Assessing the potential of civil organizations within regions affected by organized crime to hold state institutions to human rights-based development

虽然学者和分析人士怀疑民间社会有可能减轻犯罪暴力的影响，但很少有人对这一专题进行实质性研究，他们主要集中在国家（和国际）民间组织。我们建议把重点放在设在受影响地区本身的民间组织上，特别是在犯罪暴力活动严重的墨西哥中西部米却肯州和哈利斯科州，人们日益认识到，把有组织犯罪作为一个安全问题来处理是不够的，甚至会使问题恶化，必须通过包括符合人权的发展在内的整体战略来解决有组织犯罪问题，为有尊严的经济发展提供机会，犯罪组织范围以外的社会和政治生活。例如，在米却肯州，2014年“自卫”民团驱逐了被控为有组织犯罪服务的当地警察后，联邦政府成立了一个安全和综合发展委员会，承诺为该地区提供公平和参与性的发展。然而，众所周知，当受影响地区的国家机构被占领时，全部或部分由同一犯罪组织及其同伙实施。在这些情况下，犯罪组织可以利用他们对地方（和州）政府的控制来挫败国家政府以及国际机构的计划，研究人员和政策制定者怀疑民间社会在这些情况下可以发挥重要作用。民间社会可以监督国家机构的行动，坚持参与发展项目，抵制损害或不能使弱势群体受益的发展，并倡导确实满足广大民众需求的战略，从而帮助抵消犯罪组织对这些机构的控制，并为民众创造替代生计。然而，尽管对国家（和国际）民间社会在追究国家机构责任方面的作用进行了一些研究，但对民间组织在区域内的潜在作用研究甚少。这是我们关注的重点，所进行的少数研究和申请人的初步研究表明，民间社会组织本身往往受到有组织犯罪的包围，难以抵御有组织犯罪的渗透，更不用说推动违背其利益的议程了。这确实有助于解释为什么许多研究人员不愿意在这些背景下进行持续的实地考察。尽管前景令人生畏，但该项目将使用比较民族志，遵循旨在减轻研究人员和研究对象风险的严格协议，以确定和解释在使国家机构遵守人权议程方面发挥有效作用的组织的积极例子，项目产出将包括Guerra（锡德）、马尔多纳多（Colegio de Michoacán）和Stack（阿伯丁），和一卷编辑的堆栈，包括文件，从一个国际会议在伦敦和其他章节共同-由申请人与博士后研究助理共同撰写。与学术研究项目不同的是，我们选择将政策产出与学术产出放在同等地位。为此，我们已经纳入2政策分析师多明戈（ODI）和Jesperson（入寺）作为共同调查员.我们从一开始就遵循他们的指示，以确保数据收集和分析足以完成编制一系列有充分依据的政策简报的任务，适用于墨西哥（和世界）受犯罪暴力影响的其他地区。

Although scholars and analysts suspect that civil society has the potential to mitigate the effects of criminal violence, few have conducted substantial research on the topic, and they have focused mainly on national (and international) civil organizations. We propose to focus on civil organizations based in the affected regions themselves, specifically within the west-central Mexican states of Michoacán and Jalisco, a region with high levels of criminal violence.It is increasingly recognized that treating organized crime as a matter of security is insufficient and can even exacerbate the problem, and that organized crime must be addressed through holistic strategies that include development consistent with human rights, providing opportunities for a dignified economic, social and political life outside the sphere of criminal organizations. In the state of Michoacán, for example, after "self-defence" vigilante groups ousted local police accused of serving organized crime in 2014, the federal government established a Commission for Security and Integral Development promising to deliver equitable and participative development to the region.Yet holistic strategies are notoriously difficult to execute when, as often in Mexico, state institutions in the affected regions are captured, wholly or partially, by the same criminal organizations and their associates. In these contexts, criminal organizations can for example use their hold over local (and state) government to frustrate the designs of national government, as well as of international agencies.Researchers and policy-makers suspect that civil society has an important role to play in these contexts. Civil society can monitor the actions of state institutions, insist on participating in development projects, resist development that hurts or fails to benefit vulnerable groups, and advocate strategies that do meet the needs of the broader population, thus helping to offset the hold of criminal organizations over those institutions, as well as creating alternative livelihoods for the population. However, although there have been some studies of the role of national (and international) civil society in holding state institutions to account, the potential role of civil organizations within the regions themselves is little studied. This is our focus.The few studies conducted, and initial research by the applicants, suggest that civil society organizations are often themselves hemmed in by organized crime, and find it difficult to resist penetration by organized crime, much less to advance an agenda contrary to its interests. This helps to account, indeed, for the reluctance of many researchers to conduct sustained fieldwork in these contexts.Despite the forbidding panorama, the project will use comparative ethnography, following strict protocols designed to mitigate risk to researchers and research subjects, to identify and explain positive examples of organizations which have played an effective role in holding state institutions to a human rights agenda, and specifically one designed to offset the noxious effects of organized crime activities.Project outputs will include an academic monograph co-authored by Guerra (CIDE), Maldonado (Colegio de Michoacán) and Stack (Aberdeen), and a volume edited by Stack to include papers from an international conference in London and others chapters co-authored by the applicants with the postdoctoral RAs.Unusually for an academic research project, we have chosen to put the policy outputs on an equal footing with the academic outputs. To this end, we have incorporated 2 policy analysts Domingo (ODI) and Jesperson (RUSI) as Co-Investigators. We have followed their instructions from the outset to ensure that the data collection and analysis will be adequate to the task of producing a series of well-grounded policy briefs, applicable to other regions of Mexico (and the world) affected by criminal violence.