The idea that the fundamental job of the police is to deal with community problems is:

Publications in the international field of police science frequently make reference to the work of the classical sociologists Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, published about a century ago. The work of these two scholars is often associated with two issues that are fundamental to an understanding of the modern police. Weber is often cited in reference to the coercive powers of the police. Durkheim is mainly associated with the symbolic meaning of the police. For instance, Jackson and Sunshine (2007) recently used a so-called neo-Durkheimian perspective in their study of public confidence in the police.

Although often referred to, the meaning and relevance of the work of these two scholars to the study of the police is rarely dealt with in detail or made explicit. Actually, it is often quite unclear what their work may mean for the contemporary study of the police. If these two classical intellectual giants are cited, or even quoted, it often seems to be only more or less casually and somewhat ritualistically.

Given the reputations of Weber and Durkheim in the field of police studies, it may come to some as a surprise that both actually wrote hardly anything about the police. The relevance of these two classical scholars to police studies is not so much a result of what they themselves wrote about this issue, but rather because of the perspective that each of them created. These perspectives remain useful for the analysis of core issues relevant to the police, even if – as is often assumed – there has been a fundamental change in the development of policing and law enforcement during the past two decades, such as the pluralisation and multilateralisation of policing (Bayley and Shearing, 1996, Bayley and Shearing, 2001) or the rise of a so-called nodal governance of security (Johnston and Shearing, 2003, Wood and Shearing, 2007). In the perspectives of both Weber and Durkheim the police are treated primarily as a representative or as a core element of the state. Despite the pluralisation of policing, the state remains more than ‘just one node among many’ (Crawford, 2003, Crawford, 2006, Loader and Walker, 2007). However, the rise of other forms of policing, such as private and commercial security, of administrative approaches to criminal problems and of citizen initiatives certainly makes the position of the state and the public police force much more complex and less clear. This calls for more reflection and critical analysis of the position of the police and the state. The present paper is based on the assumption that the classical approaches of Weber and Durkheim may be helpful here.

What I want to show is that in the study of the police the work of both Weber and Durkheim, especially with regard to the role of the state, deserves more than just some ritualistic invocation. I try to do this by setting out the relevance of the perspectives of Weber and Durkheim to the study of the police. Each of these perspectives provides a theory about the police, in both an explanatory and a normative sense (viz., how can we explain the role of the police and what role should the police have in a democratic society?). These two theories differ in that each of them concentrates on one of the two core elements that are central to an understanding of the modern police, i.e., their coercive powers and symbolic function (Bayley, 1994: 34; Manning, 1977, Muir, 1977, Reiner, 1997, Loader and Mulcahy, 2003, Wright, 2002).

I deal first with the work of Egon Bittner, who used a Weber-like perspective. I then pass to the perspective that Weber himself left for the study of the police. This perspective, although it highlights important elements of the modern police, leaves certain questions open that are central to the perspective developed by Durkheim, which I deal with thereafter. Finally, I attempt to illustrate the relevance of and differences between these two perspectives by applying them to the analysis of the legitimacy of the police. In my concluding remarks I deal briefly with the relevance of the relation between the two perspectives to an understanding of certain important contemporary developments with regard to the police.

Max Weber: the police as the coercive arm of the state

The best way to explore Max Weber’s relevance to the analysis of the police is by first looking at Egon Bittner’s theory on the police. This may appear to be a roundabout theoretical route, since Bittner himself stated that originally his theory was not influenced by Weber. Nevertheless, there are important resemblances between the work of Bittner and Weber (Brodeur, 2003, Brodeur, 2007).

According to Bittner (1970: 132) the police must undertake numerous, very heterogeneous tasks, which raises

State, police and morality: Emile Durkheim’s perspective

The limitations present in the views of Weber and Bittner on the role of the state and, by extension, the police (no matter how important these views certainly are), may be clarified by comparing them with the views of another classical sociologist, Emile Durkheim, a contemporary of Weber. While Weber, with his emphasis on the monopoly of violence, had a much more negative view of the state, Durkheim presented a more positive one, according to which the state represents important moral values

Legitimacy of the police: two dimensions

The differences between the Durkheimian and Weberian perspectives on the police can be illustrated by the different consequences they have for the interpretation of the concept of police legitimacy. As has often been noted before, the concept of police legitimacy is a central issue in police studies, not only because in many countries for the last few decades it has become increasingly difficult for the police to maintain or restore their legitimacy, but also because legitimacy is a complex,

Conclusion

The Weberian and Durkheimian approaches represent two different perspectives on the police. Each of these perspectives focuses on a different core element of the police: the capacity to use force and the moral-symbolic function that the police have. These perspectives differ not only in an analytical-explanatory sense, but also in a normative one.

An important question, of course, is how these two perspectives relate. In other words, what is the relation between the police’s ability to use force

Jan Terpstra is professor of criminology at the University of Nijmegen, faculty of law, the Netherlands. Recent publications dealt with the police, public safety, local security networks, citizen participation and community policing.

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