The States of Democracy. Political and Police Bases of State Power in a Northern Argentine ¨Province

Abstract

The subject of this article is the scope of the police power of some provincial Argentinean states and its contradictions with the liberties attached to a democratic regime. The concept of “internal enemy” underlying in the organic laws of the police forces, which were sanctioned mostly under an authoritarian representation of internal security, placed certain sectors of the population under suspicion and control of different political intelligence agencies. Through the case of “juaristas” governments in Santiago del Estero (1995-2004), we address the modalities of police intervention in politics considering formal functions of the Department of Police Information (DPI), and extra-institutional linkages between leaders and that organism. Although national law forbids political espionage, provincial autonomies and functionality of political intelligence favored the continuity of the DPI and discouraged coordinating policies of democratic security.