The Protection Racket State: Elite Politics, Military Extortion, and Civil War in El Salvador (Political Science/Latin America Studies)

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Description

In 1932 security forces in El Salvador murdered 25,000 peasants and workers. Between 1978 and 1991 the Salvadoran government killed an additional 50,000 civilians. Death squads maimed and tortured their sufferers, who included labor organizers, priests, and teachers. By the later months of 1980, government forces were slaughtering 1,000 civilians a month. Most of those killed were poor or worked with the poor. In per capita terms Salvadoran state terror was once some of the worst within the hemisphere.

States have killed more people than have rebellions, but we know very little about what factors influence this genocide. Why do states kill? On this provocative and chilling book, William Stanley demonstrates that the Salvadoran military state was once essentially a protection racket. It offered protection to the elites from civilian uprising and in return received a concession to govern. This protection took the type of wide-scale murder. As Stanley puts it, “State violence was once a currency of relations between state and non-state elites.”

There are valuable lessons On this book for all those focused on state-sponsored terror. It indicts the USA for having strengthened the might of the Salvadoran military. It challenges conventional wisdom about governments and repression and shows state-sponsored violence as a lot more than only a response to opposition.

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