Lesson #6

MILITARIES AND POLICE FORCES

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” (Mao Zedong, Problems of War and Strategy (1938)
Security – absence of danger, fear, or anxiety
- “How can people live a decent and worthwhile existence, free from threats, intimidation and violence?”
Militaries:
1. may function simply as instruments of foreign policy, or they may play a decision domestic role - by quelling civil
unrest/popping up unpopular regimes
2. May operate as powerful interest groups or may provide an alternative to civilian rule
Police:
1. Maintaining public order and civil liberty
2. Mechanism of political repression (that may lead to the establishment of a police state)

DOMESTIC SECURITY
THE MILITARY AND POLITICS
- 19th century – military became a specialized institution with a professional leadership separate from the rest of society
- 4 Factors To Distinguish Military From Other Institution
1. Instrument of war - monopoly of weaponry and coercive power
2. Tightly organized and highly disciplined bodies - hierarchy of ranks and a culture of strict obedience; they are also an extreme
example of bureaucracy
3. Characterized by a distinctive culture and set of values and esprit de corps that prepares its personnel to fight, kill, and die
4. Often seen as “above” politics - because they guarantee the security and integrity of the state, they are repository of the
national interest
- The character of a particular armed forces is shaped by internal and external factors e.g history and traditions of the military and
specific regiments, the nature of the broader political system, the political culture, and the values of regime itself
o Example: People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in China
- Roles of Military
1. Instrument of war
o central purpose of the military; can be directed against other political societies if necessary
o Can be put on either defensive and offensive uses
o Capacity of the military to defend the country against external aggression
o Must be able to act as an agent of aggression
2. Guarantee domestic order
o Not only of significance in international politics, can also be a decisive factor in domestic politics
o Example: to act as an emergency service in the event of natural and other disasters or to police domestic civil
disturbances or disputes
o There is a difficulty of distinguishing between domestic use of military as ‘public’ instrument or ‘political’ weapon in
furthering the partisan goals of the government
o In cases in which political legitimacy has collapsed altogether, the military may become the only prop of the regime,
safeguarding it from popular rebellion or revolution
3. Interest group
o Military as an instrument of policy; a device through which governments can achieve their foreign or domestic ends
o Armed forces are not neutral bodies; seeks to shape or influence the content of the policies
o Has a number of advantages
 Military possesses considerable technical knowledge and expertise
 Military is an “insider” group - it is represented on key policy-making bodies and possesses an institutional power
base
 Military benefits from its status as the guarantor of national security and state integrity
4. Alternative to civilian rule
 o Control of weaponry and coercive power gives it the capacity to intervene directly in political life, leading in extreme cases
to the establishment of military rule
o Can remove and replace the governing elite or topple the regime itself
o Military junta - form of collective military government centered on a command council of officers whose members usually
represent three services (army, navy, air force)
- Controlling the Military
o Two types of mechanisms and methods through which political control is exerted
 Samuel Huntington - objective and subjective methods
 Eric Nordlinger - liberal and penetration
1. Objective or liberal - military is kept out of politics
 Military is subordinate to civilian leaders
 Policy-making is the responsibility of civilian politicians
 Strict political neutrality within the armed forces
2. Subjective or penetration - opposite of liberal
 Army’s loyalty was based more on the overlap between its authoritarian nationalism and expansionist goals
 Often seen in communist states - China, USSR
 Military gains voice to the policy process and exert influence through an integrated party - state-military elite
- When does military seize power?
o Coup d’etat - stroke of state; sudden seizure of government power through illegal and unconstitutional action
o Displacing the civilian leadership and establish a form of direct military rule
o Military coups appear to be associated with particular circumstances
 Economic backwardness
 Vast majority of the countries that have experienced military government are in the third world
 Loss of legitimacy by civilian leaders
 Military government exists because they can. They can sense that the legitimacy of existing institutions and the ruling
elite is challenged
 Military rule can only operate through a level of systematic repression
 Conflict between the military and the government
 When militaries are against the government, they do so because believe that their interests and values are
threatened, or because they think that their actions are justified
 A favourable international context
 International pressures due to the interests of foreign countries encourage military action

THE POLICE AND POLITICS

- Police forces came into existence in the 19th century due to higher levels of social unrest and political discontent due to
industrialization
- First modern police force was established by Sir Robert Peel in London in 1829
- Police Forces vs Military
o Concern is in domestic order over the external orientation of military
o More closely integrated in society over military
o Use non-military tactics
*Modern developments tend to blur the distinction between police forces and the military
- Roles of the police
o 3 contrasting approaches
 Liberal perspective - looks at the police as an essentially neutral body that maintains domestic order through the
protection of individual rights and liberties
 Conservative perspective - looks at the police’s role in preserving the authority of the state and ensuring its jurisdiction
over the community
 Rooted in a more pessimistic view of human nature
  Radical perspective - looks at police as tools of oppression that act in the interests of the state, rather than people, and
serve elites over masses
 Marxist version: police are defenders of property and upholders of capitalist class
o Civil policing – refers to the role of police in the enforcement of civil law
 Aspect of police work most familiar to the general public (police exist to ‘fight crime’)
 Process
 Increasingly international in character due to transnational criminal organizations like drug and human trafficking
 Routine process varies from place to place
 Small, homogenous communities are seen as having a significant level of self-policing, this changes as societies
become more (socially and culturally) fragmented, and as large-scale organization depersonalizes relationships and
interaction
 Industrialization in the 20th century brought about convergence in police organization and tactics around the world
 Police forces everywhere generally confront similar problems like traffic infringements,theft, street crime, and
organized crime
 2 contrasting styles of civil policing
 Community policing – constant police presence within the community to ensure public presence and support in
the investigation of crimes, and to encourage the development of values and attitudes that help to prevent law
breaking in the first place
o depends on police being respected members of the local community and on citizens accepting that they are
being closely monitored
o UK (formerly), Japan
 “Fire Brigade” policing or Reactive policing – emphasizes the capacity of the police to react to breaches of the
law when they occur, in the hope that the crime will be prevented by the effectiveness of the police response
o requires adoption of harder, even paramilitary tactics, and a greater emphasis on technology and arms
o Plainly adopted in authoritarian/totalitarian states, but also found in liberal democracies
o Broken windows theory – reactive policing relies on a strategy of strict enforcement in relation to minor offences
in order to reduce levels of serious crime.
o Political Policing
 Policing can be ‘political’ in 2 senses
 Policing may be carried out in accordance with political biases or social prejudices that favor certain groups or
interests over others
o Example: Institutional racism by police in the US and UK
 Policing may extend beyond civil matters and impact on specifically political disputes
o Use of police as a political instrument has increased as societies have become more complex and fragmented
o Some argue that all policing is ‘political’ because it defends the prevailing distribution of resources
o Neutrality of police force in the eyes of the public is compromised when it is used to control strikes,
demonstrations, and civil unrest
o Threat of terrorism has drawn policing to difficult areas as national security legislation has increased the powers
of the police and led to police discriminating minority ethnic (and usually Muslim) groups
o Specially trained paramilitary police units have been set up to specifically carry out politically sensitive operations
(CRS in France, SPG in UK)
o Virtually all states have intelligence/security agencies that are usually shrouded in secrecy; their role is deeply
political in that it includes surveillance and destabilization of groups considered a threat to the state or as
opponents to the existing social system. (MI5 in the UK, FBI and CIA in the USA, KGB in Russia)
o Police State
 Form of rule in which the liberal balance between police powers with civil liberties has been entirely abandoned, allowing
a system of arbitrary and indiscriminate policing to develop
 Police force operates outside the legal framework and not accountable to courts nor the general public
  Have totalitarian features in that the excessive and unregulated power vested in the police designed to create a climate of
fear and intimidation where all aspects of social existence are brought under political control
 Not the same as a military regime - police force acts as a private army that is controlled by, and acts in the interests of a
ruling elite
 Examples of secret police
o Nazi Germany - SA, Gestapo, SD, SS
o USSR - Cheka(Lenin), OGPU, NKVD(Stalin), KGB
o East Germany - Stasi, Romania - Securi
 May also operate alongside orthodox policing methods (Nazi Germany and USSR)
 Some ‘liberal’ states have found use of secret police
o Covert external operations: CIA involvemantPinochet coup Chile, Fidel Castro assassination attempt, Supplying
Contra levels in El Salvador
o Allegations of interference in domestic affairs: CIA involvemant in JFK assassination, B-Specials in Northern Ireland
- Political Control and Accountability
o Aristotle - “quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (who will guard the guardians?)
o The issue of political control is highly sensitive and conjures up two contrasting images
 Positive – suggests accountability, oversight, and scrutiny; a police force constrained by and loyal to properly instituted
authority
 Negative – politicization; possibility of police power being harnessed to the needs of the government of the day
o Key factor: organization of police force
 Centralized
 Better meet the needs of national government
 Holds out the prospect of greater administrative efficiency and increased political effectiveness
 Example: French Police
o Has 2 national police forces:
 the National Police (under the civilian control of the Ministry of the Interior) - maintaining law and order in
large towns and cities
 the Gendarmerie (under the military control of Ministry of Defense) - policing rural areas
o Jurisdiction of the 2 overlaps, giving rise to traditional police war
 Decentralized - ideal
 Bottom up structure allows the police a healthy independence from central government; building in responsiveness to
local needs and interests
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
APPROACHES TO INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
- Realist Approach
o Realism or political realism – dominant perspective on international politics since WWII.
o Claims to offer an account of international politics that is ‘realistic’ – hard-headed and devoid of wishful thinking and deluded
moralizing
o Often portrayed as ‘power politics’
 Based on two core assumptions
1. People are essentially selfish and competitive (egoism)
 Human egoism  state egoism
 State egoism leads to international conflict and possibly war because each state pursues its own national
interest and these are by their nature, incompatible
2. States have primary responsibility for maintaining security (national security)
 The major threats to security come from other states
 Conflict can be contained by the balance of power
- Liberal Approach
o Optimistic vision of international politics, based on a belief in human rationality and moral goodness
 o States may pursue self-interest but a natural equilibrium will tend to assert itself
- Critical Approaches
o Marxist approach – placed emphasis not on patterns of confflict and coopertion between states but on structures of
economic power and the role played in world affairs by international capital
o Constructivism – interactions between states are mediated by beliefs, values and assumptions that structure both how states
see themselves, and how they understand and respond to the structure within which they operate.
o Feminists – criticized the realist view of security on two grounds:
 it is premised on masculinist assumptions about rivalry, competition and inevitable conflict
 the conventional idea of national security tends to be self defeating as a result of the security paradox (insecurity of
security)
NEW SECURITY CHALLENGES
- From traditional wars to ‘new’ wars
o War as an instrument of state policy
o New wars = civil wars rather than inter-state wars
 Often pose a wider and more profound threat to civilian populations than did the inter-state wars
 Wide use of guerrilla tactiocs and the emphasis on popular resistance (insurgency) has given modern warfare a diffuse
character
 ‘War amongst people’; a tendency that has been deepened by the ‘collateral damage’ that has sometimes been caused
by counter-insurgency operations
- Transnational terrorism
o Terrorism generally had a nationalist orientation before but had been reborn in a new and more dangerous form.
o Transnational terrorism – generally associated with the advance of globalization; takes advantage of increased cross-border,
flows of people, goods, money, technology and ideas.
 Increased emphasis has been placed on terrorist tactics that are particularly difficult to defend agaisnt, notable, suicide
terrorism
 Potntial scope and scale of terrorism has greatly increased as a result of modern technology, and the prospect of
weapons of mass destruction
 Modern terrorists not only have easier access to WMD, but also have a greater willingness to use them
- Nuclear proliferation
o The unprecedented destructive potential of nuclear weapons explains why the issue of nuclear proliferation has been at the
forefront of the international security agenda since WWII
HUMAN SECURITY
- Shift from viewing security as essentially an attribute of a state to viewing it as a matter for the individual
- Takes account not only of the extent to which threats posed by armed conflict have changed but also the degree to which modern
armed conflict is entangled with issued of poverty and underdevelopment
o Nonmilitary sources of insecurity, inadequate access to basic food and environmental degradation within the international
security agenda