Critical Approaches to Global Police Power : Theory, History, Activism

What is the global nature of police power? What are its features and how can they be studied? This landmark multidisciplinary volume looks beyond policing as experienced at the local level, and instead explores the “police idea,” practices, and institutions that have been historically developed through the interaction of capitalist growth, nation-state formation, and imperial encounters. Drawing on a set of uniquely global case studies including that of the UK, China, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, and the US, this volume shows how police power has been formed by, and has likewise formed, capitalism, nationalism, and imperialism by acting as midwife, guardian, or guarantorof the norms and forms of life produced by these vast global processes.