Abstract:
This article analyzes how the concept of “failed city” contributes to the definition of cities as spaces for interference by global governmentality. To highlight this relationship, the article analyzes the pacification initiatives promoted in Rio de Janeiro since 2008 through the creation of the Pacifying Police Units (UPPs). The case is analyzed through the theoretical and conceptual lens of Michel Foucault and the idea of global governmentality. The central argument of this article is that the UPPs were highly militarized government devices that had the objective of pacifying the favelas of Rio de Janeiro through territorial occupation and the establishment of a permanent policing regime. These devices, in turn, are related to national and international practices and rationalities aimed at controlling life in cities, considered violent and unstable, as a way of pacifying them.
Keywords:
failed cities; pacification; UPP; global governmentality