Our approach to COP
Research in the ICT4COP project identified three key elements of promising COP practices that refine prior conceptions of COP. These elements are:
1. Reciprocal Partnerships
COP initiatives must encourage different types of actors – including both police and local communities – to work together in reciprocal partnerships.
Reciprocal partnerships between the police and local communities are necessary for the promotion on mutual trust, legitimacy and accountability.
The UNPOL definition of COP includes "encouraging the public to act as partners with the police…". This definition is one-directional, as it encourages the public to act as partners with the police, but not the other way around. The lack of cooperation from the side of the police may be an obstacle to meaningful partnerships between the police and local communities.Instead, the ICT4COP project encourages the development of two-directional partnerships, where various actors – from the police as from civil society at local levels – work together in reciprocal relationships to prevent and manage any incidents of insecurity at local levels.
To act in a reciprocal partnership implies moving beyond the instrumental view of partnership (i.e. as a means of accomplishing something specific, like a police objective) into genuine partnerships. In addition to a reciprocal obligation, genuine partnerships are typically associated with long-term commitment, joint agenda setting (i.e. identification of problems and their solutions), mutual responsibilities and trust. While instrumental partnerships often promote the status quo, genuine partnerships have the potential to be transformative.
The UNPOL definition is not alone in conceptualizing a one-dimensional type of partnership. There is a tendency across sectors and scales toward top-down partnerships – with the leading agency controlling the finances and the terms, including inviting other partners into the partnership. This is so whether it be between international and local organizations or between police and communities. Partnerships currently exist on a highly uneven playing field, where power imbalances between those involved complicate the relationship.
Recognizing power relations is sometimes difficult as they can be exercised in different ways. Acknowledging and identifying power relations between police and communities is nevertheless critical in order to ensure that relations are reciprocal and build trust.
- Lukes’ (2005) three faces of power
1. Decision-making power – refers to power that largely is expressed through political action. This is a public expression of power.
2. Non-decision-making power – refers to agenda-setting power etc. that contributes to shaping what are the legitimate and non-legitimate solutions to a problem.
3. Ideological power – refers to power that shapes our thoughts and ideas about what is desirable and appropriate (sometimes even against one’s own self-interest). This type of power the subjective – or “real” – interests of those excluded from the political process/the decision-making.
In addition, local actors may face several barriers to engaging in partnerships. Such barriers may include those related to time, resources and language, and be both formal (e.g. formulated as requirements for participation) or informal (simply limiting effective participation). Facilitating partnerships that allow for free and equal exchange of ideas and agendas requires engagement with informal networks, social institutions and initiatives at local level – initiatives that play a crucial role in local peoples’ daily life. Police interested in forming reciprocal partnerships would need to demonstrate willingness and ability to relate to structures, norms, values and realities “unfamiliar” to outsiders – including the police.
- Lukes’ (2005) three faces of power
2. Human Security
The COP mandate must be broadened beyond physical security to address a multitude of insecurities through the adoption of a human security perspective.
A human security perspective will ensure the incorporation of local communities’ broader (in)security concerns and safety needs into COP strategies and practices. It also promotes collaboration across sectors.
The Human Development Report of 1994 defined human security as both freedom from fear and freedom from want (in 2003 the definition of human security was expanded to include freedom to live in dignity). The threats to human security are many, but most can be considered under the seven security areas identified:- Economic security
- Food security
- Health security
- Environmental security
- Personal security
- Community security
- Political security
Human security has four essential characteristics:
- Human security is people-centred: it is concerned with how people live their lives, exercise choices and rights, access markets and social opportunities etc.
- The components of human security are interdependent: insecurities in one sector can overlap or be linked to another sector – people often face multiple or related threats
- Addressing human security is preventative: it is easier – and less costly – to address insecurities through early prevention than later intervention.
- Human security is a universal concern: it is relevant to people everywhere and can cross borders; it relates to security threats that are common to all people, including unemployment, drugs, crime, pollution, human rights violations.
In addition to broadening the scope of security and insecurity, a focus on human security:
- Affects how we think about post-conflict areas, specifically on the importance of context and how conflict and reform processes are conditioned and affected by history, society, politics, experiences and embedded practices.
- Allows us to look not only at people’s vulnerabilities and issues of protection, but to the potential for human agency, and how various groups can take collective action to improve their situation through state and non-state institutions.
- Prompts us to recognize the diversity of security and justice providers that operate at local levels, and that actors beyond conventional security providers (e.g. state police, military, etc.) must be considered.
- Requires us to analyse power and power relations, and how they influence how reform is implemented and practiced. For example, we can consider the unequal power dynamic between the international actors of reform (military and police advisors) and local post-conflict governments. Do these groups have different conceptions of security and insecurity? Whose views are taken into greater account when designing police reform? Mapping these power relations can help us to better understand insecurities and vulnerabilities in society, and to be aware of potential shortcomings in reform design. This article offers a conceptual map for the analysis of power across context through police reform interventions in post-conflict societies.
3. Context sensitivity
COP should be based on an in-depth understanding of the local context. This includes how the history of state formation and conflicts have shaped state-citizen relationships, and with that the relationships between local communities and police.
A context-sensitive approach will allow for locally driven initiatives and participation to shape COP strategies and activities, and thus also promote local ownership
Too often, international assistance to post-conflict police reform fails to acknowledge local contexts with their specific dynamics, challenges, and police-community relations. Instead, reform processes tend to be top-down, operate with a narrow sense of security, and apply a blueprint approach. Attempts to promote COP also fall into these pitfalls, directly contradicting the COP’s original emphasis on local needs and ownership. COP initiatives stand little chance of succeeding if they are not based on an in-depth understanding of the broader local security context, including the often-different needs and priorities of various actors at local levels.As someone involved in implementing COP in post-conflict settings, you should identify and critically examine your own – as well as your agency’s – assumptions about the context where you work, including the nature of local community-police relations. This type of reflection will assist in the promotion of a context-sensitive approach to police reform. You may begin by asking yourself:
- What kind of assumptions do you, and the agency you represent, have of the context in which you work/are about to start working? Assumptions are shaped by what is presumed to be universal values and rationality, and they may by based on a “one size fits all” thinking that “what works is one environment (i.e. the West), works everywhere”. Try identifying your assumptions and then challenge them. Then, move to the next question.
- What is particular to the local context in which you work or are about to start working? What specific political, historical, legal, economic, social, technological, environmental, gender and socio-demographic aspects characterize this environment? What is different from the context you are used to? And what kind of implications may this have for how COP is and may be practiced?
Recruit Into Danger (Afghanistan)
“What I took away from this is how important it is to listen and learn from local actors who know the situation, and to support their solutions, rather than imposing an external agenda”
A. Heather Coyne – having her assumptions challenged when tasked by NATO to support the recruitment of women to the Afghan police. Learn more about her experiences from this Digital Story.A context-sensitive approach requires understanding and diagnosing local conditions and variations across the society in question. Instead of using “blueprints”, specific policies and practices should be based on local needs and concerns, should (where possible) build upon legitimate local activities and procedures (including those of legitimate security providers), and should take into account all groups of society, paying special attention to marginalized groups and minorities. While you can go a long way in understanding the context yourself, this does not replace the need to work closely with local actors in designing initiatives. It does, however, allow you to better understand different actors’ priorities and strategies as they design their version of COP.
To illustrate this, take a moment to reflect on two common assumptions:
1. Local communities have a self-interest in peace.
2. The state police have a given legitimacy – a right – to create order in society.
The first assumption overlooks the fact that conflict can be essential to transformation; for certain sectors of the population, a focus on peace may stand in the way of progress. This has especially been true for minority groups that have a history of being discriminated against by, and/or have been in conflict with the central state. You can read more about vulnerable groups here.
The second assumption overlooks the reality that the police may experience low levels of trust, legitimacy, and acceptance at local levels – this is particularly true for societies emerging from conflict during which local populations experienced abuse at the hands of police. In these instances, other actors and informal security providers may be considered more legitimate than the state police.
Read more about the diversity actors of local security providers:
While much of the focus of these e-handbooks is on internationally assisted police reforms and recent COP initiatives, it is important to acknowledge the many already existing COP-like arrangements at local levels around the world. While some of these have been in place for generations, others were imposed externally but then adjusted to local circumstances over time. Some of these initiatives work very well and represent good alternatives to dysfunctional state programs, while others do not. Read about the various actors involved in security provision.
Based on the above, the ICT4COP project proposes a slight revision of the UNPOL definition:
“COP is a strategy to enhance human security by encouraging the police and the public to act as partners in preventing and managing crime based on the needs of the community. In order for this strategy to work, ties of confidence and trust between the police and community are essential”.
UNPOL
In this Digital Story we summarize our approach to COP.