Overview

This book offers a comprehensive study on the dynamics of policing under contexts of political regime transformation in the interplay between democratization and de-democratization through a cross-case comparative analysis among Venezuela, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine. The central concern lies in working out the intertwining between politics and policing by examining the development trajectories of democratic police reforms under scenarios of democratic stagnation, backsliding and autocratic consolidation. In particular, this book analyzes those changes experienced by the police as an institution, their powers and the practices for policing society in the framework of the endeavors for politicization, militarization and informalization of policing. This analysis is addressed from a macro-level actor-based approach, which accounts for the decisive role of ruling political actors and senior police managers as critical players who influence the decisions and patterns of political regime transformation and policing. Therefore, this book offers a groundbreaking study of the interrelationship among contemporary processes of de-democratization and police counter-reform from an actor-based perspective.