Locating the local police in Iraq’s security arena: community policing, the ‘three Ps’ and trust in Ninawa province

Watkins, Jessica, al-Jerba, Abdulkareem and al-Delaimi, Mahdi (2022) Locating the local police in Iraq’s security arena: community policing, the ‘three Ps’ and trust in Ninawa province. Third World Quarterly. ISSN 0143-6597

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Abstract

Post-2003, the Iraqi Police Service (IPS) has undergone a series of overhauls that have prioritised building institutional capacities (‘statebuilding’) above socio-political cohesion (‘nation-building’). Following the defeat of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), however, a community policing initiative premised on improving state–society relations has gained momentum. But while community policing is conceived in the Global North as a trust-building mechanism, how do Iraqi stakeholders locally perceive it, when the legacy of regime change has been to entrench a highly militarised police force beholden to patronage networks and heavily outnumbered by other security and justice providers? This paper considers policing in two diverse districts in Ninawa province: a rundown Sunni tribal neighbourhood in Mosul, and a predominantly Christian town in a multi-ethnic district. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 37 figures representing a spectrum of local interests, we explore how Iraqis understand three commonly touted characteristics of community policing: police–public partnerships; problem-solving; and preventing crime. Our findings suggest that while police conduct does impact how stakeholders view them, public trust in the police is at least as much a function of who the police are as of what they actually do, underscoring that police professionalism cannot substitute for political legitimacy more broadly.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/ctwq20
Additional Information:	© 2022 The Authors
Divisions:	International Relations
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
Date Deposited:	04 Oct 2022 07:21
Last Modified:	08 Apr 2024 03:18
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/116890

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