Domínios armados e seus governos criminais – uma abordagem não fantasmagórica do “crime organizado”

Abstract

This article seeks to understand the social, economic and political dynamics by which armed domains are established, with their ambitions of hegemony over territories and populations, and of monopoly of illegal markets. It begins with the governance practices of the PCC criminal organization in São Paulo and of the militias in Rio de Janeiro as illustrations of criminal governments, and explores their similarities and differences. A conceptual-analytical grid is proposed based on certain core elements, such as their multiple relationships with different State players, their complex community insertion and the criminal diversification and regulation of legal and illegal markets. The criminal governance approach is an alternative to the narratives of “organized crime” and replaces theoretical-abstract notions with theoretical-conceptual conceptions built from empirical observation of the effects produced in territories under armed domain