Talk: How Criminal Governance Shapes Voter Turnout in Rio de Janeiro
Date / Time
January 29, 2026
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Categories
The 2026 Critical Global and Urban Series Workshop Series presents a talk on Voting Under Criminal Rule: How Criminal Governance Shapes Voter Turnout in Rio de Janeiro.
Igor Novaes Lin, a PhD candidate at Universidade de Brasília and a visiting doctoral student at UIC, will talk about how different forms of criminal governance influence voter turnout, and how politically integrated armed groups mobilize participation while peripheral control often suppresses it.
Criminal governance shapes electoral participation in ways that reflect patterns of state cooperation. Lin’s study examines how distinct forms of criminal governance influence electoral participation through varying modes of political intervention.
In Rio de Janeiro, armed groups differ in their degree of political governance, from politically integrated arrangements to politically peripheral configurations. This distinction helps explain why similar levels of armed presence produce divergent electoral outcomes. Drawing on polling-place results and georeferenced data on armed groups, Lin measured voters’ exposure to each governance type and estimated the effect on turnout.
Light refreshments will be served.
For more information, contact event organizers Sultan Tepe (sultant@uic.edu) or Yasmine Haiti (yhaiti2@uic.edu).
