Authoritarian Police in Democracy: Contested Security in Latin America (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
Cambridge University Press, 11/12/2020
EAN 9781108820745, ISBN10: 1108820743
Paperback, 376 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
In countries around the world, from the United States to the Philippines to Chile, police forces are at the center of social unrest and debates about democracy and rule of law. This book examines the persistence of authoritarian policing in Latin America to explain why police violence and malfeasance remain pervasive decades after democratization. It also examines the conditions under which reform can occur. Drawing on rich comparative analysis and evidence from Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, the book opens up the 'black box' of police bureaucracies to show how police forces exert power and cultivate relationships with politicians, as well as how social inequality impedes change. González shows that authoritarian policing persists not in spite of democracy but in part because of democratic processes and public demand. When societal preferences over the distribution of security and coercion are fragmented along existing social cleavages, politicians possess few incentives to enact reform.
1. Police
authoritarian enclaves in democratic states
2. Ordinary democratic politics and the challenge of police reform
Part I. Persistence
3. Institutional persistence in São Paulo state
authoritarian policing by democratic demand
4. The endurance of the 'damned police' in Buenos Aires province
5. Policing in hard times
drug war, institutional decay, and the persistence of authoritarian coercion in Colombia
Part II. Reform
6. 'New police', same as the old police
barriers to reform in São Paulo state
7. The social and political drivers of reform in Buenos Aires province and Colombia
8. Conclusion
inequality and the dissonance of policing and democracy.