The role of power for non-state armed groups in cities
Marginalised Spaces and Transitions From Armed Conflict
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5761446 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Antônio Sampaio (International Institute for Strategic Studies, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 2-3 |
| Pages | 179-200 |
| Publication date | 2019-05-04 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Third World Thematics A TWQ Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2379-9978 • E-ISSN: 2380-2014 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/23802014.2019.1669487 |
| OpenAlex | W2978226414 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 21 |
The concept of power provides a useful analytical framework through which to analyse the political relationships between non-state armed groups, marginalised territories and populations in cities. Its examination in the context of urban-based non-state armed groups contributes to our understanding of the local politics of armed conflict. Local power, defined as the ability of an armed actor to coerce or co-opt people to abide by a set of rules in a specific urban area, is a relational concept profoundly influenced by the urban space. The main specificity of urban-based power is the propensity of cities, as hubs for different forms of contestation, to concentrate resources and illicit economies favouring non-state armed activity. This concentration, or power density, plays an important role in transitions from armed conflict to peace: the main argument here is that power density facilitates the transition of armed conflict into other, mainly criminal, forms of organised violence while retaining their spatial concentration in marginalised areas (peripheries, slums). The article discusses the conceptual aspects of local power and proceeds to an empirical case study focused on the Colombian city of Medellín, affected by a variety of non-state armed actors and a transition from ideologically-driven to criminal armed groups during the 2000s
Armed conflict · Criminology · Geography · Ideology · Opportunity structures · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Conflict, Peace, and Violence in Colombia · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Law · Political Conflict and Governance
The Logic of Violence in Civil War
Rebelocracy
Urban Violence, Political Economy, and Territorial Control
Violencia reciente en Medellín. Una aproximación a los actores
Before and after urban warfare
Rebel Governance in Civil War
The Challenge of Community-Based Armed Groups
Non-State Armed Actors, New Imagined Communities, and Shifting Patterns of Sovereignty and Insecurity in the Modern World
The urbanisation of conflict
Crime, (counter-)insurgency and the privatization of security - the case of Medellín, Colombia
Crime–War Battlefields
Compliance vs. constraints
Counterpoints
Cities on Fire
The concept of power
Out of the Mountains
Securing the global city
Urban DDR-processes
African cities and violent conflict
| Citations per year | 0.43 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2023 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |