Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2014

Abstract

Fear has struck the people along the U.S.-Mexico border. Government authorities of the two nations have implemented techniques to secure the Rio Grande against drug trafficking, immigration, and terrorism. This article explores the issues and policies that have led to the escalation of violence on the U.S.-Mexico border and the ‘politics of fear’. Firstly, Mexican and U.S. governmental authorities are examined in the context of their actions against the various drug cartels. Secondly, the impact of such actions on the nations’ publics is analysed. The authors combine the theoretical conceptions of the ‘media spectacle’ and the politics of fear that create a ‘spectacle of fear’ to explain events in the region. Finally, the authors provide a theoretical interpretation of the politics and administration of security policies regarding the impact of violence in this border region, employing primarily the works of Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt, which are central to any discussion of the phenomena of politics and societal violence. Overall, this work seeks to interpret the ‘culture of fear’ forced on citizens and the conflict between power and violence.

Comments

© Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Terence Garrett, and Michelle Keck. Original published version available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/23722431

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

First Page

35

Last Page

53

Publication Title

European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe

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