Crime and Governance in the Global South

Abstract

This article considers the relationship between crime and governance on the peripheries of the Global North. It draws on examples from across the Global South to show how conceptualizations of crimes are impacted by history, politics, and socio-economic contexts and how crime is influenced by, and in turn influences, governance practices. The review centers on four arguments: Western ideologies and epistemologies are inadequate for conceptualizing the nexus between crime and governance in the Global South; understandings of crime must be informed by knowledge of contextual harmscapes; models of crime control and policing do not always capture the hybridity and plurality of everyday governing practices in the Global South; and crime dynamics intersect with governance structures to create complex challenges for state control. The review highlights the need for scholars and practitioners to adopt historically and contextually informed approaches to theorizing the governance of criminalized harms in the Global South.