Systems of Violence and their Political Economy in Post-Conflict Situations
Nazih Richani
Associate Professor
Director of Latin American Studies Program
Political Science Department
Kean Univesity
Work in Progress
March 2007
Abstract:
Conflict and post-conflict studies have paid inadequate attention to the political economy of crime after the termination of civil wars, and the challenges that this poses toreconstruction efforts. Save few exceptions, the literature has largely overlooked the rising socio-economic and political costs of organized criminal violence, and its negative effects on creating conditions for sustainable development.
The main goal of this paper is to fill an important gap in the literature by undertaking a comparative study of El Salvador’s, Guatemala’s, and Lebanon’s post-conflict experiences. It will attempt to answer why, in the post-conflict cases of El Salvador and Guatemala, there was an exponential increase in violence, while Lebanon witnessed a decline in crime compared to the level prior to the civil war. This research argues that post-conflict criminal violence in Guatemala and El Salvador is attributed to economic policies that weakened the state’s coercive and distributive capacities,which in turndiminished the opportunity costs of crime. This condition was further aggravated by contingencies. Whereas,Lebanon’s economic policies and contingencies differed sharply from the other two cases under investigation,which may explain its low crime rates.
This paper also demonstrates that criminal violence constitutes a serious threat as a return to civil war. In fact, in El Salvador and Guatemala, the costs of criminal violence have already exceeded those of their respective civil war.
Finally, this paper adopts a systemicapproachto explain theendurance of crime over time with itsproper dynamic and political economy. In this regard, one noticeable finding is: homicides rates are inversely proportional to theinstitutionalization of the system of violence.
For the most part, researchers in post-conflict studies have focused on two important sets of issues. One set is primarily concerned with the conditions under which conflict may resume (Collier &Hoeffler, 2002, 2005; Sambinis &Doyle 2000; 2006). The other sets focus is security reform and policing as means to strengthen public security in societies traumatized by civil wars (Call 2000; Call and Stanley, 2001). Notwithstanding the important contributions of the mentioned literature, valuable questions remain unanswered regarding the causes and permanence of high crime in post-conflict countries. Questions such as: whether crime is causally linked to the economic policies adopted when civil wars terminate, or if crime is the continuation of the civil war by other means. High levels of post-conflict violence are underminingeconomic growth and threatening the consolidation ofdemocratic processes, both of which are core contributors for successful reconstruction and subsequent political stability.It also demonstrates that criminal violence poses at least as serious a threat to development as a return to civil war (See table 2). A broader question asks whether the spike in crime is attributed to similar factors that govern crime in societies that did not witness civil wars. This paper attempts to answer the first set of questions and provides insights that could help in answering the second.
This paper undertakes a comparative analysisofcriminal violence in three countries that have experienced civil wars: El Salvador, Guatemala, and Lebanon. Following the termination of their civil wars, El Salvador and Guatemalahave witnessed unprecedented levels of criminal violence, particularly homicides. In 2005, El Salvador recorded a homicide rate of 54.7/100.000 and Guatemala 48.5/100.000 (La Prensagrafica, January 15, 2006; Prensa Libre March 3, 2006); however, in Lebanon the recorded rate of post-civil war crime was as low as 2.2/100.000 in 2004, lower than the crime rate prior to its civil war(Lebanon’s National Police, 2005). All three countries witnessed protracted civil wars lasting until the early to mid 1990s. El Salvador’s 12-year-long civil war wasbrought to a peaceful settlement in 1992; by then,75,000 deaths were attributed to the combat. The Guatemalan conflict continued for 36 years and by the time a peace accord was signed in 1996, roughly 200,000 Guatemalans had been killed. Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, which finally ended in 1990, was by far the bloodiest of the three; the conflict claimed 120,000 lives in a country whose population at the start of the war was 2.4 million, less than half the population of El Salvador and less than one-quarter the population of Guatemala.
Why compare El Salvador, Guatemala and Lebanon?
In this paper I follow the two main methods of comparative analysis: the “deep analogy” method as presented by Arend Lijphrat and Arthur Stinchcombe where the researcher chooses a few well matched cases; and the method of disagreement, where extreme cases are presented exhibiting analogous development. The latter method is advocated by Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune. Each method is supported by John Stuart Mill’s insights on comparative research.[1]
El Salvador, Guatemala, and Lebanon allow for the application of these two methods. El Salvador and Guatemala are good candidates for the “deep analogy” method due to similar historical experiences regarding state formations, level of economic development and the role violence since the 19th century. Yet they demonstrate variations in a dependent variable of post-conflict scenarios: crime rates.[2] Three independent variables are explored in this research: state capacities and opportunity costs of both crime and contingencies.
Lebanon and Guatemala represent the most different scenarios that allow for the application of the disagreement method. El Salvador represents what Fernando Lopez-Alves called a “nexus case”, falling between the extremes of Lebanon and Guatemala.[3] The three countries, however, are classified by UNDP as middle income, and they are ranked respectively according to the human development index: Lebanon 75; El Salvador 104; and Guatemala 120 (Human Development Report 2002).
Understanding the dynamics of post-conflict violence and the factors that contribute to it is imperative in creating effective policies to reduce crime and dismantle its tangible and intangible social and economic structures. This paper argues that the high indices of crime during post-conflict periods are attributed to the formation of a system of violence, which has its own dynamics and political economy. This system is formed when the following three variables intersect:
a)Low state capacities, measured in terms of the state’s coercive and distributive functions. The coercive capacity is measured against the law enforcementability of the state. The percentage of criminals who remain unpunished is a proxy indicator to measure the efficiency of law enforcement. This indicator is complemented with an analysis of the justice system and police/inhabitant ratio. The distributive function of the state is measured by the level of the government’s social expenditures, including poverty reduction, education, and health services. State capacities in these two areas are fundamental to effective governance.
b)Low opportunity costs of crime. Alternatives to crime are assessed by evaluating average income obtained from crime versus minimum salary, levels of unemployment, underemployment, and average education levels of the criminal population.
c) Contingencies. Certain contingencies contribute to the formation of a system of violence, such as the repatriation of immigrants and narcotrafficking in El Salvador and Guatemala. Alternatively, Lebanon experienced favorable post-civil war conditions that prevented the formation of a system of violence; a sharp decline in its population growth, an influx of investments, and highly skilled migrating labor.
Hence, when low state capacities and low opportunity costs of crime intersect with contingencies that stress the state, the most likely outcome is a system in which the main interacting units are the specialists of violence (states’ agents, organized crime, political entrepreneurs, and private security) interact, forming a dynamic relationship and a political economy that institutionalizes and perpetuates violence.Consequently, this paper defines the system of violence as a pattern of interaction sustained over time (say ten and more years)* and whose constituent units are: states’ agents, organized crime including gangs, political entrepreneurs and private security. [4] However, due to the constraints of space, this paper focuses on two actors: state and organized crime and makes reference to private security and political entrepreneurs when deemed necessary.
This paper is divided into five sections. The first explores the role of former combatants in the subsequent violence that ensued. Each case under investigation is discussed in a separate section (sections 2-4). The final section includes a comparative analysis and preliminary conclusions.
Post-conflict Violence and Former Combatants
The key question addressed in this section is whether criminal violence in El Salvador and Guatemala can be attributed to disgruntled former combatants being recycled into the crime market, and whether the low crime rates in post-conflict can be credited to a successful process of demobilization. El Salvador was more successful compared to Lebanon in demobilizing its combatants; however, the crime rate in El Salvador increased, while in Lebanon it decreased. This confirms that post-conflict criminal violence corresponds to distinct causes and dynamics that cannot be attributed to former combatants. (See following sections). In Guatemala, crime is a more complex phenomenon because it is related to the combination of former (either purged or demobilized) and active members of the state security, together with youth gangs. Post-conflict violence in Guatemala is characterized by former and current elements of the military protection-racket state.
In El Salvador, the average age of the criminal population ranges between 15 and 21 years, indicating that they were born between the years of 1977 and 1983, and were not combatants during the civil war (Cruz, 1998). Former members of the insurgency were integrated into a newly formed police force.[5] In 1994 and 1996, the number of homicides spiked, largely attributed to reprisals related to the conflict; however, the violence between 1997 and 2005 was subject to different causalities and dynamics.
About two third of Lebanon’s 30,000 demobilized fighters were incorporated into the armed forces; the remainder (circa 10,000) joined private security companies, emigrated, or returned to their professions.[6] This partial demobilization was not coupled with the removal of light weapons nor was it complete. Hezbollah, a military structure with several thousand fighters, deployed along the border with Israel, retained its weapons. Nevertheless, the homicide rate in Lebanon (2.2/100,000) is amongst the lowest in the world (Lebanese Police).
Former military and ex-Civil Defense Patrullas De Autodefensas Civil (known by the acronym PACs) have become among the main perpetrators of criminal violence in Guatemala during the post-conflict period. A number of former generals removed after the failed coup d’etat of 1993 constituted the nucleus of a criminal organization known as GS.[7] This group was primarily involved in narcotrafficking and at least five retired military officers were allegedly involved in this group, two of whom played leading roles.[8] In fact, in November 2005, the Minister of Defense, General Carlos Aldana Villanueva, and the chief of the antinarcotics division of the police were removed from office because of blatant links between the military and criminal elements, including the construction of a landing strip in an army base financed by organized crime (Prensa Libre, November 21, 2005).
The insurgent army in Guatemala did not exceed more than 1,500 combatants when the peace agreement was signed. Hence, their reintegration into civilian life was relatively seamless, however, the real problem stemmed from an inflated security apparatus that was largely geared toward containing the insurgency. For example, the PAC, which was formed between 1978 and 1982 and banned after the accords, had about 900,000 rural men between the ages of fifteen and sixty years (representing nearly 80% of the male rural indigenous population)(Bruneau, 2004:21). When it was dissolved in 1995, about 375,000 were still in the patrols. These patrols did not receive any salaries but acquired significant power in their villages, in turn allowing them to improve their social status and material conditions. Some of these ex-patrol members may have also been involved in criminal activity (Interviews, Guatemala City, 2005).
Demobilization in Guatemala led to links between the military and criminal elements, whereas in El Salvador the successful demobilization of civil war combatants produced a different outcome in terms of criminal violence; alternatively, the partial success of demobilization in Lebanon did not impact crime rates. What explains the differences between the outcomes of demobilization in these three countries? In the following sections, I argue that the answer lies in the dynamic interplay of the three variables: the post-conflict states’ capacities, low opportunity costs of crime, and specific contingencies.
The Paradox of El Salvador
Between 2000 and 2004, El Salvador witnessed 10,000 homicides, making it one of the most violent places in the world. In the 12 years that followed the 1992 peace accord, an estimated 49,317 individuals were killed, which is equivalent to 2/3 of the 75,000 deaths recorded during its civil war (UNDP, El Salvador, 2005).
The main contributors to violence in El Salvador are gangs and narcotraffickers. The first part of this section examines the genesis of the gang problem in El Salvador, which in 2004 was responsible for the 60% of the country’s homicides (Ribando, 2005)
Gangs
Following the peace accord, El Salvador’s economy was transformed into a service economy and largely dependent on the remittances of Salvadorans in the Diaspora. In 2004, the remittances reached 16.2% of the GDP.[9] Between 1979 and 1991, thousands of Salvadorians left their country, heading mainly to the U.S. These numbers convey the scope of the exodus: in 1980, only 94,000 Salvadoran-born people resided in the U.S., by 1984 this number quadrupled to 400,000, and by 2000 the number was 1.2 million or 40% of the population of El Salvador in 1980 (Hayden, 2004: 202).
The immigrants were unskilled, mostly peasants, with low levels of education and speaking little, if any, English. Naturally, they were at a great disadvantage in the U.S labor market. This disadvantage, coupled with the U.S. economy’s limited capacity to absorb such a large pool of unskilled labor, particularly for those settling in Los Angeles, led to high levels of unemployment among the Salvadoran immigrants, making them a fertile recruitment pool for the inner city crime economy (Hayden, 2004). In the 1980s hundreds of these immigrants were drawn into the then flourishing gangs such as the 18th street gang ( Hayden 2004; Davis, 1992).
The 18th street gang offered protection in tough neighborhoods to some Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants who shared similar backgrounds in terms of class, language and professional skills. The new Salvadoran immigrants started calling themselves “la Mara Loca” (the “crazy group”).
Mexican immigrants established the 18th street gang in the 1940s and continue to constitute its core. Initially, the relationship between the La Mara Loca and the 18th street was good, but the introduction of drug economy stirred their ethnic differences leading to gang warfare in competition for a larger share of the drug market. The ramifications of this warfare and the respective narratives that each gang constructed about its identity came to form an integral part of today’s gang violence and dynamics in El Salvador and Guatemala alongside the U.S, Honduras, and Mexico.
In this process of identity building, la Mara Loca started calling itself Mara Salvatruchas Stoners: Salvatruchas in recognition of their country origins and Stoners since rock music was their favorite beat. Later they dropped the Stoners from their name and retained Mara Salvatrucha or MS (Hayden 2004:204). The MS expanded its membership to where the Salvadoran youth lived in Los Angeles, and later on to San Francisco, New York, Long Island, Reno, and Texas, and in most recent times Washington, DC, and Virginia. The FBI estimates that the MS has about 10, 000 members in the U.S. and is active in smuggling immigrants along the Mexico-U.S. border.[10] Since the mid 1990s, the MS and the 18 Street gangs have exacerbated the crises of governance in El Salvador and Guatemala, contributing to the formation of the systems of violence in their respective countries.
Evolution of State Capacity
Between 1960 and 1974, the homicide rate in El Salvador ranged between 23.6 and 32.0/ 100,000. The average for this same period was 28.9/ 100.000,[11] and the trend was relatively stable. After 1992, however, the homicide rates reached unprecedented levels of 138.2/100,000 (in 1994) and 138.9/100,000 (in 1995); the rates declined considerably after 1995 but never returned to pre-war levels. The sharp increase in 1994 and 1995 is attributed to the aftershocks of the civil war, which included political assassinations, vendettas, and other motivations related to the civil war. In 2004, the Attorney General Office (Fiscalia General) reported 3,997 homicides in a total population of 6,704,943 people, which put the rate at 59.6/100,000; more than double the average of the prewar period (see figure 1) slightly decreasing to 55/100000 in 2005.[12]
Figure 1. Rates of homicides/100.000 in El Salvador
1960-2005
Sources: (Steiner, 1999; Fiscalia General, 2005, PNC 2006)
The state capacity is a two-pronged concept demonstrating the ability of a state to enforce the rule of law and the effectiveness of its distributive functions.[13] Authoritarian regimes dominated El Salvador for most of the twentieth century, and the military played a significant role in maintaining the rule of law and controlling politics. This arrangement was cemented during the civil war by the support of the established oligarchy and the U.S. Nonetheless, by the late 1980s, theUS changed its policies and played a significant role in fundamental changes to the country’s elite composition; in particular, helping to dismantle the existing oligarchy and undoing its alliance with the armed forces. This opened the door for the emergence of a new hegemonic force: the agro-business and financial-service elite, represented then by an emerging leadership of the Arena Party, which came to power in the mid 1980s (Lungo, 1990:21-5; Robinson, 2003:95). This prepared the country for the introduction of electoral democracy coupled with neoliberal economic policies which began in 1988, and were pursued in earnest in the 1990s. These changes diminished state capacities.