Electoral Criminology and Campaign Positioning: Insecurity, Proximity, and Leadership in the 2015 Argentine Presidential Elections

In recent years, urban security has been central to political positioning in Latin American campaigns. The 2015 presidential election in Argentina was marked by political addresses on insecurity as an emerging social concern. This article intends to review how presidential candidates positioned themselves in the political field using speeches about urban security; specifically, it examines how the two main opposition candidates of the 2015 Argentine presidential election used crime-related concepts to help them stand in the race. It starts from the hypothesis that, at a conjuncture of citizens' disbelief at politics and institutions, candidates choose to deliver speeches on crime as a way of positioning themselves among the electorate. Based on a qualitative study, and from the perspective of discourse analysis of campaign material, results show how crime-oriented speeches develop empathy among voters while enabling candidates to position themselves asymmetrically as leaders capable of ruling social conflict.