In this volume, Latin Americanist scholars explore the recent evidence relating to the ways in which partial state failure in the continent is interacting with new types of organized violence, thereby undermining the process of democratic consolidation that has characterized Latin America over the past two decades. This 'new violence' stems - as this book's case studies from Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil and other countries, including El Salvador, show - from a heterogeneous variety of social actors including drug mafias, peasant militias and urban gangs (collectively referred to as actores armadas), as well as state-related actors like the police, military intelligence agencies and paramilitary forces.