ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the political role that gangs have come to play in Salvadoran society, which is based on the capacity and willingness to use violence. It shows that street gangs have become a ‘perverse’ or ‘informal’ institution, which is capable of using violence strategically, while it is stressed that the ways in which the nexus between gang violence and gang power has evolved should be understood in its historical and societal context. The chapter also presents a categorization of the different types of power relations of gangs with other actors – including society and the government – and the functions of violence therein.
