The origins of policing institutions

Legacies of colonial insurgency

Bibliographic Data

ID3918136
AuthorsKristine Eck (0000-0002-4998-7964, Uppsala University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume55
Issue2
Pages147-160
Publication date2018-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Peace Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3433 • E-ISSN: 1460-3578
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0022343317747955
OpenAlexW2786542968
LanguageEN
Citations received22
References cited56

This article examines the impact of colonial-era armed conflict on contemporary institutions. It argues that when British colonial administrators were faced with armed insurrection they responded with institutional reform of the police, and that the legacy of these reforms lives on today. Violent opposition prompted the British colonial administration to expand entrance opportunities for local inhabitants in order to collect intelligence needed to prosecute a counterinsurgency campaign. This investment in human capital and institutional reform remained when the colonial power departed; as a result, countries which experienced colonial-era conflict have more efficient policing structures today. I demonstrate how this worked in practice during the Malayan Emergency, 1948-60. Archival data from Malaysia show that local inhabitants were recruited into the police force in greater numbers and were provided with training which they would not have received had there been no insurgency. This process was consolidated and reproduced upon independence in path-dependent ways. To expand the empirical domain, I statistically explore new archival data collected from the UK National Archives on police financing across colonial territories. The results show that armed insurgency during the colonial era is associated with higher percentages of police expenditure during the colonial era and higher perceived levels of contemporary policing capacity

Colonialism · Criminology · Insurgency · Opposition (politics) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Asian Studies and History · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Public Administration

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