Citizen security: Silencing women and migrants

This special issue of Latin American Policy explores the silences that surround citizen security, particularly how it marginalizes women and excludes migrants as subjects deserving of “security.” It does so by bringing together eight articles that attend to how these silences are compounded in both the analytical lenses and policy applications of citizen security. Focused principally on Mexico, each article offers insight into the exclusionary effects of citizen security. It contrasts with what the literature on the foundations of citizen security purports—its inclusionary and even democratic nature. Made manifest is not just how migrants and female or feminized subjects experience security differently, but also how these differences are often ignored or minimized. Before introducing each contribution, it is important to situate citizen security for readers less familiar with its history and present-day promises. This special issue comes at a moment of flux in security governance in Mexico. Citizen security does not operate in isolation but exists alongside a range of security approaches, old and new. The ongoing, ever-expanding War on Drugs is demonstrative of this complexity. Since 2006, successive administrations have come to rely on the armed forces when confronting organized crime. The result has been a greater presence of the military throughout the Republic, and an expansion in its role—from the protection of strategic infrastructure to its construction and management. The centrality of the military to security is, of course, nothing new. Doctrines of national security previously placed an emphasis on the military and intelligence services. Throughout the Cold War period, the military (alongside paramilitary forces) was directed against those it equated as enemies—primarily opposition groups, from students to workers—rather than organized crime. Although it was an era marked by “dirty wars,” many of the practices deployed and honed during the period remain relevant today (Delgado Barón, 2008, p. 115; Feierstein, 2010, p. 492). Then, as now, the armed forces have been converted into armies of occupation inside Mexican territory. The aim is not just to displace the criminal cartels but to establish areas of military rule. The result of these interventions has raised further questions—from the de facto application of a state of exception that has resulted in the death of civilians, to an inability to displace organized crime and thereby make manifest t