Democracy beyond legitimate coercion: Deadly use of force by the police in the Philippines and Brazil
This project investigates state coercion in the form of deadly police violence in times of domestic peace in two democracies of the Global South. With Rodrigo Duterte and Jair Bolsonaro, populists came to power in both countries, giving the police a free hand in combating drug-related crime. But even before that, both countries stood out within their regions due to high levels of police violence.
The project examines the relationship between deadly police violence on the one hand and the violent attitudes of politicians and the general population on the other. Most of the research on excessive police violence is attributed either to characteristics of the environment in which policemen serve or to deficits of the police as an organization, to deficits of the organizational culture or to specific strategies for preventing or combating crime. Instead, this project focuses on the role of public opinion and a corresponding populism of political elites who may expect a tough stance to be advantageous in elections as factors for explaining the use of deadly police violence with varying degrees of frequency – both between and within states.
The aim of the project, for which third-party funding is provided by the DFG since February 2021, is to collect accurate data on the extent of lethal police violence in Brazil and the Philippines for at least a decade. This framework will not only provide accurate information on differences between states and provinces, but also reveal changes over time at the national and sub-national levels. Through intensive field research in several subnational units, differences in the local perception of crime by the population and the local elites as well as the attitudes of the local police leadership and their de jure and de facto dependence on the local political leadership are worked out. On that basis, the logics underlying police use of lethal force are reconstructed – in phases of "normality" without a centrally orchestrated campaign against crime and in phases of central political excess.
- Impunity and Police Vigilantism | 2022
Kreuzer, Peter (2022): Impunity and Police Vigilantism. Is the highly excessive use of deadly force by the police in the Philippines now over?, PRIF Spotlight 6/2022, Frankfurt/M, DOI: 10.48809/prifspot2206.
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- Killing Politicians in the Philippines: Who, Where, When, and Why | 2022
Kreuzer, Peter (2022): Killing Politicians in the Philippines: Who, Where, When, and Why, PRIF Report 2/2022, Frankfurt/M, DOI: 10.48809/prifrep2202.
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- Fear and Legitimacy in São Paulo, Brazil. Police-Citizen Relations in a High Violence, High Fear City | 2021
Natal, Ariadne/Jackson, Jonathan/Pósch, Krisztián/Oliveira, Thiago R. (2021): Fear and Legitimacy in São Paulo, Brazil. Police-Citizen Relations in a High Violence, High Fear City, in: SocArXiv, https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/3awrz/. DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/3awrz.
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- Legitimidade e obediência. Diálogos da criminologia com a teoria sociológica | 2021
Natal, Ariadne/Castelo Branco, Frederico/Alvarez, Marcos (2021): Legitimidade e obediência. Diálogos da criminologia com a teoria sociológica, in: Tempo Social, 3:33, 147–166, DOI: 10.11606/0103-2070.ts.2021.190229.
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- "If You Can't Beat Them, Kill Them" | 2021
Kreuzer, Peter (2021): "If You Can't Beat Them, Kill Them". Fatal Violence Against Politicians in the Philippines, PRIF Report 2/2021, Frankfurt/M.
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- Medo do crime: Mensurando o fenômeno e explorando seus preditores na cidade de São Paulo | 2021
Zanetic, André/Mendes, Silvia M./Bradford, Ben/Oliveira, Thiago R./Pósch, Krisztián/Jackson, Jonathan/Natal, Ariadne (2021): Medo do crime: Mensurando o fenômeno e explorando seus preditores na cidade de São Paulo, in: Revista Opinião Pública.
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- Governors and Mayors in the Philippines | 2020
Kreuzer, Peter (2020): Governors and Mayors in the Philippines. Resistance to or Support for Duterte's Deadly War on Drugs, PRIF Report 5/2020, Frankfurt/M.
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- Der autoritäre Patron, der liefert? | 2020
Kreuzer, Peter (2020): Der autoritäre Patron, der liefert? Weiterhin breite Unterstützung für Präsident Duterte in den Philippinen, PRIF Spotlight 5/2020, Frankfurt/M.
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- A patron-strongman who delivers | 2020
Kreuzer, Peter (2020): A patron-strongman who delivers. Explaining enduring public support for President Duterte in the Philippines, PRIF Report 1/2020, Frankfurt/M.
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- Duterte’s war against drugs in the Philippines: Continuity and change | 2019
Kreuzer, Peter (2019): Duterte’s war against drugs in the Philippines: Continuity and change, PRIF BLOG, 14.3.2019.
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- Populism, executive assertiveness and popular support for strongman-democracy in the Philippines | 2019
Kreuzer, Peter (2019): Populism, executive assertiveness and popular support for strongman-democracy in the Philippines, PRIF BLOG, 17.1.2019.
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- Excessive Use of Deadly Force by Police in the Philippines Before Duterte | 2018
Kreuzer, Peter (2018): Excessive Use of Deadly Force by Police in the Philippines Before Duterte, in: Journal of Contemporary Asia, Published online: May 2018, DOI: 10.1080/00472336.2018.1471155.
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- The Philippines after one year under Duterte | 2017
Kreuzer, Peter (2017): The Philippines after one year under Duterte. Still majority support for killing suspected criminals, PRIF Blog, 30.6.2017.
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- "If they resist, kill them all": Police Vigilantism in the Philippines | 2016
Kreuzer, Peter (2016): "If they resist, kill them all": Police Vigilantism in the Philippines, PRIF Report No. 142, Frankfurt/M.
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