Perverse state formation and securitized democracy in Latin America

Abstract

Two key themes of this special issue are: how violence challenges democracy and how democratic politics might, over time, diminish violence. This paper explores how violence(s) embedded in Latin America's state formation process are multiplied rather than diminished through democratization, generating a securitizing logic which fundamentally distorts democratic principles. Known for its high levels of historic violence(s), Latin America today is second only to Southern Africa in levels of homicide in the world. Some see contemporary violence in the region as a rupture from the past: ‘new violence’ characterized by its urban and social nature in contrast to the rural and political nature of the past. Violence, however, has a reproductive quality, by which it is transmitted through space as well as time. This article argues that rather than reflecting a rupture with the past, violence in Latin America has merely accelerated its complex reproduction in many forms across (gendered) spaces of socialization. The paradox is that the proliferation of this violence has occurred alongside democratic transitions. Although the state is not directly responsible for all the violence which is taking place, this article argues that in many countries it is the very trajectory of the state-formation process which has facilitated this rapid reproduction of violence. I call this process ‘perverse’. Democracy is increasingly subject to the fears and insecurities of the population, enabling the state to build its authority not on the protection of citizens' rights, but on its armed encounters and insidious collusions with violent actors in the name of ‘security provision’. Categories of people become non-citizens, subjected to abuse by state, para-state and non-state violent actors. If this process continues, democracy will ultimately be securitized.