Democracy, Law, and Order

Democracy, Law, and Order Mark Ungar (bio) The Judicial Response to Police Killings in Latin America: Inequality and the Rule of Law. By Daniel M. Brinks. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. 289 + xi. $85.00 cloth. Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico. Edited by Wayne A. Cornelius and David A. Shirk. San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Pp. 523 + xi. $37.50 paper. Judges beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship: Lessons from Chile. By Lisa Hilbink. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. 299 + xvi. $80.00 cloth. Enforcing the Rule of Law: Social Accountability in the New Latin American Democracies. Edited by Enrique Peruzzotti and Catalina Smulovitz. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006. Pp. 362 + xiv. $29.95 paper. The Politics of Organized Crime and the Organized Crime of Politics: A Study in Criminal Power. By Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. 263 + ix. $82.00 cloth. $26.95 paper. The Judicialization of Politics in Latin America. Edited by Rachel Sieder, Line Schjolden, and Alan Angell. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Pp. 320. $64.09 cloth. The contributions of works on law and order depend to a large degree on how much they question how the two concepts are understood. The amply discussed gap between democratic standards and contemporary reality in Latin America is so wide on the issue of law and order in part because of rapid alterations in the region's juridical and physical orders. With a relentlessly climbing rate of criminal violence making Latin America the world's deadliest region—with a homicide rate more than three times the global average since 2000, accounting for more than 40 percent of the world's murders each year1—crime has been one of the top concerns [End Page 235] of Latin Americans since the mid-1990s.2 Putting great strain on laws and policies, crime starkly exposes the vulnerability of states and the volatility of democracy. The books under review here show that, when order disintegrates, Latin America sees how poorly traditional responses have fared and how well new ones might work. But while these books develop new analytical insights into democracy, the state, and society, they should go further in bringing out two concurrent and interrelated patterns. One is of fundamental fissures within the state, elected bodies, and society that hinder a sustainable public order within a rule of law. The other is how political instability constantly shifts the loci and relationships of power, and thus the channels for pressure by society and for accountability to it. Together, these two patterns undercut attempts to strengthen law and order in Latin America, which range from judicial reforms to overhauls of security infrastructure. They even undermine citizen-oriented approaches—such as community justice forums and preventive strategies centered on social services for vulnerable groups—whose promise these works rightly emphasize.3 Through the lens of the state and democracy, the books reviewed here revisit the notions of law and order in ways that open up a new set of challenges that scholarship and policy should pursue. The State The biggest hindrance to shoring up law and order is often the incapacity of the state agencies charged with this task. Literature on the state has tackled its extensive deficiencies in policy implementation; the works reviewed here contribute in three areas with particular import for law and order: (1) decentralization, (2) judicial functioning, and (3) the integrity of the state itself. First, as with many other services, criminal justice has been decentralized to the regional and local levels throughout Latin America, leading to a proliferation of agencies that repeat the poor and abusive practices of their national progenitors. Between 1990 and 2006, for example, Venezuela created 105 new police forces (a 363.64 percent increase) [End Page 236] with no measurable impact on crime.4 Bearing the brunt of decentralization's damages are cities, where about three of every four murders take place and where the most violent neighborhoods are the least able to demand or afford adequate security. While Venezuela's national homicide rate was 48

Democracy · Dictatorship · Humanities · Latin Americans · Order (exchange) · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Rule of law · Sociology · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Philosophy

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