In The Ambivalent State Javier Auyero and Katherine Sobering examine the fascinating world of clandestine relationships between police officers and drug dealers in Argentina. Drawing on a unique combination of ethnographic research and hundreds of pages of wiretapped phone conversations, they analyze the inner-workings of police-criminal collusion and how they shape drug markets, policing in poor urban areas, and daily life at the urban margins.

• Preface


• Introduction


• Chapter One: Clandestine Relations Matter


• Chapter Two: Drug Violence in the Streets and at Home


• Chapter Three: Collusion and Legal Cynicism


• Chapter Four: Establishing the "Arreglo"


• Chapter Five: Competition, Retaliation, and Violence


• Chapter Six: Patchworks of Protection


• Chapter Seven: Unpacking Collusion


• Conclusions


• References


• Endnotes

Javier Auyero is the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long in Latin American Sociology at the University of Texas-Austin where he directs the Urban Ethnography Lab. His main areas of research, writing and teaching are urban poverty, political ethnography, and collective violence. Auyero was the editor of the journal Qualitative Sociology from 2005 to 2010.
Katherine Sobering is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Texas. Her research examines inequality, politics and social change in the Americas. She is currently writing a book on organizational transformation and the construction of equality in worker-recuperated businesses in Argentina.