The Governance of Organised Crime in Chile 1990-2014
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Governance of Organised Crime in Chile 1990-2014 Carlos Solar PhD University of York Politics January 2016 Abstract The redemocratisation of Chile set an important landmark for the governing of the country’s security. Despite the initial effort undertaken by the democratically elected authorities to ensure the rule of law, the passing of time soon exposed the state’s limited capacity for confronting the pressing risks that came along with more openness in the country. The perilous evidence of organised crime swarming in the country caught many of the country’s public security actors unaware and thus confused regarding their response. A series of factors undermining an encompassing response to complex criminality were evident. Public security institutions lacked the knowledge, skills, and resources and, what is more, they were highly divorced from one another due to their previous experiences in delivering security within a dictatorship. However, and almost 25 years later, the governance of organised crime had been transformed into a complex engagement of policy dissimilar to that of early redemocratisation. Multiple public institutions, demonstrating a set of highly interconnected relationships, were able to engage in policy networks to put forth a series of security policy plans. This thesis aims to explore the scholarly relevance of such governance evolution by asking the following research question: how can we explain the governing relationships that Chile’s public institutions have put up to confront organised crime since redemocratisation? This research project explains therefore how public security actors have been able to move away from inward and hierarchical patterns of policy action and develop instead horizontal relations that favour an inter-institutional style of policy-making. Through its empirical research, this thesis argues that Chile’s state bureaucracies have been able to steer the governance of organised crime; however, not within the realms of a central unified authority, but through a set of self-governing institutions that, since the 1990 return to democracy, have gradually adopted norms, practices, and beliefs. 2 List of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 2 List of Contents ........................................................................................................................ 3 List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ 6 List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 8 Author’s Declaration ............................................................................................................. 10 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 13 1.1 Redemocratisation and Organised Crime ...................................................................... 18 1.3 Governance, Policy Networks and Institutions: A Common Dialogue ......................... 24 1.4 Originality and Contribution .......................................................................................... 37 1.5 Chapter Outline .............................................................................................................. 44 Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 51 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 51 2.2 From Government to the Governance of Security ......................................................... 53 2.2.1 Organised crime and the state decentralising and state centric approaches ............ 59 2.3 Governance and Policy Networks .................................................................................. 66 2.3.1. Policy networks: their development and change ................................................... 70 2.4 Institutions and Network Governance ........................................................................... 77 2.4.1 The historical approach ........................................................................................... 79 2.4.2 Accounting for change ............................................................................................ 82 2.4.3 Explaining the gradual adoption of network governance ....................................... 84 2.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 87 3 Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 90 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 90 3.2 Documented Data Collection Strategy ........................................................................... 91 3.3 Oral Data Collection Strategy ........................................................................................ 94 3.4 Methodological Rewards and Concerns ...................................................................... 101 The Executive’s Security Metagovernor: The Ministry of the Interior .......................... 108 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 108 4.2 The Fragmented Security Community Prior to Redemocratisation ............................. 111 4.3 Recentring Security (1990-1999) ................................................................................. 117 4.4 Re-assessing Organised Crime and its Policy-making (2001-2009) ........................... 126 4.5 The Institutionalisation of Network Governance (2010-2014) .................................... 136 4.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 143 The Criminal Prosecutor: The Public Ministry ................................................................ 147 5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 147 5.2 Reacting to the Evidence of Complex Criminality (1990-1999) ................................. 150 5.3 Establishing a New Form of Prosecution (2000-2007) ................................................ 156 5.4. Building Common Knowledge for the Policy Network (2008-2014) ........................ 166 5.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 174 Policing Bodies: the Carabineros and the Investigaciones ................................................ 179 6.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 179 6.2 The Redemocratisation of Policing (1990-1999) ......................................................... 182 6.3. Performance Standards and a New Form of Prosecution (2000-2009) ...................... 191 6.5. The Frontera Norte and Networked Governance (2010-2014) .................................. 202 6.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 210 4 The Money Laundering Watchdog: the Financial Analysis Unit .................................... 214 7.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 214 7.2 Criminal Phenomena and its Foreign-Imposed Awareness (1990– 2002) .................. 218 7.3 The “Formative Years” (2003-2008) ........................................................................... 225 7.4 Consolidating Governance and the Launch of a Formal Policy Plan (2009– 2014) ... 233 7.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 239 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 244 8.1 The Engagement of Governance .................................................................................. 245 8.2 Periods of Governance ................................................................................................. 249 8.3 The State, Security Institutions and Organised Crime Post-Democratisation ............. 252 8.4 Policy Recommendations ............................................................................................. 256 8.5 Future Research ........................................................................................................... 258 List of Acronyms .................................................................................................................. 263 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 266 5 List of Tables 1.1 Scope of main transnational organised crimes concerning Latin America……………....17 1.2 Crime, rule of law and perception