Politeia

The Politeia Program: Without Security No Development!

Violence is one of the main reasons why the global poor are poor in the first place and one of the primary reasons they stay poor. Without security for the poor no development will take place.

Concequently, violence and poverty must be seen as two closely related aspects of development work. This is the main reason why TurningPoints is organized as it is.

TurningPoints

• has been organized to meet several related and very complex global problems: violence, poverty, inequality and the lack of self-reliance. As part of the organization TurningPoints subdivision Politeia carries out education, research, consultation with police forces.
• we believe that good high quality recruitment, leadership, education and professionalization of the police force is also an asset for both democracy, state and society.
• we believe that social and professional learning processes can be difficult, but that they become better and more efficient when focus is on future development, democracy and professionalism.
• we believe that the more democratic the rule of law is, the higher the social trust and the higher the economic development.

The State of the Police

Today’s states can roughly be separated into 1) Full Democracies, 2) Flawed Democracies, 3) Hybrid Regimes, and 4) Authoritarian Regimes. This observation is not new. What is new is to combine and compare how the recruitment to the military and the police in these states differ fundamentally.

At the one end, the full democracy recruits democratically representing most of society’s different groups; whereas – in the other end – the authoritarian regime recruits from a very narrow group, because of the need to be loyal to the regime. The full democracy takes for granted that the recruits are loyal to the state and the people and that they will not interfere with the political process. Not so in the authoritarian and hybrid regimes where both the military and the police interfere with the political process.

Because of this, the different types of states also have very different processes of socialization and professionalization. As the authoritarian regime recruits socially very narrowly the socialization and professionalization in this type of states take place outside and before entering the academy. Contrary to this the full democracy recruits broadly and democratically representatively, and so the socialization takes place inside and after entering the academy, be it police or military.

The different types of states cause different recruitment processes, different socialization processes and different levels of professionalization comprising of different professional attitudes forming different professional identities. These differences have profound impact on the police forces and it’s capability to establish the much needed security.

Politeia – A Necessary Program

A continuous global programme about policing and professionis necessary and must be put up so that states, institutions and researchers can access new and relevant information for use in their own development. If the information is presented as constructive democratic learning processes of professional law enforcement institutions in which errors occur, this will produce more trust and pave the way for both justice and economy – for all. More...