Emergency penality and authoritarian liberalism

Abstract

This article discusses how the normalization of emergency penality, together with the rise of neoliberalism in the Colombian political and economic fields during the last decade, has given rise to authoritarian liberalism—a political model which encourages the hypertrophy of the penal state and the reduction of the social state. Colombian ethnic minorities, the indigenous and black populations, have suffered disproportionately from social exclusion and political violence, becoming victims, not only of illegal armed actors, but also of the punitive policies of Colombian governments. The normalization of emergency penality and the predominance of authoritarian liberalism are by no means peculiarities of the Colombian context, but the manifestation—in rather extreme circumstances—of a global trend that deploys punishment to uphold neoliberalism.