The global policing project to instill democratic reforms and elevate policing standards across the world's more unstable regions is an inherently flawed endeavor. Foreign police assistance rarely takes place on a level playing field, and recipient states are all too often the “beneficiaries” of initiatives that are at best well-intentioned, albeit misconceived, or at worst structured toward the strategic objectives of donors. Yet despite an extensive and well-documented legacy of defective implementation, police assistance remains a mainstay within international development and nation-building. It is found in a host of complex security scenarios that include, inter alia, post-conflict reconstruction and long-term capacity-building, as well as the provision of technical assistance and knowledge transfer. In Crafting Transnational Policing, the editors have compiled a timely reflection on this phenomenon; its contributing chapters seek to capture and to explain “the increasingly police-led nature of transnational state-crafting” (p. 1).
In attempting to make sense of the various manifestations of transnational policing, and their underpinning motivations, this volume is much more than the usual collection of case studies. It progresses beyond the well-trodden path of highlighting the many shortcomings of the global policing project and instead seeks to unpack the enduring appeal of foreign police assistance as a preferred means of strategic intervention. This compilation also prescribes both practical and normative recommendations that might steer this phenomenon toward more worthy ambitions. Indeed, if there is an overarching objective to this collection, it is to articulate how a “constabulary ethic” might be fostered within transnational policing. It considers how this craft might be steered away from the more negative trends of fostering dependency cultures within weak, failed, and failing states or the ongoing trumping of national (in)security concerns over those of the global commonwealth.
Following an extremely well-constructed introduction—which succinctly charts the historical evolution of global policing and imposes a comprehensive analytical framework on the following discussion—the compilation begins with a tour de force by Sheptycki. This chapter makes the case for a global constabulary ethic, i.e., those desirable characteristics of “good” policing, centered on democratization, inclusion, and respect for human rights, which should reside at the core of transnational policing. Sheptycki's analysis is particularly critical of how the role played by “seigneurial states” inhibits such ambitions—when global hegemons act as global policemen, they inevitably shape agendas toward their own strategic objectives. To overcome their often corrosive influence, he advocates the development of a global audience of justification through “the critical attentions of human rights NGOs and other civil society groups—as well as the attentions of governmental (including police) personnel themselves” (p. 24).
Forcing practitioners to be more reflexive about their activities is one mechanism through which to install a normative compass within transnational policing. Another complementary resource for such reorientation is provided by what Marenin (Chapter 5) terms the “transnational policy community.” For him, this knowledge community—comprising politicians, bureaucrats, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, and practitioners engaged in the implementation of global policing—represents a largely untapped “locus of transnational accountability” (p. 194), as well as a useful conduit for generating a constabulary ethic. Normative concerns are also echoed within contributions by Loader and Walker (Chapter 3), who consider how security might be both (re)conceptualized and delivered as a “global public good,” and also from Wood and Font (Chapter 10), who harness nodal governance approaches to locate foreign police assistance within more holistic security solutions—in this case in Argentina.
Other contributions focus on the problematic implementation of police assistance. In this context, the ubiquitous community policing unsurprisingly surfaces, with Ellison (Chapter 6) and Murphy (Chapter 7) challenging its status as the paradigm for democratic police reform abroad. Ellison charts how this “solution looking for a problem” (p. 255) has become the export commodity par excellence in the global policing marketplace, despite often creating cultures of dependency and neglecting valuable lessons gained through prior decades of development-related experience. Murphy further suggests that practical emphasis on professionalizing weak police institutions in fragile societies offers a more effective entry-level strategy for ensuring security than the default implantation of Western community policing. Other contributions from Linden, Last, and Murphy (Chapter 4) and van der Spuy (Chapter 10) highlight the problems of sustainability and interagency coordination within police assistance, whether in the respective contexts of civilian policing in UN peacekeeping missions or implanting New Public Managerialist initiatives in South Africa. Remaining chapters take us on a global tour of the familiar, foreign police assistance in Colombia (Goldsmith, Llorente, and Rivas in Chapter 2), and the less well–known, Australian initiatives in the Southwest Pacific (McLeod and Dinnen in Chapter 9). In the final chapter, Birkbeck (Chapter 11) evaluates the application of regional “Inter-American” accountability mechanisms to police misuse of force in Venezuela.
This is a compilation that will be of interest to scholars concerned with transnational policing, global governance, international development, (critical) international relations, and humanitarian assistance, amongst other areas. Its potential readership is therefore wide-ranging. While this volume may not possess the immediate accessibility for practitioner appeal, some will certainly find value within its various contributions. Indeed, in concluding this review I am reminded of a recent meeting with a British security consultant—engaged in foreign police training and capacity-building—who asked for recommendations regarding which academic works he should be reading. Even though the tenor of this compilation may not have been to his liking, it immediately came to mind. As this agenda-setting compilation emphasizes, encouraging reflection amongst practitioners—and perhaps even tweaking their consciences in the process—is fundamental to challenging the dominant cultures that craft transnational policing.
