Police violence has become an all too common reality in Latin America. Most scholars have chalked up the problem to authoritarian legacies, ones inherited from colonialism, from nineteenth- and twentieth-century caudillo's or more recently from military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s. Most of these studies fail to explain why police violence can vary so widely from country to country or from one time period to another, nor can they account for genuine reform efforts. Fortunately, Claudio Fuentes's book departs from these formulas and offers a more plausible theory of police abuse in Latin America.

The author situates the causes of police violence and reform not in the distant past but within contemporary democratic settings. Citizens of these democracies want to be safe from crime, but police are often themselves the perpetrators of violence against innocent citizens who want to be free from that as well. Thus, when crime levels escalate, the pressures to overhaul the police forces generally subside, and when crime declines, there are renewed calls for police reform to curtail abuses. Even so, genuine reform rarely succeeds, and to explain why, the author offers a sophisticated analysis about organization, power, and opportunity.

Because citizens can be mobilized in either the direction of greater police reform or a tougher crackdown on crime, there are, unsurprisingly, two coalitions that have developed around these positions. A conservative, pro-order coalition is comprised of politicians, interest groups, citizens, and the police themselves intent on strengthening the police force without subjecting them to heightened scrutiny. And there is a pro-reform or civil rights coalition comprised of lawyers, human rights organizations, and politicians to the left of center determined to protect citizens' inalienable rights to be free from threats to their personal security. In this contest, the pro-order coalition has the advantage because of built-in organizational strengths within the security forces, ties to the centers of political power, and a public yearning for safer streets. By contrast, the pro-reform coalition has the challenging task of convincing politicians and the public that a cleansing of corrupt, abusive elements within the police forces will not also handicap the one agency that can and must reduce crime. This is a tough sell, and the police themselves make it tougher by pulling cops off the beat when they come under assault for alleged abuses. As the author puts it, the structure of incentives favors the status quo forces.

But the balance of power between these two coalitions is only part of the scenario. In addition, much depends on the kinds of opportunity structures that exist in a given society. In this two-nation study, the author found that Chile offered fewer opportunities for reform than did Argentina. In Chile, a transition dominated by the outgoing military, a political system that allows for easier access for conservative groups, a less pluralistic media with ownership concentrated in a few hands, and a highly unified police force combine to stymie reform. This political system is governed by the 1980 constitution written by Augusto Pinochet, which favors right-wing political forces sympathetic to the pro-order position. And it is a system in which the president cannot remove his police chief without approval from the National Security Council, and where police crimes are prosecuted in military courts only. In Argentina, the transition strengthened the hand of civilians while weakening the security forces. There, police crimes are tried in civilian courts, reform groups gain access to the corridors of power, and the press is more pluralistic.

The easy presumption would be that advocacy groups in Argentina should be stronger and more successful than those in Chile. But if opportunities exist, they must still be seized by strategic actors. Coalitional leaders must coordinate among themselves, articulate and frame their positions in a persuasive way, and show up for the policy debates. It turns out that the Chilean reform movement fell short in this regard, while the Argentine reformers performed better. Still, the devil's advocate may claim that the task of reform was easier in Argentina where levels of police violence were higher than in Chile. The puzzle is that in the capital of Buenos Aires where police violence was especially high and advocacy groups well organized, the pro-reform movement could not claim much success. To resolve the puzzle, the author explains that the capital police force, which is controlled by the federal government, is highly corporate in nature, much like its Chilean counterpart. There is a heavy top-to-bottom-structured hierarchy where the leadership cultivates loyalty and enforces a disciplined silence within the ranks, reducing the chances for informational leaks and exposure of misdeeds.

The one difficulty here is that corporateness cuts both ways. Highly corporate police forces are also more educated and better trained. Conceivably with the right leadership in place, those organizations should be less abusive and more professional. By contrast, less corporatist institutions are, by the author's admission, ones where “discipline and training systems are poor, internal systems of accountability are weak, and police officers observe relatively low levels of loyalty toward hierarchical authorities” (p. 37). Consequently, there is a greater chance for exposure of misdeeds in less corporate police forces, but a greater chance for misdeeds themselves. So what is the upshot? Would reformers have a better chance of lowering overall levels of police violence when faced with a hierarchically weaker or stronger police force? The book never resolves that issue.

There is much to commend here. Contesting the Iron Fist is the best piece of comparative social science I have seen on the topic of police violence and reform within Latin American studies. Fuentes has convincingly laid bare all of the underlying opportunities, motives, and strategies within the ongoing conflict over police behavior. Although his analysis yields a largely pessimistic assessment—namely, that pro-order coalitions tend to prevail, thus limiting the chances for police reform—it is also thoroughly convincing. It is based on exhaustive, careful, and systematic empirical research, and it is guided by a firm understanding of theories of coalitions, social movements, and opportunity structures. It is well written and will undoubtedly serve as a valuable text in countless undergraduate and graduate courses on Latin America and the politics of internal security, crime, and violence.