Research

My dissertation book project explores the role of international reform efforts in what is generally considered a strictly domestic activity: internal policing. How has global governance as enacted by states, international organizations (IOs), and private actors impacted domestic policing norms? To answer this question, the dissertation begins with a theory outlining a two-stage process for the global governance of policing. In the first stage, IOs like the United Nations (UN) define and elevate certain policing norms over others. These norms are relatively vague and allow for a great amount of discretion in interpretation. This interpretation happens during the second stage, when practitioners apply these norms using products and services from the private sector.

Practitioner interpretations follow two patterns. First, practitioners apply norms differently based on their perceptions of the culture of the recipient country or community. For example, practitioners see community policing as a difficult principle to apply in post-conflict contexts, primarily in the Global South. Instead, they prioritize more coercive policing practices which they see as necessary to establish order in these spaces. This preference defines the second pattern, where practitioners privilege short-term order maintenance over other policy approaches that may better serve broader normative goals like community engagement and democratic policing.

I argue that there is a tradeoff to these patterns in policing reform. Prioritizing institutional rationality for short-term order maintenance fulfills reform goals for establishing security. Yet, this approach forecloses other options that would better support a long-term, robust peace with a more community-driven and accountable police service. Empirically, I leverage interview data, archival material, and ethnography to illustrate how increasingly tailored international reform programs reproduce basic institutional shapes that are tied to pathologies in policing, including excessive use of force and hindered accountability mechanisms. I find that reform practitioners are deeply aware of the intricacies of local context. Yet, these practitioners still pursue remarkably similar policies that may at times be contrary to stated normative goals but are well-positioned to achieve order maintenance.