 12 From minería comunitaria to illegal mining: Indigenous territories and mining formalization in Peruvian Amazonia – Gisselle Benites 13 Bandits, poetry, and cartooning: A playful visual anthropology – Fernando Garlin-Politis Concluding remarks – Christian Olsson -- .

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Author Information

Jose A. Gutierrez is lecturer at the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) at the University of York. Francisco Gutierrez-Sann is lecturer at the Institute for Political Sudies and International Relations (IEPRI) at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogot.

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