Latin American governments are increasingly adopting mano dura initiatives to combat gangs, organized crime, and insecurity. While mano dura has been a concept of increasing empirical interest, there seems to be limited conceptual clarity about the wide spectrum of strategies developed to combat crime and associated fear. This article proposes a definition of mano dura that has three different dimensions, each of them containing specific elements. The form of mano dura depends on formal, informal, and rhetorical practices. Drawing on 46 scholarly works in the social sciences, we develop our definition anchored in the knowledge of Latin American policing strategies, contributions on responses to crime in the region, and the conceptual development literature. With the purpose of supplementing our effort to standardize the usage of the term with the need to retain a degree of conceptual differentiation, we also offer a stylized model to better classify policing strategies in Latin America. In our stylized model, the numerous ways policies and narratives as well as their implementation (or not) interact can be grouped into four broad categories: full mano dura, institutional mano dura, performative mano dura, and covert mano dura.

中文翻译：

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在拉丁美洲构思 Mano Dura


拉丁美洲政府越来越多地采用 mano dura 举措来打击帮派、有组织犯罪和不安全局势。虽然 mano dura 一直是一个越来越受实证兴趣的概念，但对于为打击犯罪和相关恐惧而制定的广泛策略，似乎在概念上不够清晰。本文提出了 mano dura 的定义，它有三个不同的维度，每个维度都包含特定的元素。mano dura 的形式取决于正式的、非正式的和修辞的实践。借鉴社会科学领域的 46 篇学术著作，我们根据拉丁美洲警务策略的知识、对该地区犯罪应对的贡献以及概念发展文献来发展我们的定义。为了补充我们对该术语使用的标准化工作，并需要保持一定程度的概念差异，我们还提供了一个程式化模型，以更好地对拉丁美洲的警务策略进行分类。在我们的程式化模型中，政策和叙事的多种互动方式以及它们的实施（或不实施）可以分为四大类：完整的 mano dura、机构的 mano dura、表演性的 mano dura 和隐蔽的 mano dura。