Militias going rogue: Social dilemmas and coercive brokerage in Rio de Janeiro's urban frontier

Pope, Nicholas

Abstract

Examining Rio de Janeiro's milícias (‘militias’) through a ‘coercive brokerage’ concept can reveal how they are central to how states and markets function. By tracing their emergence through moments of political and economic rupture, this article reveals how milícias responded to the social dilemmas of marginalised populations. Drawing from archival documentation, interviews, and ethnographic fieldnotes, this article argues that by brokering solutions to collective action problems and attempting to level-up inequalities, milícias gained access to the political system and were able to shaped the urban political economy. However, their coercive force also stimulated fresh contradictions, leading to a new set of structural, symbolic, and physical violences.

Citation

Pope, N. (2023). Militias going rogue: Social dilemmas and coercive brokerage in Rio de Janeiro's urban frontier. Journal of International Development, 35(3), 478-490. https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3636

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 17, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Feb 9, 2022
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Apr 4, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 4, 2022
• Journal: Journal of International Development
• Print ISSN: 0954-1748
• Electronic ISSN: 1099-1328
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 35
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 478-490
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3636
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jid.3636