scholarly journals What Future for Policing? Some Reflections on the Concept and Purpose of Policing and Their Implications for Police Reform in England and Wales

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Williams ◽  
Craig Paterson
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Security Models ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

Policing develops in different ways at different times and to differing demands in states around the world. Thus, policing and security models are established and evolve in the context of the host society. In England and Wales, modern bureaucratic policing emerged from a locally focused and administered system. Following on from this, contemporary Anglo-American policing aligns, to varying degrees, with the political, socio-cultural, legal and ideological aspects of contemporary liberal democratic society with its emphasis on democratic localism and decentralised accountability. Policing is also a field where Anglo-American and other western states provide support to transitional states with often different developmental paths. The transitional states seek, or have imposed on them (depending upon your perspective), western democratic models of policing and the policies, programmes, institutions and tactics associated with these models. This paper reviews the conceptual and theoretical assumptions that underpin thinking about policing and asks whether there is a sufficiently common philosophical and conceptual understanding of policing across nation states to support the development of policing rather than just a common understanding of police functions. This is profoundly important when considering different conceptual understandings of policing and how that is applied in support of the reform of policing in transitional states. The paper calls for a concerted effort to conceptualise a philosophical understanding of policing and its relationship to social development.

Social Development and Police Reform: Some Reflections on the Concept and Purpose of Policing and the Implications for Reform in the UK and USA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Williams ◽  
Craig Paterson
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Critical Question ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Common Understanding

Abstract The increase in calls for police reform following the death of George Floyd has led to renewed debate about social inequality and the role of policing in society. Modern bureaucratic police systems emerged from locally administered structures and Anglo-American policing models continue to be aligned, to varying degrees, with the political, socio-cultural, legal, and ideological aspects of contemporary liberal democratic society with its emphasis on democratic localism and decentralised accountability. However, at a time when society is reimagining itself and technology, government, and nations are radically re-shaping themselves, a critical question is whether there is a sufficiently common philosophical and conceptual understanding of policing to support its development rather than just a common understanding of police functions. This is profoundly important when considering the current calls for reform of policing in the USA and other western democratic states. The article argues that there is an urgent need to reconsider how we conceptualize policing and its relationship with social development.

scholarly journals Towards Victim-oriented Police? Some Reflections on the Concept and Purpose of Policing and Their Implications for Victim-oriented Police Reform

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Paterson ◽  
Andrew Williams
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Global Policy ◽  
The Core ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
Common Understanding

The global policy drift towards community policing and an enhanced philosophical and practical orientation towards victims of crime has been slow but incrementally successful in some jurisdictions. This article uses a comparative approach to review the different conceptual and theoretical assumptions that underpin thinking about policing to tentatively identify the factors that support victim-oriented police reform. The article draws on evidence from India and Argentina plus England and Wales to assess how different policing models have translated victim-oriented language into practice. It is notable that while police forces across the globe often share a common understanding of police functions, there is less agreement when referring to how to engage with citizens and balancing the broader panoply of policing priorities. Conceptual understandings of policing often contain unarticulated assumptions about how policing should be done, and this partly explains why placing citizenship and victims at the core in rhetorical terms does not always translate into practice. The article concludes with a call for a concerted effort to articulate a clear philosophical and conceptual understanding of victim-oriented policing as an enabler of police reform.

Droughts: The impact of semantics and perceptions

Water Policy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir U. Smakhtin ◽  
E. Lisa F. Schipper
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Preventive Action ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Land Degradation And Desertification ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
Source Duration

Global environmental change coupled with increased demand for food and competition for diminishing water places the issue of disaster risk management high on the global political agenda. Drought is one of the most complex natural hazards, affecting natural resources and human development recurrently. Drought affects agricultural production globally, triggering significant food and health insecurity and habitat loss through land degradation and desertification. While the consequences of droughts can usually be predicted, preventive action is frequently absent or insufficient to prevent serious impacts in many regions of the world. We believe that lack of a common understanding of what drought is stands in the way of cohesive anti-drought action. This paper examines drought definitions emerging from influential scholarship, practitioners' discourse and multilateral policy processes that emphasise diverging aspects of the phenomena of dry periods, including the source, duration, spatial extent, impact and affected stakeholders. This paper begins by examining the concepts of hazard and disaster. It then explores the various perceptions associated with drought and the problems posed by inconsistency in definitions. It concludes that a common conceptual understanding of drought is essential for effective action to address the growing need for reliable food supply, poverty alleviation and increased agricultural productivity globally.

An institutional perspective of neighbourhood policing reform in austerity era England and Wales

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 230-243
Author(s):  
Jack Greig-Midlane
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Managerial Roles ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
Management Functions ◽  
The Impact

In the austerity era in England and Wales, both socio-economic change and shifts in the policing field have triggered a range of police reform narratives. For resource intensive manifestations of community policing, police disinvestment in England and Wales has led to concerns of a swing away from neighbourhood security functions and proactive police work and toward crime management functions and a more reactive approach (Punch, 2012; IPC, 2013). The paper uses an institutional perspective of change in police organisations (March and Olsen, 2011; Crank, 2003) to highlight the importance of values and narratives in processes of reform, mediation, and resistance. The empirical element of the paper explores how changes in the austerity era impact on the reform and delivery of ‘Neighbourhood Policing’ and cultural storytelling in an English police force. The analysis reveals a discursive struggle over the principles and delivery of neighbourhood policing. Police in policymaking and managerial roles subscribe to narratives that suggest Neighbourhood Policing can be reformed to be more scientific, efficient, professional, and effective to counter the impact of austerity, but this is challenged by street level accounts of the impact of austerity on delivery as well as the distinctive cultural values of Neighbourhood Policing Teams.

Japanese Politics in Transition: A Theoretical Review

1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Inoguchi
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Type System ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Income Tax Law ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Party Dominance

THE END OF ONE-PARTY DOMINANCE BY THE LIBERAL Democratic Party of Japan came as abruptly as the fall of the Berlin wall four years before. It started with the debate on electoral system change, ostensibly as an attempt to curb corruption. The LDP has been plagued by a series of large-scale corruption scandals since the Recruit scandal of 1989. The latest concerned former vice-president Shin Kanemaru's alleged violation of the political money regulation law and the income tax law in 1992–93. The Prime Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa, accepting a fair degree of compromise with opposition parties, wanted to pass a bill to change the current electoral system. The LDP initially wanted to change from the system of choosing a few persons in each district by one vote to the Anglo-American type system of selecting one person in each district by one vote. The opposition wanted to change to the continental European system of proportional representation. A compromise was made by the LDP's proposal to combine the latter two systems. Then two dissenting groups emerged suddenly in the LDP. One took the exit option by forming new political parties. The other took the voice option by backing away from the Miyazawa compromise plan. Miyazawa was humiliated by his failure to have the bill enacted and a motion of no confidence was passed. He then called for a general election, which took place on 18 July 1993. The outcome did not give a majority to the LDP and subsequently a non-LDP coalition was formed to produce a non-LDP government for the first time since the foundation of the LDP in 1955

Re-thinking language conflict: challenges and options

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (235) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Vetter
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Simple Solution ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
The Common ◽  
Language Conflict ◽  
Conflict Research ◽  
Common Understanding

AbstractThis paper looks at language conflict through a multilingual and super-diverse lens. The objective is to re-think some of the theoretical assumptions of conflict research and to suggest new lines of thought. In a first step, conflict research is described against the background of some common assumptions. It is then argued that the common understanding behind the notion of language and community is being increasingly challenged. In doing so, the focus is on questioning the separatedness and boundedness of these notions.Furthermore, it is claimed that the concept of “hybridity” does not present a simple solution to the dilemma. The new lines of thought address issues of research as well as language policy and seek to combine postmodern notions such as translingual practice with conflict research.

Dehierarchization and Sustainable Development in Liberal and Non-liberal Societies

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel Wissenburg
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Liberal Societies ◽  
Political Norms ◽  
The Way

Modern societies appear to be going through a phase of dehierarchization, that is, a change in the way of governance of nation states, from direction of, to cooperation with, civil society; and in more general terms political pluralization, the emergence of “polities” other than the nation state. The paper argues that one of the most stressing problems of political pluralization is the co-existence of mutually effacing or contradictory systems of political norms. To tackle this problem of incompossibility, it has been suggested that policy teloi, shared conceptions giving direction to cooperative political ventures, in particular sustainable development, could be helpful. This article investigates whether sustainable development as a policy telos can tackle incompossibility, both in liberal (democratic) and non-liberal (democratic) societies. The paper concludes that its best chances of being temporarily successful lie in understanding it in the broadest sense possible—particularly if one values moral pluralism.

Democracy and Individuality

1986 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Marxian Theory ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Political Form

For many contemporary liberals, Anglo-American democracy seems unimpeachably the best political form. In contrast, adherence to democratic values seems an area in which most Marxian regimes, and perhaps Marx himself, are strikingly deficient. Further, Marxian theory insists on the existence of oppressive ruling classes in all capitalist societies and on the need for class struggle and violent revolution to achieve a more cooperative regime – theses which liberal social theories tend to dismiss peremptorily. From the perspective of modern liberal democratic theory, Marxian arguments seem prima facie outlandish and even morally objectionable.

scholarly journals The Rule of Law and Its Development: A Bird Eye View

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Ram Kishna Timilsena
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Constitutional Development ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The World ◽  
Anglo American

The paper highlights the origin of rule of law and its development around the world in the context of present liberal democratic framework. The paper discusses rule of law from its international to national perspectives with special emphasis on supremacy of law. Rule of law has not been analyzed from Anglo-American purview in the article, but this article also discusses on German and Japanese perspectives. It takes notes on latest constitutional development of Nepal as well.

scholarly journals The EU: Towards a United States of Europe

Federalism-E ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-21
Author(s):  
Eric Servais
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The European Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Structural Framework ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
The Eu

The European Union (EU), a contested “European” political construct, is contemporarily positioned at a critical juncture that presents three options that may determine its status as a supranational actor: stagnation, dissolution, or deeper and wider integration. The myriad pressures antagonizing the European Union and its structural foundations parallel those that the project sought to address following World War II. The unprecedented level of devastation caused by advanced military technologies and totalitarian ideologies in the war provided the impetus for increased cooperation amongst independent nation-states. Institutional cooperation encourages the deconstruction of destructive socio-political forces including racism, nationalism, and primordial cultural identities. These essentialist forces emerge in the absence of effective governance and encourage internal and external hostilities. The EU is intended to provide a structural framework for liberal-democratic countries to make collective decisions to increase economic prosperity, freedom, security, and justice [...]

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