Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the rise of the private security industry in post-war El Salvador, where homicidal and other forms of violence have become routine. Specifically, the paper investigates how access to security has been shaped by the country's post-war political economy.

Paper long abstract:

An understanding of the problem of public insecurity and how it is reinforced by economic insecurity must acknowledge the increasing commoditisation of public security over the past few decades. This paper explores the process and implications of security commoditisation in the context of El Salvador's violent democracy. It does so by enquiring into the nature and impact of what Wacquant has identified as a "punitive turn" in public policy, a phenomenon that originated in the US and was later exported elsewhere. The paper is concerned with the particular notion of security promoted throughout this turn and how this notion is related to the increasing commoditisation of public security. El Salvador's post-war governments have emulated aspects of the punitive turn undertaken by the US, rationalising this maneuver on the basis of their country's homicide rate (one of the world's highest) and other forms of routine violence. Grounded in research conducted in a Salvadoran rural municipality during the late 2000s, this paper describes the insecurity and increasing victimisation of ordinary citizens that have allowed the Salvadoran governments to legitimise their rather inefficient mano dura approaches and led Salvadoran citizens to seek out privately-procured means of security. I suggest that Wacquant's disregard of the form and magnitude of public-private partnerships in the provision of security neglects the ways in which the state has been reconfigured throughout the punitive turn. Nor does his analysis fully tease out the ways in which different forms of insecurity have come to reinforce one another throughout this turn.