Suchergebnisse

Argues that victories of opposition parties in local elections are important for democratization of political institutions and for increasing political participation; Mexico.

On 13 July 1992, the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) scored an important victory in the northern state of Chihuahua, winning not only the gubernatorial election, but also the most important cities of the state and a majority in the local Congress. As in the previous elections of 1986, one of the characteristics of this electoral process was the overt participation of entrepreneurs in the opposition, particularly small and medium-size entrepreneurs.

AbstractInstitutionalized gangs are youth groups that have developed the ability to persist, expand, and restructure organizationally around criminal activities and have imposed their norms and behavioral prescriptions on the communities where they operate. So how does a gang member manage to leave these groups and abandon violent crime? This article proposes a new theoretical model of gang disengagement based on a comparative case study with MS‐13 and Barrio 18 gangs in Central America. It is based on 112 in‐depth interviews with former gang members in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The article identifies three forms of gang disengagement: religious conversion, secular pass, and walking away. Two factors, the gang's organizational structure and its territorial reach, mediate in the choices gang members have when leaving an institutionalized gang. The specific combination of these factors makes some disengagement modes more likely than others. The article underscores the role of gang governance in shaping gang members' disengagement processes.