World Development Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 89–112, 2006 Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev 0305-750X/$ - see front matter doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.07.012 Latin American Urban Violence as a Development Concern: Towards a Framework for Violence Reduction CAROLINE O. N. MOSER Overseas Development Institute, London, UK Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, USA and CATHY MCILWAINE * Queen Mary, University of London, UK Summary. — Despite growing recognition of urban violence being a serious development con- straint in Latin America, there is contestation concerning its categorization, underlying causes, costs and consequences, and violence-reduction solutions. This article seeks to contribute to a bet- ter understanding of the complexity of everyday violence in poor urban communities in terms of both ongoing analytical debates as well as operational solutions. Drawing on the research litera- ture, as well as recent participatory urban appraisals of violence in Colombia and Guatemala, and Central American violence-reduction guidelines, it develops a framework to explain the holistic nature of violence and to provide operationally relevant methodological tools to facilitate cross- sectoral violence-reduction interventions. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords — violence, urban, violence-reduction interventions, Latin America, Colombia, Guatemala 1. INTRODUCTION poor people themselves, facilitated through the use of participatory urban appraisals The purpose of this article is to contribute to (PUAs). a better understanding of violence as a develop- In urban areas of Latin America, violence ment problem in urban Latin America, in terms has become increasingly ubiquitous (Torres- of both analytical debates and policy-focused Rivas, 1999, p. 287) as an ‘‘everyday’’ (Sche- operational solutions. Accompanying the per-Hughes, 1992), ‘‘common,’’ or ‘‘endemic’’ growing prevalence of everyday violence in phenomenon that permeates daily life, espe- cities across the region, there is widespread cially of poor populations (Koonings, 1999; contestation concerning violence categories, causes, costs and consequences, as well as debates concerning the comparative success of sector-specific violence-reduction interventions. * The authors would like to express their gratitude to This highlights the fact that this is still a new Peter Sollis and Sylvia Chant for comments on earlier area of development inquiry. This article seeks drafts. They would like to thank Eivor Halkjaer, An- to contribute to this debate by introducing a nalise Moser, Ailsa Winton, Alfredo Stein, and the PUA cross-sectoral violence-reduction framework teams in Colombia and Guatemala, and to acknowledge that includes not only the evidence of profes- the critically constructive comments of the four anony- sional researchers, but also the perceptions of mous reviewers. Final revision accepted: July 2, 2005. 89 90 WORLD DEVELOPMENT Poppovic & Pinheiro, 1995). While the defini- with poverty to precipitate violence (Fajnzyl- tion, nature, and extent vary between and with- ber, Lederman, & Loayza, 1998, 2000). Such in countries, 1 as a region Latin America has a linkages do not simply relate to income dispar- dramatically high level of violence, as defined ities, but also to exclusionary factors concern- by homicide rates, compared to other regions. ing unequal access to employment, education, Although such rates only provide a proxy for health, and basic physical infrastructure. In violence levels, the rate of intentional homicide addition, the absence or inadequacy of state in Latin America increased by 50% from the security protection, policing, and judicial sys- early 1980s to the mid-1990s, with marked rises tems particularly affect the poor. In turn, they in Panama, Peru, and Colombia (Fajnzylber, are unable to pay for their own services, and Lederman, & Loayza, 2000). While the global therefore are more susceptible to the impunity, average in 2000 was a homicide rate of 5 per corruption, inefficiency, and even brutality 100,000 inhabitants, the estimated average for often associated with such institutions. Latin America was 27.5, the highest for any In contexts of severe inequality, the urban region in the world (WHO, 2002). poor’s living conditions can heighten the poten- Although more recently violence measured in tial for the emergence of conflict, crime, or terms of homicide rates has declined in some violence (Vanderschueren, 1996). The adverse cities 2 (Mockus, 2001), researchers have identi- effects of globalization and the related spread fied that for many urban dwellers a complex of neo-liberalism have also arguably led to layering of multiple forms of violence, and increasing social polarization, with those ‘‘dis- above all its associated fear and insecurity, connected’’ at the local level more likely to has become ‘‘routinized’’ or ‘‘normalized’’ into experience crime and violence (Bricen˜o Leo`n the reality of daily life (Pecaut, 1999). This in- & Zubillaga, 2002; Willett, 2001). Globaliza- cludes widespread theft, mugging, and bur- tion has also facilitated the development of a glary, crimes associated with alcohol and drug ‘‘global criminal economy’’ in drugs, firearms, misuse, gang violence and prostitution, and prostitution, and extortion (Castells, 1998). Fi- commonplace intra-family abuse. nally, everyday violence has tended to continue At the same time, the economic impact of unabated in countries emerging from politi- violence, as well as its associated linkages to cal conflict and undergoing democratization poverty, inequality, and exclusion, has only re- efforts. In Latin America, the shift from cently been recognized as a development con- authoritarian regimes toward democratic gov- cern (Fajnzylber et al., 2000; WHO, 2002). In ernments has arguably led to the democratiza- much of the earlier development literature of tion of violence itself with the use of force no the 1960s and 1970s, violence was viewed as longer the primary preserve of armies, guerrilla, an individual issue of criminal pathology. This or paramilitary groups (Koonings, 2001; Kruijt was linked particularly to rapid urbanization & Koonings, 1999). This is reflected in the and the ‘‘marginality’’ of the newly arrived emergence of street gangs comprising former migrant populations (Lomnitz, 1977; Perlman, guerrilla, paramilitary, or military members, 1976). Young male migrants were often per- and a burgeoning drugs industry with networks ceived as embedded in a ‘‘culture of poverty’’ established during times of conflict (Kincaid, (Lewis, 1966, 1969), psychologically unable to 2000; Pearce, 1998). It is now recognized that deal with urban life and anomie, turning to violence adversely affects a country’s macro- crime and violence as a coping mechanism or and micro-economic growth and productivity. expression of frustration. The shift in the liter- A typical civil war is estimated to reduce in- ature from individual to more structural causes comes by around 15% and increases the num- of violence was influenced by Neo-Marxist and ber of people living in absolute poverty by Dependency debates of the 1970s and 1980s, about 30% (Collier et al., 2003, p. 2). In Colom- which led to the recognition that a complexity bia, for instance, urban violence and armed of institutional and structural factors also af- conflict from 1991 to 1996 totaled a net cost fects violence levels (Ayres, 1998). of 18.5% of GDP, representing 3.1% of GDP Again the common stereotype that poverty is per annum (Trujillo Ciro & Badel Pueda, the primary cause of violence has been chal- 1998, p. 25). lenged, with Latin American evidence showing Violence has a range of direct and indirect that inequality and exclusion, associated with impacts. It can directly undermine the function- unequal distribution of economic, political, ing of health services, security forces, judicial and social resources in urban contexts, intersect systems, housing, and social services—when LATIN AMERICAN URBAN VIOLENCE AS A DEVELOPMENT CONCERN 91 public servants are bribed, intimidated, or fail However, the limitations of participatory re- to provide the services for which they are search need to be noted. It is not a replacement responsible due to fear and insecurity. Indi- for the ethnographic research required to un- rectly, violence can result in higher morbidity cover the ‘‘multiple layering of violence,’’ often and mortality due to homicides and suicides, over a long time period (see, e.g., Robben & alcohol and drug abuse, and mental health dis- Nordstrom, 1995; Scheper-Hughes, 1992). In orders. Labor market and intergenerational addition, the extent to which people are genu- productivity are also affected by economic mul- inely empowered through participatory meth- tiplier effects, with interpersonal relations and odology is widely contested (Cornwall & the quality of life influenced by social multiplier Jewkes, 1995; Guijt & Shah, 1998). There are effects (Arriagada & Godoy, 2000). also data analyses constraints; researchers need to ‘‘mediate findings,’’ making choices as to (a) The contribution of PUA to violence what to highlight. Caution is needed to be exer- debates cised to ensure against the ‘‘filtering’’ of policy messages such that ‘‘certain messages disappear In the past decade, a range of academic disci- from view’’ (Norton et al., 2001, pp. 16–17). Fi- plines have undertaken research on urban nally, there are security risks for both research- violence using established quantitative