Jean Hartley and Jane Roberts

All public service senior leadership roles are inherently political, in the sense of having to deal with both the formal institutions and agents of the state, as well as the contested nature of many public service issues. Within that context, policing is notably political as is indicated by the prominence of policing “stories” in daily news and in public debates. Policing is inherently political (Bowling, Reiner and Sheptycki, 2019).

However, in the UK at least and in other Westminster political systems, there has been relatively little research into the dynamics of how senior police work alongside, elected politicians and how they develop their roles and relationships. Senior police work with a wide range of elected (and appointed politicians) who may work in national or local political roles or in police oversight roles such as the Police and Crime Commissioner for each geographical force in England and Wales.

An earlier literature review (Roberts and Hartley, 2021) showed that there is a considerable literature about the legal and governance frameworks of chief constables working with police and crime commissioners but that there is relatively little about how each understands their roles or how they navigate their roles vis-à-vis each other. Consequently, the empirical part of the research investigated three questions: First, how do senior police officers and staff understand the roles of elected politicians? Second, how do senior police officers interact with elected politicians? Third, what skills do police officers use to navigate their relationships with politicians. The research also explored how police acquired their skills but that is not covered in this paper.

The method used was 22 semi-structured interviews, of which 11 were with chief constables and also separately with their counterpart police and crime commissioner, (so the pair were responsible for a particular geographical area of policing). The researchers also carried out four hours of workshops with 11 aspiring senior leaders (superintendents and chief superintendents). All interviews and workshops were carried out online due to Covid restrictions in place at the time. All interviews were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed.

The paper will analyse the dynamics of senior officers through several themes: context and formal governance; roles including how they are understood and negotiated; relationships between the political and the operational leader; and skills and behaviours. The themes are reflected on through the literature on the politics administration dichotomy, its limitations and developments.

Scholars have already shown the structured relationship that politics has with policing (Reiner, 2010). Similarly, the literature has highlighted the selectivity of police activity that leads to disproportionate deaths and harm among certain groups, especially Blacks (Alexander, 2010). The practices of repression and police violence go beyond overt aggression and also manifest in areas related to mental health, housing, and public space, especially with the strengthening of the neoliberal state (Camp & Heatherton, 2016). This process serves the control and discipline of specific groups by the neoliberal state (Wacquant, 2009; Soss et al., 2011). In urban contexts, it materializes as state violence in certain race-class subjugated (RCS) communities (Soss & Weaver, 2016). This dynamic reinforces an imaginary of inferiority and dangerousness of these groups, further exacerbating harm to RCS individuals.

Although the increasingly repressive and violent behavior of the police towards certain groups is a consequence of the neoliberal state model, politics plays a central role in determining how the institutional strengthening of police bureaucracies occurs and how their political use is operationalized in governmental agendas. The increase in the number of policemen running for and holding elective office, along with the establishment of a political agenda for the security forces, highlights the empirical and theoretical importance of the intersection between politics and the police. Some studies have focused on understanding the impact of democratic backsliding on police agendas, including government systems that do not directly control the police (Lotta & Bueno, 2023). However, there is still a lack of understanding that concretely connects the neoliberal political agenda of top-level governments to the everyday practices of police officers interacting with RCS groups. Specifically, how this neoliberal agenda for and by the police materializes in the implementation chain, involving different bureaucracies, and how it impacts the interaction between police officers and RCS groups.

To address this gap, I conducted a study in a territory widely recognized as an RCS community, Crackland, located in downtown São Paulo, Brazil. It is known for having the largest urban drug use scene in the country, where hundreds of homeless individuals, who are heavy crack users, reside and interact with various street-level bureaucracies, including different security forces. Data was collected through an eight-month ethnographic research, involving 89 structured interviews aimed at understanding the perceptions of these homeless individuals regarding the bureaucracies operating in this territory. The research was conducted during a period of democratic backsliding under Jair Bolsonaro's government, also capturing a time when the police played a prominent role in shaping public policies implemented in the region.

This article intends to contribute to the policing literature by examining how the intersection of political interests materializes in the performance of police corporations within a context of democratic regression and how these political interests impact police activity, particularly in their interactions with RCS groups.

In the context of the Russian war on Ukrainian, nations sharing a border with Russia found themselves confronted by security challenges. Furthermore, the inviolability of their citizens sense of security was gravely tested. While the sense of security among citizens is a multidimensional phenomenon, it remains intricately intertwined with two variables: (1) citizen participation, which refers to active participation in shaping public decisions, and (2) an attitude toward the future that includes an overall sense of optimism and positivity [1].

The aim was to assess the consequences of the evolving security landscape, catalysed by the Russian military aggression on Ukraine, on the sense of security and attitude towards the future among the Baltic nations' citizens. Additionally, the study sought to examine the influence of citizen participation on these attitudes as well as an impact of sociodemographic characteristics. A noteworthy aspect of this study is its time perspective, as it was conducted across distinct periods – pre-Russian-Ukraine war and as it continues.

Biennial study is conducted: (1) The first stage of this study was conducted in 2021 in November, i.e. 4 months before the beginning of Russian aggression against Ukraine. A random survey of 3175 citizens was conducted in three Baltic countries: Estonia (1002), Latvia (1017) and Lithuania (1006). (2) The second stage of this study was conducted in 2022 September, i.e. 6 months after the beginning of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. A random survey of 2,026 citizens was conducted in two Baltic countries: Estonia (1,002) and Lithuania (1,024). Since the results obtained in Lithuania and Latvia during the first study were relatively similar, the second stage of the study was conducted only in Lithuania and Estonia.

Considering that the three Baltic countries are similar in their socio-demographic, economic and political models, not only each country was analyzed separately, but also the entire Baltic region. The Baltic countries are going through the same crises as other countries, a global pandemic in 2020, Russian aggression towards Ukraine in 2022. The latter event affects the Baltic countries more sensitively than other countries; therefore, the study examines the sense of security of the citizens and the attitude towards the future that changes over time in the three Baltic countries. Correlations between citizen participation, sense of security and attitudes toward the future were found to vary across countries, regardless of the nature of the crisis and the geographical proximity of the countries in question. There are exceptions that relate to citizens' sense of security, and in some aspects considerable changes are seen when measured before and during Russian aggression.

Comprehensive security refers to a cross-sectoral, cross-actor collaboration between state (e.g., state leadership, national defence, police, rescue services, health and social care, infrastructure) and non-state actors (e.g., citizen organizations, businesses, the citizens) in securing essential societal functions. It has been the foundation of preparedness thinking in Finland.

However, the guiding principle of the Finnish system is that each public authority is responsible for preparing for crisis situations and coordinating preparedness actions within their respective jurisdictions. This, along with the division of the Finnish central government into 11 sectoral ministries and the Prime Minister's Office, poses a challenge to the country's preparedness for cross-sectoral threats and provides fertile ground for turf wars and ambiguity in safety and security policy responsibilities. In recent years, in addition to military defence and general preparedness, the concept of civil preparedness has also entered the national discourse, in part due to the administrative division. The concept may be interpreted as emphasizing the role of non-military functions in contingencies – something that is undeniably evident in modern hybrid threats and in the aftermath of COVID-19 – while also making a clear distinction between the roles of civilian and military actors in preparedness. As such, it emphasises the difference between military preparedness and the preparedness of both state and non-state civilian actors and citizens.

The aim of this research is to examine why such a military-civilian division in the preparedness discourse has arisen, along with its possible implications for the governance of safety and security. The research is based on interviews of Finnish civil servants and citizen actors, along with a survey directed at experts in preparedness and security.