Political Determinants of Violence in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires

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Political Determinants of Violence in the
Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires
October 2014

• Alberto Föhrig
• UdeSA

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Research Questions, Hypothesis, Methods

• This paper intends to provide some evidence and
  analysis about the links between politics, the
  police, and crime in the metropolitan area of
  Buenos Aires. It intends to provide criteria to
  explain significant variability in municipal
  crime rates.
• Why violence? Dependent variable crime against
  individuals excluding car accidents
• Are political factors related to increases in
  violent crime?
• What is the relationship between stability
  measured as re-election rate for mayors and
  fragmentation measured as increased effective
  number of parties and intra-party fragmentation
  with violence?
• Hypothesis The increasing number of political
  and drug trafficking groups competing for
  territory produce unstable agreements and tend to
  increase violence.
• Mixed method approach. Panel data model with
  fixed effects and clustered errors combined with
  the qualitative study of court cases involving
  relationships between politics, police and crime.

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Theoretical background crime, the police and
politics

• Different authors (Saín, 2002 Tokatlian, 2011
  Auyero 2012) have underscored the increasing
  links between certain political actors with
  criminal organizations in Argentina.
• Gambetta (1996), Villareal (2002), Wilkinson
  (2004), Garay (2013), Osorio (2012), studied the
  relationship between politics and crime in
  different contexts. Snyder and Duran Martinez
  (2009) theorize under what conditions criminal
  groups are able to use state sponsored protection
  rackets to develop their activities.
• Fajnzylber et.al. (1998) produced a classic study
  on the determinants of crime in Latin America in
  which they concluded that inequality more than
  poverty as well as GDP per capita rates had a
  significant impact on crime rates.

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Theoretical background Fragmentation as a
Multilevel Game

• Politics and crime are both territorially defined
  and structured in multi level layers
• Consensus on fragmentation of the Argentine
  political system
• Decreasing levels of party nationalization (Jones
  and Mainwaring 2003, Leiras 2006)
• Increased ENP and Territorialization (Calvo and
  Escolar 2005, Leiras 2006)
• Lack of Congruence between the national and
  provincial party systems (Gibson and Suarez Cao
  2010)
• Intra-party fragmentation (Föhrig 2011, Föhrig
  and Post 2007)
• Mayors linked to the police in a variety of
  informal dimensions
• Influence police officers careers they lobby
  the governor and may in fact veto the appointment
  of police authorities in their districts given
  their previous records.
• Influence their promotions and exonerations.
• In operative terms they provide police with money
  and equipment. Operationally influence the
  allocation of police resources given their
  monitoring capacities provided by surveillance
  cameras.
• Mayors authorize commercial ventures to operate
  within the boundaries of their municipalities
• Have privileged access to a key political asset
  information. Bridge informational gaps.

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Context

• The Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires
  concentrates a quarter of the countrys
  population and is the second most violent area in
  the country (Lodola and Seligson, 2012 128).
• Significant increases in crime rates,
  concentration of crime, and organized crime
  activities.
• The context in which this paper tests it
  empirical hypothesis is one in which the police
  informal regulation of criminal activity started
  to crumble as a consequence of the expansion of
  the drug market. The new market and institutional
  incentives in place generated the emergence of
  new organized crime organizations on the ground.
• Party system change simultaneous influence of
  fragmentation and party predominance.

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Drugs Market
Cocaine Seizures in Argentina (kg. per year)
Drug Consumption by School Children
Source OAS, 2013
Source UNODC, various years.
Local Processing 80 facilities producing
different phases of drugs were shut down by
enforcement agents between 2000 and 2006
(Sedronar, 2011). Sinthetic Drugs 600.000
pills production facility discovered in Mar de
Ajo (2013) doubled total seizures in Ezeiza
Airport since 2004.
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Crime rates against individuals
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Intra-party fragmentation
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Reelection
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Crime rate and effective number of parties
Graph. Distribution of Crime Against Individuals
Graph. Distribution of the Effective Number of
Parties.
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Methodology

• Panel data model with fixed effects and clustered
  errors.
• 336 annual observations, comprising the 24
  municipalities in metropolitan area of Buenos
  Aires between 1995 and 2008.
• Dependent variable
• Crime rate against individuals excluding car
  accidents
• Independent variables
• Energy rate consumption
• Number of students per inhabitant
• Margin of victory
• Effective number of parties
• Cocaine seizure
• Reelection
• Intra party fragmentation
• Variables are expressed in logs.

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Panel Data Models
                 
VARIABLES Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8
                 
Energy consumption 0.182 0.0676 0.0505 0.0176 -0.0496 -0.0640 -0.190 -0.187
Energy consumption (0.156) (0.202) (0.192) (0.203) (0.200) (0.206) (0.216) (0.221)
Number of students per inhabitant -0.0934 -0.271 -0.181 -0.223 -0.307 -0.351 -0.228 -0.273
Number of students per inhabitant (0.109) (0.114) (0.0953) (0.105) (0.124) (0.125) (0.121) (0.124)
Margin of victory   -0.00474 0.00786 -0.00362 0.00106 0.0127 0.0160 0.000684 0.00457
Margin of victory   (0.0168) (0.0168) (0.0154) (0.0164) (0.0161) (0.0176) (0.0150) (0.0165)
Effective number of parties 0.0811 0.0910     0.151 0.154    
Effective number of parties (0.0525) (0.0528)     (0.0522) (0.0520)    
Cocaine Seizures   0.130 0.117 0.140 0.128        
Cocaine Seizures   (0.0318) (0.0360) (0.0341) (0.0333)        
Reelection 0.124   0.143   0.141   0.124  
Reelection (0.0522)   (0.0566)   (0.0558)   (0.0566)  
Years in government     0.0592   0.0532   0.0691   0.0590
Years in government     (0.0233)   (0.0251)   (0.0237)   (0.0263)
Intra-party fragmentation     -0.0452 -0.0312     -0.0909 -0.0685
Intra-party fragmentation     (0.0530) (0.0541)     (0.0607) (0.0630)
Deterministic trend 0.0203 0.0215 0.0246 0.0254 0.0165 0.0175 0.0243 0.0244
Deterministic trend (0.00446) (0.00489) (0.00451) (0.00479) (0.00468) (0.00473) (0.00490) (0.00505)
Constant 1.385 2.572 2.343 2.651 3.527 3.719 3.970 4.090
  (0.884) (1.083) (0.972) (1.091) (1.001) (1.082) (1.042) (1.122)
                 
Observations 336 336 336 336 336 336 336 336
R-squared 0.567 0.570 0.568 0.565 0.531 0.538 0.520 0.525
Number of muni 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24
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Qualitative Analysis Court Cases and Legislative
Inquiries involving PPC

• Candela case
• Kidnapping and murder of a 11 year old by a
  police/drug dealers mixed gang. Legislative
  Inquiry
• Ephedrine case
• Triple homicide of Gral. Rodriguez.
• 2. Conviction of Martinez Espinosa (Maschwitz
  drug processing facility)
• 3. Involvement of high ranking state officials
• 4. Illegal financing of president Cristina
  Kirchner electoral campaign 2007

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Mechanisms

• Scenarios of bilateral monopoly between criminal
  organizations and political actors which produced
  stable agreements over time are broken.
• Both politics and drug trafficking involve a
  territorial and multilayered dimension.
• Drug traffickers need specific territories in
  order to transport, elaborate and sell drugs. In
  order to do so they require safe portions of
  land which enable them to develop these
  activities with low risks of being caught by
  authorities. Because of geography,
  transportation difficulties, and communication
  costs criminal organizations act locally.

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Mechanisms (II)

• Drug market forces increased the number of
  criminal organizations on the ground. As a
  consequence, the number of players on the market
  side increased over the last years.
• Process of fragmentation party factions that
  compete against each other in territorial
  disputes fighting for party power in a multilevel
  game. Relationships between party factions and
  criminal groups at the local level within the
  context of political competition influence
  increases in violence.
• Re-election and fragmentation are simultaneously
  maintained through electoral system design
  listas colectoras and listas espejo
  (Mustapic, 2013).
• The increasing number of political and drug
  trafficking groups competing for territory within
  scenarios of either cooperation or competition
  between the two distinct activities produce
  unstable agreements and tend to increase violence.

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Mechanisms (III)

• Senate endorses judges and prosecutors
  appointments
• Governors appoint, remove and rotate in different
  settings police agents.
• Police does not enforce internal oversight
• Mixed members gangs police and drug dealers

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Conclusions
The models presented in this paper show the
significance of political variables to analyze
crime. Political variables on fragmentation and
re-election of mayors show an impact over
violence. The longer actors stay on the ground,
the greater their ability to develop ties of
reciprocity, trust and reputation with the police
and criminal groups. Re-election for mayors
without restrictions seems to be a measure with
negative effects over crime. When scenario of
stability for mayors (party predominance) and
fragmentation of the political system coexists
with market pressures for new organizations into
the market, violence increases.
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THANK YOU _at_afohrig
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Theorizing the relationship between politics and
crime
Scenario Indicator
Non violence State sponsored protection racket High level of drug seizures, high level of domestic consumption
Non violence Lack of drug related criminal activity Low levels of seizures and low domestic consumption
Non violence Non-violent drug market High domestic consumption and low levels of seizures
Violence Broken state sponsored protection racket due to the entrance of new players into the market or new state agencies intervening. Territorial disputes or succession conflicts and consequent fragmentation Rise in the number of homicides among gang members in territorial disputes. Spatial concentration of homicides.
Violence Open conflict between the state and criminal organizations Increase in the number of criminal organizations disarticulated and their members imprisoned. Rise in the number of casualties.
Violence Collusion with/diversification to other forms of organized crime Rise in crime rates against property and individuals
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Errors distribution
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Distribution of Crime rate against individuals
(2008)
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Effective number of parties (2008)
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Intra-party fragmentation (2008)
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Reelection (2008)
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Energy consumption rate (2008)