Criminal Governance in Times of Post-Chávez Revolution and Questioned Legitimacy: A Look at the Different Territorial Orders and Armed Actors in Caracas

Abstract

This paper compares the configuration of two armed territorial orders and the forms of local governance in neo-patrimonial authoritarian contexts in Caracas that suffer from what has been called a “complex humanitarian crisis”. We dialogue with the concepts of collaborative governance and criminal governance to understand how social control functions locally in an authoritarian context where a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis has restricted the resources and scope of government. The Venezuelan case reveals with special interest the processes of mutation in the relations between armed actors and a fragmented State for social control functions in their territories in a context of contested legitimacy.

Keywords

• criminal governance, collaborative governance, armed territorial orders, armed despotism