Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-9q27g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T11:54:54.390Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Taking Hold of the Wheel: Automobility, Social Order, and the Law in Mexico's Public Registry of Vehicles (REPUVE)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Keith Guzik
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Across the globe, governments are implementing electronic vehicle registration programs capable of locating automobiles instantaneously. In order to understand the impact of such programs on contemporary governance, this article draws upon the extant literature on automobility, law and society and science and technology studies theory, and data collected from Mexico, where the government has been implementing the Public Registry of Vehicles (REPUVE). The central argument of the article rests on three concepts. First, the automobile has recurrently served as a disruptive technology in modern society, a technology whose adoption unsettles the social order by drawing users away from their usual modes of social interaction. In response, state authorities over the course of the twentieth century created a collection of legal rules, actors, and institutions designed to take hold of the wheel. By penetrating automobility with law, the state transformed the car into a legal enactment device, a technology whose operation pushes people to enact the law and, in so doing, constitutes the sociolegal order. In Mexico, a host of forces have conspired to weaken the state's hold on the wheel. The REPUVE promises to change this by “delegating” policing duties to radio-frequency identification stickers affixed to vehicles and scanners placed on roadways. Rather than enforcing the law through corruptible humans sanctioning irresponsible drivers, the REPUVE opens the possibility of doing so through a “surveillant assemblage” denying roadway access to suspicious vehicles. In the REPUVE then, the automobile passes from a legal enactment device, a technology whose operation pushes users to enact the law, to a legal prescription device, a technology whose operation requires them to do so. By demonstrating the role of vehicular regulation in the “mutual becoming” of society and technology, this study contributes to the growing research on the intersection of law and technology and provides a glimpse into the changing nature of legal power in the contemporary state.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 523 - 554
Copyright
© 2013 Law and Society Association.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author would to thank William Rose and three anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this article, the editors of Law & Society Review for their patience and guidance in the revision process, Armando López Muñoz and Daiset Ruiz-Sarquis for stimulating discussions on automobility and the law in Mexico, Nora López Matta for her work in transcribing interviews, and the state and federal officials working with the REPUVE who volunteered their time to explain the program to me. This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Grant (1024469) awarded through the Science, Technology, and Society and Law and Social Science programs.

References

Akrich, Madeleine (1992) “The De-Scription of Technical Objects,” in Bijker, Wiebe, & Law, John, eds., Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Amador, Julia (2012) “Vehículos robados se detectarán con chip en Unidades Regionales de Seguridad,” ZacatecasOnline, September 18.Google Scholar
Amoore, Louise, & de Goede, Marieke (2005) “Governance, Risk, and Dataveillance in the War on Terror,” 43 Crime, Law, and Social Change 149–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashton, Richard (2011) “Can Alcohol Ignition Interlocks Save Even More Lives,” 78 The Police Chief 88–90.Google Scholar
Astorga, Luis (2000) “Organized Crime and the Organization of Crime,” in Bailey, John, & Godson, Roy, eds., Organized Crime and Democratic Governability: Mexico and the U.S.–Mexican Borderlands. Pittsburgh, PA: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Atchley, Paul, Hadlock, Chelsie, & Lane, Sean (2012) “Stuck in the 70s: The Role of Social Norms in Distracted Driving,” 40 Accident Analysis & Prevention 279–84.Google Scholar
Aviña, Carlos (2009) “Piden cambios al Registro Público Vehicular,” El Sol de México, October 6.Google Scholar
Bacheldor, Beth (2008) Electronic Vehicle Registration Picks Up Speed. Available at: http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?3945/2 (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Barrientos, Claudia (2012) “Al 44% el pago del Refrendo Vehicular,” El Siglo de Durango, March 17.Google Scholar
Bauman, Zygmunt (1998) Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Beckmann, Jorg (2004) “Mobility and Safety,” 21 Theory, Culture, and Society 81–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blade, Bryan (1991) “Fourth Amendment—The Constitutionality of A Sobriety Checkpoint Program,” 81 J. of Criminal Law and Criminology 800–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braverman, Irus (2010a) “Governing with Clean Hands: Automated Public Toilets and Sanitary Surveillance,” 8 Surveillance and Society 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braverman, Irus (2010b) “Civilized Border: A Study of Israel's New Crossing Administration,” 43 Antipode 264–95.Google Scholar
Bull, Michael (2001) “Soundscapes of the Car: A Critical Study of Automobile Habitation,” in Miller, Daniel, ed., Car Cultures. New York: Berg Publishing.Google Scholar
Callon, Michel (1986) “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Sea Scallops and the Fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay,” in Law, John, ed., Power, Action, and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Campos, Roy, & Penna, Carlos (2010) Confianza en las Instituciones. Consulta Mitofsky. Available at: http://www.opinamexico.org/opinion/ConfianzaInstituciones.pdf (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Christensen, Clayton (1997) The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Copeland, Larry (2011) “One in Seven Drivers have no Insurance,” USA Today, September 12.Google Scholar
Cotterrell, Roger (1983) “The Sociological Concept of Law,” 10 J. of Law and Society 241–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dant, Tim (2006) “Material Civilization: Things and Society,” 57 The British J. of Sociology 289–308.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davenport-Hines, Richard (2002) The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Davis, Mike (2007) Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
de la Luz, María (2010) “Coche-bomba mata a 3 en Juárez,” El Universal, July 16.Google Scholar
de la Luz González, María, & Mejía, Gerardo (2010) “Cae La Barbie cerca del DF,” El Universal, August 31.Google Scholar
DeYoung, David (1997) An Evaluation of the Specific Deterrent Effect of Vehicle Impoundment on Suspended, Revoked, and Unlicensed Drivers in California. Available at: http://dmv.ca.gov/about/profile/rd/r_d_report/Section%203/171-Deter%20Effect%20Veh%20Imp.pdf (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Eisenstein, Elizabeth (1979) The Printing Press as Agent of Social Change. Cambridge: Univ. of Cambridge Press.Google Scholar
El Siglo de Torreón (2009) “Inicia Calderón el Programa de Identificación Vehicular,” June 23.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert (1995) “Technization and Civilization,” 12 Theory, Culture, and Society 7–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellul, Jacques (1964) The Technological Society [translated by John Wilkinson]. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Estrada, Javier (2010) Recuento de un año violento para Nuevo León. CNN, December 22. Available at: http://mexico.cnn.com/nacional/2010/12/22/vacio-de-autoridad-y-mando-unico-policial (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, & Silbey, Susan (1998) The Common Place of Law: Stories of Popular Legal Consciousness. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feeley, Malcolm, & Simon, Jonathon (1992) “The New Penology: Notes on the Emerging Strategy of Corrections and Its Implications,” 30 Criminology 449–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel (2008) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977–1978. New York: Picador.Google Scholar
García, Miguel Ángel (2010) “Frena Registro vehicular falta de recurso federal,” La Jornada Morelos, January 18.Google Scholar
Gartman, David (2004) “Three Ages of Automobility: The Cultural Logics of the Car,” 21 Theory, Culture, and Society 169–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garvey, Pauline (2001) “Driving, Drinking, and Daring in Norway,” in Miller, Daniel, ed., Car Cultures. New York: Berg Publishing.Google Scholar
Gomart, Emilie, & Hennion, Antoine (1999) “A Sociology of Attachment: Music Amateurs, Drug Users,” in Law, John, & Hassard, John, eds., Actor Network Theory and After. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Griffiths, John (1986) “What Is Legal Pluralism?,” 24 J. of Legal Pluralism 1–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gusfield, Joseph (1981) Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order: The Culture of Public Problems. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Guzik, Keith (2013) “Security a la Mexicana: On the Particularities of Security Governance in México's War on Crime,” 42 Theory and Society 161–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haggerty, Kevin, & Ericson, Richard (2000) “The Surveillant Assemblage,” 1 British J. of Sociology 605–22.Google Scholar
Harris, David (1997) “ ‘Driving While Black’ and All Other Traffic Offenses: The Supreme Court and Pretextual Traffic Stops,” 87 J. of Criminal Law and Criminology 544–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Kim, Menk, Debbie Maranger, & Cregger, Joshua (2012) Assessment of Tax Revenue Generated by the Automotive Sector. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Automotive Research.Google Scholar
Jasanoff, Sheila (1997) Science at the Bar: Science and Technology in American Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Jasanoff, Sheila (2006a) “The Idiom of Co-Production,” in Jasanoff, Sheila, ed., States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and the Social Order. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jasanoff, Sheila (2006b) “Ordering Knowledge, Ordering Society,” in Jasanoff, Sheila, ed., States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and the Social Order. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Joh, Elizabeth (2007) “Discretionless Policing: Technology and the Fourth Amendment,” 95 California Law Rev. 199–234.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Randall (1997) Race, Crime, and the Law. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno (1983) “Give Me a Laboratory and I Will Raise the World,” in Knorr-Cetina, Karin, & Mulkay, Michael, eds., Science Observed. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno (1992) “Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts,” in Bijker, Wiebe, & Law, John, eds., Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno (1999) Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno (2004) “Scientific Objects and Legal Objectivity,” in Pottage, Alain, & Mondy, Martha, eds., Law, Anthropology, and the Constitution of the Social: Making Persons and Things. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Law, John (2004) Enacting Naturecultures: A Note from STS. Available at: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/research/publications/papers/law-enacting-naturecultures.pdf (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Lerner, Barron (2011) One for the Road: Drunk Driving since 1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David (1983) “Sex and the Automobile: From Rumble Seats to Rockin' Vans,” in Lewis, David, & Goldstein, Laurence, eds., The Automobile and American Culture. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lutz, Ellen, & Roht-Arriaza, Naomi (2002) The Cavallo Case and the Future of Universal Jurisdiction. International Civil Liberties Report. Available at: http://www.sdshhlaw.com/ICLR/ICLR_2002/13_Lutz.pdf (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Lyon, David (2001) Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life. Buckingham, UK: Open Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lyon, David (2007) “Surveillance, Security, and Social Sorting: Emerging Research Priorities,” 17 International Criminal Justice Rev. 161–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Anna Maria and Barclay, Scott (2003) “In Their Own Words: How Ordinary People Construct Their Legal World,” 28 Law & Social Inquiry 617–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marx, Gary (2005) “Surveillance and Society,” in Ritzer, George, ed., Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
McShane, Clay (1999) “The Origins and Globalization of Traffic Control Signals,” 25 J. of Urban History 379–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle (1988) “Legal Pluralism,” 22 Law & Society Rev. 869–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle (1995) “Resistance and the Cultural Power of Law,” Presidential Address, 29 Law & Society Rev. 11–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mesa de Seguridad (2012) Mi Auto Derecho. Available at: http://www.mesadeseguridad.org/?p=665 (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Milenio (2012a) “Puebla entre los 7 estados que quitaron la tenencia,” February 24.Google Scholar
Milenio (2012b) “Sin placas, uno de cada 5 autos que atropellan a peatones,” January 17.Google Scholar
Milenio (2012c) “Sin tarjeta de circulación con chip casi 30% de los capitalinos,” January 16.Google Scholar
Miller, Daniel (2001) “Driven Societies,” in Miller, Daniel, ed., Car Cultures. New York: Berg Publishing.Google Scholar
Miranda, Juan Carlos (2010) “Reportan retrasos en actualización de datos del Repuve,” La Jornada, July 19.Google Scholar
Mitofsky, Consulta (2012) Décima Encuesta Nacional sobre Percepción de Inseguridad Ciudadana en México. Available at: http://consulta.mx/web/index.php/estudios-e-investigaciones/mexico-opina/201-percepcion-de-inseguridad-ciudadana-en-mexico-decimo-primer-encuesta-mucd (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Monahan, Torin (2007) “ ‘War Rooms’ of the Street: Surveillance Practices in Transportation Control Centers,” 10 The Communication Rev. 367–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mumford, Lewis (1934) Technics and Civilization. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc.Google Scholar
Nellis, Mike (2009) “24/7/365: Mobility, Locatability, and the Satellite Tracking of Offenders,” in Aas, Katja Franko, Gundhus, Helene Oppen, & Lomell, Heidi Mork, eds., Technologies of Insecurity. New York: Routledge-Cavendish.Google Scholar
Nelson Reames, Benjamin (2007) “A Profile of Police Forces in Mexico,” in Cornelius, Wayne, & Shirk, David, eds., Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico. Notre Dame, IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Noticias Televisa (2008) SSP Federal ponen en marcha el Repuve. March 3. Available at: http://www.esmas.com/noticierostelevisa/mexico/710356.html (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
O'Connor, Martin (2000) “Vehicle Searches—The Automobile Exception: The Constitutional Ride from Carroll v. United States to Wyoming v. Houghton,” 16 Touro Law Rev. 393–434.Google Scholar
Peck, Raymond (1997) Unlicensed Driving: A Major California Safety Problem. Available at: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/about/profile/rd/resnotes/unlicensed.htm (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Pickering, Andrew (1995) The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, Andrew (2005) “Decentring Sociology: Synthetic Dyes and Social Theory,” 13 Perspectives on Science 352–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, Andrew (2008) “New Ontologies,” in Pickering, Andrew, & Guzik, Keith, eds., The Mangle in Practice: Science, Society and Becoming. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinch, Trevor J., & Bijker, Wiebe E. (1984) “The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other,” 14 Social Studies of Science 399–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ponce, Diana (2010) “Inicia a nivel nacional el Registro Público Vehicular en Zacatecas,” El Sol de Zacatecas, July 23.Google Scholar
Román, Romina (2012) “Robo de autos creció 86% en seis años: AMIS,” El Universal, May 18.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas, O'Malley, Pat, & Valverde, Mariana (2006) “Governmentality,” 2 Annual Rev. of Law and Social Science 83–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, H. Laurence, & Foley, James (1987) “Judicial Disobedience of the Mandate to Imprison Drunk Drivers,” 21 Law & Society Rev. 315–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowland, Allison (2007) “Assessing Decentralization: What Role for Municipal Government in the Administration of Justice? Cornelius, Wayne, & Shirk, David, eds., Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico. Notre Dame, IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Russell, Katheryn (1999) “ ‘Driving While Black’: Corollary Phenomena and Collateral Consequences,” 40 Boston College Law Rev. 717–32.Google Scholar
Ryan, Johnny (2010) The History of the Internet and the Digital Future. London: Reaktion Books.Google Scholar
Sadler, Louis (2000) “The Historical Dynamics of Smuggling in the US-Mexican Border Region, 1550–1998,” in Bailey, John, & Godson, Roy, eds., Organized Crime and Democratic Governability: Mexico and the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands. Pittsburgh, PA: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Sanger, Carol (1995) “Girls and the Getaway: Cars, Culture, and the Predicament of Gendered Space,” 144 Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Rev. 705–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarat, Austin (1990) “ ‘… The Law Is All Over’: Power, Resistance and the Legal Consciousness of the Welfare Poor,” 2 Yale J. of Law and the Humanities 343–79.Google Scholar
Scott, James (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Secretaría de Seguridad Pública (2009) Sobre REPUVE. Available at: http://www.repuve.gob.mx/acerca.html.Google Scholar
Shirk, David, & Ríos Cázares, Alejandra (2007) “Introduction: Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico,” in Cornelius, Wayne, & Shirk, David, eds., Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico. Notre Dame, IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Silbey, Susan, ed. (2008) Law and Science: Epistemological, Evidentiary, and Relational Engagements. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.Google Scholar
Silbey, Susan and Ewick, Patricia (2003) “The Architecture of Authority: The Place of Law in the Space of Science,” in Sarat, Austin, Douglas, Lawrence, & Umphrey, Martha, eds., The Place of Law. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Simon, Jonathan (1997) “Driving Governmentality: Automobile Accidents, Insurance, and the Challenge to Social Order in the Inter-War Years, 1919 to 1941,” 4 Connecticut Insurance Law J. 521–88.Google Scholar
Simon, Jonathan (2007) Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Sklansky, David Alan (1997) “Traffic Stops, Minority Motorists, and the Future of the Fourth Amendment,” The Supreme Court Rev. 271–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Gavin J. D. (2007) “Exploring Relations between Watchers and Watched in Control(Led) Systems: Strategies and Tactics,” 4 Surveillance and Society 280–313.Google Scholar
Stotz, Gertrude (2001) “The Colonizing Vehicle,” in Miller, Daniel, ed., Car Cultures. New York: Berg Publishing.Google Scholar
Strum, Shirley, & Latour, Bruno (1987) “Redefining the Social Link: From Baboons to Humans,” 26 Social Science Information 783–802.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torres, Yuridia (2010) “Robos de autos siguen al alza,” El Economista, December 19.Google Scholar
Torres, Yuridia (2011) “El Repuve no impulsa recuperar los autos,” El Economista, January 26.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom (1990) Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Urry, John (2004) “The ‘System’ of Automobility,” 21 Theory, Culture, and Society 25–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valverde, Mariana (2003) “Police Science, British Style: Pub Licensing and Knowledges of Urban Disorder,” 32 Economy and Society 234–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valverde, Mariana (2011) “Seeing Like a City: The Dialectic of Modern and Premodern Ways of Seeing in Urban Governance,” 45 Law & Society Rev. 277–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanderbilt, Tom (2012) “Let the Robot Drive: The Autonomous Car of the Future Is Here,” Wired, January 20.Google Scholar
Walby, Kevin (2007) “Contributions to a Post-Sovereigntist Understanding of Law: Foucault, Law as Governance, and Legal Pluralism,” 16 Social & Legal Studies 551–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Health Organization (2009) Global Status Report on Road Safety. Available at: http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241563840_eng.pdf (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Young, Diana (2001) “The Life and Death of Cars: Private Vehicles on the Pitjantjatjara Lands, South Australia,” in Miller, Daniel, ed., Car Cultures. New York: Berg Publishing.Google Scholar
Younglove, Theodore, et al. (2004) “Unregistration Rates for On-Road Vehicles in California,” 7 J. of Transportation and Statistics 1–12. Available at: http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/journal_of_transportation_and_statistics/volume_07_number_23/html/paper_01/index.html (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar