Nayib Bukele: “El Salvador” of El Salvador? : A Rule-Utilitarian Policy Comparison in a Context of Extreme Violence

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines whether El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele’s Territorial Control Plan (TCP) yields higher expected welfare than a continuation of the pre-TCP policies under conditions of extreme violence. The study addresses a central dilemma: whether policies that substantially improve public safety can be justified when they risk undermining civil liberties, procedural safeguards, and democratic principles. The analysis applies a deductive normative methodology grounded in rule utilitarianism. The moral framework is specified prior to empirical evaluation and is operationalized through a structured welfare calculus that includes several factors that are identified to yield welfare. Two policy alternatives are comparatively assessed: Policy A, representing the continuation of pre-TCP security practices characterized by persistent gang violence and limited state capacity; and Policy B, representing the TCP, including its state of exception, large-scale incarcerations, and expanded security enforcements. Empirical evidence is employed probabilistically to estimate expected welfare outcomes rather than to determine normative standards. The findings indicate that, given the scale and persistence of violence under Policy A, Policy B produces greater overall welfare through substantial reductions in lethal violence and widespread insecurity, complemented by secondary gains in economic stability and infrastructural developments. However, this conclusion remains strictly conditional: the welfare advantage holds only if El Salvador avoids falling into a closed autocracy by ending the state of exception and restoring eroded democratic principles once gang presence is fully dismantled. The thesis specifically elucidates difficult trade-offs that governments, under extreme security crises, must address in order to guarantee safety for their citizens.