Abstract
This paper discusses the meanings and implications of the notion of security, and emphasizes the importance of understanding security based on the practices that participants themselves describe as means of promoting security. It also points out that the way security is thought of and promoted has undergone changes caused by the expansion of objective and subjective threats, the advance of securitization, and the reinforcement of state and private policing. The text argues that Brazilian studies have focused mainly on the role of state policing in promoting security, paying little attention to private actors and to hybridisms and mutual influences between state and non-state actors carrying out policing. Based on the notion of “pluralization of policing,” the article describes the complexification of the security landscape and problematizes the challenges associated with it. Finally, the paper concludes that the study of the different modalities of plural policing are important for reflecting on security policies and ways to regulate the negative modalities of policing.
Keywords:
Security; Policing; Pluralization of Policing