Violencia y seguridad democrática en República Dominicana

Abstract

Based on research in poor urban neighborhoods of the Dominican Republic and work with the Dominican government, this study explores how the state and the most vulnerable members of Dominican society have come to terms with a new complex criminality. A “young” democracy, the Dominican state has struggled to impose its authority in poor neighborhoods, where non-state actors offer “alternative governability,” providing employment, imposing their own order sometimes through violence, and establishing new norms and identities. The study identifies two phenomena that affect security and democracy: “criminogenic ecosystems” in which there is an overlap of older and newer forms of violence and criminality; and “state-tropism,” the attraction of private criminal actors toward the state to co-opt officials for their illicit enterprises, leading to new forms of state-criminal symbiosis. These basic concepts inform the eight chapters of this dissertation. Chapter One, “Violence, Security and Democracy,” provides a theoretical background, introducing concepts such as social exclusion, the new violence, contested spaciality, and parallel authority, among others. Chapter Two, “Preparing the Ground for the New Criminality,” documents the political and economic transitions of the last five decades, without which the recent upsurge of criminal violence cannot be understood. The modernization of the state and liberalization of the economy exacerbated informality, spatial segregation, and social exclusion. Violence itself was “democratized,” going from a government monopoly to a shared, renewable resource. Chapter Three explains “criminogenic ecosystems,” documenting the changes in criminal activities and citizen perceptions of insecurity leading to a sharp spike in violent crime around 2004. Despite the upsurge, the evolution of drug trafficking and organized crime into a criminogenic ecosystem was not an overnight process. The government offered no response to this critical challenge beyond more severe versions of the “iron fist.” Chapter Four explores the social reality in the capital’s poorest and most marginalized barrios, which are seen as complex micro-systems of relational and survival interactions. Interviews, focus groups, and surveys allow residents to describe the social, political, and economic changes promoted by drug dealers in their midst. Despite higher levels of violence and intimidation by gang members, residents see neither criminals nor the police in black and white terms. Illicit activities offer certain benefits while official security policies often impact their lives negatively. The fact that organized criminals provide the poor with alternative forms of security, livelihood, morality and even identity, drawing public officials into this dynamic, suggests how seriously they challenge democracy and the state itself. . Chapter Five, “The Realm of the Tigueres,” looks at the most at risk and resilient actors within the barrios, the youth, especially those who are involved in petty crime, violence and illicit activities—the tigueres. The chapter analyzes various types of youth groups, such as gangs and nations (pandillas and naciones), which originally offered solidarity and identity to marginalized young people before evolving into drug gangs. Pandillas and naciones are stigmatized by security forces, which react with violence to youth gangs and tolerance to well-connected criminals. Chapter Six, “The Inconstant Janos,” contrasts policing at the local level with unfulfilled popular expectations for protection without the violation of basic rights. The police are seen by citizens as actors that promote institutional violence and take part in illegal activities within the barrios. The state thus contributes to the criminogenic ecosystems in which no single actor has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Chapter Seven, “Reconstituting Security Governance,” analyzes how the “progressive” government of Leonel Fernandez responded to the new crisis of insecurity by launching an innovative security plan in 2005. The Democratic Security Plan (DSP) offered different methods from the default “mano dura” approach, promoting research in the barrios to better understand new criminal processes and the dilemmas they posed. In its original design the DSP promised to coordinate police reform with a flood of new services to the barrios and to work closely with churches and community organizations. The goal was to restore the state’s authority at the local level as well as building a constructive relationship with society by making its institutions more accountable, reliable and efficient. The plan had some initial success, but ultimately fell short of its promise to establish a comprehensive, sustainable and inclusive policy to prevent or reduce violent crime. The concluding chapter offers a general reflection on the problematic of insecurity and its impact on democratic governance. Recognizing the particularity of the Dominican experience, the study validates its significance as a case study from which lessons can be derived that could be useful for future attempts to reform security in other Latin American and Caribbean democracies.