Biden’s Security Policy: Democratic Security or Democratic Exceptionalism?

By emphasising the internal-external security nexus inherent in democratic security, the US could aspire again to lead through the example of its democracy’s resilience and ability to self-correct.

The dual causes of fragmentation: Democratic security and the communitarian state in Colombian politics

This chapter analyzes speeches delivered by former Colombian President, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, between August 2002 and August 2009, which can be found on the official website of the presidency: ( http://web.presidencia.gov.co/discursos/ ). We attempt to identify the webs of meaning surrounding the concepts of ‘Democratic Security’ and ‘Communitarian State’ with awareness of the relationship between discourse, ideology and power. The aim is to better understand the political power of the plans, programs and projects developed by Uribe’s administration, and how this was affected by widespread deployment of the media. These policies are conditioned by a set of colonialist principles that are embodied in symbolic-discursive strategies that result in representations, by means of which mechanisms of marginalization, discrimination and polarized hierarchy are legitimized from the different social spheres. During the 7-year period analyzed there were controversial debates over the commission of crimes against humanity by national security agents, as well as corruption scandals over topics like ‘para-politics’, ‘false positives’, selective arrests, extrajudicial killings and violations of the sovereignty of bordering countries. Within this political context, we attempt to identify the inherent tensions and social conflicts. It is argued that the analyzed discourses reproduce colonialist thoughts, in relation to neoliberal principles and the application of global policies. Using the principles of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), we explore the strategies and resources used in Uribe’s speeches and how major themes are positioned to reproduce systems of beliefs, values and attitudes.

Explaining Peaceful Change without Democracy: The Case of the Sino-Soviet Security Community

Some scholars have claimed that democratic regime type needs to be treated as a necessary precondition for the formation of a pluralistic security community. This essay argues that one should not overestimate the explanatory power of linking the democratic peace proposition to the study of security communities. Democratic values, norms, institutions, and practices may certainly facilitate the formation of a security community, but it is by no means the only or even most plausible path to assure dependable expectations of peaceful change. While a number of authors have of late made similar claims, what is not settled is why non-democracies can form security communities. The findings in this essay advance scholarship on this issue by showing that the same causal logics commonly attributed exclusively to democratic security community formation are also present in the formation of non-democratic security communities. The study adds empirical evidence to this argument by developing a historical case study of the Sino-Soviet relationship. In sum, the findings demonstrate that (1) democracy is not a necessary (though facilitating) precondition for the development of a pluralistic security community and (2) a pluralistic security community may form between autocratic regimes based on the causal logical nexus of non-democratic norm externalization, ideological coherence, a common Other (normative logic) and autocratic domestic institutional constraints (institutional logic).

From Uribe’s “Democratic Security” to Santo’s Peace Accords with the FARC: Hate, Fear, Hope and other Emotions in Contemporary Colombian Politics

This article first presents explanatory factors concerning Colombian divergence from the recent tendency in several Latin American countries towards 21st century models of political socialism or in conjunction with post neoliberal development. A second part explores the complex legacy of political culture bequeathed by the governments of Álvaro Uribe Velez (2002-2006 and 2006-2010) which involved an important military effort to combat the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC by its Spanish acronym) but was not able to defeat them, although their debilitation undoubtedly constituted one of the factors that led to the negotiations in Havana. Hatred and fear of the FARC promoted by President Uribe’s discourse supported by the mainstream media and important journalistic sectors are then explored as factors in conjunction with societal ideological homogenization around the policy of "Democratic Security". A third part deals with redefinitions in the political culture and hegemonic communicative regime promoted by President Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2014 and 2014-2017), which favored promoting successful conclusion of the peace process with the FARC and initiation of a new, complex and still uncertain phase of national reconciliation among Colombians, notwithstanding obstinate Uribistic loathing of both the FARC and President Santos and President Uribe’s systematic and ideological delegitimization of the peace process. This section also deals with issues concerning the October 2, 2016 ratificatory plebiscite of the Havana Accords, the triumph of the rejectionists, the renegotiation of the Accords with representatives of the rejectionists by the government’s negotiating team, the mobilization of the citizenry in defense of the Accords, and, the ratification of the revised accord by the Congress at the Colon Theater. Finally, the "Conclusions" outline some of the challenges and possible alternatives for the country’s political development during the post-Accord era.