José A. Gutiérrez is lecturer at the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) at the University of York. Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanín is lecturer at the Institute for Political Sudies and International Relations (IEPRI) at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá.

• Introduction: Criminality, political power, and conflict: Critical perspectives – José A. Gutiérrez and Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanín1 Beyond Elias and Tilly: Historical sociology, crime and organised violence – Siniša Maleševic2 The politics of criminality: The state, opium, and armed groups in Burma – John Buchanan3 “I have created an idealism”: Explaining public political discourses of the PCC and other organized criminal groups in Latin America – Reynell Badillo Sarmiento4 Inside the Israel complex: The rise of narco-Pentecostalismin Rio de Janeiro – Kristina Hinz and Doriam Borges5 Pro-state armed groups in Northern Ireland: Rethinking the position of ‘loyalist’ armed groups in Northern Ireland – John Doyle6 Killing criminals: Lethal targeting by the paramilitaries in the Colombian civil war – Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanín7 Greedy peacemakers: Post-FARC-EP trajectories from political crime to politicised common crime – José A. Gutiérrez8 Resisting and existing with criminalisation: The case of Colombian artisanal and small-scale gold producers – Christoph Kaufmann9 The necropolitics of criminalisation in the Colombian War on Drugs – Irene Vélez-Torres and Chiara Chiavaroli10 Amalgamation of special forces and organized crime in Serbia: Curbing the democratic transition after the downfall of Slobodan Miloševic – Kosta Nikolic, Vladimir Petrovic and Danilo Mandic.11 A heavy hand and a weak arm: Security strategies, political confrontation and state scarcity in Venezuela – Guillermo Sardi and Fernando Garlin-Politis.12 From minería comunitaria to illegal mining: Indigenous territories and mining formalization in Peruvian Amazonia – Gisselle Benites13 Bandits, poetry, and cartooning: A playful visual anthropology – Fernando Garlin-PolitisConcluding remarks – Christian Olsson