ABSTRACT
This article seeks to contribute to the understanding of social, economic and political dynamics by which armed domains are established, along with their ambitions of hegemony over territories and populations, and monopoly of illegal markets. It starts with the criminal governance practices of the PCC in São Paulo and the militias in Rio de Janeiro as illustrations of the exercise of criminal governments, exploring their similarities and differences. A conceptual-analytical grid is proposed based on some central elements such as the multiple relationships with different state actors, the complex community insertion and the criminal diversification and regulation of (i)legal markets. The criminal governance approach is an alternative to the narratives of “organized crime”, replacing theoretical-abstract notions with theoretical-conceptual conceptions built from empirical observation of effects produced in territories under armed domain.
KEYWORDS:
Organized crime; Criminal governance; Armed domain; PCC; Militias