Security, State Power and Citizenship: The Latin America and Caribbean Context

Abstract

By providing a broad survey of the nature of citizenship at various historical periods and mapping various socio-political factors and security practices, this chapter critically examines the impact of state policies and practices on citizenship rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Instead of being exhaustive, the chapter provides a general picture of the regional context by drawing on examples and data from various countries including Brazil, Jamaica and Columbia. It interrogates the relationship between security and citizenship through the lens of policing, states of emergency, violence, fear of crime, risk, social exclusion and neoliberalism. The failure of the state to provide security and citizenship to ‘non-citizens’ has resulted in or intensified the localization of citizenship in marginalized spaces. ‘Violent non-state actors’ and ‘dons’,who provide security and other state-like functions, have reconfigured notions of citizenship. While the community has always been critical to the embodiment and performance of citizenship, the security regimes in Latin America and Caribbean have made the localization of citizenship more pronounced in the lives of marginalized citizens who feel shut out of formal process of citizenship.