The Role of Civilian Police in Peacekeeping

Despite the extensive amount of literature that has examined the role of the military in peacekeeping and intervention operations, there is little literature or information available that investigates the role and the work of the civilian police, or the methods they use to assist in the reformation of local police. While the inclusion of police in peacekeeping missions is an accepted mantra by both academia and practitioners, the role of police in peacekeeping missions is not well understood by policy and decision makers. Civilian police were first deployed by the United Nations more than 50 years ago. After a lull of approximately two decades, the number of civilian police on peacekeeping operations increased from 1,677 officers in 1994 to more than 10,000 officers in 2009. The role of civilian police has continued to broaden from one of monitoring general elections and providing training and basic security to one of patrolling and developing local police capacity. Police reform is acknowledged as a crucial element when establishing a sense of security and when developing a post-conflict nation. While the principles and practices of capacity development can be applied in most development assistance programs, there are some additional challenges to developing or rebuilding police capacity in weak, post-conflict or failed countries. The major governance problem experienced in peacekeeping missions is the use of Western democratic policing models, ideologies, and technologies by international policing deployments. When using Western democratic policing models, members of international police usually fail to take into account the local context and culture. Using Western forms of policing raises a number of theoretical and practical questions about imposing such models on post-conflict nations. The imposition of Western models also raises questions about (a) the changing role of the nation-state (Garland, 1996), (b) the governance of intervention or reform policing, and (c) the growing use of the police as modes and models of social and state governance (Bayley and Shearing, 2001). The purpose of this book is to understand the role that police play in the post-conflict context, especially in regard to reforming local police. Through the examination of 23 United Nations and European Union peacekeeping missions that took place between 1999 and 2007, this study develops responsive operational tools and policies that will support the effective use of deployed police in their delivery of service and in developing the capacity of local police. The analysis of these operational tools and policies lead to the designing of a generic police peacekeeping model for future peacekeeping or reform missions. The police peacekeeping model consists of a number of dynamic components that take account of flexibility and local culture. Included in the model's components are the implementation of a pre-deployment planning phase and the necessity of objectives and evaluation. It is intended that this study will assist in improving peace-building outcomes by increasing post-conflict security, stability, and development.