Police assistance as foreign policy: Explaining donor practices

Abstract

AbstractPolice assistance is an important, albeit understudied aspect of foreign policy. While many scholars have studied international and transnational policing, it remains largely unknown why donor police forces often support their colleagues in fragile states in different ways. This article discusses a variety of potential explanations of police assistance: a domestic rational actor model; a constructivist focus on international norms; and theories on the use of force by democracies. While all of these explanations are relevant, this article shows that they remain incomplete without studying police organisations and how these implement assistance on the ground. As the organisational cultures of donor police agencies differ, so do their assistance practices. The case of German and Italian police assistance in Afghanistan illustrates the relevance of an organisational approach: despite operating in the same environment, German police officers promoted civilian and Italian Carabinieri militarised policing. The article stresses that explaining security assistance, an important form of indirect intervention in fragile states, requires zooming in on policy implementation and policy implementers.