Abstract

SOTO AGUIRRE, JOHNATAN ANDRÉS. Itagüí: state violence and narco-paramilitary violence: a reflection from the municipal level on State monopoly of the legitimate violence. Hallazgos [online]. 2020, vol.17, n.34, pp.241-269.  Epub Sep 01, 2020. ISSN 1794-3841.  https://doi.org/10.15332/2422409x.5239.

To explain the existence and control exercised by illegal armed groups (iag) associated with drug trafficking, there are recurrent arguments based on ideas such as the absence of the State, the exclusion of safety and justice services or the reference to the subcultures of illegality. The purpose of this paper is to question the interpretative frameworks that assume that the absence of the State is a precondition for the growth of illegal power or that the strengthening of the State’s coercive capacity implies its disappearance. As we approach the relationship between the State, the iag and citizen practices and representations from the municipal level, we find a continuous process in which the different actors coexist, interact and reproduce in hybrid contexts of illegality-legality. Itagüí is a clear example of the need to think about the State monopoly of the legitimate violence from other explanatory frameworks, in which it is considered that the action of the State will depend on contextualized social relations, that there is no such thing as the general power of the State, and that it is necessary to identify the set of particular powers at local level and its way of integrating to generate specific structures of domination.

Keywords : absence of the State; hybrid contexts of illegality-legality; narco-paramilitarism; state power.

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