Historical materialist scholarship has, from the time of Marx, reflected the manner in which economics transcends national borders. Bastian van Apeldoorn (2004: 143) encapsulates this sentiment, writing that “the world of international relations has from the start been inextricably bound up with the expanding capitalist …

Contemporary security discourse emphasizing “terrorism” has displaced the focus on the “gang epidemic” that prevailed in the latter decades of the twentieth century. However, since 2005, law enforcement agencies and media organizations have sparked a renewed interest in gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), dubbed …