Exploring the Discourse on Security: Colombia's Democratic Security

Security is a contentious concept, which reaches its limits when applied in a non-Western context. With a strong war-like rhetoric and a strategy called 'Democratic Security,' Alvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2006) promised to defeat the insurgency and to strengthen the Colombian state. Uribe's strategies and rhetoric moves were challenged at every step by different sectors of the public opinion, the civil society and his political adversaries. In spite of the contradictory results of his policies, Uribe took the oath of office for a second time. I argue here that security is a strategy used by all political and military actors in Colombia to delegitimize, as well as to foreclose their adversaries' political space. Through the use of critical and discourse theory, I analyze the discursive strategies used by Uribe and his counterparts to reach political hegemony and the responses it has elicited in Colombia. This work will introduce its readers to a nuanced and rarely approached angle on the politics of security and should be of special use to those interested in the Colombian conflict, Latin American politics, state and insurgent violence, and discourse analysis.