Abstract
This article explores the governing logics and political implications of citizen security in Puebla, Mexico, specifically, the Programa Nacional de Prevención del Delito (National Program for the Prevention of Crime, PRONAPRED). Taking a biopolitical perspective, the article centers on how citizens are produced through the application of citizen security initiatives. This production operates at two levels: the regulation of populations and the molding of subjects. First, vital statistics and risk-related variables highlight those populations that exceed the median for risk. Second, those at-risk groups are targeted for training to reduce their susceptibility to violence. Training focuses on the individual, asking citizens to identify and minimize risk in a manner that emanates from and contributes to security governance. The political ontology of citizen security is this citizen/citizenry coincident with official measures. The democratic aspirations of citizen security are consequently muted, as security governance locates citizens within the confines of state power and, at the same time, holds them separate from this power to produce citizen existence.
Highlights
Este articulo explora las lógicas gobernantes y las implicaciones políticas de la seguridad ciudadana en Puebla, México
In an effort to renovate approaches that suffered under authoritarianism and national security doctrines, citizen security initiatives were implemented to move beyond threats to the state or governing regime
Article 22 of the regulation is dedicated to citizen security, stating: “The Citizen Security Obligation of the State is to guarantee the security of the individual, acting in regard to the root causes of violence, delinquency and insecurity.”1 In contrast to such guarantees, this article suggests that citizen security initiatives forge a particular image of both the citizen and security
Summary
This article explores the governing logics and political implications of citizen security in Puebla, Mexico, the Programa Nacional de Prevención del Delito (National Program for the Prevention of Crime, PRONAPRED). Departing somewhat from Agamben, the interest below is not in asking which lives are secured, thereby locating bios alongside the exclusion of bare life or zoē Rather, it explores how “at risk” individuals become targets of citizen security initiatives to be incorporated into the state, albeit in a manner that distances them from political power. It explores how “at risk” individuals become targets of citizen security initiatives to be incorporated into the state, albeit in a manner that distances them from political power This more subtle inclusive exclusion within bios is examined in relation to how citizens are activated amid government policies, with official data—rather than victimization surveys or qualitative data from interviews—the means through which this activation is charted (Bergman 2006, 220). The article concludes by locating this construction of populations and subjects alongside the democratic aspirations of citizen security
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