IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v53y2021i5p977-991.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Terminal velocity: The speed of extortion in Guatemala City

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Lewis O’Neill

Abstract

Guatemala City is racked by the practice of extortion: the act of obtaining goods and/or money through the threat of force. Transportation workers are a particularly vulnerable population, with a homicide rate four times the national average. While social scientists, policy experts, and asylum advocates rightly observe that extortionists control territory, lost in this literature is an appreciation for how these violent actors also govern victims’ experience of time and velocity. This article, in response, develops ethnographically the concept of terminal velocity to assess how the violent extraction of payments from transportation workers routinely presses these drivers up against the practical limits of Guatemala City. This includes the downward pull of extortion, which compels them to drive at ever-increasing speeds, and the upward drag of road congestion, poor infrastructure, and human fatigue that inevitably caps their acceleration.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Lewis O’Neill, 2021. "Terminal velocity: The speed of extortion in Guatemala City," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 977-991, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:53:y:2021:i:5:p:977-991
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X20974019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X20974019
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X20974019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dewey, Matías, 2014. "Crisis and the emergence of illicit markets: A pragmatist view on economic action outside the law," MPIfG Discussion Paper 14/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Varese, Federico, 2001. "The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198297369.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierfrancesco Rolla & Patricia Justino, 2022. "The social consequences of organized crime in Italy," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-106, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Bo Rothstein, 2011. "Can markets be expected to prevent themselves from self‐destruction?," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(4), pages 387-404, December.
    3. Giuseppe De Feo & Giacomo Davide De Luca, 2017. "Mafia in the Ballot Box," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 134-167, August.
    4. Ethan Bueno De Mesquita & Catherine Hafer, 2008. "Public Protection Or Private Extortion?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 1-32, March.
    5. Corinna Elsenbroich & Jennifer Badham, 2016. "The Extortion Relationship: A Computational Analysis," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 19(4), pages 1-8.
    6. David Skarbek & Peng Wang, 2015. "Criminal rituals," Global Crime, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 288-305, October.
    7. Astarita, Caterina & Capuano, Carlo & Purificato, Francesco, 2018. "The macroeconomic impact of organised crime: A post-Keynesian analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 514-528.
    8. Lonsky, Jakub, 2020. "Gulags, Crime, and Elite Violence: Origins and Consequences of the Russian Mafia," GLO Discussion Paper Series 711, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. Karla Hoff & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2008. "Exiting a Lawless State," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1474-1497, August.
    10. de Groot, Olaf J. & Rablen, Matthew D. & Shortland, Anja, 2011. "Gov-Aargh-Nance – “Even Criminals Need Law And Order”," NEPS Working Papers 7/2011, Network of European Peace Scientists.
    11. Ichiro Iwasaki & Yuko Adachi, 2024. "Legal Weakness, Investment Risks, and Distressed Acquisitions: Evidence from Russian Regions," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 66(1), pages 1-69, March.
    12. Peter J. Boettke & Rosolino A. Candela, 2020. "Productive specialization, peaceful cooperation and the problem of the predatory state: lessons from comparative historical political economy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 331-352, March.
    13. Serguey Braguinsky & Roger Myerson, 2007. "A macroeconomic model of Russian transition," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 15(1), pages 77-107, January.
    14. Natalia Vasilenok, 2018. "What Drives the Private Provision of Security: Evidence from Russian Regions," HSE Working papers WP BRP 197/EC/2018, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    15. Michele Battisti & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Lucio Masserini & Monica Pratesi, 2018. "Resisting the extortion racket: an empirical analysis," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 1-37, August.
    16. Louis-Alexandre Berg & Marlon Carranza, 2018. "Organized criminal violence and territorial control," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(5), pages 566-581, September.
    17. Michele Battisti & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Roberto Musotto, 2022. "Organizing Crime: an Empirical Analysis of the Sicilian Mafia," Papers 2205.02310, arXiv.org.
    18. Anja Shortland, 2010. "The Business of Piracy in Somalia," Weekly Report, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 6(23), pages 182-186.
    19. Milanovic, Branko & Hoff, Karla & Horowitz, Shale, 2008. "Political alternation as a restraint on investing in influence : evidence from the post-communist transition," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4747, The World Bank.
    20. Branko Milanovic & Karla Hoff & Shale Horowitz, 2010. "Turnover In Power As A Restraint On Investing In Influence: Evidence From The Postcommunist Transition," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 329-361, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:53:y:2021:i:5:p:977-991. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.