Rethinking ‘policebuilding’

Abstract

In recent years, policebuilding has moved centre stage in international security. Not only have the numbers of police officers deployed externally significantly increased in the last decade, but the police have also come to be regarded as key with regard to the stabilizing of weak or failed states. It is hereby assumed that the police, as a civilian force, are better trained and equipped to establish order and stability than the military. This article challenges such a military-police divide, according to which the police are understood to be a civilian institution that mainly 'serves and protects' while the military 'breaks things and kills people'. It argues that while the blurring between military functions and police functions might be more bleak and observable as part of international interventions in so-called zones of disorder, we need to understand the police theoretically as part of a single continuum of state institutions designed to simultaneously serve and protect the population and to establish and maintain liberal state power through (sometimes) forceful, exclusionary means. The article will illustrate this theoretical argument through a detailed analysis of the evolution of European Union international police power.

The Military Role in Filling the Security Gap After Armed Conflict

“…Those units are specialized and trained to respond to high-end violent infractions on society, such as terrorist attacks and armed violence (Kraska, 2007; Kraska & Cubelis, 1997; Kraska & Kappeler, 1997). Counterterrorism and counterintelligence—traditional military concepts—are not uncommon for today’s police organizations, neither at home nor during deployment in far-flung regions, as previous studies have shown (Heiduk, 2015; Lutterbeck, 2005).…”

“…Historically, the divide between the police and the military has not always been large. Napoleon’s gendarmerie and British colonial troops are examples of forces that transcended the police–military gap on a European and even worldwide scale (e.g., Brodeur, 2010; Heiduk, 2015; Lutterbeck, 2004). Since the rise of the nation-state, the emergence of the mass armies, and the professionalization of the police organization in the late 18th and early 19th century, a clearer operational and organizational demarcation slowly developed, making the police responsible for internal security and the military for external security (e.g., Bayley, 1985).…”

The implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in the European Gendarmerie Forces

“…However, current challenges (more complex, unpredictable and asymmetric) have further reduced old threats to EU security and have shown that more knowledge is needed about emerging phenomena such as hybrid threats, radicalisation, organised crime, border management and maritime security. In this sense, to strengthen European security and defence, it is key to understand a multiplicity of factors such as the transatlantic burden-sharing approach of the US administration, and new regional and global actors (Heiduk, 2015).…”

Strategic Communication and Violent Extremism: The Importance of State Action

“…As the military, police and paramilitary have different roles, the treatment of civilians in different crisis/conflict scenarios is expectedly different. A tongue in cheek conceptualization of the issue was summed up as ‘police officers … [are] … better prepared to work with a population to help it achieve internal security; soldiers … [are] … trained … to break things and kill people’ (Marten, 2007, p. 242 cited in Heiduk, 2015, p. 72).…”