Mechanisms of moral disengagement in Latin-American illegal markets: A case study of Paraguay's hybrid social orders
Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This master thesis examines the mechanisms of moral disengagement as developed by Albert Bandura and their application in the context of illegal markets in Paraguay. Moral disengagement allows individuals to justify illegal or harmful actions without feeling moral guilt. Using the different mechanisms (moral, social, and economic justification, euphemistic language, advantageous comparison, displacement and diffusion of responsibility, disregard, distortion, and denial of consequences, dehumanization, attribution of blame), the thesis analyses how actors in the Paraguayan drug trade rationalize their actions and operate in an environment where the boundaries between legality and illegality are blurred. Paraguay is a case study that features what Matías Dewey defines as a hybrid social order in which state actors and criminal organizations coexist and even collaborate to impose, regulate, and sanction formal and informal norms to structure communal coexistence. Although the country has become a central hub for drug trafficking, Paraguay remains understudied in Latin American and global criminology. As an exception, Moriconi and Peris have published a trilogy on illegal markets and morality in the country. This thesis is based on the analytical material of this trilogy to analyze and discuss which mechanisms of Bandura’s theory can be found in this case study. By doing so, the thesis sheds light on how moral disengagement contributes to the normalization of illegal activities and why they are considered legitimate in certain social and political contexts. The analysis draws on key theoretical frameworks such as Markus Schultze-Kraft’s concept of Crimilegality and Enrique Desmond Arias’ Violent Democracies to show how organized crime can flourish in an environment where the state does not act as an adversary of crime, but is often part of these criminal structures.
Source: Repositório do ISCTE-IUL
Author: Budion, Antonia
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7058103248