convergence

Williams
of no-go zone and slums and high violence areas representing another. This segmentation or
“spatial transformation” into “safe” and “dangerous” localities dramatically manifests the stark
juxtaposition of wealth and poverty in cities. 43 As such, it could well increase the long-term
potential for violence.
Unfortunately, the challenges of urbanization have not evoked a commensurate response.
City governance, like state governance, is often corrupt, ineffective, and patchy at best. It is not
surprising, therefore, that bottom-up or organic but informal governance mechanisms emerge
as a substitute for governance from above. This is both positive and negative. It is positive in
that it provides some degree of order, limited but real economic opportunities, and rudimentary
services; it is negative in that the providers are often criminal organizations simply using
paternalism to enhance their own security. This phenomenon is visible in the Cape Flats in
South Africa where, as Andre Standing has noted, “the criminal economy delivers employment
and goods to thousands of individuals who are socially excluded,” while the “criminal
elite provides . . . ‘governance from below’ . . . by performing functions traditionally associated
with the state.” 44 These functions include dispute settlement, a degree of social protection, and
even private philanthropy that is at least a partial substitute for state provision of welfare. 45
If anything, the phenomenon is more striking in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica, where
the “dons” provide employment, services, and protection and in some cases “enjoy respect
and greater legitimacy than formal state actors and institutions.” 46 In the favelas of Rio de
Janeiro, the emergence of both the parallel economy and alternative forms of governance was
well described by Elizabeth Leeds in the mid-1990s. Leeds emphasized that the organizers
of the drug business “are first and foremost businessmen who are using the physical space of
the favela . . . as the locus of operation for a highly lucrative informal-sector activity. For that
space to be available and protected, they must offer something in return.” 47 In other words,
the provision of employment, services, and protection is based on self-interest rather than
altruism. Nevertheless, it has provided benefits to communities that have been ignored by the
state apart from their victimization and exploitation by corrupt police forces. The long-term
consequence of alternative governance, however, is that the legitimacy of the state is further
eroded while the power of organized crime and other violent armed groups that are also service
providers is greatly enhanced.
Natural Resources and Global Climate Change
Another factor that seems likely to be a source of disorder, criminality, and the expansion of
illicit markets is the rapid depletion of global resources. Michael Klare, in a series of pioneering
studies, has shown that natural resources such as oil, gas, and certain minerals and metals are
becoming less readily available and, as such, are increasingly a source of contention both in
interstate relations and within states as governments and corporations compete for what is left.
In Klare’s words, this competition “will be ruthless, unrelenting, and severe. Every key player in
the race for what’s left will do whatever it can to advance its own position, while striving without
mercy to eliminate or subdue all the others.” 48
Criminal organizations are likely to participate in this competition even if they are on
the margins rather than at the center. In this connection, examples of criminal exploitation
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