Hernan Flom, "The Informal Regulation of Criminal Markets in Latin America" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Political Scientist Hern\xe1n Flom has written a fascinating and nuanced analysis of how the criminal drug markets operate in Argentina and Brazil. Instead of tracking the path that illegal drugs take or examining how the criminal justice system works in Latin American countries, Flom has focused, instead, on the illegal drug markets as economic and political institutions to examine how they actually operates within Brazil and Argentina. From this perspective, we learn quite a lot about market forces, civilian and police institutions, and \u201claw and order\u201d approaches in both these countries.\xa0The Informal Regulation of Criminal Markets in Latin America\xa0(Cambridge UP, 2022) provides a comparative analysis of the criminal markets in these two countries\u2014Brazil and Argentina\u2014as well as differentiating between how these markets work in larger, urban centers, and in smaller cities. This effectively teases out distinctions between how police work with or against these criminal markets, and how the local and national politicians often articulate distinct approaches to how to manage criminal enterprises.\nThe Informal Regulation of Criminal Markets in Latin America\xa0examines patterns in the relationships between police, politicians, drug cartels, and criminal actors. These patterns are not necessarily new, but as Flom makes clear, they operate in different ways in different venues and with regard to different types of informal arrangements. In doing a cross national comparison as well as internal comparisons within country, Flom has been able to get at some distinctions that come from the colonial past that has also led to different racial configurations in these comparative urban environments. The research also measures different levels of both police and criminal violence, to gage the kinds of relationships that may be in place between these often-opposing entities. The relationship between the police, as subnational units, and politicians also figures into the various levels of police violence.\xa0The Informal Regulations of Criminal Markets in Latin America\xa0gets at the key variables that come into play in regard to police conduct and the kinds of policies that politicians are both articulating and trying to implement\u2014often through the police.\nThis is a multi-dimensional analysis that explores criminal markets from important and unique perspectives. Flom worked at the National Ministry of Security in Argentina during the course of this research, and he is able to bring his scholarly expertise as well as his own experience to the research and analysis, making this a particularly rich comparison across countries and urban centers within those countries.\nLilly J. Goren\xa0is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of\xa0The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe\xa0(University Press of Kansas, 2022), as well as co-editor of the award winning book,\xa0Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics\xa0(University Press of Kentucky, 2012), Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to\xa0@gorenlj.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law