Vol. 13 No. 8 (August
2003)
POLICING WORLD SOCIETY.
HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL POLICE COOPERATION by Mathieu Deflem.
Clarendon Studies in Criminology. Oxford – New York: Oxford University
Press, 2002. 301pp. $80.00 Cloth. ISBN: 0-19-925962-3.
Reviewed by András
Sajó, Legal Studies, Central European University, Budapest.
Mathieu Deflem’s book
on the Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation is a provocative
contribution to the fundamental debate among the leading schools in sociology.
Notwithstanding its primarily sociological perspective and historical subject
matter, it is of considerable value to scholars interested in police organizations
and in international sub-governmental relations. Deflem’s main line
of argument regarding the driving force behind bureaucratic organizations
fits well into the political science debate about “new institutionalism”
in the sense that it offers an alternative to state-centered theories of institution
building and international relations. It is also a notable contribution to
the ongoing debate regarding the nature and origins of globalization, claiming
that the phenomenon of social controls reaching across borders is not completely
new and has historical roots. The writing is very rich in important
details and can also be read as a parallel history of German and US police
institutions.
The book offers a sociological
analysis of the early history of international police cooperation. In fact,
for methodological reasons the author does not focus on the actual international
operative interactions among various national police forces (e.g. sharing
files, offering training, and the like), but rather looks at the documents
produced by the international police organizations. These documents enable
the author to describe international police relations as organizational behavior.
The time span covered is more than a hundred years, beginning at the middle
of the nineteenth century and ending during the early years of the cold war.
In particular, Deflem discusses the relations between the emerging international
police organizations and the German police and police bodies in the US, respectively.
The choice of these countries may seem surprising given the lack of a national
police in the United States coupled with the notorious difficulties in developing
police cooperation at the national level. However, for the purposes of building
a theory, the US police offer a kind of counterexample to the institutional
interest that exists in Germany and which is a catalyst for international
co-operation.
The “Introduction”
looks at the historical foundations of international police cooperation. It
is here that the author briefly summarizes the emergence of a national police
in Germany, and the formation of the American police as a set of municipal
police forces. More importantly, it is in the “Introduction” where
the author defines the scope of his research and outlines the theory that
he plans to corroborate with empirical historical data. Deflem considers a
number of competing theories applicable to international police cooperation,
though at the moment “it is clear that not only is international policing
a relatively new and unexplored field of scholarly attention, many of its
discussions are void of theoretical explorations” (p.28). In particular,
the author considers three—state-centered, the economic-deterministic,
and a Weberian (bureaucratic) approach--arguing in favor of the Weberian model
of international policing as having the best explanatory power. Deflem, however,
conceives police bureaucratization and police professionalization as two complimentary
processes. (Professional concerns include disregard of legal formalism in
extradition and other efficiency driven considerations.) These two concerns
put together determine the need for international police cooperation. Bureaucratization
and professionalization result in a level of institutional independence that
enables and requires international cooperation. “The greater the extent
to which national police institutions have gained a position of institutional
independence from their respective political centres, the greater is the chance
that those institutions are in a position to engage in international cooperation”
(p.21).
The state-centered “perspective
holds that the dynamics of policing and international policing are to be accounted
for with reference to the political ideological debates and interest of the
national states” (p.15). The economic deterministic theories suggest
that police (both nationally and internationally) follow the dictates of “those
classes that control the free market” (p.29).
Deflem concedes to this approach by modifying his bureaucracy based
theory with a Third Proposition: “National interests remain paramount
in the planning and execution of international police activities and organizations”
(p.27). This correction will become particularly relevant in the case of the
Nazification of German police after 1933 and its impacts on international
policing.
In two of his paragraphs Deflem
bluntly rejects the functionalist models of police cooperation that argue
that international police cooperation is a response to international crime
phenomena. In his view such claims of causality are not supported by evidence.
Accepting the functionalist explanation would simply equal subscribing to
the legitimation theories (and myths) developed by police to rationalize international
cooperation. “[T]he rationalizations of the participants cannot be confused
with the conditions of their behavior” (p.29). The evidence discussed
in the book suggests that gradual internationalization has been more grasping
of the opportunity for police interaction offered by specific events of international
crime (e.g. anarchist attempts against heads of state), rather than arising
from an actual internationalization of crime and crime investigation. Even
where there was an important international element in crime that bothered
national authorities (e.g., international prostitution, illegal and politically
unacceptable migration), investigation did not really depend on international
cooperation. It remains to be seen if this is still true today. “International
crime” is certainly an organizational social construction—i.e.,
the vision of crime that prevails among law enforcement officers is dictated
by police culture and institutional interests. Today, however, there seems
to be more obvious need for international cooperation regarding matters that
constitute the “heart” of criminality and, therefore, the constructs
must reflect realities, at least to some extent.
Chapter One, “The Rise
of International Policing,” points out that police cooperation as a
professional collaboration became possible after some institutional professionalization
took place at the national level. The early forms of mutual aid emerged within
the realm of bilateral investigations, and mostly on an ad hoc basis, as required
by the particulars of a given problem. Most of the bilateral and international
cooperation in the 19th century was related to efforts to consolidate conservative
political regimes and were thus related to political crimes. Technological
developments (new telecommunication and mechanized transportation opportunities)
increased the possibility for cooperation. It is in this context that the
Police Union, the international union of German speaking police organizations
was formed in 1851. This first professional organization did manage to offer
intensive exchange of information, particularly in matters of political policing.
Cooperation was made possible and contributed to the growing professionalization
of national police organizations. Nevertheless, the Police Union could not
survive the new political tensions that emerged with Imperial Germany. International
police activities in the 19th century remained subject to issues of national
sovereignty. Gradually, however, the European states moved away from the model
of cooperation centered on political crime to a more open vision of dealing
with “ordinary” crime. This is exemplified with the failure of
the legalistic international anti-anarchist conferences and treaties, which
did not result in any practical action and by the relative success of cooperation
over White Slave Trafficking (international prostitution). During this period
the United States was absent from most forms of cooperation, as it did not
have a national police system. In fact, the prevailing mood in Congress was
strongly against federalization of law enforcement, as centralized policing
was seen as a tool of oppressive European political regimes (Chapter 2). Nevertheless,
some cooperation can be seen in the Americas, but under Latin-American leadership.
There, Juan Vucetich of La Plata, Argentina, the driving force behind professionalization
in Latin America, took the initiative.
Notwithstanding the American
SONDERWEG, the international processes of the 19th century did have a gradual
impact on police work all over the world, leading to increasing harmonization,
due primarily to various technological advances beyond the development of
infrastructure. Uniform handling of criminal data, such as the standardization
of some methods of crime scene investigation, was particularly important once
relevant scientific knowledge (like the fingerprinting system of identification)
was developed. However, technology and expansion of knowledge could not automatically
resolve all problems—the degree of international teamwork remained a
function of institutional choice, as indicated, for example, by the French
insistence on maintaining their outdated bertillonage system for nationalistic
reasons. This system was based on a domestically-developed anthropometry system,
and its local support resulted in the French police agency being isolated
for more than a decade.
European law enforcement finally
approximated bona-fide professional international cooperation during the years
leading up to World War One, though even at the peak of this movement, at
the First Congress of International Criminal Police (1914), most participants
were not policemen. At the end
of World War One there were attempts to revitalize international investigative
efforts against political organizations and activists, primarily due to the
perceived Bolshevik threat. When the political danger did not materialize,
professional considerations continued to prevail resulting in the International
Police Congress of Vienna in 1923. It was there that the International Criminal
Police Commission was established. The Commission, with forty-six nations
represented, including the United States which joined in 1938, is considered
to be the origin of Interpol. This formation was clearly based on the initiative
of police chiefs (mostly of large metropolitan areas) and not on that of governments.
It is in fact the activities of this Commission that Deflem believes can serve
to substantiate the theoretical arguments of his book (p.128). The Vienna
headquarters acted as the nerve-center for cooperation (mostly technical),
and, in order to maintain communication with this center, national police
agencies had to dedicate resources (a specialized office and personnel to
interact with the center), through which other participating national bodies
could be reached. The professional perception of an increase in crime rates
was one of the reasons why the founders of the Commission asked for international
cooperation. “The … statistics provided by officials at the [Vienna,
1923] meeting confirmed the necessity of an adequate police response and the
commonality of the task among European police.” They were particularly
concerned about the increased mobility of criminals (p.143).
Notwithstanding these developments,
Deflem still dismisses the functionalist claim that international cooperation
is a reaction to the internalization of crime, and sees it rather as a matter
of professionalization and crime construction dictated by professional considerations.
His final conclusion is that “international crime functioned as a professionally
defined construct that was real in its consequences of expanding international
police organizations and facilities” (p.222). International police cooperation
was initially enabled by conditions of relative international tranquility,
but it was later carried on by bureaucratic autonomy of national police organizations.
The book offers a detailed analysis of the professional elements that dictated
the cooperation (Chapter 5). This level of national professionalism was just
emerging in the United States, especially with the creation of the FBI. The
international dimension of crime was not considered particularly important
in the U.S. at a time when the main concern was over inter-state crimes.
Chapter 6 considers the collapse
of the Commission system with the coming to power of Hitler and the eventual
Anschluss that gave the nazified German police the opportunity to take over
leadership of the Vienna-based organization. (The Nazification of politics
under ”Proposition 3” is discussed in Chapter 7). Once again,
the Americans joined the organization after the political change occurred
indicating this time that professional-bureaucratic consideration may prevail
against a political one – at
least for a short while. Deflem offers an interesting description of the mutual
understanding the police organizations had of each other in the two respective
countries.
The historical survey ends
with the reconstruction of the original system,”on the same basis as
before,” beginning in 1946. Once again, this was a police chief’s
initiative, and much like after World War One, it was left to politically
less compromised policemen. Nevertheless, many former Nazi collaborators continued
as professionals in the national and international organizations, resulting
in major political scandals. Moreover, even the police officers of member
states that became communist continued membership, asking to extradite refugees.
(For this reason, Hoover discontinued membership).
In the concluding chapter
Deflem reconsiders his original neo-Weberian theory as refined in view that
the police function is relatively autonomous from the state, and it might
be dominated by political forces (the theory of relative autonomy). In view
of his presentation of the facts, it is not surprising that he finds his assumptions
confirmed—institutions have their own dynamics, and these will determine,
under favorable circumstances, the formation of international cooperation
that will reinforce and reshape the national institution.
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Copyright 2003 by the author, András Saj