Penal Statecraft in the Latin American City: Assessing Mexico City's Punitive Urban Democracy

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Abstract

This paper applies Loïc Wacquant’s work on penal statecraft to analyze the growing punitiveness of urban politics in contemporary Mexico City. It demonstrates that the intersection of the urbanization of neoliberalism and the democratization of local politics contributed to the emergence of a punitive regime of governing urban marginality in the city. This indicates the consolidation of a punitive urban democracy in which despite the formal legal empowerment of the city’s residents during the last two decades, those at the urban margins face a reverse process of punitive exclusion that takes the form of a criminalization of poverty. In taking a closer look at the situation within the local penal apparatus, the paper furthermore shows that these exclusionary tendencies are reinforced by informal institutional practices inside the local law enforcement bureaucracies.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftSocial & Legal Studies
Vol/bind22
Udgave nummer4
Sider (fra-til)441-463
Antal sider23
ISSN0964-6639
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2013
Udgivet eksterntJa

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