Thesis (Ph. D.)--Vanderbilt University, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 232-253).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1991. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-205).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 348-369).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 321-331).

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Drawing on sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in a poor and notorious neighbourhood, this dissertation examines how evolving dynamics of urban violence have affected life in a Guatemala City gang territory. The maras of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras - the gangs that help give these countries some of the world's highest homicide rates - have changed dramatically in their group cultures and criminal economies since they appeared in the 1990s. I trace what I call the mara's predatory turn: the elaboration of an extortion economy, which has had far-reaching consequences for the relationship between gang cliques and their barrios. This transformation has re-shaped the experience of chronic insecurity in the communities that maras operate from: inhabitants report that it is now less manageable, less predictable, and more frightening. They speak of a heightening of danger in their lives brought about by the decline of certain local norms and mechanisms that had previously moderated gang violence and bolstered community resilience. Local narratives of insecurity and decline illuminate when, how, and why violence disrupts and disorders social life. What many informants emphasized was not a cataclysmic appearance of violence in their lives, but rather a catastrophic breakdown in the mechanisms that had controlled it. In this distressing context, residents struggle to minimize their insecurity and to reclaim or create forms of order. I examine two principal ways that they seek to do so: by working to maintain a moral order based on narratives about the neighbourhood and its values or 'codes', and by looking to external providers of order in the state and its security forces. Exploring the complex relationships and interactions between inhabitants, gang members, and state forces in this barrio, I contribute to academic debates about local and state responses to insecurity in Latin America and propose modifications to prevailing models of state and criminal 'governance' in marginal urban communities.

In the literature democratic longevity in countries transitioning from authoritarian regimes to democracy is linked to economic development; four factors of economic development are identified: industrialization, education, urbanization, and growing wealth. Education is viewed as a primary factor for effective democratic participation and economic development. This thesis examines the relationship between level of democracy and educational outputs and outcomes. Does the level of democracy (political rights and civil liberties) have an effect on the levels of investment in education and measurable outcomes in education equity toward meeting the educational needs of the newly represented public? The expectation is that the increased scope of political participation and representation in new democratic regimes would result in higher government spending for education with implications for education equity. This study is conducted using a cross-sectional, longitudinal statistical model. The analysis is based on 18 Latin American countries over a thirty-eight-year period, from 1972 to 2010. To examine the connection between level of democracy and education equity, the study explores the effects of democracy on different levels of education, gender, and social class. In addition to the quantitative analysis, a qualitative component aims at contextualizing this relationship that is, examining closer the mechanism that underlies the connection between democracy and education equity in the cases of Mexico and Brazil

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No description available.