From the Prison Yard to the Streets: Social Protest and Authoritarianism in Colombia

This paper discusses the relationship between the street and prison protests that took place in Colombia between 2019 and 2021—exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the social crisis it unleashed—on the one hand, and the brutal state repression they elicited, on the other. These phenomena reveal the conflicts that permeate Colombian society and the authoritarian response of the Colombian establishment to them. The violence of this response also expresses a particular form of governance—Authoritarian Liberalism—that is an integral part of social control in Colombian and Latin American political regimes, as well as those of the Global North. Such authoritarian responses are part of a global network of securitization discourses and practices to control social groups deemed threatening and dangerous.