The clandestine welfare: The role of illicit actors in the provision of social protection in Latin America

There has been an increasing interest in exploring the different types of welfare regimes in middle- and low-income countries. However, most of the studies so far seem to neglect the importance of illicit groups as welfare providers. Illicit groups can be so powerful in many of these societies, that they can create extensive social safety nets embedded in parallel governance orders. Considering their importance as fundamental actors in the Global South, it is required to acknowledge their role as welfare deliverers as a missing piece in the literature. Hence I discuss the nature of what I call “clandestine welfare” and three specific forms of social protection provided by illicit groups: direct, involuntary, and forced. In the first form, the illicit groups provide directly to society by delivering goods or services that the formal state fails to provide. In the second, the illicit group’s activities have involuntary but positive spill-overs over society in terms of welfare. In the last one, the illicit groups use violence to force other social actors to provide social protection. By bringing illustrative examples from Latin America, I aim to show that the action of illicit groups represents a tangible source of welfare for a large segment of the population that goes beyond charity.