Policing for Democracy or Democratically Responsive Policing? Examining the limits of Externally Driven Police Reform

This paper engages with literatures on democratic policing in established and emerging democracies
and argues for disaggregating democratic policing into two more precise terms: policing for democracy
and democratically responsive policing. The first term captures the contribution of the police to
securing and maintaining wider democratic forms of government, while the second draws on political
theory to emphasise arrangements for governing police actors based on responsiveness. Applying two
distinct terms helps to highlight limitations to external police assistance. These terms are applied in an
exploratory case study of fifteen years of police reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The paper
highlights early work securing the necessary conditions for political democracy in BiH but argues that
subsequent EU-dominated interventions undermine responsiveness. A recent UNDP project suggests
that external actors can succeed in supporting democratically responsive policing where they do not
have immediate security interests at stake.