1st Edition
Colonial Policing and the Transnational Legacy The Global Dynamics of Policing Across the Lusophone Community
This compilation represents the first study to examine the historical evolution and shifting global dynamics of policing across the Lusophone community. With contributions from a multi-disciplinary range of experts, it traces the role of policing within and across settings that are connected by the shared legacy of Portuguese colonialism. Previously neglected within studies of the globalisation of policing, the Lusophone experience brings novel insights to established analyses of colonial, post-colonial and transnational policing. This compilation draws research attention to the policing peculiarities of the Lusophone community. It proposes new cultural settings within which to test dominant theories of policing research. It uncovers an important piece of the jigsaw that is policing across the globe. Key research questions that it addresses include:
• What were the patterns of policing, and policing transfers, across Portuguese colonial settings?
• How did Portugal’s dual status as both fascist regime and imperial power shape its late colonial policing?
• What have been the different experiences of post-colonial and transitional policing across the former Portuguese colonies?
• In what ways are Lusophone nations contributing to, and indeed shaping, patterns of transnational policing?
• What comparative lessons can be drawn from the Lusophone policing experience?
Introduction: Policing and the Lusophone Community Across Time and Space
Conor O’Reilly (University of Leeds)
PART ONE: THE COLONIAL POLICING MISSION
1. Colonial Policing and the Portuguese Empire (c.1870-1961)
Gonçalo Rocha Gonçalves (University Institute of Lisbon) and Rita Ávila Cachado (University Institute of Lisbon)
2. The Military and the (Colonial) Policing of Mainland Portugal (1850–1910)
Diego Palacios Cerezales (University of Stirling)
3. Militarism in the São Paulo Police Force (1868-1924)
André Rosemberg (Universidade Estadual Paulista ‘Júlio de Mesquita Filho’)
Comment: The Portuguese Colonial Policing Mission in Comparative Perspective
Richard S. Hill (Victoria University of Wellington)
PART TWO: POLICING AT THE END OF EMPIRE
4. PIDE’s Racial Strategy in Angola (1957-1961)
Fernando Tavares Pimenta (New University of Lisbon)
5. Knowing ‘Mozambican Islam’: The Confidential Questionnaire on Islam and Colonial Governance during the Liberation War
Sandra Araújo (New University of Lisbon)
6. Intelligence-centric Counterinsurgency as Late Colonial Policing: Comparing Portugal with Britain and France
Bruno Cardoso Reis (University of Lisbon)
Comment: Reflections on Portuguese Late Colonial Policing
Martin Thomas (University of Exeter)
PART THREE: POSTCOLONIAL, TRANSITIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL POLICING DYNAMICS
7. Post-War Police Reform in Mozambique: The Case of Community Policing
Helene Maria Kyed (Danish Institute for International Studies)
8. Transformation of Macau Policing: From a Portuguese Colony to China’s SAR
Lawrence K.K. Ho (The Hong Kong Institute of Education) and Agnes I.F. Lam (University of Macau)
9. Faint Echoes of Portugal but Strong Accents of Indonesia: Hidden Influences on Police Development in Timor-Leste
Gordon Peake (Australian National University)
10. Branding Rio de Janeiro’s Pacification Model: A Silver Bullet for the ‘Planet of Slums’?
Conor O’Reilly (University of Leeds)
Comment: "Never Mind the Similarities, Focus on the Differences": Imposition, Imitation and Intransigence in Post-colonial Global Policing Reform
Andrew Goldsmith (Flinders University)
Biography
Conor O’Reilly is Associate Professor in Transnational Crime and Security at the School of Law, University of Leeds. His research interests focus upon the transnational dynamics of crime, policing and security. He has published widely on these and related research themes in leading journals, including: British Journal of Criminology; Crime, Law and Social Change; International Political Sociology; Police Quarterly; and Theoretical Criminology. He is also author of the forthcoming monograph, Policing Global Risks: The Transnational Security Consultancy Industry. He has worked on a range of international research projects, including the COPP-LAB project on Lusophone policing, and is currently leading a three-year project on kidnapping in Mexico.
This innovative compilation focuses upon policing across the Portuguese Empire and subsequent Lusophone contexts. It underlines how modernity has been marked by policing skills and practices that were forged in earlier processes of colonialism. The lethal violence perpetrated by police units also cannot be reduced to Stoler's 'Imperial Debris' but must also be framed within trends of police professionalisation. The collection also includes fascinating narratives of 'militarized humanitarianism' that help us to both understand and interpret current states of emergency.
Emmanuel Blanchard, University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France
Until now, the field of Police Studies has not had a definitive account of the Portuguese colonial empire and its effects on the global dynamics of policing. This book is an excellent example of critical interdisciplinary scholarship that casts new and welcome light on to European colonialism and colonial policing.
James Sheptycki, McLaughlin College, York University, Toronto, Canada
`O’Reilly has carefully and considerately put together a collection of ten substantive essays and three expert commentaries that provide an engaging narrative structure, with a natural and coherent flow from concept to concept…O’Reilly’s insightful use of poignant and well-crafted interstitial expert commentary helps to solidify the already strong narrative structure, refreshingly elevating the cohesion of this collection of essays to a level rarely seen. Given the relative infancy of the field of police studies in general, it is hardly surprising that colonial policing—let alone that of the Lusosphere—has largely escaped scholarly scrutiny. Yet, that is precisely what makes Colonial Policing and the Transnational Legacy such an interesting volume, as it provides a nuanced, distinctive and deeply informative view of policing beyond the Anglosphere that is bound to expand the field of policing studies, and is one that should be read by every serious policing scholar.’
British Journal of Criminology, March 2018
‘Traces of the past are found in the present, in the continued (re)construction of identities and in practices built around them. Explorations of these legacies offered in O’Reilly’s edited collection provide valuable insights into not only colonial policing and its development over time in Lusophone communities, but of its relevance to policing today.’
Criminology & Criminal Justice, January 2019.
‘The book is an excellent and much needed addition to the emerging body of scholarship on the global entanglements of contemporary policing, with their deep roots in the histories of colonialism and empire. In focusing on the often neglected imperial power structures—and their afterlife— shaping policing in the Lusophone community, the contributors offer rich case studies and demonstrate the necessity and benefits of a multi-disciplinary and mixed methodological approach for uncovering colonial policing’s transnational legacy.’
Policing & Society, August 2019.
‘…as a researcher whose own knowledge of colonial and transnational policing is largely derived from the Anglophone tradition, I found the volume eye-opening. It will undoubtedly appeal to scholars and students with an interest in both historical and comparative aspects of policing along with critical scholars in search of different ways of thinking about how coercive power is manifested between the metropole and its peripheries.’
Theoretical Criminology, October 2019.
‘this edited volume as a whole is an example to be followed when it comes to convincingly grounding global dynamics of policing in specific histories, politics, and places. On account of the fine-grained and empirically rich contributions that compose it, this book should be of great interest to scholars and practitioners working on its key themes or interested in following the many pathways it opens for further research on Lusophone colonial and post-colonial policing.’
Policing – A Journal of Policy and Practice, Volume 15, Issue 1, March 2021.
