Browsing by Author "Wendt, Mirka"

This thesis examines the police-military response to high levels of violence and crime in urban settings, in situations outside of official conflict. More specifically, this research takes a look at the most recent public security policy, the pacification policy (UPP), implemented in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro since the end of 2008. The purpose of the UPP is to install permanent police units in favelas, taking over control from militias and gangs, in order to tackle violence and crime. The UPP is praised for having adopted a different, development focused and permanent approach to policing and ensuring security in Rio, providing an excellent case study to examine what kind of legitimizations, representations and security discourses it entails. The general notion of no official conflict existing in Rio raises the question as to why there is a need to pacify – to bring peace - where there is no war: what is the rationale behind a military response in an officially peaceful context? Against this background, his research asks, what kind of discourses are used to justify and legitimize the policy and; whether the pacification policy involves a process of securitizing the favelas and their residents. The research adopts a critical constructivist framework with a critical security studies (CSS) approach. It specifically applies the theory of securitization as understood by the Copenhagen School, understanding the power that representations and discourses of security have in legitimizing policies and security actions. Securitization is about posing something as an existential threat to a specific referent object, in order to legitimize specific extraordinary measures or policies. This research employs Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (CDA) as its method. The research material consists of official documents and material produced by the UPP, speeches given by the Secretary of Security of the State of Rio de Janeiro as well as the official Facebook site of the UPP. In addition, two informative interviews were conducted with a local NGO and a municipal level social development program in order to acquire a deeper understanding of the overall approach towards the pacification policy within the city. The analysis reveals that there is an attempt to legitimize the pacification policy through discourses of a logic of emergency and by constructing threat images. The situation in the favelas before pacification is presented as chaotic and out of control, whereas the previous governments are portrayed as incompetent and lacking political will. These discourses serve as an ideal legitimization for the creation of the new and innovative pacification policy as the only solution to the emergency situation in Rio de Janeiro. The discourses employed to legitimize the pacification policy show a logic of securitization in portraying an existential threat, the violent and informal favela, to the survival of the formal city, which can only be saved through the pacification policy.