Speaker
Description
Why do citizens living under the control of powerful organized criminal groups (OCGs) denounce them to state authorities? Since the 1980s, a variety of OCGs have maintained territorial control of hundreds of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas (informal and working-class neighborhoods). Although they have few safe or effective options to collectively resist these groups, some residents have done so by denouncing OCG members and their activities to an anonymous hotline, Disque Denúncia. Building from insights garnered during 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in one set of OCG-controlled favelas, I argue that anonymous denunciation is highly strategic in nature and revolves around two dynamics related to OCG territorial control: violent competition with rivals and police enforcement. The observable implications of the theory are tested with a geo-located longitudinal dataset of 24,000 anonymous denunciations.
| What discipline or branch of humanities or social sciences do you identify yourself with? | Politics and International Relations |
|---|---|
| If you are submitting an Open Panel proposal, have you included all four abstracts in attachment? | No, I am submitting a Closed Panel abstract |
| Are you a PhD student or early-career researcher? | No |
