Co-ordinators: Dr. Marina Caparini, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Dr. David Last, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Founded by Prof. Dr. Marleen Easton, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
About
The Working Group on Military and Police Relations was founded in Stockholm in 2009 by Professor Dr. Marleen Easton (Belgium). Military, gendarme, and police forces share responsibilities for human security, public order and public security, national security, and international security. This working group focuses primarily on the relationships between these organizations and their overlapping objectives. It also encompasses the rich and under-researched areas of paramilitary policing, military and police accountability, including operations under international and domestic rule of law, and international police operations. In seeking to strengthen its knowledge and capacities on police and policing systems, the working group also encourages studies focusing solely on the police or gendarme organization and relevant aspects such as comparative police models, police occupational culture, police professionalization, police accountability and oversight systems, and non-state policing.
Topics addressed include, but are not limited to:
- Comparative study of functional divisions: the division of labour between military, gendarme, and police forces
- Comprehensive approach to security institutions and whole-of-government strategies for security
- Militarization of civilian police in society
- Civilianization and remilitarization of gendarme and military forces
- Military police
- Military and police transformation and modernization
- Organizational competition within the security sector
- Training, education, and socialization of military and police forces in comparative perspective
- Privatisation of military and police functions
- The roles of police (individual police officers, formed police units and/or stability police) in peace operations and coalition operations
Related working groups:
Other working groups do not explicitly address police issues, but WG9 does. To the extent that scholars address police issues in other working groups, they might want to consider engaging with WG9.
- WG 5. Military (and police) profession
- WG 6. Civilian control of armed forces (and police)
- WG 7. Warriors (and police) in peacekeeping
- WG 8. Recruitment and retention (through transfer of skilled individuals between services)
- WG 10. Violence and the military (and police)
News and activities
Members of this working group may also be interested in the International Society of Military Sciences (www.isofms.org)and the Inter-University Society on Armed Forces and Society (www.iusafs.org). Events and activities of interest are:
ERGOMAS 2017, in Athens of course - we are looking forward to seeing you there!
International Seminar on Development of Military Academies (ISoDoMA), St. Jean sur Richelieu, 29 May-2 June 2017
IUS Canada Conference, Ottawa, 19-22 October 2016
ISMS Conference, Warsaw, 11-14 October 2016
IUS Biennial Conference, Chicago, October 2017
Paper room
News
Working Group name-change
As of 1 January 2013, the WG's name has been changed from "Blurring of Military and Police Roles" to "Military and Police Relations"
Announcing the International Master's Program "Criminal Justice, Governance, and Police Science"
The Ruhr-Universitat Bochum in Germany and its European partner the University College Ghent in Belgium offer a unique international Master's program in Criminal Justice, Governance and Police Science.
- Degree: Master of Criminal Justice, Governance and Police Science
- Duration: 2-year Blended-Learning (GOECTS)
- Program Start: April 2013
- Application Deadline: October 31st
For more information, please refer to the flyer (pdf, download) or visit the program's website.
The WG "Blurring of Military and Police Roles" at the 10th ERGOMAS conference in Stockholm, June 22-26, 2009
For more details, please contact the presenters directly.
- Riaz Ahmed Sheikh (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) (Institute of Business & Technology, Biztek, Pakistan). Terrorism in Pakistan - Role of Military and Police for Curbing Terrorism
- Jacqui Baker (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) (London School of Economics, UK). Power and Longing in the Reorganisation of the Coercive Apparatuses of the State
- Weichong Ong (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore). Whither Counterinsurgency? The Transformation of the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF)
- Michiel de Weger (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) (The Netherlands). The Potential of the European Gendarmerie Force.
- Beatrice Jauregui (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) (University of Chicago, USA). Civilizing Missions: The Co-Development of Police and Military Institutions in India
- Jelle Janssens (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) (Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy, Gent, Belgium). The European Security and Defence Policy and the Procurement of Public Security in Post-Conflict Societies
The military operates no longer exclusively at the high end of the spectra of violence but also at the middle (crowd and riot control, anti-terrorist squads etc) and even low end (i.e. theft and violence by individuals). At this low end the tasks are converging on the tasks of police officers. If the police successfully want to fight a war against terrorism and organised crime, and deal with serious urban disturbances, it has to adjust its methods and means.
In order to deal with these threats, the police have to train and equip officers to operate at the upper level of police violence. These changes will inevitably lead to a militarization of the police. Which development(s) will prevail? The constabularisation of the armed forces makes the military more suitable to do domestic security tasks. On the other hand, the capacity of police forces increases, they are increasingly using military tactics, organisational concepts and equipment to operate successfully in violent environments. What is happening in fact is that the two security organisations are increasingly overlapping and are becoming competitors in the same security market.
The question we have to ask ourselves is: do we want this? Do we want the police to militarise or should the armed forces have a more distinct role in national domestic security? Should the military's involvement in national security prevent a further militarisation of the police or should a further militarisation of the police stop an increasing military interest in public security?
Leading questions
- How did the relation between military and armed forces, both at home and abroad, develop in western nations recent history? How did specialised military and civilian units develop, cooperate and compete in the middle part of the spectre of violence? What caused the development of their respective roles?
- Is there indeed a development towards constabularisation of the armed forces? Which causes and mechanisms are at work? Are small nations forced to specialise in OOTW because of lacking military capacities for large-scale warfare? With which operational problems is the military confronted in deployments?
- Is there a development towards militarisation of the police? Is there a paradox in relation to the police model called "community policing"?
- What competencies are developed by western military and civilian organisations for performing policing tasks in operations abroad? Are these at the same time suitable and enabling military officials for facing domestic security threats? What lessons did the military learn from policing abroad? In which way is training adapted and improved to accommodate multi tasking roles?
- What are the effects on society of an increased military involvement to beat social disturbances, to fight terrorism and organised crime? Do we want the military to become police or the police to become more military? Do we have to leave our traditional views on policing and the division of tasks between the military and the police due to the new security reality?