From firm hand to handshake: violence and negotiated governance in El Salvador

The Salvadoran state’s reliance on ‘firm hand’ policies in its adversarial relationship with street gangs is central to understandings of violence and insecurity in the country. But behind the rhetoric there lies a very different reality. Examination of practices at the local level reveals a more nuanced picture in which political authority is achieved through a complex bargaining process involving the state, society, and armed groups, writes Viviana García Pinzón (German Institute of Global and Area Studies & Phillips Universität Marburg)