Joel Stillerman

Students of crime in the United States examine drug economies in poor communities, poor residents’ adaptive behaviors, and punitive crime policies. Research on Latin America, the most violent region in the world, focuses on criminal governance, violence in poor communities, and the popularity of punitive policies. However, few scholars have examined middle class residents’ experiences of crime. This article builds on work on middle classes and utilizes interviews and observations in three Santiago, Chile, communities. Findings focus on middle-class Chileans’ interpretations of crime, adaptive behaviors, and analyses of crime policies. In unsettled times, individuals construct symbolic boundaries with criminals and their peers. Direct experiences with crime as well as cultural and ideological beliefs shape middle class individuals’ contrasting interpretations of crime and construction of boundaries with others. These divergent attitudes reflect enduring fissures within Chilean society over its dictatorship (1973–1990) and recent social upheaval (protests, immigration, and rising crime), complicating universalizing narratives about a punitive Chilean citizenry.

Discussions of the “global middle class” in the early 21st Century argue that this group expanded in the Global South from 1990-2010 as a product of economic growth. This discussion echoes the 1960s debate regarding the relationship between economic development and democracy. This entry focuses on the economic structure of middle classes in the Global South, their role in housing and consumption markets as it influences middle class urban politics, and the role of middle classes in political change in the Global South. Middle classes have grown in the Global South, though their economic characteristics are diverse and their members are at risk of downward mobility due to precarious employment patterns and periodic economic shocks. The expansion of gated communities and shopping malls in cities of the Global South has generated patterns of cross-class segregation that leads members of the middle classes to engage in exclusionary practices toward the poor. However, some members of the middle classes engage in progressive urban social movements. While scholars in the 1960s were optimistic that a growing middle class would encourage democratization, subsequent scholarship has shown that middle classes display inconsistent support for democracy and engage in diverse forms of political expression. These expressions include both participation in formal politics and engagement with social movements. Additionally, middle classes are internally divided based on religious affiliation, racial and ethnic identities, birth cohort membership, and occupation, leading to competing political identities across middle class subgroups. This diversity suggests that efforts to predict how the middle classes may reshape politics should attend to national historical and political legacies to understand the distinctive pathways of middle-class politics in the Global South.

Students of crime in the U.S. examine drug economies in poor communities (Bourgois 1995; Contreras 2013), poor residents’ adaptive behaviors (Kirk and Matsuda 2011; Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls 1997) and punitive crime policies (Garland 2023; Picket 2019; Wacquant 2010). Research on Latin America, the most violent region in the world (Vilalta 2020), focuses on criminal governance (Feldmann and Luna 2022), violence in poor communities (Auyero and Sobering 2019), and the popularity of punitive policies (Chouhy, Singer, and Lehmann 2022). However, few scholars have examined middle class residents’ experiences of crime. This article builds on work on middle classes (Caldeira 2000; Villareal 2025), and utilizes interviews and observations in three Santiago, Chile communities. Findings focus on middle-class Chileans’ interpretations of crime, adaptive behaviors, and analyses of crime policies. In unsettled times (Swidler 1986), individuals construct symbolic boundaries (Lamont 1992, 2000, 2018) with criminals and their peers. Direct experiences with crime as well as cultural and ideological beliefs shape middle class individuals’ contrasting interpretations of crime and construction of boundaries with others. These divergent attitudes reflect enduring fissures within Chilean society over its dictatorship (1973-1990) and recent social upheaval (protests, immigration, and rising crime), complicating universalizing narratives about a punitive Chilean citizenry.Keywords: crime,

In Global Unions, Local Power, Jamie McCallum (2013) offers an original and intriguing contribution to discussions of labor internationalism. His account focuses on a long-term campaign spearheaded by the Service Employees' International Union (SEIU) and Union Network International (UNI) to develop a Global Framework Agreement (GFA) with G4S, one of the largest global security firms. McCallum argues that the agreement reached between these two organizations and the firm reflects a new form of labor internationalism rooted in "governance struggles" that departs from other forms of transnational labor organizing. He traces the account back to the 1960s when international labor organizations went through a period of transformation, as well as efforts by SEIU to organize security guards in European transnationals in the U.S. following their successful Justice for Janitors campaign. The book's central argument is that where workers lack structural power (Silver 2003) and where inadequate labor law enforcement limits workers' ability to enact associational power, GFAs can be a crucial resource for unions. Under GFAs that provide workers tangible benefits,

Research on strikes has traditionally focused on how economic, institutional, and political variables shape strike patterns. Recent work examines how workers' structural, associational, and symbolic power facilitate strikes. Building on this research, this article asks, what factors determine strike outcomes? It analyzes four strikes at MADECO, Chile's largest copper manufacturer, across democratic, authoritarian, and postauthoritarian regimes. Using qualitative and documentary evidence, it argues that strike outcomes reflect workers' capacity to halt or disrupt production and to access government allies who can pressure management to settle strikes in workers' favor. Outcomes vary based on the political composition of government, workers' capacity to halt production, and industry's and government's dependence on foreign investment. MADECO workers' location in Santiago, near national officials, allowed them to mobilize at the local, national, and international scales to pressure management. Comparisons with other strikes in Chile, Argentina, and Peru identify similar mobilization patterns.