Download or read book State Violence and Genocide in Latin America written by Marcia Esparza and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-09-10 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume explores political violence and genocide in Latin America during the Cold War, examining this in light of the United States’ hegemonic position on the continent. Using case studies based on the regimes of Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Peru and Uruguay, this book shows how U.S foreign policy – far from promoting long term political stability and democratic institutions – has actually undermined them. The first part of the book is an inquiry into the larger historical context in which the development of an unequal power relationship between the United States and Latin American and Caribbean nations evolved after the proliferation of the Monroe Doctrine. The region came to be seen as a contested terrain in the East-West conflict of the Cold War, and a new US-inspired ideology, the ‘National Security Doctrine’, was used to justify military operations and the hunting down of individuals and groups labelled as ‘communists’. Following on from this historical context, the book then provides an analysis of the mechanisms of state and genocidal violence is offered, demonstrating how in order to get to know the internal enemy, national armies relied on US intelligence training and economic aid to carry out their surveillance campaigns. This book will be of interest to students of Latin American politics, US foreign policy, human rights and terrorism and political violence in general. Marcia Esparza is an Assistant Professor in Criminal Justice Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Henry R. Huttenbach is the Founder and Chairman of the International Academy for Genocide Prevention and Professor Emeritus of City College of the City University of New York. Daniel Feierstein is the Director of the Center for Genocide Studies at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Argentina, and is a Professor in the Faculty of Genocide at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Download or read book When States Kill written by Cecilia Menjívar and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2009-07-21 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the early twentieth century, technological transfers from the United States to Latin American countries have involved technologies of violence for social control. As the chapters in this book illustrate, these technological transfers have taken various forms, including the training of Latin American military personnel in surveillance and torture and the provision of political and logistic support for campaigns of state terror. The human cost for Latin America has been enormous—thousands of Latin Americans have been murdered, disappeared, or tortured, and whole communities have been terrorized into silence. Organized by region, the essays in this book address the topic of state-sponsored terrorism in a variety of ways. Most take the perspective that state-directed political violence is a modern development of a regional political structure in which U.S. political interests weigh heavily. Others acknowledge that Latin American states enthusiastically received U.S. support for their campaigns of terror. A few see local culture and history as key factors in the implementation of state campaigns of political violence. Together, all the essays exemplify how technologies of terror have been transferred among various Latin American countries, with particular attention to the role that the United States, as a "strong" state, has played in such transfers.

Download or read book Holocaust Consciousness and Cold War Violence in Latin America written by Estelle Tarica and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2022-04-01 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes the existence of a recognizably distinct Holocaust consciousness in Latin America since the 1970s. Community leaders, intellectuals, writers, and political activists facing state repression have seen themselves reflected in Holocaust histories and have used Holocaust terms to describe human rights atrocities in their own countries. In so doing, they have developed a unique, controversial approach to the memory of the Holocaust that is little known outside the region. Estelle Tarica deepens our understanding of Holocaust awareness in a global context by examining diverse Jewish and non-Jewish voices, focusing on Argentina, Mexico, and Guatemala. What happens, she asks, when we find the Holocaust invoked in unexpected places and in relation to other events, such as the Argentine "Dirty War" or the Mayan genocide in Guatemala? The book draws on meticulous research in two areas that have rarely been brought into contact—Holocaust Studies and Latin American Studies—and aims to illuminate the topic for readers who may be new to the fields.

Download or read book Murder and Violence in Modern Latin America written by Eric A. Johnson and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by leading scholars from the Americas and Europe, this is a thorough assessment of state-supported murder and violence in Latin America. Examines the trajectory of murder and violence in the region over the past two centuries and elucidates theories and trends regarding violence since the end of colonial rule Covers topics such as “the disappeared,” the rise of drug cartels and narco-violence, physical violence against wives, the judging and sentencing of violent crimes, genocide, and state terrorism Explains and applies macro-level theories regarding the rise of civilization, state building, and violence to contemporary Latin America Demonstrates the complexity of an issue at the forefront of life and politics in the region today

Download or read book Violence and Crime in Latin America written by Gema Santamaría and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to media reports, Latin America is one of the most violent regions in the world—a distinction it held throughout the twentieth century. The authors of Violence and Crime in Latin America contend that perceptions and representations of violence and crime directly impact such behaviors, creating profound consequences for the political and social fabric of Latin American nations. Written by distinguished scholars of Latin American history, sociology, anthropology, and political science, the essays in this volume range from Mexico and Argentina to Colombia and Brazil in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, addressing such issues as extralegal violence in Mexico, the myth of indigenous criminality in Guatemala, and governments’ selective blindness to violent crime in Brazil and Jamaica. The authors in this collection examine not only the social construction and political visibility of violence and crime in Latin America, but the justifications for them as well. Analytically and historically, these essays show how Latin American citizens have sanctioned criminal and violent practices and incorporated them into social relations, everyday practices, and institutional settings. At the same time, the authors explore the power struggles that inform distinctions between illegitimate versus legitimate violence. Violence and Crime in Latin America makes a substantive contribution to understanding a key problem facing Latin America today. In its historical depth and ethnographic reach, this original and thought-provoking volume enhances our understanding of crime and violence throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Download or read book Remembering the Rescuers of Victims of Human Rights Crimes in Latin America written by Marcia Esparza and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the significance of remembering the rescuers denouncing human rights crimes as well as protecting and sheltering targeted victims—including the dead—during the Cold War state violence in Latin America. In light of newly unearthed archival evidence, testimonial memories, and the continued mobilization of human rights groups to preserve Cold War memory, this timely book moves beyond the victim-perpetrator dichotomy and its discursive studies to focus on those whose moral courage and righteous acts were beacons of hope in the midst of extreme violence. Remembering Latin American “righteousness,” a term used in Holocaust literature, is important in recognizing that those who resisted human rights violations and protected victims yesterday are those who often keep the collective memory of that past alive today.

Download or read book Crime Violence and the State in Latin America written by Jonathan D. Rosen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-08-03 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this succinct text, Jonathan D. Rosen and Hanna Samir Kassab explore the linkage between weak institutions and government policies designed to combat drug trafficking, organized crime, and violence in Latin America. Using quantitative analysis to examine criminal violence and publicly available survey data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) to conduct regression analysis, individual case studies on Colombia, Mexico, El Salvador, and Nicaragua highlight the major challenges that governments face and how they have responded to various security issues. Rosen and Kassab later turn their attention to the role of external criminal actors in the region and offer policy recommendations and lessons learned. Questions explored include: What are the major trends in organized crime in this country? How has organized crime evolved over time? Who are the major criminal actors? How has state fragility contributed to organized crime and violence (and vice versa)? What has been the government’s response to drug trafficking and organized crime? Have such policies contributed to violence? Crime, Violence and the State in Latin America is suitable to both undergraduate and graduate courses in criminal justice, international relations, political science, comparative politics, international political economy, organized crime, drug trafficking, and violence.

Download or read book Violent Democracies in Latin America written by Enrique Desmond Arias and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-19 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite recent political movements to establish democratic rule in Latin American countries, much of the region still suffers from pervasive violence. From vigilantism, to human rights violations, to police corruption, violence persists. It is perpetrated by state-sanctioned armies, guerillas, gangs, drug traffickers, and local community groups seeking self-protection. The everyday presence of violence contrasts starkly with governmental efforts to extend civil, political, and legal rights to all citizens, and it is invoked as evidence of the failure of Latin American countries to achieve true democracy. The contributors to this collection take the more nuanced view that violence is not a social aberration or the result of institutional failure; instead, it is intimately linked to the institutions and policies of economic liberalization and democratization. The contributors—anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, and historians—explore how individuals and institutions in Latin American democracies, from the rural regions of Colombia and the Dominican Republic to the urban centers of Brazil and Mexico, use violence to impose and contest notions of order, rights, citizenship, and justice. They describe the lived realities of citizens and reveal the historical foundations of the violence that Latin America suffers today. One contributor examines the tightly woven relationship between violent individuals and state officials in Colombia, while another contextualizes violence in Rio de Janeiro within the transnational political economy of drug trafficking. By advancing the discussion of democratic Latin American regimes beyond the usual binary of success and failure, this collection suggests more sophisticated ways of understanding the challenges posed by violence, and of developing new frameworks for guaranteeing human rights in Latin America. Contributors: Enrique Desmond Arias, Javier Auyero, Lilian Bobea, Diane E. Davis, Robert Gay, Daniel M. Goldstein, Mary Roldán, Todd Landman, Ruth Stanley, María Clemencia Ramírez

Download or read book Risks Violence Security and Peace in Latin America written by Úrsula Oswald Spring and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the war against drugs, violence in streets, schools and families, and mining conflicts in Latin America. It examines the nonviolent negotiations, human rights, peacebuilding and education, explores security in cyberspace and proposes to overcome xenophobia, white supremacy, sexism, and homophobia, where social inequality increases injustice and violence. During the past 40 years of the Latin American Council for Peace Research (CLAIP) regional conditions have worsened. Environmental justice was crucial in the recent peace process in Colombia, but also in other countries, where indigenous people are losing their livelihood and identity. Since the end of the cold war, capitalism aggravated the life conditions of poor people. The neoliberal dismantling of the State reduced their rights and wellbeing in favour of enterprises. Youth are not only the most exposed to violence, but represent also the future for a different management of human relations and nature.

Download or read book Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Tina Hilgers and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-14 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean is no longer perpetrated primarily by states against their citizens, but by a variety of state and non-state actors struggling to control resources, territories, and populations. This book examines violence at the subnational level to illuminate how practices of violence are embedded within subnational configurations of space and clientelistic networks. In societies shaped by centuries of violence and exclusion, inequality and marginalization prevail at the same time that democratization and neoliberalism have decentralized power to regional and local levels, where democratic and authoritarian practices coexist. Within subnational arenas, unique configurations - of historical legacies, economic structures, identities, institutions, actors, and clientelistic networks - result in particular patterns of violence and vulnerability that are often strikingly different from what is portrayed by aggregate national-level statistics. The chapters of this book examine critical cases from across the region, drawing on new primary data collected in the field to analyze how a range of political actors and institutions shape people's lives and to connect structural and physical forms of violence.

Download or read book Crime and Violence in Latin America written by H. Hugo Frühling and published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press. This book was released on 2003-06-02 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers timely discussion by attorneys, government officials, policy analysts, and academics from the United States and Latin America of the responses of the state, civil society, and the international community to threats of violence and crime.

Download or read book The Last Colonial Massacre written by Greg Grandin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-07-30 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After decades of bloodshed and political terror, many lament the rise of the left in Latin America. Since the triumph of Castro, politicians and historians have accused the left there of rejecting democracy, embracing communist totalitarianism, and prompting both revolutionary violence and a right-wing backlash. Through unprecedented archival research and gripping personal testimonies, Greg Grandin powerfully challenges these views in this classic work. In doing so, he uncovers the hidden history of the Latin American Cold War: of hidebound reactionaries holding on to their power and privilege; of Mayan Marxists blending indigenous notions of justice with universal ideas of equality; and of a United States supporting new styles of state terror throughout the region. With Guatemala as his case study, Grandin argues that the Latin American Cold War was a struggle not between political liberalism and Soviet communism but two visions of democracy—one vibrant and egalitarian, the other tepid and unequal—and that the conflict’s main effect was to eliminate homegrown notions of social democracy. Updated with a new preface by the author and an interview with Naomi Klein, The Last Colonial Massacre is history of the highest order—a work that will dramatically recast our understanding of Latin American politics and the role of the United States in the Cold War and beyond. “This work admirably explains the process in which hopes of democracy were brutally repressed in Guatemala and its people experienced a civil war lasting for half a century.”—International History Review “A richly detailed, humane, and passionately subversive portrait of inspiring reformers tragically redefined by the Cold War as enemies of the state.”—Journal of American History

Download or read book Silenced Communities written by Marcia Esparza and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2017-10-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the Guatemalan Civil War ended more than two decades ago, its bloody legacy continues to resonate even today. In Silenced Communities, author Marcia Esparza offers an ethnographic account of the failed demilitarization of the rural militia in the town of Santo Tomás Chichicastenango following the conflict. Combining insights from postcolonialism, subaltern studies, and theories of internal colonialism, Esparza explores the remarkable resilience of ideologies and practices engendered in the context of the Cold War, demonstrating how the lingering effects of grassroots militarization affect indigenous communities that continue to struggle with inequality and marginalization.

Download or read book Armies Without Nations written by Robert H. Holden and published by . This book was released on 2006-02-16 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public violence, a persistent feature of Latin American life since the collapse of Iberian rule in the 1820s, has been especially prominent in Central America. Robert H. Holden shows how public violence shaped the states that have governed Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Linking public violence and patrimonial political cultures, he shows how the early states improvised their authority by bargaining with armed bands or montoneras. Improvisation continued into the twentieth century as the bands were gradually superseded by semi-autonomous national armies, and as new agents of public violence emerged in the form of armed insurgencies and death squads. World War II, Holden argues, set into motion the globalization of public violence. Its most dramatic manifestation in Central America was the surge in U.S. military and police collaboration with the governments of the region, beginning with the Lend-Lease program of the 1940s and continuing through the Cold War. Although the scope of public violence had already been established by the people of the Central American countries, globalization intensified the violence and inhibited attempts to shrink its scope. Drawing on archival research in all five countries as well as in the United States, Holden elaborates the connections among the national, regional, and international dimensions of public violence. Armies Without Nations crosses the borders of Central American, Latin American, and North American history, providing a model for the study of global history and politics. Armies without Nations was a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2005.

Download or read book A History of Political Murder in Latin America written by W. John Green and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-04-27 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This expansive history depicts Latin America's pan-regional culture of political murder. Unlike typical studies of the region, which often focus on the issues or trends of individual countries, this work focuses thematically on the nature of political murder itself, comparing and contrasting its uses and practices throughout the region. W. John Green examines the entire system of political murder: the methods and justifications the perpetrators employ, the victims, and the consequences for Latin American societies. Green demonstrates that elite and state actors have been responsible for most political murders, assassinating the leaders of popular movements and other messengers of change. Latin American elites have also often targeted the potential audience for these messages through the region's various "dirty wars." In spite of regional differences, elites across the region have displayed considerable uniformity in justifying their use of murder, imagining themselves in a class war with democratic forces. While the United States has often been complicit in such violence, Green notes that this has not been universally true, with US support waxing and waning. A detailed appendix, exploring political murder country by country, provides an additional resource for readers.

Download or read book State Building War and Violence written by Sabine Kurtenbach and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In European history, war has played a major role in state-building and the state monopoly on violence. But war is a very specific form of organized political violence, and it is decreasing on a global scale. Other patterns of armed violence now dominate, ones that seem to undermine state-building, thus preventing the replication of European experiences. As a consequence, the main focus of the current state-building debate is on fragility and a lack of violence control inside these states. Evidence from Latin American history shows that the specific patterns of the termination of both war and violence are more important than the specific patterns of their organization. Hence these patterns can be conceptualized as a critical juncture for state-building. While military victories in war, the subordination of competing armed actors and the prosecution of perpetrators are conducive for state-building, negotiated settlements, coexistence, and impunity produce instability due to competing patterns of authority, legitimacy, and social cohesion.

Download or read book The Origins and Dynamics of Genocide written by Roddy Brett and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book rigorously documents and explains the genocide perpetrated by the Guatemalan state against indigenous Maya populations within the context of its counterinsurgency campaign against leftist guerrillas between 1981 and 1983. In doing so it brings to light a genocide that has remained largely invisible within both academic disciplines and the practitioner sphere. In May 2013, former de facto president of Guatemala, General Efrain Rios Montt, was for ten days indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity within Guatemala’s domestic courts. Based upon over a decade of ethnographic research, including in survivors’ communities in Guatemala, this book documents the historical processes shaping the genocide by analysing the evolution of both counterinsurgent and insurgent violence and strategy, focusing above all on its impact upon the civilian population. The research clearly evidences the impact of political violence upon non-combatants; how military and insurgent strategies gradually implicate civilians in conflict and the strategies civilians may adopt in order to survive them. Convincingly framed within key theoretical scholarship from genocide studies and comparative politics it speaks to a broad audience beyond Latin Americanists.