Death as a governmental strategy in the times of Democratic Security

Abstract

This article develops an analysis of death practices in Colombia when the Democratic Security Policy was in force during the government of Álvaro Uribe Vélez, showing the relationship between thanatopolitics and governmentality. Accordingly, the “government of death” did not only have the goal of eliminating those socially and politically undesirable but also the production of new behavioral models. The article concludes that political death within the government resulted in the country’s social reorganization as a consequence of distinctive forms of violence.