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17181 results in Latin American government, politics and policy

Page 266 of 860

  • Introduction: The Renewal of Authoritarian Coercion in Democracy

  • from Part I - Persistence
  • Yanilda María González, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book:
    Authoritarian Police in Democracy
    Published online:
    30 October 2020
    Print publication:
    12 November 2020, pp 65-74

  • Summary

    The chapters in this section probe what drives the institutional persistence of police forces that exercise authoritarian coercion, drawing on empirical evidence from three police forces: the Military Police of São Paulo State (Chapter 3), the Police of Buenos Aires Province (Chapter 4), and the National Police of Colombia (Chapter 5). Notably, while the police forces of Buenos Aires Province and Colombia eventually underwent comprehensive structural reform processes (see Chapter 7), reform was preceded by a prolonged period of “reform deficit” (Weyland 2008), institutional stasis in the face of widespread extrajudicial violence, rampant corruption, and politicized coercion. Considering these cases through a comparative lens thus sheds light on the mechanisms that favor the persistence of authoritarian coercive institutions in otherwise democratic states.

  • ‘It's Not Gossip, It's True’: Denunciation and Social Control during the Guatemalan Armed Conflict (1970–85)

  • Joren F. Janssens
  • Journal:
    Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 53 / Issue 1 / February 2021
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    06 November 2020, pp. 107-132
    Print publication:
    February 2021

  • Practices of denunciation are at once ubiquitous and marginalised in literature on the Guatemalan armed conflict. Meanwhile, ordinary Guatemalans who spontaneously denounced neighbours, former friends and fellow villagers have largely escaped scrutiny in scholarly work on low-level perpetrators. Departing from untapped confidential documents in the Historical Archive of the National Police, this article provides the first archival study of denunciatory behaviour during the Guatemalan Civil War, specifically at the height of the conflict (1970–85). This contribution reveals both the strategic considerations that spurred state intelligence apparatuses to elicit civilian information as well as the broad range of personal, opportunistic and strategic motives that drove civilians to denounce. The case study questions scholarly consensus on the spontaneous and voluntary character of denunciation by arguing that besides providing novel pathways for opportunistic action, denunciations also opened up new strategies for survival in the face of a civil war that structured available choices.

Page 266 of 860