While analysis of transnationalized forms of security governance in the contemporary postcolonial world features prominently in current debates within the field of security studies, most efforts to analyse and understand the relevant processes proceed from an unquestioned ‘Western’ perspective, thereby failing to consider the methodological and theoretical implications of governing (in)security under postcolonial conditions. This article seeks to address that lacuna by highlighting the entangled histories of (in)security governance in the (post)colonial world and by providing fresh theoretical and methodological perspective for a security studies research agenda sensitive to the implications of the postcolonial condition.
One important feature of the neoliberalization of urban governance around the world has been the rise of an urban entrepreneurialism promoting projects of urban renewal and the upgrading of historic city centers. These developments contribute to an increasing securitization of urban space and the eviction of “undesirables” from the renewed and upgraded areas. An examination of these processes in the implementation of the “rescue” of Mexico City’s historic center and the related securitization of urban space in the neighborhood of La Merced reveals that the implementation and sustainability of this local urban renewal project is constantly challenged and modified by the presence of powerful illegal actors and informal practices of negotiation. Una característica de la neoliberalización de gobernabilidad urbana en el mundo ha sido el acenso de un empresarialismo urbano el cual promueve la renovación urbana y mejoramiento de los centros históricos. Estos procesos contribuyen al incremento de la segurización del espacio urbano y a la expulsión de “indeseables” de la áreas de renovación y mejoramiento. Un examen de estos procesos en la implementación del “rescate” del centro histórico de la Ciudad de México y la relacionada segurización del espacio urbano en el barrio de la Merced pone en relieve que la implementación y sostenibilidad de este proyecto de renovación urbana se encuentra retado constantemente por la presencia de actores ilegales y poderosos y prácticas informales de negociación.
Community policing programmes are widely perceived and promoted as an important solution for the pressing problems of insecurity in contemporary Latin American cities, and for improving citizen-police relationships. By drawing on the results of empirical fieldwork conducted in Mexico City, the article presents a critical analysis of the local community policing effort. The article demonstrates that this policing effort is overly determined by a local context, characterized by clientelism, political factionalism and police corruption, which therefore renders its contribution to a sustainable improvement of local accountability and police legitimacy unlikely. Against this background the article calls for more empirical studies on this topic and a greater sensitivity for the embeddedness of policing programmes within a wider political context.
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