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What explains variation in the structure and practices of collective vigilantism? I develop a framework that focuses on relations among victims and between victims and the state. I use the framework to compare variation in collective vigilantism enacted by avocado and berry sectors in Michoacán, Mexico. Centralized collective vigilantism by the avocado sector entailed a single sectoral organization coordinating victims' extra-legal activities with no interference from local politicians. By contrast, decentralized collective vigilantism by the berry sector consisted of multiple autonomous groups of victims in conflict with criminals, local political authorities and among each other as they competed for power and resources. These differences in collective vigilantism can be traced back to differences in the local political economies that shape relations among victims and between them and the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do internationally informed, technology-driven efforts to democratize the police and citizen security policies in developing countries intersect with pre-existing racial dynamics and discourses? This question is relevant to scholars of both race and security in developing countries, given the current global diffusion of US policing reforms into distinct racial and political contexts. I analyse the intersection between the adoption of crime-mapping technology in urban Colombia and dynamics and discourses regarding the Afro-Colombian population. I find that efforts to democratize the police can paradoxically displace important questions about race from citizen security policy discussions and generate seemingly 'objective' findings that fuse with subjective assumptions regarding the links between criminality, violence and race. Keywords: Colombia: police; race; violence; security; democracy. DOI: 10.1080/01419870903380854

The conventional approach to criminal victimization views it as a traumatic but one-time act. This overlooks a layer of contentious and dynamic politics between victims and criminal actors that we have yet to analyze. I develop a new theoretical framework to analyze the strategic behaviors that victims and criminal actors use to pursue and resist power as part of the political process of criminal victimization. The framework enables us to better observe, conceptualize, and theorize how victims exercise agency vis-à-vis their criminal perpetrators, as well as behaviors and practices that criminal actors undertake to carry out and sustain victimization, but which are overlooked by the traditional focus on their use and threat of coercive force. I illustrate the framework's analytic utility with an empirical analysis of the victimization of informal street vendors in a major Latin American city under a criminal protection racket. The argument and empirical findings suggest ways to expand and deepen the research agenda on the politics of criminal victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]