Full Description
In Portugal between 2005 and 2010, "modernization through technology" was the major political motto used to develop and improve the country's peripheral and backward condition. This study reflects on one of the resulting, specific aspects of this trend—the implementation of public video surveillance. The in-depth ethnography provides evidence of how the political construction of security and surveillance as a strategic program actually conceals intricate institutional relationships between political decision-makers and common citizens. Essentially, the detailed account of the major actors, as well as their roles and motivations, serves to explain phenomena such as the confusion between objective data and subjective perceptions or the lack of communication between parties, which as this study argues, underlies the idiosyncrasies and fragilities of Portugal's still relatively young democratic system.
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Politics, technology and surveillance
Peripheral Vision
'Surveillance studies'
Anthropology, politics and policies
Notes on methodology and ethics
Chapter 1. From dictatorship to democracy
Backwardness as a syndrome
Political modernization: Salazar's Estado Novo and the carnation revolution
The country's modernization: entry into the EEC and structural reforms
Fighting backwardness through technology: the Socrates Era
Chapter 2. Eye in the sky
The eye behind the eye
Video surveillance in Portugal: Law No. 1/2005
The National Video Surveillance Program
Video surveillance in the zona da Ribeira do Porto
Video surveillance in Baixa Pombalina
The protection of thousands
First evaluation of CCTV in public areas
Chapter 3. Policy-making: successes, failures, contradictions
Data Protection Authority
Police force
Political forces and party strategies
'Forgotten' diagnosis
Chapter 4. Public Matters, Private Issues
Public and private: a matter of opinion
Video surveillance: security and its nuances
Privacy: a right for everyone?
Chapter 5. The Quest for Security
Barometers of (In)security
Where danger comes from
Fear, politics, economy
Conclusion: Modernization and Backwardness
References
