School of Social & Political Sciences

5 May 2026 at 4pm. Room 916, 42 Bute Gardens, University of Glasgow

Prof Auyero will discuss his new project on “dark governance”. States engage in dark governance when they exert power over people and/or places (i.e. they govern) through clandestine relationships with criminal groups and/or “violence specialists” on the edge of legality. The book demonstrates that operating out of the shadows of the state this form of governance effectively regulates citizens’ behaviors in the political field, in the market of criminalized drugs, in urban space, and in rural territories. The concept of dark governance permits us to re-think a common assumption that still dominates many a study of contemporary politics: that the political order works in opposition to (more or less organized) criminal activity and/or collective violence. 

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