Living in Gang-Controlled Neighborhoods: Impacts on Electoral and Nonelectoral Participation in El Salvador

Abby Córdova

doi:10.25222/larr.387

Abstract

Gangs’ territorial control affects the lives of residents in thousands of neighborhoods across Latin America, particularly in northern Central American countries. I argue that gang dominance constrains the ability of neighborhood residents to mobilize politically and consequently resist gang violence through institutionalized channels. Living in gang-controlled neighborhoods results in fewer incentives and opportunities to make political elites accountable for one’s personal safety. Even residents who have already experienced crime firsthand are discouraged from turning to politics as a strategy to change the status quo. My theoretical insights identify mechanisms through which gangs’ neighborhood control affects nonelectoral and electoral participation. To test my hypotheses, I rely on census and public opinion data collected in seventy-one neighborhoods in El Salvador. This article offers the first systematic statistical analysis of the effect of gangs’ territorial control on political participation in the Latin American context. The findings suggest that living under gang rule undermines residents’ right to engage freely in politics in nuanced ways.

Highlights

Gang Violence in El SalvadorGang violence is widespread across impoverished neighborhoods in developed and developing countries (Rodgers 1999)
The coefficient associated with the gang dominance index is negative and statistically significant in these first four models
Political participation is limited under conditions of gang dominance, resulting in unequal democracies where only privileged citizens who can afford to reside in well-off neighborhoods can freely engage in politics

Summary

Introduction

Gang Violence in El SalvadorGang violence is widespread across impoverished neighborhoods in developed and developing countries (Rodgers 1999). In the past few years, gangs in El Salvador expanded their membership, becoming much more powerful illicit nonstate actors (Cruz 2014) They have built more sophisticated criminal organizations with greater capacity for coordinating activities among members belonging to different clikas or cells (Pedraza, Miller, and Cavallaro 2010). Data indicate that almost half a million people in El Salvador have close ties to gang members, including their relatives and friends (Santos 2013). According to these statistics, approximately 7 percent of the population may be directly or indirectly associated with gangs in El Salvador

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Conclusion