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Bureaucratization and Social Control: Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Mathieu Deflem
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Abstract

I employ a theoretical framework developed on the basis of the writings of Max Weber to analyze historical developments in the formation of international police organizations. I rely on a comparative analysis of selected cases of international police networks and centrally focus on the most famous and enduring of such structures, the International Criminal Police Commission, the forerunner of the organization since 1956 known as “Interpol.” Using a Weberian perspective of bureaucratization, I maintain that the formation of international police organizations was historically made possible when public police institutions were sufficiently detached from the political centers of their respective states to function autonomously as expert bureaucracies. Under such circumstances of institutional autonomy, police bureaucracies fostered practices of collaboration across the borders of their respective national jurisdictions because and when they were motivated by a professionally defined interest in the fight against international crime. In conclusion to this analysis, I argue for the value of sociological perspectives of social control that are not reductionist, but that instead bring out the specific socially and sociologically significant dimensions of control mechanisms.

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Articles
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Law & Society Review , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , 2000 , pp. 739 - 778
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

I am grateful to Gary Marx, Fred Pampel, Kirk Williams, Jessica Kelley-Moore, Kevin Dougherty, and Richard Featherstone for their helpful comments. An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Chicago, 1999. This article draws from selected chapters of my doctoral dissertation (Deflem 1996a), from which I am currently finalizing a book manuscript. All translations are mine. Research was supported by a doctoral dissertation grant from the National Science Foundation (#SBR-9411478). Opinions and statements do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

Mathieu Deflem is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Purdue University. His research areas include the sociology of law and social control, criminology, sociological theory, and comparative-historical sociology. Recently published work deals with comparative criminal justice, abortion, discourse theory, and democracy and justice. He conducts a website campaign, “Free Education Now!,” against commercial lecture notes companies. He is editor of Habermas, Modernity, and Law.

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