The Politics of Police Reform

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Marat
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The State ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Consensus Building ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Police Forces

What does it take to reform a post-Soviet police force? Across the region, the countries inherited remarkably similar police forces with identical structures, chains of command, and politicized relationships with the political elite. Centralized in control but decentralized in their reach, the police remain one of the least reformed post-communist institutions. As a powerful state organ, the Soviet-style militarized police have resisted change despite democratic transformations in the overall political context, including rounds of competitive elections and growing civil society. This book explores the conditions in which a meaningful transformation of the police is likely to succeed and when it will fail. Based on the analysis of five post-Soviet countries (Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan) that have officially embarked on police reform efforts, the book examines various pathways to transforming how the state relates to society through policing. It develops a new understanding of both police and police reform. Departing from the conventional interpretation of the police as merely an institution of coercion, this study defines it as a medium for state-society consensus on the limits of the state’s legitimate use of violence. Police are, according to a common Russian saying, a “mirror of society”—serving as a counterweight to its complexity. Police reform, in turn, is a process of consensus-building on the rationale of the use of violence through discussions, debates, media, and advocacy.

scholarly journals The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (69) ◽  
pp. 774-795
Author(s):  
Serhii O. Komnatnyi ◽  
Oleg S. Sheremet ◽  
Viacheslav E. Suslykov ◽  
Kateryna S. Lisova ◽  
Stepan D. Svorak
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
The State ◽  
National Character ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Mechanism Of Impact ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
The Impact

The article deals with the mechanism of impact of sociopsychological phenomena such as the national character and the political mentality in the construction and functioning of civil society. It aims to show the impact of climate, religion, and the perception of happiness on the state of civil society through details of a national nature. The main research method is to compare data from global research on the state of civil society with data from climatic conditions, dominant religions, and happiness indices. The article proves coincidently that these factors are reflected in such essential characteristics of civil society as "openness" and "closed-mindedness". The interaction between the national character and the construction of civil society has two stages. It is concluded that the results obtained are important to evaluate the prospects for the construction and development of civil society in different countries and regions of the world. Further research in this direction involves the study of other aspects of the impact of national character and political mindset on the functioning of civil society.

Policing Public Protest in Central Asia

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Marat
Keyword(s):  
Negative Influence ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Healthcare ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Political Dissent ◽  
Control Functions ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Public Protest ◽  
The One ◽  
Police Forces

While Central Asia’s Soviet-era physical infrastructure crumbles, and the quality and availability of public healthcare and education decline, the police remain the one institution that controls the state’s most remote territories. This article argues that, over the past two decades, the functions of Central Asian police forces have become increasingly punitive. Their negative influence was particularly visible in the aftermath of public protests in the 2000–2010s that resulted in fatal clashes between police units and civilian population. These watershed events were followed by government decisions to overhaul their police forces to preempt a recurrence of public protest. Depending on how willing the incumbent regimes are to control political dissent and how capable the state is in performing these control functions, changes in the Interior Ministries follow. When political will is matched by the economic and administrative resource of the state, policing functions are distributed among additional state institutions. But when the regime lacks the resources to upgrade policing techniques to the desired level, it almost always requests international support to facilitate police reform.

The Final Stage of the Minority Revolution in the United States. Upward Mobility of Minorities to the Corridors of Power

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2-1) ◽  
pp. 62-91
Author(s):  
Irina Zhezhko-Braun ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
The Government

This article is the third and final in a series dealing with the birth of a new political elite in the United States, the minority elite. In previous articles, the mechanism of its appearance was analyzed, as well as its ideology, goals, program and values. The black movement, as the most co-organized of all protest movements, is entering the final phase of its development, being engaged in the placement of its representatives in state and federal governments, political parties and other social institutions. The women’s movement has recently been taken over by ethnic movements, primarily blacks, and has become their vanguard. This article describes new social elevators for the promotion of minority representatives into the corridors of power. The logic of promoting people of their own race, gender and nationality to the highest branches of power began to prevail over other criteria for recruiting personnel. During the 2020 election campaign, a new mechanism for promoting minorities in all branches of government was formed. It is based on numerous violations of local and federal electoral legislation. The mechanism of pressure on the US electoral system is analyzed using the example of the state of Georgia and the activities of politician Stacey Abrams. The article describes Abrams’ strategy to create a network of NGOs that are focused on one mission - to arrange for the political shift of the state in the elections. These organizations circumvented existing laws, making the state of Georgia the record holder for electoral irregularities and lawsuits. The article shows that Abrams’ struggle with the electoral laws of her state is based on the political myth of the voter suppression of minorities. The author identifies a number of common characteristics of the new elite. The minority elite does not show any interest in social reconciliation and overcoming racial conflict, but rather makes efforts to incite the latter, to attract the government to its side and increase its role in establishing “social justice” through racial quotas and infringement of the rights of those social strata that it has appointed bearers of systematic racism in society. As the colored elite increases and the government’s role in resolving racial conflicts grows, the minority movement is gradually condemned, it ceases to be a true grassroots movement and turns into astroturfing.

Somali National Reconciliation

2019 ◽  
pp. 215-226
Author(s):  
Abdurahman Abdullahi “Baadiyow”
Keyword(s):  
Good Governance ◽  
Participatory Approach ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
National Reconciliation

This chapter redefines the Somali conflict by refuting Somali exceptionalism and the approach based solely on clan. Instead, it argues that the genesis of hostilities is the state–society conflict that, as a consequence, has generated a violent power struggle among the political elite. In turn, this political elite power struggle has provoked political clannism and Islamism: the two indigenous ideologies. These conflicts have been generated sequentially as a result of state–society conflict, and must be addressed as part of a four-part process of reconciliation. The chapter also recommends a ten-point programme of reconciliation, which gradually realizes good governance practices and comprehensive elite and clan reconciliation. Moreover, it proposes a participatory approach and prudent synthesis of modernity and tradition.

Business and Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 234-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Harriss ◽  
Andrew Wyatt
Keyword(s):  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
The Political ◽  
Big Business ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Illegal Activities ◽  
The Relationship

The political economy of Tamil Nadu presents a puzzle: in spite of politics that are generally considered to be unhelpful to development, the state does relatively well in terms both of economic growth and of human development. The chapter argues that Tamil Nadu is neither a developmental nor a social democratic state, while having some of the features of both. It is, rather, characterized by Bonapartism. While the state has generally been supportive of big business, the relationship between the corporate sector and the political elite is distinctly “arm’s-length.” The power and influence of business groups has not “grown enormously,” as has been claimed elsewhere. Tamil politicians do not rely for financial resources on big business but have their own sources of finance, some of them in semilegal or illegal activities such as sand mining and granite quarrying.

Civil Society, Social Movements and the Irish State

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peadar Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political System ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
Corporate Profit ◽  
Fianna Fail

This article develops a theoretical framework to consider the symbiotic relationship between civil society, social movements and the Irish state. Civil society, largely through social movements, laid the foundations for an independent Irish state in the half-century before independence. Following independence, the nature of the civil society–state relationship changed; civil society became much more dependent on the state. The article empirically traces the nature of society's relationship to the state since the 1920s, and examines the nature of the political system and its major political party, Fianna Fáil, the structure of the economy, and the dominance of particular understandings of the role of civil society and the nature of society itself. The period since the advent of social partnership in 1987 is examined; this period marks a new attempt by the state to co-opt organised civil society making it subservient to its project of the imposition on society of the requirements of global corporate profit-making. The more forceful implementation of a global free-market project by the Irish state since the 1980s, and the co-option of organised civil society into this project, has left huge space for an alternative to emerge, the potential of which was indicated by the success of the ‘No’ campaign in the 2008 Lisbon referendum campaign.

Shari’a and ‘traditional Tatar Islam’

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rozaliya Garipova
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Structure ◽  
Muslim Population ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
Traditional Islam

Like all the elites of post-Soviet Muslim countries, the political elite and religious officials in Russia have been in the search of a moderate and strictly national Islamic identity, to keep the Muslim population of Russia separate from Arab or Turkish versions of Islam that could be politicised and thus had the potential to undermine the state structure. ‘Tatar traditional Islam’ emerged through this framework.

scholarly journals Hegel's Citizen

2004 ◽  
Vol 25 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Dudley Knowles
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
Full Understanding ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Ethical Status

Hegel's account of freedom is complex and difficult. It integrates a doctrine of free agency, a theory of social freedom, and a self-determining theodicy of Spirit. To achieve full understanding, if full understanding is possible, the student must both disentangle and articulate the components, and then fit together the separate pieces into an intelligible whole. And what is true of the whole is true of the parts; each element is in turn complex and controversial.In this paper, I want to investigate one very small aspect of this picture — the political phenomenology of the citizen of Hegel's rational state. Whether we are delineating the contours of free agency or re-telling Hegel's story about the modes of freedom constitutive of the institutions of the modern state, sooner or later we shall have to interpret Hegel's description of the self-consciousness of the typical citizen. We shall have to give some account of what citizens take to be their political standing, and show how both this standing and the citizens' understanding of it contribute to freedom.This should not be a controversial claim. To paraphrase portions of the famous statement at PR §260: The state is the actuality of concrete freedom. Members of families integrated into civil society knowingly and willingly acknowledge their citizenship and actively pursue the ends of the state. They do not live as private persons merely; in understanding, endorsing and acting out their ethical status as citizens they achieve such subjective fulfilment as isnecessaryfor them to be truly free.

scholarly journals Nazione e Stato nella storia d'Italia

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandro Rogari
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
First World War ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
First World ◽  
The Way

The book delineates the emergence of a unitary state from the bedrock of a nation formed over centuries. It retraces the major advances in the integration between the state and civil society achieved in the first fifty years after unification, and the disastrous consequences wrought by the First World War and by Fascism. It underscores the way in which the post-war democratic revival rewound the virtuous process of construction of a state capable of expressing the Italian "plural nation". Despite this, it also stresses the way in which the ethical deterioration and the corruption of the political and administrative class that came to a head during the last twenty years of the twentieth century have again brought to the fore the problem of the construction of shared institutions.

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