Police Performance As Symbolic Politics? Public Recognition and the Value of Awards

Abstract

What constitutes “good” performance in a law enforcement agency, who decides, and how does public recognition of that performance change how an agency performs? This study uses a quasi-experimental design and propensity-score matching model to assess the impact of a law enforcement agency’s status as a finalist for the annual Cisco/International Chiefs of Police Association (IACP) Community Policing Award on performance in future years, as measured by crime clearance rates. It is found that after comparing the treated group (finalist agencies) with the untreated group (non-finalist nearest-neighbor agencies), there is no meaningful difference in crime clearance rates. This unexpected finding establishes that the public recognition of finalist status by the Department of Justice, which promotes finalist agencies as exemplars of best practices in community policing, does not impact the subsequent performance of those agencies. Additionally, the results of the model suggest that the impact of symbolic politics and social construction on the award finalist selection process and the choice by DOJ to promote the practices of those agencies should be explored. Questions are also raised as to the utility of crime clearance rates as a performance measure, and future avenues for research in each area are proposed.     

Under Construction: ESDP and the ‘Fight Against Organized Crime’

Abstract

This essay discusses the phenomenon of ‘organized crime’ as a matter for EU foreign and security policy. Primarily aimed at searching for conceptual guidance, it draws on literature on criminology and policing, presenting two different theoretical perspectives for analyzing the phenomenon of ‘organized-crime fighting’, a utilitarian and a critical one. Against this backdrop, the essay discusses how ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) has developed and engaged the issue of organized crime. Specifically, it outlines the character of ESDP as a mechanism for ‘civilian crisis management’ and illustrates its ‘working’ through the case of the EU's police mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUPM) by placing it in the two different theoretical frames. Deciding in favour of a social constructivist approach, the essay concludes by suggesting that a successful strategy must focus on the dissemination of the EU's understanding of ‘organized crime’ abroad.     

Three concepts of intelligence communication: awareness,advice or co-production?

ABSTRACT

Communication aimed at the public has been an almost absent topic in intelligence studies. This is despite a growing recognition of the importance of communicating towards the public in preventive security, counterterrorism, cyber security and organized crime prevention. This article attends to the practice of communicating intelligence to the public. It does so in order to show the diversity of communication practices in Western intelligence today. By investigating how the intelligence community communicates about ‘communication’ to the public, the article identifies three different concepts of communication, that each exposes different understandings of the public and democratic concerns.     

On the Spatial-temporal Diffusion of Community Based Policing from Japan to Peninsula Southeast Asia: The Case of Timor-Leste

ABSTRACT

This article traces the legacies and variances of ‘community based policing’ in Timor-Leste, and inquires about historical trajectories and cross-cultural sociopolitical influences which forged and determined the idea of policing in Timor-Leste. By drawing on diffusion theory, the article investigates the changing interpretations and transformations of ‘community based policing’ from the Imperial Japanese koban policing, to its Indonesian babinsa- and bimpolda-variant through to the current Timorese ofisial polísia suku approach. It delivers a historically based explanation for the difficulties and challenges of implementing an approach to ‘community based policing’ in Timor-Leste during UNTAET and following missions of the United Nations.     

Gender as catalyst for violence against Roma in contemporary Italy

ABSTRACT

Silvio Berlusconi's use of ethnicity and immigration as national security issues in his successful campaign for election to the Italian presidency in 2008 was by no means unique in contemporary Europe. What was surprising was the speed of his right-wing government's legislative restriction of migrants in the form of the so-called ‘security package’, first introduced just five weeks after the election. Woodcock explores the striking fact that this ‘security package’, and the intense wave of racist violence by Italians against Roma that it legitimized and encouraged, was proposed and justified in response to media reports of Italian babies being stolen by ‘Zingari’ from the ‘nomad camps’ and of Italian women being raped and beaten by Romanian men of ‘Zingari’ ethnicity. Gender and ethnicity are the twin constitutive discourses of modern European society, and racialized subjects are necessarily gendered. The stereotype of ‘dangerous black men sexually threatening white women’ has been mobilized in a vast range of European and colonial nationalist projects in order to justify the policing of both racialized masculine subjects and women as objects of the patriarchy. Similarly, the depiction of women as hysterical, sexually vulnerable objects in need of (white) masculine protection is an old story that the Italian media recognize as a fairy tale even as they reproduce the discourse. Woodcock explores what has not been mentioned thus far, namely, that gender stereotypes are vital to the mobilization of violent racism against the Roma in contemporary Italy, and how conservative gender binaries are strengthened and policed in a time of social crisis through the stereotyping of Roma as racial threat.     

The CIA’s mole in the Viet Cong: learning from a rare success

ABSTRACT

What does it take to cultivate spies inside an adversary’s forces? I assess efforts by the United States and South Vietnam to penetrate the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. I offer the first extended account of the United States’ most successful intelligence penetration of the conflict. After initial recruitment by South Vietnam, a mid-level Viet Cong cadre spied for the CIA from 1969 until the end of the war. U.S. experience in this episode and others in Vietnam points up a challenge. Local allies offer expertise in identifying potential informants. But prospective spies view U.S. intelligence as more trustworthy and legitimate than local agencies with dubious operational security.     

Hate Crime: Record or Perception?

Public policing in Northern Ireland has gone through a process of reform and governance change in reaction to the peace process and the requirement to shift from a police force, largely engaged in conflict-centred policing, to a policing service dedicated to civil policing and normalisation. During the past decade, Northern Ireland has witnessed a significant decline in recorded sectarian crime. This decline in ethnic conflict has been accompanied by a growth in support for the police, especially within the Catholic community. However, information pertaining to support for public policing is determined at national level and we know little about how residents of sites of previously high levels of political and sectarian conflict feel about policing reform and delivery. In this paper we show that the perception of sectarian crime is much greater than recorded sectarian crime. Moreover, the perception of sectarian crime is a significant predictor of negative attitudes regarding police performance. The paper offers a unique quantitative insight into perceptions of sectarian crime and posits a predicament that is not discussed or debated with regard to the delivery of community policing. The evidence presented offers a benchmark upon which such a debate could occur. We argue that knowledge of sectarian hate crime should not be centred at the national level, but at the more discrete scale of neighbourhood. Perceptions, whether linked to reality, signal or prejudice, can at times destabilise the peace-building process, yet are rarely attended to or discussed. Knowing the difference between recorded and perceived crime as either sectarian exaggeration or actuality would aid localised police-community interaction. Here we provide a statistical basis to stimulate such enquiry.     

Regulating business or policing crime? Tracing the policy convergence between taxation and crime control at the local level

Policing is commonly associated with street‐level crime, whereas regulation is instead associated with the complexities of business and market governance. However, this distinction has been questioned by recent research and it seems that the worlds of regulation and policing are tending to merge. Still, little is known about how this convergence is unfolding. By following the intersection of two international policy‐level processes – the financialization of organized crime and the upgraded monitoring of tax evasion – down to the level of organizational practice in the Swedish restaurant trade, this article contributes to an understanding of the institutional dynamic behind the recent convergence. At the same time, it discusses the conceptual relationship between policing and regulation, and the counter‐arguments that may be needed to overcome the distinction between the two. I specifically address the neglected issue of the differential social valuation of “crime” and “business,” and find that it is relativized by a common focus on unreported transactions.     

Gender and Defence Sector Reform: Problematising the Place of Women in Conflict-Affected Environments

ABSTRACT

While gender-responsive Security Sector Reform (SSR) is increasingly recognised as being key to successful SSR programmes, women continue to be marginalised in post-conflict SSR programmes, particularly defence sector reform. By focussing on developments in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kosovo and Colombia, this article explores the paradox of women’s marginalisation in defence sector reform and post-reform defence structures in places where women were active combatants during the preceding conflict. This article refers to examples of women’s engagement in combat to challenge some of the reasons given for women’s marginalisation, including reference to women’s skillset, aptitude and interests. The article adopts a feminist institutionalist approach to show how SSR helps security sector institutions construct and reconstruct gender power relations, reinforce gendered dynamics of exclusion, and determine gendered outcomes. It concludes by drawing attention to the transformational potential of SSR to alter gender power relations, and thereby enhance the security of women and the sustainability of peacebuilding efforts.     

Debating China’s Economic Reform: New Leftists vs. Liberals

There have been heated debates on outcome and orientation of China’s economic reforms which started in the late 1970s. Though most of the previous studies on Chinese politics concentrate on the role of elites in policy-making, I argue that the intellectual discourse over policy have become increasingly salient in the post-Mao period. The paper focuses on the following research questions: How and under what circumstances did the New Left and liberals emerge in China? What are the major debates between the two? To what extent have the New Leftists and liberals affected the economic reforms and what change they might bring to the political climate?

     

Defeat in Iraq: The Challenges for Obama and the Region

Abstract

Though community policing is widely promoted by donors and criticized by academics, there has been little research on its practice in Africa. This essay examines one of the main elements of community policing, namely community forums, in Freetown, Sierra Leone. They were examined from the point of view of the police, Partnership Board executives and local communities. The triangulation of response provided an evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses. Positively they have improved communication between police and communities and provided intelligence, investigation, intervention, arrest and dispute resolution. Negatively they are elite dominated and most of the activities, initiatives and even finance come from the community. Despite the difficulties, the Partnership Boards are universally valued and are not seen as unwelcome foreign imports.     

Walking a tightrope: democracy versus sovereignty in ASEAN's illiberal peace

Abstract

Since 1967, ASEAN has established intramural relations that forsake war as a means for resolving conflict. While this is a remarkable achievement for the region, it must be balanced against a concomitant hindrance of democratic reform. I argue in this paper that ASEAN's nascent security community must be seen as an ‘illiberal peace’. Underlying ASEAN's peaceful community are the same principles that support illiberalism in the region, namely sovereignty and non-interference. While sovereignty has historically been a cherished norm for developing countries, ASEAN lags behind other regions, particularly Latin America, in attempting to reconcile tensions between democratic norms and the respect for sovereignty. This tension is most evident in ASEAN's relations with Myanmar. Recent events indicate that ASEAN's non-interference norm may no longer be sacrosanct, but the association is a long way from shunning illiberal politics for the sake of democratic values.     

The North Korean abduction issue: emotions,securitisation and the reconstruction of Japanese identity from ‘aggressor’ to ‘victim’ and from ‘pacifist’ to ‘normal’

Abstract

After Kim Jong-il's confession in 2002 that North Korean agents had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea has become the most detested country in Japan, and the normalisation of bilateral relations has been put on the back burner. The abduction issue has taken precedence in Japan even over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It has also grossly overshadowed the atrocities for which Imperial Japan was responsible in the 20th century. Why has there been such strong emphasis on an issue that could be disregarded as comparatively ‘less important’? This article understands the ascendency of the abduction issue as the epitome of an identity shift under way in Japan – from the identity of a curiously ‘peaceful’ and inherently ‘abnormal’ state, to that of a more ‘normal’ one. The differentiation of North Korea as ‘abnormal’ emphasises Japan's own (claim to) ‘normality’. Indeed, by incarnating the perils of Japan's own ‘pacifist’ ‘abnormality’, which has been so central to the collective sense of Japanese ‘Self’ in the post-war period, the abduction issue has become a very emotional argument for Japan's ‘normalisation’ in security and defence terms. The transformation from ‘abnormal’ to ‘normal’ is further enabled by Japan trading places with North Korea in the discourse, so that Japan is defined as ‘victim’ (rather than former aggressor) and North Korea as ‘aggressor’ (rather than former victim). What is at stake here is the question whether Japan is ‘normalising’ or ‘remilitarising’, and the role of the abduction issue discourse in enabling such foreign and security policy change.     

Governing insecurity: contingency planning,protection, resilience

Abstract

How should we understand the politics of security today? This article addresses this question from one particular perspective, that of ‘biosecurity’. It examines contemporary strategies for managing biorisks in three European states: France, Germany and the United Kingdom. We suggest that the framing of threat and response differs, even within Europe, and that one can identify three different configurations: contingency planning, protection and resilience. Each of these embodies a significantly different way of reconciling fundamental imperatives for those who would govern a liberal society today – the imperative of freedom and the imperative of security.     

Co-operation,Contestation and Complexity in Post-Conflict Security Sector Reform

ABSTRACT

Security Sector Reform (SSR) remains a key feature of peacebuilding interventions and is usually undertaken by a state alongside national and international partners. External actors engaged in SSR tend to follow a normative agenda that often has little regard for the context in post-conflict societies. Despite recurrent criticism, SSR practices of international organisations and bilateral donors often remain focused on state institutions, and often do not sufficiently attend to alternative providers of security or existing normative frameworks of security. This article provides a critical overview of existing research and introduces the special issue on ‘Co-operation, Contestation and Complexity in Post-Conflict Security Sector Reform’. We explore three aspects that add an important piece to the puzzle of what constitutes effective SSR. First, the variation of norm adoption, norm contestation and norm imposition in post-conflict countries that might explain the mixed results in terms of peacebuilding. Second, the multitude of different security actors within and beyond the state which often leads to multiple patterns of co-operation and contestation within reform programmes. And third, how both the multiplicity of and tension between norms and actors further complicate efforts to build peace or, as complexity theory would posit, influence the complex and non-linear social system that is the conflict-affected environment.     

The future of self-determination and territorial integrity in the Asian Century

Abstract

The twentieth century saw the rise of two important and interrelated norms. The first is the norm of self-determination, which advances the right of stateless nations to govern themselves. The second is the norm of territorial integrity, which upholds the principle that political borders should be respected. A consequence of these norms has been an increase in secessionism, a decline in conquest, and a proliferation of states. This paper will examine the development of these norms, their interrelationship, and their prospects for the future. Attention will be given to three important questions: (1) Under what conditions does a norm endure beyond a power transition? (2) How likely is an ascendant China or India to support the norms? (3) What does a power transition and the corresponding support of these norms augur for the future of secession, conquest, and the number of sovereign states?     

Japan’s uncertain security environment and changes in its legislative‒executive relations

Abstract

Focusing on Japan, this paper explores whether powers and competences in the political system are likely to be recalibrated in favour of the executive when the environment is perceived as increasingly threatening. It shows that the executive has been significantly strengthened during the past two decades of political reforms, though a closer look reveals that only the most recent efforts are motivated by security concerns. Case studies on military deployments and arms exports do not expose any clear trend towards curbing parliament’s formal control powers, but they indicate two related mechanisms that affect executive?legislative relations. Firstly, the executive has sought to ensure faster decision-making in security policy, which may limit the Diet’s ability to scrutinise policies in depth. Secondly, the level of contestation over security policy issues has been decreasing, especially given the securitisation of North Korea and China. This provides the executive with more leeway in devising policies.     

Why should we care about competition?

Abstract

Most people believe that competitive institutions are morally acceptable, but that there are limits: a friendly competition is one thing; a life or death struggle is another. How should we think about the moral limits on competition? I argue that the limits stem from the value of human sociability, and in particular from the noninstrumental value of a form of social connectedness that I call ‘mutual affirmation.’ I contrast this idea with Rawls’s account of social union and stability. Finally, I show how these ideas provide the basis for a powerful argument in favour of social provisions for public goods: for example, a strong public health care system moderates the stakes in labour market competition, preventing the competition from descending into a life or death struggle.     

When Decentralization Leads to Recentralization: Subnational State Transformation in Uganda

Abstract

Among other shortcomings of decentralization reforms undertaken by developing countries since the 1980s, recent research finds that the reforms' primary aim—devolution of authority to localities—has often not been achieved in practice. This article builds on that insight, examining an understudied pathway through which states that have undertaken decentralization can ultimately recentralize power: administrative unit proliferation. Rapid creation of numerous new subnational administrative units is an increasingly common occurrence in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This phenomenon, I argue, allows for recentralization by reducing the intergovernmental bargaining power and administrative capacity of each subnational unit, as well as by substantially expanding both the reach of the national executive's patronage network and its ability to monitor emergent security threats on its periphery. The article illustrates these mechanisms with evidence from Uganda.     

Decentralization and Development in Contemporary Uganda

Abstract

There has long been an emphasis on the importance of decentralization in providing better quality public services in the developing world. In order to assess the effectiveness of decentralization I examine here the case study of Uganda, which has seen major decentralization of power over the last quarter-century. In particular the current government has introduced a five-tiered local government structure, decentralized both fiscal and political power to local governments and introduced regular local government elections. However, initial excitement about Uganda's decentralization programme has tapered off in recent years due to a number of problems outlined here. In particular, I show that decentralization in Uganda has suffered from a lack of independence from central government control, which has led to a lack of effectiveness in the provision of high quality public goods.