Addressing an ambivalent relationship: Policing and the urban poor in Mexico City

Journal of Latin American Studies

Volumn 44, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 319-345

  Müller, Markus Michael ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG   (Germany)

Author keywords

Mexico City; policing; state society relations; urban marginality

Indexed keywords

LAW ENFORCEMENT; MARGINALIZATION; POLICE FORCE; SECURITY; STATE-LOCAL RELATIONS; URBAN SOCIETY;

FEDERAL DISTRICT [MEXICO]; IZTAPALAPA; MEXICO [NORTH AMERICA]; MEXICO CITY;

EID: 84861874283     PISSN: 0022216X     EISSN: 1469767X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X12000041     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. An earlier version of this article was presented at the interdisciplinary workshop 'Crime, Insecurity, Fear in Mexico: Ethnographic and Policy Approaches' at Columbia University, New York, on 13-14 November 2009.
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3. For urbanisation of neoliberalism see Neil Brenner and Nik Theodore, 'Cities and the Geographies of "Actually Existing Neoliberalism"', in Brenner and Theodore (eds).), Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 2-31.
4. See also International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and World Bank, Urban Crime and Violence in LAC: Status Report on Activities (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008)
5. Kees Koonings and Dirk Kruijt (eds).), Fractured Cities: Social Exclusion, Urban Violence, and Contested Spaces in Latin America (London: Zed, 2007)
6. Caroline Moser and Cathy McIlwaine, Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban Poor Perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala (London: Routledge, 2004)
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10. James Holston, quoted in Orlando J. Pérez, 'Democratic Legitimacy and Public Insecurity: Crime and Democracy in El Salvador and Guatemala', Political Science Quarterly, 118: 4 (2003/4), p. 628.
11. Joseph S. Tulchin and Heather A. Golding, 'Introduction: Citizen Security in Regional Perspective', in Hugo Frühling, Joseph S. Tulchin and Heather A. Golding (eds).), Crime and Violence in Latin America: Citizen Security, Democracy and the State (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), p. 2.
12. Centeno, Blood and Debt, p. 7.
13. Monique Sonnevelt, 'Security at Stake: Dealing with Violence and Public (In)Security in a Popular Neighborhood in Guadalajara, Mexico', in Gareth A. Jones and Dennis Rodgers (eds).), Youth Violence in Latin America: Gangs and Juvenile Justice in Perspective (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 45-62.
14. Mercedes S. Hinton, The State on the Streets: Police and Politics in Argentina and Brazil (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2006), p. 113.
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17. The term 'network together' is from Enrique Desmond Arias, Drugs and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro: Trafficking, Social Networks and Public Security (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press 2006) 203.
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25. The research project compared patterns of security governance, citizen-police relations and the legal regulation of public security provision in Mexico City and Buenos Aires (see http://www.sfb-governance.de/en/ teilprojekte/projekte/projektbereich-c/c3/index.html).
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28. 'Undermining the Rule of Law: Democratization and the Dark Side of Police Reform in Mexico' Latin American Politics and Society 48: 1 (2006) 55-86.
29. Markus-Michael Müller, 'Regieren durch (Un)Sicherheit? Die Funktion der Polizei im Kontext beschränkter Staatlichkeit in Mexiko', Peripherie: Zeitschrift für Politik und Ökonomie in der Dritten Welt, 104 (2006), pp. 500-522
30. Ernesto López Portillo Vargas, 'The Police in Mexico: Political Functions and Needed Reforms', in John Bailey and Jorge Chabat (eds).), Transnational Crime and Public Security: Challenges to Mexico and the United States (San Diego, CA: Center for US-Mexican Studies, University of California, 2002), pp. 114-116.
31. Markus-Michael Müller, Public Security in the Negotiated State: Policing in Latin America and Beyond (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 80-81, 93-103
32. Beatriz Martínez de Murguía, La policía en México: orden social o criminalidad? (Mexico City: Planeta, 1999), pp. 49-56.
33. Elena Azaola, Imagen y autoimagen de la policía de la Ciudad de México (Mexico City: Ediciones Coyoacén, 2006)
34. Claire Naval, Irregularidades, abusos de poder y maltratos en el Distrito Federal: la relación de los agentes policiales y del Ministerio Público con la población (Mexico City: Fundar, Centro de Anélisis e Investigación, 2006).
35. Elena Azaola Garrido and Ángel Ruiz Torres, 'Poder y abusos de poder entre la Policía Judicial de la Ciudad de México', Iberoamericana, 41 (2011), pp. 99-114
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37. Martínez de Murguía, La policía en México.
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42. On policing and rent-seeking structures, see Davis, 'Political and Economic Origins', p. 50.
43. José Castillo, 'After the Explosion', in Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic (eds).), The Endless City (London: Phaidon, 2008), p. 181.
44. Markus-Michael Müller, 'Community Policing in Latin America: Lessons from Mexico City', European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 88 (2010), pp. 28-30.
45. Anne Becker and Markus-Michael Müller, 'Null Toleranz für Straßenprostitution? Altstadtaufwertung und die Kriminalisierung "unerwünschter" informeller Ökonomien in Mexiko Stadt', in Paola Alfaro Alençon, Walter Alejandro Imilan and Lina María Sénchez (eds).), Lateinamerikanische Stadt im Wandel: Zwischen lokaler Stadtgesellschaft und globalem Einfluss (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2001), pp. 61-70.
46. The degree of marginality takes into account questions of education, income, patrimony of the household and quality of the dwelling. These are divided up into six indicators: residents aged 15 and over without junior high school degree; employed residents with a monthly work-related income up to two minimum wages; residences without a telephone; residences without ground lamination; residences without indoor tap water; and average number of people sharing a bedroom. Data taken from www.siege.df.gob.mx/copladet/index.html (no longer available).
47. Delegación Iztapalapa (Dirección General de Desarrollo Social), 'Reglas de Operación 2008' (Mexico City: Delegación Iztapalapa, 2008), p. 3.
48. Secretaría de Seguridad Pública del Distrito Federal (SSPDF), 'Delegación Iztapalapa' (Mexico City: SSPDF, 2007)
49. Verónica Gil Montes and Angélica Rosas Huerta, 'Seguridad pública en Iztapalapa: un acercamiento institucional' (Mexico City: Instituto Ciudadano de Estudios Sobre Inseguridad, 2005), available at www.icesi.org.mx/documentos/propuestas/iztapalapa-acercamiento-seguridad- publica.pdf.
50. The policing of youth cultures is closely related to growing political concerns about 'youth violence' and 'gangs' in Mexico, which increasingly portray such aesthetic 'deviance' as a 'security threat'. Héctor Castillo Berthier and Gareth A. Jones, 'Mean Streets: Youth, Violence and Daily Life in Mexico City', in Jones and Rodgers (eds).), Youth Violence, pp. 183-202.
51. Philip Pettit, 'Republican Theory and Political Trust', in Valerie Braithwhite and Margaret Levi (eds).), Trust and Governance (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2003), pp. 207-298.
52. On the social dynamics of drug trafficking in Iztapalapa, see Carlos Alberto Zamudio Angles, 'Las redes del narcomenudeo: cómo se reproducen el consumo y el comercio de drogas ilícitas entre jóvenes de barrios marginados', unpubl. master's thesis, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico, 2007.
53. Müller, Public Security, pp. 186-188.
54. Ingeborg Denissen, 'New Forms of Political Inclusion: Competitive Clientelism', in Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ed.), Quality and Effectiveness: A Rich Menu for the Poor - Food for Thought on Effective Aid Policies (The Hague: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2009), p. 420, available at www.minbuza.nl/en/appendices/key-topics/the-essays.html.
55. Tina Hilgers, 'Causes and Consequences of Political Clientelism: Mexico's PRD in Comparative Perspective', Latin American Politics and Society, 50: 4 (2006), p. 137.
56. Tina Hilgers, '"Who is Using Whom?" Clientelism from the Client's Perspective', Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 15: 1 (2009), p. 51.
57. Jonathan Fox, 'The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico', World Politics, 42: 2 (1994), pp. 151-184. (Pubitemid 24432483)
58. Nils Uildriks, Mexico's Unrule of Law: Implementing Human Rights in Police and Judicial Reform under Democratization (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2010), p. 131.
59. Ingeborg Denissen, 'Grassroots Responses to Insecurity in Iztapalapa "El Traspatio de la Ciudad"', paper presented at the 28th International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Rio de Janeiro, 11-14 June 2009.
60. James C. Scott, Comparative Political Corruption (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972), p. 67.
61. James Holston, Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 303-304.
62. Enrique Desmond Arias, 'Faith in our Neighbors: Networks and Social Order in Three Brazilian Favelas', Latin American Politics and Society, 46: 1 (2006), pp. 3-4
63. Martha K. Huggins, 'Urban Violence and Police Privatisation in Brazil: Blended Invisibility', Social Justice, 27: 2 (2000), pp. 113-134.