Organized Criminal Violence and Territorial Control: Evidence from Northern Honduras

Abstract

What accounts for geographic variation in organized criminal violence? In Honduras, a country with one of the highest homicide rates in the world, the intensity of violence rivals many civil wars. Yet violent crime varies across cities and neighborhoods. Armed groups seeking to control territory use violence for different purposes, including competing against rivals, coercing residents and state officials, and exploiting the public for profit. Variations in community organization, defined as the density of interpersonal ties and the prevalence of shared expectations for collective action, affect the utility of violence for each of these purposes. Community organization can raise the cost of controlling territory, reduce the benefits of coercive violence, and generate pressure to protect residents from exploitation. These dynamics are examined through a comparison of nine neighborhoods in three of Honduras’s most violent cities, drawing from disaggregated homicide data and ethnographic research. The comparison shows that neighborhoods with denser community organization experienced lower levels of violence. Narrative evidence points to specific ways in which community organization mediates effects of competition among criminal groups and their interaction with state officials. Community characteristics thus affect the way non-state armed actors exercise authority in areas of limited state presence.

Biographical Note

Dr. Louis- Alexandre Berg (Georgia State University)

Louis-Alexandre Berg is an Assistant Professor in the Global Studies Institute and Political Science Department and Georgia State University. His research explores the causes and consequences of conflict, crime and political violence in weak states, with a focus on the effects of civil war on state formation, and the impact of international peacebuilding and state-building programs.  His current book project examines efforts to restructure police and military forces in war-torn countries, focusing on how political context in war-torn countries shapes the effects of foreign assistance efforts.  It is based on field work in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Timor Leste.  He has also published research, and on the politics of urban violence and organized crime in Central America, and on justice system and rule of law development in conflict-affected countries.

Prior to joining the faculty at GSU, Dr. Berg was a Research Fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has been the recipient of research fellowships from the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and Georgetown University, as well as a Presidential Management Fellowship.  He also spent ten years working in government and international organizations to design, manage and evaluate international peacebuilding and development programs, with a focus on security and justice system reform.  He led a research program at The World Bank to examine and strengthen international efforts to address security and justice issues in conflict-affected countries, and worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. State Department, and the United Nations Development Program on judicial system reform, police reform, human rights and violence prevention programs, including in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia and the Balkans.

Dr. Berg holds a PhD in Government from Georgetown University, a Masters in Public and International Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a BA from Brown University.  He is fluent in French and Spanish.