Neopatrimonialism and criminal governance in Latin America

This article examines the neo-patrimonial conception of power as a cause of the development of criminal governance. It analyzes how patrimonialism and the culture of privilege foster the privatization of public power by officials and private actors, who assume the public as their own, and governance becomes private. This governance is then legitimized by a population that has also assumed that culture. This culture and its symptoms of state inefficiency, corruption and impunity are studied. Then, the ideal scenario for the development of these forms of governance, through which organized crime is consolidated, is analyzed. It is established that, rather than the absence of the State, what benefits organized crime is its complicity and coexistence with weak States and a legal order that guarantees minimum conditions of stability for large-scale criminal activities.