This chapter develops the concept of criminalized governance, defining it as the structures and practices through which criminalized groups control territory and manage relations with local populations. It distinguishes between two primary dimensions: coercion and the provision of benefits. The chapter then provides detailed descriptions of the various activities and behaviors included within each of these dimensions. A typology of criminalized governance regimes is then presented, which contains five ideal types: disorder, benevolent dictator, tyrant, social bandit, and laissez-faire. Finally, existing explanations from the literature on criminalized governance in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas are addressed.

The third of Maré’s gangs, Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP), controls an enormous territory, encompassing ten contiguous neighborhoods with an estimated population of 68,000 residents, more than twice that of Maré’s Comando Vermelho-connected gangs. Moreover, TCP’s turf has changed significantly over time as the gang has lost and won territory through violent battles with several rivals, which have had horrifying consequences for both gang members and residents. This chapter also shows how the nature of enforcement against gangs can shift radically as TCP developed highly collaborative relations with the police especially after 2009. The chapter traces these developments in TCP’s historic territories as well as the housing projects that they would control from the mid-1990s until 2002 and again after 2009. This chapter interweaves multiple types of data, including eighteen months participant observation, dozens of interviews with current and former gang members and residents, as well as journalistic accounts and denunciations to an anonymous hotline, to trace how TCP’s shifting security environment has shaped their governance practices over time.

This chapter considers Thrasymachus’ cynical rant, in which “the stronger” emerge as unjust men who think “night and day” about nothing other than their own advantage: No longer like unerring craftsmen, rulers are rather like other unjust men; the tyrant is revealed as Thrasymachus’ ideal. This chapter further probes what Socrates might mean by his odd claim that no one – not even good and decent men – rules willingly: If it is the work of good and just men to benefit others, do the reluctant rulers of Book 1, so similar to Rep. 7’s philosophers who have to be compelled to rule, qualify as just?

There is one fundamental argument in the Republic for the conclusion that justice is the greatest good. It begins in Book II; although adumbrated in Book IV, it is not completed until Book IX; and it draws essentially on material in Books VI and VII about Platonic forms, knowledge, and philosophical training. Justice consists in the rule of reason over spirit and appetite, but to understand the value of this state fully we must see how it is instantiated in the philosopher. Goodness consists in order, and by cognizing and loving forms (the most orderly objects there are) the philosopher possesses the highest goods. A fully just person is a creator and lover of orderly relationships among human beings. This condition exists to some degree in all just individuals, but it is most fully present in those who understand what justice is – philosophers.