Abstract
This chapter shows that the new development model, shortly characterized as transnationalization by force, had to be introduced through structural adjustment programs (SAPs). This development model had three major effects: firstly, the demise of the state-class and in line with his process the depletion of traditional channels of rent distribution through clientelism. Secondly, actors who were dependent on these channels increasingly searched for alternatives and found new opportunities in migration and remittances, the informal sector, and the drug trade. Finally, processes of extreme social seclusion in the garrisons continued with the rise of drug dons who developed into economic and political bosses independent from state-class rule. In Jamaica, this new development model dissolved the traditional way of handling violence, namely the co-optation of different forms of violence into the political system. While the state-class was formerly able to manipulate cultural scripts of violence and to use violence for its own stability, this framework increasingly fragmented. Today, cultural scripts are reduced to the immediate social environment in which practices of violence occur. Thus, defense crews employ community violence against rival communities and their crews and members. This perpetuates longstanding cycles of revenge that date back until the times of party political conflict. At the same time, criminal gangs advanced from their political control and established entire fiefdoms that are based on the capacity to exert violence in and at the edge of garrisons.
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Notes
- 1.
The demand structure of drugs is heavily discussed in the literature. Earlier studies assumed a rigid price inelasticity for drugs (Eatherly, 1974; Koch & Grupp, 1973). Recent studies in contrast point to some price elasticity of demand (Caulkins & Reuter, 2010; Kopp, 2004, p. 57). However, this is not to say that drug demand is elastic, but it shows that consumers somehow react to prices and quantities.
- 2.
Under certain and indeed very particular circumstances, however, the nature of the drug economy becomes prone to violence. Since rent appropriation in the drug economy depends on the opportunity to attain mark-up prices as well as to limit competition, criminal organizations will face a trade-off in times of fluctuating prices. In times of high prices, rent appropriation is straightforward. At the same time, high prices attract outsiders to engage in the drug economy. Established criminal organizations may react to increased competition by increasing vertical integration, at the same time, however, they might undermine internal cohesion by lengthening lines of command. In these cases, secure property rights and contracts are crucial. Both issues depend on the ability to deliver economic foreseeability and the credibility to be able to secure future economic outcomes. Excluding yet established institutions in general, and in times of fluctuating prices, thus creates windows of opportunity for violence. Integrating yet established institutions, however, will lead to different results. Since secure property rights and contracts in the drug economy depend on “institutions of protection,” (Snyder & Duran-Martinez, 2009, p. 270), which are able to deliver economic foreseeability, the very changing nature of windows of opportunity for violence depend on a changing institutional setting.
- 3.
The Shower Posse was the leading criminal gang and former party militia in Tivoli Gardens (JLP ). In the United States, Vivian Blake arose as the leader of the Shower Posse. Based in Florida, Blake himself controlled the illegal arms and narcotic purchases of the posse. Regularly travelling between the United States and Jamaica, Lester “Jim Brown” Coke was the second leader at this time. Up to 1984, the Shower Posse was engaged in ganja trafficking and its retail sale in the United States. Within a couple of years, the Shower Posse established a transnational network between Jamaica and the United States. Ganja was brought from Jamaica to Miami and then distributed to other cities of the United States. In the mid-1980s, the Shower Posse used this network for cocaine trafficking and its retail sale (Gay & Marquart, 1993, p. 149).
- 4.
- 5.
Lottery scam is an advance fee fraud in which an investor is asked to pay a fee before receiving his lottery win. Conservative estimates assume a criminal gain of approximately US $82 million in 2011 that had been scammed from American citizens (Caribbean Policy Research Institute [CAPRI], 2012, p. 6) (CAPRI, 2012, p. 6).
- 6.
On August 25, 2009, the US government issued an extradition warrant for Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the leader of the Shower Posse. However, it took nine months that the Jamaican government followed the warrant. On May 23, 2010, Prime Minister Bruce Golding (JLP ) imposed a state of emergency in Kingston, followed by massive attacks on the police by Dudus’ supporters. Heavy battles involving guns and semi-automatic weapons took place in the next days while the security forces in a joint mission between the JCF and the JDF invaded Tivoli Gardens in order to arrest Dudus. Seventy-four people were killed during these events and 4148 people were detained. On June 22, 2010, Dudus was arrested on his way to the US embassy, detained, and brought to New York. See for a detailed analysis of this event, e.g. (Meeks, 2011; Sives, 2012).
- 7.
In an interview with a local community area leader, however, expressions such as fear of being targeted still prevailed and the acceptance of the don’s authority was not clear (Barnes, 2012) However, dons and their brutalized practices of violence are embedded in a whole cultural industry, reaching from dancehall music (Hope, 2006) to the iconography of dons in graffiti street art (Jaffe, 2012c).
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Warnecke-Berger, H. (2019). Jamaica: Transnationalization by Force and the Transformation of Violence. In: Politics and Violence in Central America and the Caribbean. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89782-0_5
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