The Dilemma of Chronic Violence: Its Effects on Human, Social and Democratic Development and Recommendations for Public Policy, Social Action, and Research

Residents of marginal urban, extra-urban, and rural settlements, as well as transient, migrant, and stateless populations, are particularly vulnerable to this type of violence. Historically, chronic violence in Central America has been shaped by internal armed conflict that has disrupted social, political, and economic life. It is deeply rooted in systematic violence, marginalization, and a type of culturally acceptable human development that fails to recognize the importance of each individual. Chronic violence systematically reproduces itself at all levels of society, making it difficult for powerful citizens, aid agencies, national and regional governments, and international institutions to control. While drug traffickers and organized criminals are often singled out as those responsible for the chronic violence in the region, there are many contributors. The World Bank's World Development Report 2001 observed that this 21st-century wave of social violence may affect the lives of up to 25 percent of the world's population. The chronic violence-human development (CV-HD) theory and framework can be used to understand the dilemma of chronic violence and formulate effective policy and program responses. The CV-HD theory is based on Urie Bronfenbrenner's contention that human development is an integrated process in which personal, psychological, social, and political development, on the one hand, and the cultures, structures, institutions, beliefs, and practices they generate, on the other, are inseparable from and integral to each other. Living in an environment of chronic violence systematically undermines this integral process of human development and undermines how individuals, families, friends, and neighbors relate to one another, and informs the institutions, structures, beliefs, and cultures that they produce and reproduce. The CV-HD theory posits that the sense of safety and security that a developing person must have in order to thrive is intrinsically and inseparably both psychological and physiological. The conditions that enable individuals to thrive, according to the theory, are the same as those that condition both socialization and civic development (i.e., citizenship). Chronic violence intensifies the dehumanization of long-challenged social relations between rich and poor, neighbors, nations, and other identity groups, and fundamentally threatens long-term global prospects for equitable development, democracy, and peace. The World Health Organization defines violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury or death, or in psychological harm, including fear of violence and other correlates of violence." This definition is used throughout this report to understand the impact of chronic violence on people's lives, social relations, practices of citizenship, and governance. The report examines the impact of chronic violence on people's lives, social relations, practices of citizenship, and governance, asking the following questions: What enables individuals and groups to socially and politically respond to chronic violence in a constructive manner? What can change agents and affected populations do to support effective responses, advance social change, and conduct further research? The report aims to develop the tools to constructively and systematically recognize and cope with chronic violence, and to formulate effective policy and program responses to this complex and evolving challenge.