Untrusted democracies and failing security strategies: crises that refocus democratic governance in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper explores the shortcomings of forms of democratic governance in Latin America and theCaribbean through a focus on people’s experiences of insecurity and state responses to increasingviolence in the region. Using Charles Tilly’s criteria for assessing political relations in democraticregimes, it argues that in Latin America and the Caribbean it is necessary to rethink the criterianormally used to assess democratic governance. Democracy in contexts affected by chronicviolence, it is argued, should not be thought of exclusively in relation to the functioning of politicalinstitutions and access to rights. It should also be considered in relation to its capacity to produceand sustain forms of political, economic and social interaction that do not reproduce violence.