Taking the chilling effect seriously: measuring the impact on fundamental rights of incivility and public security regulations.

• In Event: Urban safety and neighbourliness in Spanish medium-sized cities.

Abstract

The transformation in the last decades of the mechanisms for policing the public space has gone hand in hand with a variety of norms, practices and discourses about order, security and the scope and meaning of fundamental rights in a democratic society. A significant body of international literature has analysed the deployment of regulations against incivilities and public nuisances, laws restricting demonstrations and protest, or ordinances criminalising poverty or social exclusion. These studies often point to the chilling effect of these developments on the exercise of rights. In this paper, I will emphasise the theoretical and practical importance of the chilling effect doctrine in the deployment of critical discourses against these security devices. In addition, we will explore possible strategies for measuring the chilling effect produced by this type of regulations, attempting to identify specific theoretical approaches and research methodologies that might be useful for that purpose, as well as possible ways of integrating these measurements and evaluations into institutional processes and the formation of alternative politics of security and order.

Author

• Manuel Maroto-Calatayud, Complutense University of Madrid