The transition of security from national to public. The challenges of decentralization relating to citizen security

Abstract

The objective is to explore, from a conceptual point of view, the transition of a national security status towards a public or most precisely called citizen security in order to evidence the difficulties national and local governments may have to face during this process. The document is intended to show, from three diff erent dimensions, the most relevant variables of that transition from the national-state to the local-urban. First of all, the main security notions are described, as well as the basic premises having given origin to the national security concept. In second place, the way security has evolved in Latin America from the Third Democratization Wave (“Tercera Ola de Democratizacion”) until now, a context where public or citizen security has gained ground at the expense of national security. Lastly, the complex relationship existing between citizen security and decentralization is examined, this process appearing as a finishing line of the 70's and 80's democratization. The method used to review and analyze data is basically qualitative in the identification of two variables: On one side, decentralization added to other local and national phenomena as an independent variable, and on the other side public or citizen security as a dependent variable. A correlation, not a direct causal link, is established.