HYBRID ORDERS AND FRAGMENTED SOVEREIGNTIES IN LATIN AMERICA: INSTITUTIONAL DYNAMICS, COMMUNITY LOGICS AND THE EVERYDAY REGULATION OF SOCIAL LIFE
The study of political order and security in Latin America has moved from traditional approaches based on the state monopoly of violence toward analytical frameworks that recognize the existence of shared, fragmented and/or hybrid sovereignties. In many regions of the continent, the emergence of non-state actors—including criminal organizations, self-defense collectives and armed groups—does not necessarily translate into the absolute absence of the State, but rather into configurations of power in which legality and illegality coexist, compete, or actively collaborate in the production of social order.
This symposium invites researchers analyzing the dynamics of hybrid governance in urban and rural contexts of Latin America. Its main objective is to unravel the institutional dynamics and community logics that allow these actors to consolidate de facto authority and shape the behavior of civil society. It seeks to move beyond explanations centered exclusively on physical coercion, to explore how everyday regulation is stabilized through complex interactions between formal institutions and de facto powers.
Drawing on various methodologies, the symposium will discuss papers structured around three fundamental, though not exclusive, analytical axes:
1) Research analyzing how processes of corruption, institutional ineffectiveness, impunity, and the perception of security forces as sources of threat erode public trust.
2) Work exploring the community level, specifically how the weakening of interpersonal trust, social isolation, and generalized suspicion hinder community coordination and resistance, reducing control costs for de facto rulers and favoring individual strategies of adaptation.
3) Research documenting the civil and social regulatory functions exercised by non-state armed actors, such as the expeditious arbitration of interpersonal disputes, market control, the imposition of norms of coexistence, and the provision of goods or services, which structure daily life under parameters of relative predictability in contexts of uncertainty.
Finally, the symposium will foster critical discussion on the theoretical implications of these hybrid orders for contemporary debates on sovereignty, citizenship, and political change in the region. It will also reflect on the limitations of public security policies based solely on militarization, providing evidence on the urgency of rebuilding both institutional legitimacy and community social fabric in order to confront criminal and hybrid governances in Latin America.
