Revolution in police affairs

Abstract of Revolution in police affairs, in Conflict, Security and the Reshaping of Society, edited by A. Dal Lago and S. Palidda, Routledge, 2010, pp. 118-128 This text is a chapter of the book edited by Dal Lago and Palidda as final result of the European project fp6 Challenge (Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security). Renouncing the temptation of ‘big brother’ theories, but bearing in mind the objective capacity of the ‘military’ (and those who command it) to give form and purpose to the action of public and private actors, this research analyses different aspects of the militarization of society during peacetime. According to the historical and theoretical premises of the strategic changes that are currently in progress the research realized by the contributors analyzes the rise of the ‘securitization’ paradigm. From an epistemological point of view, the goal has been to integrate social science and the analysis of conflicts on a global scale. Indeed, the authors believe that sociology, in particular, cannot limit its range of action to the level of national societies, but must examine the relationship between the global and local dimensions of social phenomena. Contrary to the misinterpretation of ‘exception state’, this research will demonstrate that violence and war are not violation of rules or exceptions to some kind of international order, but rather the conditions for the normal exercise of power on the international stage. What we are witnessing at present is a new type of normality. This does not amount to just a terminological question but to the intimate connection between war and politics (and the economy) in the globalized world. In his chapter, criticizing the typical prescriptivism of all political and social sciences (from the precursors Plato and Aristotle until Durkheim and the contemporary authors), Palidda argues that the goal of his research is, above all, the aknowlodgement of the perpetual coexistence of war and peace, conflicts and mediations. This is the condition for a reliable description of the reality and for subsequent interpretation and analysis. The social research lacks an in-depth, coherent analysis of changes in police practices at the same level as the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Palidda therefore proposes to examine the ‘Revolution in Police Affairs’ (RPA) and the hybridation between the military and the police affairs by first discussing the main theoretical and methodological aspects that are indispensable for an analysis of the management of the neo-liberal/neo-conservative disorder of the current era. This can be understood, in Foucauldian terms, as the shift from pastoralist governmentality to a form of occasional management that is interested only in the hic et nunc (the here and now) prosperity of the strongest and not in the posterity, in other words, the future of society. It is in this general context that we can consider the rise of the violent management of disorder and the concomitant weakening of a peaceful social order. Despite the spread of the military discourse in the West, the police are unable to abandon their informal and sometimes unlawful rapports with different members of local society because they cannot declare permanent war with any one particular group. As Palidda demonstrates, the apparent victory of the neo-conservative revolution in police affairs appears entirely ephemeral precisely because – unlike military forces – it is an institution embedded in society and cannot survive according to a logic of permanent war. This statement is supported by a critique of the theory of the police as ‘street level burocracy’ and by a rigorous interpretation of the weberien theory of the State. The vision of the State as an abstract entity has always been misleading. So, the author criticizes the idea of the police as a “legitimate monopoly of violence” or as ‘panopticon’ or as institution ruling over everyone and everything. He shows that it is possible to observe and describe the concrete reality of the State as the political organization of the society which is the result of the interplay among a number of social institutions that cooperate, compete or are in conflict with each other. As well as private organizations (like businesses or Mafia-type associations), public institutions and others regulated by codified norms (such as the family, health service, schools, transport, justice, police and prisons) are constantly shaped by the interactions between their constituent members, the leaders of each social part and the particular social frame in which they are situated. While it is true that some institutions or certain parts of them might appear ‘autonomous’ or unconditioned by the interactions between the ‘top’ and the ‘bottom’, at the same time society cannot function (in other words, be governed) well or badly without the continuous experimenting and adjusting that members of each institution are forced to perform on the basis of their exchanges (peaceful or otherwise) and the necessary mediations with the most influential social subjects. Obviously, the latter are the strongest actors in dominant social circles that are more numerous in democratic countries. Thus, even judges, who in theory should be less influenced by interactions with the local population, remain subordinate to the game of circular interactions with politicians, moral entrepreneurs, police officers, the media, opinion leaders, representatives of professional categories as well as ‘citizen’ associations that are able to make themselves heard in public space (such as those that campaign around the issue of urban security). It is in this general context that it may be possible to better understand the rise of the violent management of disorder and the concomitant weakening of a negotiated and peaceful governmentality. However, the police’s apparent inability to readily adapt to the dynamics triggered by the exacerbation of fears and insecurity hinders the triumph of a ‘zero tolerance’ that excessively reduces the spaces for peaceful negotiation and establishes a level of security that is ultimately too unstable. Having always been accustomed to switching between the carrot and the stick, and between violence and mediation, the police are unable to abandon informal and sometimes unlawful relations with the various members of local society because they cannot assume the form of a military force at permanent war with a particular social group. This tendency also appears to heighten cases of violence, misconduct and corruption. This leads to disorder within the police itself that is reflected in the distance between a component that places its faith entirely in new technologies, the postmodern panopticon, and violent methods that even include torture, and hence in the myth of the asymmetry of power and strength, and another, currently minority and marginalized component that, instead, would prefer to modernize the traditional management of disorder. The apparent victory of the neo-conservative revolution in police affairs appears entirely ephemeral precisely because – unlike military forces – it is an institution that is embedded in society and cannot survive according to a logic of permanent war.