Citizenship in an Era of Insecurity: Crime, Violence and the Implications for Democracy∗

Throughout Latin America, democratization coincided with a nearly ubiquitous increase in crime and violence, placing “inseguridad” at the top of the agenda. The seemingly intractable rise in crime and violence in recent decades has posed a serious challenge to governability, while also generating broad-based distrust of police and low confidence in the state’s ability to curb crime and violence. Much scholarly research has focused on the dynamics of criminal violence and the responses of state actors, and analyzed the broad impact of these phenomena on democracy. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, to the ways in which these dynamics play out at the micro-level. The present paper asks how rising crime and violence, as well as increasing insecurity, have shaped citizenship in Latin America. The detrimental impact of crime and violence on the linkages between citizens and their state, as well as their corrosive effects on community life is implicit throughout the literature, but with little definitive evidence. Using LAPOP survey data, as well as qualitative data from dozens of community security meetings in Buenos Aires and São Paulo, this paper examines the impact of insecurity, crime, and violence on community ties, political participation and trust in institutions. ∗Draft prepared for the Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism Graduate Workshop on Wednesday, November 7, 2012. This represents a very rough draft prepared days after returning to the US from 15 months of fieldwork in Latin America. Despite the messiness of this draft, I would like to thank workshop participants in advance for their helpful comments. Please do not cite or circulate. Not that you would want to at this stage. †Ph.D. Candidate, Politics and Social Policy, Princeton University. Email: [email protected].