Territorial Control By Criminal Organizations: Violence, Power Chains and Authority

The armed presence and control of territories by criminal organizations are analyzed from the decisions that the latter make based on the context of legal and illegal markets. From this perspective, it is considered that armed actors operate from a series of rational and strategic calculations. This interpretation ends up drawing the members of criminal organizations as homo economicus. In other words, money and power are the causes behind the armed presence and control of territories. This text suggests another reading in which these last two processes are understood as the result of a contingent interpretation of the meaning of physical violence, the use and abuse of power chains, and authority referents.