Call for Papers
The Politics and Management of Policing Reforms in Newly Industrialised, Industrialising
and Developmental States
BACKGROUND and SCOPE OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE
The Guest Editorial team of Paul Collins, Otwin Marenin and Michael Chin-shih Chu proposes a
Special Issue (SI) of the journal Public Administration and Development (PAD) on the topic of
the “Politics and Management of Policing Reforms in Newly Industrialised, Industrialising and
Developmental States.” The SI will seek a global coverage of comparative case studies of
countries on the road to development at various speeds and within different cultures and
institutions.
Clearly, there are many of different types of policing as there are many specific tasks and jobs
which fall under the label of policing, or security and justice provision: protecting the state and
homeland, cooperation with other formal and informal security sector actors, full service
24/7local (street) policing, functional and technological specialization, and symbolic
representations of the state and justice. Policing ranges from street policing or policing at the
coalface (in the common vocabulary of British police and scholars) - that is the provision of
services, maintenance of social order and effective crime control - to an emphasis on specialized
functional policing (e.g., corruption control, confronting transnational crime, eliminating fraud,
or mitigating organized domestic violence).
Calls for reforms can arise from multiple domestic and international sources. These can include
changes in domestic political processes and the redistribution of political power; domestic
cultural and economic changes often shaped by global developments; security threats arising
from shifting patterns of crime and disorders at the global level, and their border and domestic
security ramifications: ineffective or corrupt governments performance; technological advances;
or repressive security systems which violated the basic human rights of the people in massive
ways and lack any adherence to professional norms. Whatever the sources and factors which
promote changes in policing, reforms will have to address the challenges created by domestic
and international developments.,
Equally obvious are differences in the level and degree of reforms which will have to be
designed, planned, implemented and evaluated, depending on the existing nature of policing and
its effectiveness and legitimacy. Reforms may range the gamut from transforming existing
illegitimate, repressive or non-functioning policing systems (such as happened in South Africa),
to the need for major reforms of ineffective, inefficient or illegitimate organizational
arrangements and policing strategies (e.g., China or Brazil), to improvement, that is tinkering
with the specifics of policies and practices to enhance their professional performance (e.g.,
India). The practical and policy differences among transformation, reform and improvement -
what changes are needed and how they can be accomplished - are not that distinct but can
provide a basic framework and focus for each paper.
In tackling its subject, the approach of the SI will be to build on rather than replicate what is
already fairly well known and part of conventional thinking about the police and challenges in
police reforms. Basic lessons from past policing reform efforts seeking to establish and sustain
more professional and democratic policing, advocated and promoted by domestic reformers,
scholars, police executives and international donors, are pretty well known.
To provide focus and limitations on what papers for the SI should cover, the Guest Editorial
Team suggests the following conceptual approach to papers for submission. Policing is an
expression of state and informal power used for social control. Policing and coercion is Janus
faced - police power can be used for good ends (for achieving the common, public goods of
safety, justice and well-being) or in illegal ways (to further the interests of particular social
groups, including the police themselves). In many states the balance of policing tends toward the
common good, but is never reached completely, while in other states the balance in the exercise
of police power clearly tends to support specific and particularistic ends, and is often dependent
on the use of force, deception and secrecy. The basic goal of policing reforms advocated
domestically and internationally is to shift the balance of policing toward the public good end
(using the by now common language of human rights, democratization, professionalization, rule
of law and service orientation enshrined in regime norms) and to minimize, reduce or eliminate
the forms of particularistic policing practices which serve, in discriminatory fashion, to protect
political power or respond to illegitimate public demands to the detriment of the rule of law,
human rights, conceptions of justice and professional norms of conduct.
Submissions should describe and evaluate the political and societal forces which are shifting the
balance or sustaining the status quo in a given state or states, and the role of the police in the
dynamics of change which will affect them. Reforming policing systems is a fundamentally
political process. Who benefits from reforms and who loses will become, inevitably, a major
subject for political discussions and negotiations. Papers should not discuss the police as if they
were disconnected form the larger societal and political environment in which they have been
created and now work.
The focus should be on how the police behave as they work, as distinct from their organizational
and formal roles spelled out in police laws or organizational charts. One can discuss the balance
of public good versus specific interest policing in a general way, but it is in the specific policies,
practices and behavior, that is in the exercise of power and discretion at all levels of a police
organization, that the balance becomes visible, concrete and effective.
Reforms, shifting the balance of policing toward professional behavior, can be done by
different organizational and legal rearrangements; enhanced management skills, policies, and
practices; improved policing strategies (such as COP or evidence informed policies); different
recruitment, training and socialization of recruits to professional occupational norms and
cultures; or internal and external oversight and accountability mechanisms to mitigate corruption,
abuses of power, and subservience to political power. Papers can focus on any of the ways in
which the balance exhibits itself in the street work of the police (e.g., stop and frisk and arrest
decisions), or in managerial strategies which reward and sanction the work of subordinate police,
or in changes in recruitment practices such that all salient identity groups in society are
represented proportionally in police personnel, or in functionally specific polices dealing with
organized group violence and mob behavior, or in the effectiveness of accountability
mechanisms.
Reforms have to be designed, planned, managed, implemented and evaluated. In the end, the
police themselves are major actors on how reforms are organized and managed. The police are
not likely to support reforms (whatever their degree) if they have not been consulted in the
planning process or have not acquired the managerial skills, outlook or commitment to
effectively implement reforms.
For example, democratic and professional policing can be defined fairly easily and in a
globally accepted manner, even as it occurs in different forms. The underlying principles are
similar and have been argued and accepted for a long time. It will fall to police management to
transform words and goals into effective policies and ensure that officers on the street abide by
organizational rules, professional norms and the rule of law.
Another example and question: how will policy makers, reformers and police
administrators deal with the challenge of an inherited, negative police culture in former
authoritarian states in transition (South Africa, Brazil, Myanmar, e.g.). What choices will have to
be made to move toward professional policing, and who will have the power, authority and
support to make them? The ultimate goals of any reforms are sustainability and legitimation.
What is needed in politics, policing policies and practice to achieve both?
Papers should connect the specific topic discussed to the general issue of balancing and the
possibilities of reforms taking hold in the long run and becoming sustained. The readers of PAD
(police, political leaders, international donors, academics, the public) should attain an informed
picture of what factors determine the nature of policing people experience in different countries,
and what are potential lessons learned about the possibilities and methods for sustainable reforms
of the policing and security systems.
NEXT STEPS FOR INTENDING AUTHORS
Interested authors should submit an abstract of one page maximum in electronic form to the PAD
Office (pad@editorialoffice.co.uk) for the attention of the Guest Editors of the Police Reforms SI
by end Feb. 2015.
The Guest Editors are:
1. Dr. Paul D Collins (Lead)
Hon. Senior Research Fellow, Int. Development Dept., Birmingham University, UK
Hon. Advisory Editor, Public Administration and Development
Web: www.pauldcollins.co.uk
Email: paul.collinspd@gmail.com
2. Prof Otto Marenin
Criminal Justice Department, Washington State University, Pullman,WA, USA,
Email: otwin@wsu.edu
3. Prof. Michel Chin-chu, Associate Professor, Dept. of Police Administration, Central
Police University, Taiwan.
Email: ccc@mail.cpu.edu.tw
Abstracts will be considered and a decision communicated via the PAD Office. Invited authors
will be asked to proceed and submit a full paper. A paper writers’ workshop will be held in
autumn 2015 to consider these papers as a step towards structuring the SI in terms of common
pointers and lessons for the Politics and Management of Police Reforms in Newly Industrialised,
Industrialising and Developmental States. All manuscripts will be peer reviewed internally and
externally, as appropriate, in accordance with PAD procedures. Please see the PAD web
(wileyonlinelibrary/journal/pad) as well as http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pad for details of
manuscript style and submissions. Informal enquiries may be addressed to the Guest Editors.