Civil Democracy,Perceived Risk,and Insecurity in Brazil: An Extension of the Systemic Social Control Model

Abstract

This article examines the possible relationship between democracy and perceptions of risk and safety in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte. The author combines the argument that violence and insecurity in Brazil are consequences of the lack of civil democracy with insights from systemic social control theorists, who argue that perceptions of risk depend on the interaction of social control on private, parochial, and public levels. While social bonds at the private and parochial level did not affect perceptions of safety, public-level bonds, such as support for democratic government and legitimacy of neighborhood police, had positive effects on perceptions of security. However, contrary to the author’s hypotheses, support for authoritarianism and generalized distrust of the police also decreased perceptions of risk in the case of robbery.