State of exception and necropolitics as a framework of the police operations in Venezuela

Abstract

From the traditions of critical criminology and the approaches of Agamben and Mbembe, I tried to make some initial reflections about police operations, the militarization of citizen security, the use of force and the right to life in post-Chávez Venezuela. The main purpose of this paper is based on the idea that the increase of institutional violence during the almost two decades of chavism governments, more than ruptures with the previous governments, is part of a continuous process of precariousness and deterioration of the institutions of Venezuela. Although the manifest function of the aforementioned institutions should be the reduction and containment of the violence, paradoxically these institutions ends up promoting violence for the benefit of the actors who temporarily lead them.