The state, policing and “Old Continental Europe”: managing the local/national tension

Abstract

This article deals with the reshuffling of policing within the strong states of Continental Europe. It is argued that scholars should take social history into account because it shows that the problematic tension in security matters in Continental Europe is not public/ private, which the public sector has become able to deal with fairly well over the long term, but local/national—a central tension in the history of the formation of the countries of Continental Europe characterized by a fairly strong state tradition. Use of the “governance” vulgate, or of a concept like “multilateralization, should be resisted, and it is contended that the local/national tension determines the public/private tension. Moreover, the constitution of what should be termed “risk management bureaucracies” at the local level in large European cities underscores an astonishing comeback of the local level in the measurement and management of urban risks. It is as if the infra‐national level intended to regain the role of interface it once played by acting as a mediator between a private sector that sells and manages surveillance and protection technologies, and a public sector that is content with regulating at a distance the activities of private actors within a newly controlled logic of security co‐production.