The Police and Politics in India

The Police and Political Change in Comparative Perspective
Author(s): David H. Bayley

Source: Law & Society Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Aug., 1971), pp. 91-112
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Law and Society Association
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THE POLICE AND POLITICAL CHANGE IN

COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
DAVID H. BAYLEY University of Denver

The subject of the police is a neglected issue among political
scientists. The police are rarely viewed from perspectives natural to political science, nor are they studied comparativly among
countries. The few studies that have been done are written
largely from the point of view of public administration; they

tend to be wholly descriptive and to deal largely with matters
of formal organization and management. The neglect of the
police is not unique to political scientists; the record of other
social sciences is hardly better. Even in sociology there has
been surprisingly little. Historical monographs on countries
rarely refer to the police at all; inspection of indexes of basic
histories of most foreign countries will reveal very few references to the police. Unrest in American cities and violence between police and minorities, as well as between police and
students, is beginning to convince the scholarly community that
the police are crucial social actors. The impetus so far for empirical study has come largely from government, in the form
of various national study commissions (President's Commission
on Law Enforcement and Administration of Criminal Justice,
1967; National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1967;

National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence,
1969). The kindling of interest in the police is new; it may be

dated from 1965.
The neglect among political scientists is particularly curious

considering the attention that has been given to other aspects of
rule-enforcement in society. The judicial system, for example,
has long preoccupied many political scientists. Moreover, students of comparative politics have developed perspectives into
which police might fit. Students of comparative political development have lavished considerable time and energy on the
study of bureaucracies, armies, courts, and many kinds of inter-
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Prepared for delivery at the Sixty-sixth

Annual Meeting of The American Political Science Association,
September, 1970. (Copyright, 1970, The American Political Sci-
ence Association.)
92 LAW AND SOCIETY REVIEW/AUGUST 1971
est groups. Yet they have not asked whether the police might
be at least as worthy of study.
The purpose of this essay will be to present some findings

about the relation between police and political change in six
nations representing three continents. The nations studied are
Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, India, and the United
States. The hypotheses presented here are tentative. Some questions will be raised that cannot be answered with the data at
hand. Specific note will be made of information that should
be collected in order to advance more rapidly the study of

the police from a political perspective.
The word police has many usages; it is attached to a wide

variety of agencies and activities in different countries. When
"police" is used in this paper it will refer to the function of

regulating social conduct within a community through the use
of physical force authorized in the name of the community.
This formulation distinguishes the police function from those
of an army, a private person acting in self-defense, or noncoercive agencies of social regulation.
In examining the relation between the police and political

change, two distinct questions may be asked: First, what is
the political context of police development? and, second, what
is the influence of police upon political change? In the one case
police are the dependent variable and one seeks to determine
what factors have shaped them; in the other case political
events are the dependent variables and one seeks to determine
the role the police have played in shaping them. The perspective of each of these questions will be taken up in turn below.
Police in Political Context
The number of dimensions along which police may be
analyzed is manifold. Three have been selected for brief discussion here: (1) structure of the national system; (2) manner
of exercising accountability over the police; and (3) professional
image. These aspects represent three questions which are most
frequently asked about the police of any country: namely, how
are they organized? how are they controlled? and how do they
behave?
Contemporary police systems come in a remarkable variety

of forms, even when only these three dimensions are considered. In some countries there are unified national systems in
which command responsibility is exercised from a single point.
France and Italy have such systems. In other countries-such
Bayley / THE POLICE AND POLITICAL CHANGE 93
as Great Britain-command authority is dispersed and cannot

be exercised by the central government, though regulations
applicable to the whole country ensure uniformity of organization and practice. The United States presents the most extreme
case of decentralization: It has been estimated that there are
about 40,000 separate forces in the country. India and Germany

represent intermediate positions. Police authority there is concentrated in the major sub-national political units; this means
the constituent states of these federal systems. Nations differ
also with respect to whether police agency in any geographical
area is singular or plural. Though Britain has 49 separate forces,
it has only one police force in each jurisdiction. Italy, on the
other hand, has two forces, sometimes three: the Guardia de
Pubblica Sicurezza (P.S.), the Carabinieri, and in some cities
the Vigili Urbani. In France there are two forces - the Surete
Nationale and the Gendarmerie-though coordination has been
assured by firm control through the Ministry of the Interior
and by a division of labor between the two forces. The Surete
has general jurisdiction; the Gendarmerie is used almost exclusively in rural areas or as an armed reserve posted to each
Department. In India and Germany the civil constabulary is
singular, though both have an armed police reserve.' The
United States has a tangle of overlapping police jurisdictions
involving national, state, and local forces.
The variety in modes of control is equally bewildering.

Uniformed command officers in Great Britain are not generally
supervised by a civilian bureaucracy; they are in close touch
with representative political bodies-Watch Committees in
towns and Standing Joint Committees in counties.2 French uniformed command personnel are subordinate to an extensive
bureaucracy; they are not in direct touch with representative
political bodies. Relations in Italy are like those in France.
American and Indian senior command officers are responsible
at most to a single civilian superior, such as a mayor in the
United States or a Collector at district level in India; they are
not far removed from close scrutiny by representative bodies.
In all countries some form of legal responsibility is enjoined.
In India, Great Britain, and the United States it is to the unified
criminal and civil law; in France, Germany, and Italy it is to
administrative law. How closely policemen are held accountable to law is not a function of whether the legal system of a
country is unified or bifurcated. It is a function of the spirit
which infuses the legal system. Administrative courts may exert
stern discipline; courts in unified legal systems may be la

or powerless to take action.
The image of the policeman differs dramatically from
country to country. It also varies considerably within countri

from region to region or social group to social group. Stereotypes exist in each country, and it is fair to contrast them
among nations, but they are not homogeneous anywhere.
In Great Britain the image is one of honesty and trustworthiness. The policeman is often called upon to mediate informally or to give friendly advice. The policeman is not
armed, works by and large individually, and does not emphasize martial qualities. In Germany the policeman is very
military indeed, both in training and bearing. He is viewed as
honest, rigid, and unapproachable. French policemen are distrusted, though admired for their efficiency, which also breeds
a kind of fear. They are thought to be unpredictable and somewhat unscrupulous. Italian policemen are disliked, distrusted,
and avoided. They are seen as being punitive and dishonest.
Thus, along several dimensions, national police systems
display considerable variety. Though the police function is
singular, the way in which it is carried out shows great diversity. These differences require explanation in any attempt to
understand the relation between police systems and political
environment.
Police authority and political power are generally concentrated at the same points in the political system. When there
is a discrepancy between them, pressures are created for bringing the police system into accord with the organization of the
larger political system. In both France and Italy police authority is concentrated at the center; local government is weak and
unorganized. In Great Britain, police power is vested in local
areas, where units of government have been vital for centuries.
In avoiding centralized, bureaucratic absolutism, Great Britain
avoided a centralized police force. It is no accident that Great
Britain predicated its modern police forces on boroughs and

counties, in effect the successors to parishes. It is also no accident that after the rise of an efficient central bureaucracy in
the 19th century, a greater degree of control began to be exercised over the police. Indian political authority is split between center and states, though many observers would argue
that movement since the late 1950s has been in the favor of the
states (Kochanek, 1968). Vesting police authority in the federal

sub-units is an indication of the strength of forces pressing for
regional aggregation of political power in India. The German

tradition divided police power between L.ander and seigneurial
powers of landed aristocrats. The latter were abolished in 1872,
but the central government of the Second Reich was not their
successor. Police authority was collected by the states, a practice that continued through Weimar and the Bonn Republic.
Hitler's unification of police services in 1936 outlived the cataclysm of World War II only in East Germany, where the practice was congruent with Soviet practice at home.
In America the situation is complex and, I would argue,
fluid. There is a vigorous tradition of local government in the
United States. At the same time, the federal government, and
to some extent the states, appear to be growing in power vis-a-
vis local units; so many policy problems seem to require resources or coordination that myriad small units cannot manage.
Police and political power are discrepantly organized in the
United States, with the result that considerable pressure exists
for amalgamation of police jurisdictions and expansions of federal or state police powers. As with Britain in the early 19th
century, however, the weight of hallowed tradition is against
such supercession. Practical needs and custom stand in
opposition.
The manner in which police accountability is assured fits

national political systems. In Anglo-Saxon countries the essence
of government is considered to be legislation, not administration. Great Britain and the United States define police functions narrowly and delegate no ordinance-making power to the
police. The senior command personnel are in close touch with
political leaders. In France and Germany, by contrast, the
essence of governance is considered to be impartial, honest,
efficient, and intelligent administration. Democratic account-
ability in an immediate way would be seen as opening the

floodgates to parochialism and special interests. Police must be
responsive to the mandate to govern, and that is centrally and
bureaucratically articulated in many European countries. In
India a compromise has been reached between Anglo-Saxon

and Continental precedents, though not because the issue was
seen in these terms. Imperial administration imposed an extensive civilian bureaucratic machinery upon India. This system
persists in the center-state-district organization today, presided
over the elite of the Indian Administrative Service. A police
official is accountable both to the I.A.S. chain of command,
operating through the prefect-like Collector in each district,
and also to the police establishment, terminating in the stat

Inspector-General of Police. Both chains of command are
responsible to the state Home Secretary and through him to
the state legislature.
Where police forces, as well as tasks, have grown out of

the needs of governance, the police system tends to be central-
ized and supervised by a civilian bureaucracy. Where police

forces and tasks have grown out of private needs, police systems tend to be decentralized and to have little civilian bureau-
cratic supervision.
The characteristics of contemporary police systems, such as
their structure, manner of control, and image, change very

slowly; they show a striking persistence over time. Events as
supposedly formative as major wars, political revolutions, and
social and economic transformations affect police systems surprisingly little. The British police system emerged in contemporary form during the period from 1829 to 1885.3 Sir Robert
Peel's controversial police experiment involved the creation of
a full-time, paid police force, directed by non-judicial police
executives, organized on the basis of substantial communities,
and responsible to a representative political body (Critchley,

1967; Reith, 1938). The "Bobby" was also unique in personal
demeanor, being unarmed and required to enlist public cooperation in a nonpunitive fashion. The experiment succeeded
against enormous public hostility and was expanded to the rest
of the country during the ensuing sixty years. The essential

lines of the contemporary French system can be discerned in
the late 17th century, a full century and a half before British
reform. During the reign of Louis XIV Lieutenants-General of
Police were created for Paris, beginning in 1667, and other
major French cities (Stead, 1957: Ch. 1; Arnold, 1969: 14-23).
In addition, the royal provincial Intendant emerged as the
linchpin of national administration throughout the country
(Gruder, 1968: 5-10). He was the predecessor of today's Prefect
(Chapman, 1955: Ch. 1). Both the Intendant and the Prefect
have been responsible for police affairs, acting for the central
government in the major administration sub-divisions. Today's
gendarmerie grows out of the marechausee of the ancien
regime. Detectives, engaged primarily in political intelligence
work, have existed since the time of Mazarin (Stead, 1957: 24).
The nonmilitary Gardiens de la Paix - today's civil constabulary of the Surete - did not grow markedly until the 19th century, especially during the regime of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte
(Payne, 1966). They had as their immediate antecedents the

"archers," watch, and military patrols of large cities under the
ancien regime.4 The revolution, though it promised to sweep
aside the old police, failed singularly to refashion either the
police or the organization of French adminstration. As de
Tocqueville said: ". . . every time that an attempt is made to
do away with absolutism the most that could be done has been
to graft the head of liberty onto a servile body" (Tocqueville,
1955: 209).
The development of the contemporary German system was

more attenuated than in France or Great Britain. The police
functions of the Landrat began to be developed in the mid18th century (Muncy, 1944: Ch. 5; Rosenberg, 1958: 166-167).
It should be noted that the Prussian militarized state was not
built on the back of centralized police power; the Boards of

War and Domains, created by Frederick II in 1723, were preoccupied with taxation and the army. Police authority was divided until 1872 between the state governments, acting through
either Landrats or municipal police commissioners, and aristocratic estate owners (Holborn, 1969: 401). Not until then did the
squirearchy give up its right to be sheriff within its own
domains; from this point cn, police authority was a monopoly of state governments. German towns have never been
centers of police autonomy. Even during the "Reform Era"
of Stein and Hardenberg, towns were expressly denied the
power to develop their own police forces (Dawson, 1914: Ch. 1).
In short, the beginnings of the centralization of police authority
are to be found in the mid-18th century, though consolidation
in the Lander was not complete until 1872.' This structure of
authority has persisted through the Second Reich, the Weimar
Republic, and the Federal Republic.
The Indian system has also resisted the effects of time,
including the transitions from colonial to independent status.
In structure, nature of forces, administrative organization, recruitment, and a great deal of individual behavior, the Indian
police today are exactly what they were in 1861.' The only
change independence brought was the substitution of popular
for imperial accountability.6
The Italian system is the newest one of our sample, since
it was not established nationally until unification was completed in 1870. During the early 1860s the statesmen of Risorgimento debated whether political power was to be centralized
or decentralized (Smith, 1968; Fried, 1963: Ch. 1). The advo-
cates of centraliztion won the point, and with consolidatio

territory police power was directed from Rome through
fects and Questores.7 The forces themselves - the P.S. and
Carabinieri - are Piedmont inventions, dating from 1852 and

1816, respectively (Cramer, 1964: 327-329). Dating the emergence of institutions is not an exact science. Not all features
of a system develop simultaneously and each specific characteristic takes time to become confirmed in practice. Nonetheless, it is clear that attributes of structure control and force
units of contemporary police systems are not recent, even
20th-century, developments. Essential elements of the French
system antedate industrialization, revolution, empire, and several major wars. The German system survived World Wars
I and II as well as industralization. The Indian system was
virtually unmarked by either the fact of independence or
the years of struggle against the British. The Italian system
has persisted in the face of dictatorship, war, and chronic
governmental instability. National police systems are remarkably resilient institutions.
The emergence of contemporary national police systems is
difficult to explain in terms of a single set of factors common
to every country. One finds very different things going on in
each country during the time that essential attributes of contemporary systems were fixed into place. I do not find that
emergence of police systems can be explained in terms of population growth, urbanization, incidence of criminality, industrialization, political revolution, external threats, or ideological
de'marche. The argumentation of these points would require
more detail than can be included in an essay of this scope.
I shall illustrate the kind of reasoning that has led me to these
conclusions.
There are and have always been substantial differences

among cities and countries with respect to the ratio of population per policeman.8 Europe experienced its greatest population
increase in the last three centuries, during the same period in
which modern police systems developed. But the relation is too
general to be informative; there is no pattern of association
between population growth or changes in rates of growth and
the development of police institutions among the countries
studied. Paris had a population of approximately 540,000 when
the post of Lieutenant-General was established; London had a
population of 1,500,000 in 1829 (Mulhall, 1903: 446); and Berlin
had a population of from 50,000 to 100,000 in the middle of the
18th century (Emerson, 1968: 4; Mulhall, 1903: 446). Criminali

is an even more difficult factor to put one's finger on. Crimin
statistics are notoriously unstable and they were not consist-
ently collected until relatively recently. The most striking

demonstration of an absence of relation between personal in-
security and creation of a reformed police system is to be foun

in Great Britain. London was a sink of criminality, depravity
drunkenness, licentiousness, and cruelty during the 18th a
early 19th centuries (Reith, 1948: Ch. 14; Pringle, n.d.; Critch
ley, 1967: 18-24; Royal Commission on the Police, 1962: 13-15)
Seventeen Parliamentary Committees investigated the problem
of law and order during the sixty years preceding the Police
Act of 1829 (Royal Commission on the Police 1962: 20). Foreign travelers marveled at the unwilingness oi London citizens
to countenance reform of a decayed parish-constable system,
especially when Paris, Berlin, and other continental cities presented such graphic contrasts. Yet the British did nothing; they
thought the gain in security that might result from a new police
organization was outweighed by the loss of cherished liberties.
Sentiments of constitutional propriety were far more important
than the inconvenience of practical circumstances.
The Industrial Revolution - a movement difficult to chron-
icle exactly - followed the establishment of the French police

system, preceded that of Great Britain, followed that of Ger-
many, and followed that of Italy. India's police system was a

colonial importation and bears no relation whatever to industrial development. External threats also have not been particularly prominent when police systems have been established.
Great Britain undertook police reform only after Napoleon had
been defeated and the threat of Jacobinism had receded. Louis
XIV was often at war in the late 17th century, but these adventures, though they strained the exchequer, did not represent a
grave threat to country or dynasty. France expanded the police
system markedly in the middle of the 19th century, but did so
in relation to the domestic political fortunes of Napoleon III
and not to the Crimean War. Risorgimento entailed expulsion
of foreign powers - Austria from Venice and France from
Rome - but it would be straining to separate the requirements
of external defense from those of internal consolidation in the
creation of the national police system. American and Indian

police developments are entirely unrelated to external dangers.
At the same time, there are at least three factors which
have played a role in the emergence of contemporary national
police systems. They are all "political" in some sense. They

are (1) consolidation of national power, (2) general growth o
governmental capabilities, and (3) a demonstration effect. Man

police systems grew as part of the establishment of effective
national government, utilizing centralized, bureaucratic admin
istrations. This was the case in France, Germany, and Italy.

It was true of most colonial impositions. In Britain in the earl
19th century the need for efficient administration became
harder to overlook. Municipal governments strained to undertake the work that their citizens required.9 The development
of the "new police" was in many ways the beginning of the
"Age of Reform"; its development throughout the country proceeded with reform in municipal and county government and
the growth of a merit-based civil service. Nations also learned
from one another and were particularly willing to do so if they
shared a way of life or an ideology. It is not a coincidence
that Tsar Peter established an imperial police administration in
St. Petersburg in 1718, Frederick II a police director in Berlin
in 1742, and Maria Theresa a police commissioner in Vienna
in 1751 (Emerson, 1968: 405). All were powerfully influenced
by the French example.
In most of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East the roots of
police systems are to be found in colonial policies. Once again
the impetus may properly be called political, based upon the
exigencies of rule. The Indian and most of the East African
police systems are British importations, though this does not
imply that the colonial systems were copies of English institutions. British administrators often worked out novel solutions
to policing problems in far-flung lands.

The creation of police forces is to be understood in political
terms; police forces are the creatures of politics. Undoubtedly
social and economic events change environments and so throw
up cues that may affect police development. But cues must be
perceived and read. The lessons discovered in such signs vary
from country to country, person to person, and time to time.
The translation of social needs into public response is a political act.
The discovery of persistence in police forms over considerable periods of time and of congruence between police institutions and the encapsulating political system contains an implicit
lesson. One cannot explain contemporary police systems without becoming involved in exploration of political development
into remote reaches of history. German police development is
related to the decline of towns in the 16th and 17th centuries,

to the dissolution of the Hanseatic League, and the bargain
struck between Frederick the Great Elector and the landed
nobles with respect to the maintenance of a standing army.

British police development has been touched by the abolition
of the Star Chamber during the Civil War, the rise of the
common law, and the vigor of the shire. French police development has been conditioned by the importance of classes rather
than geographical units in French government, the emergence
of administrative law, and the lessons Louis XIV drew from
the Fronde.
The fundamental question that has been asked in the preceding analysis is when and how did today's police systems
develop as they have. It is important to note that the base line
of comparison is contemporary systems. This procedure is
sound, since few systems have undergone generic shifts in character in the recent past.10 Explaining what currently exists
ensures doing justice to the enormous variety of contemporary
systems. At the same time, some people may object that this
approach places all the emphasis on explaining diversity.
Surely there may be similarities in development? This point
is well taken. In my view, however, it is important in political
analysis of historical change to keep quite distinct the question
of why different, though functionally similar, institutions developed as they have from the question of whether their respective evolutions are converging. The great defect of couching
historical political analysis in terms of traditional-modern or
preindustrial-industrial terminology is that it presupposes convergence and thus forces empirical diversity into a procrustean
mold.
Contemporary police systems are converging most strongly

with respect to those features that relate to technical taskperformance; they are converging least along those dimensions
having to do with structure, control, and role behavior. Convergence is associated with those features where a standard
of efficiency in the performance of function can be applied.
Features involving the way in which political power is organized in a society are much less amenable to converging change.
Thus, one finds that functional specialization has occurred
within all the police systems studied in this paper. The need
for skilled leadership has risen in all forces during the last 100
years and so one finds all police forces regularizing, extending,
and upgrading the quality of training. They are also devoting
more attention to special training for senior command offi

The technology of police work is often exportable from cou
to country and there is considerable interchange of know
technique, and equipment. Wireless systems and forensic l
oratories have developed in all countries that can afford t
There is even some degree of convergence with res
to structure and control of police systems, though it is not

nearly as great as in the areas where efficiency measures are
appropriate. The influence of the central government in Great
Britain has been growing considerably during the last 100 years.
The Police Act, 1964, fights just shy of vesting command
authority in central government officials. However, Head Constables for the first time are responsible to both local authorities and the Home Secretary; Parliament may now debate
matters of law and order everywhere in the country." At the
same time, deconcentration in France and other centralized
systems may accord more local initiative in police affairs.

There is some evidence that continental European countries are
beginning to exercise sterner supervision over the police
through administrative courts. In Great Britain, by contrast,
there is strong sentiment for making the Crown liable for civil
damages assessed against individual policemen for actions taken
in the line of duty. Thus, the gaps in practice in various kinds
of legal systems are being plugged to ensure more effective and
citizen-responsive accountability.
Police Influence on Political Development
It is important to distinguish the police as a formative influence in politics from the police as an indicator of the nature
of political life. Judgments about the nature of rule, the ethos
of government, and the quality of political life can be enriched
for any country by observing how the police act. Indeed, to
ignore authoritative rule enforcement would be a profound
mistake in evaluating how government is accomplished in any
country.l2 The trouble is that the relationship between police
and government is both conceptual and empirical. The police
are part of government; what they do is therefore what government does. Government and police cannot be distinguished
any more than knife and knife edge can be usefully distinguished in the act of cutting. But it is clear that the relationship can be viewed empirically as well. There can be a difference between the way in which police are organized and
behave and the way other governmental actors are organized
and behave. It is even possible that police attributes differ
substantially from patterns in the rest of the political system

One profitable line of future research will be to investigate th
extent to which the police share dominant administrative
values, political predilections, and values with respect to conflict and authority.13 In order to use the police as indicators
of the quality of political life, one needs to know a great deal
more about the coincidence between how they act and how
other output agencies act.
Turning to the police as a formative factor, there are four
ways in which the police may influence political life: (1) by
their activity directly upon political or politically related events;
(2) by socializing citizens through their activity as authoritative governmental agents; (3) by the example the organization
sets, the symbol it becomes, and the demands it makes
on other parts of society; and (4) by socialization of individual
policemen to fit within the political community.14 In short,
police forces may influence politics by what they do, how they
do it, what they are, and what they do to each other. I cannot
treat all these topics - each one is complex in itself - in
this essay. Therefore, I shall present a few findings illustrative
of the kind of analysis into which these questions lead. Emphasis will be given to the topics of overt political activity and
socialization of citizens.
Police have not generally been independent political actors.

They rarely act on their own in politics, but usually as in-
struments of others. Police organizations are not commonly

avenues of upward political mobility. Men only occasionally
make political careers for themselves through the police. Notable exceptions in Europe are Fouche' Himmler, and Beria.
There have been none who have done so in Britain, the United
States, or India. It would appear, then, that the more police
become an independent source of political power, the more
authoritarian becomes the political system.
Police influence politics by their activity both openly and
clandestinely. All police forces engage in political intelligence
activity to some degree; only some forces engage consistently
in activity which touches politics openly. The Prussian police
during the 19th century were used overtly for political repression. They enforced various laws curbing the organization of
"liberal" political groups and censoring what could be printed
in the press.15 Press laws of 1869 and 1874 required all newspapers to be delivered to the police for inspection; they could
be confiscated without judicial decree if they contained mate-
rial offensive to the Emperor or the ruler of any state, urged
disobedience to law, or incited acts of class hatred (Fosdic

1915: 76). Under the Second Reich a law was passed in 1879
giving the police power to destroy the Social Democratic press
and to hound Social Democratic leaders from the cities of their
residence. As late as 1908 clubs and societies had to present
copies of their constitutions and lists of their officers to the
police. In France the police have been heavily involved in

politics since the time of the Marquis d'Argenson, LieutenantGeneral of Police in Paris from 1697 to 1718. The political
sensitivity of high police command is indicated by the fact that
from 1800 to 1852 there were thirty-one Prefects of Police in
Paris. From 1870 to 1913 the average tenure in office of the
Prefect of Police was one year and nine months. By contrast,
the average tenure of a Commissioner of Police in London from
1829 to the eve of World War I was fourteen years (Fosdick,
1915: 171-173). Italian Prefects and Questores were openly engaged in politics during most of the past 100 years. During the
latter part of the 19th century they were directed to support
particular candidates in parliamentary elections (Smith, 1969:
198-202; Fried, 1963: Ch. 3). They bribed, threatened, and used
their power to arrest or detain candidates and influence
supporters.
The police of India have had politics thrust upon them

since independence in the form of violent threats to public
order. They have been required to intervene between warring
groups - especially communal ones - and to defend state and
national governments from demonstrations, civil disobedience,
and riots by political groups of the right and the left. By and
large the Indian police have acted reflexively; they have not
been directed to pursue a consistently repressive policy against
any particular group. They have enforced the Preventive Detention Act and the Defense of India regulations from time to
time against leftist and communal politicians, but the effect of
these measures has been slight and the numbers involved
small (Bayley, 1969: Ch. 10). The British police have been
very restrained in politics; their politically relevant actions
have been taken in defense of public order, situations in which
they were confronted with politics not of their own making.
They were sorely tried during the Chartist agitation and again
during the periods of Irish unrest and I.R.A. violence.
At moments of great national political crisis the record of
police forces is quite mixed. Sometimes they have been oppor-
tunistic, throwing their support to an apparent winner; sometimes they have defended the existing government, which is
their bounden charge; and sometimes they have simply faded
away, being no force to reckon with at all. The police of
Paris disappeared during the climactic days of the revolution.
So, too, did the Berlin police in 1918. Neither force rendered
assistance to the dying political order to which they had
sworn solemn oaths. Fouche'supported the coup of Napoleon

in 1799 when he was Minister of Police (Arnold, 1969). Again
in 1852 police leadership supported Napoleon III, but the
police did not play an active role in the coup; it maintained
order in Paris, allowing the army to spearhead the overthrow.
Perhaps the most glorious moment of political activism for
the Paris police came in August, 1944, when the Perfecture
became the rallying point for the Resistance and policemen
fought the retreating German garrison in the streets of the
city. In Italy, the police - both P.S. and Carbinieri - proved
unreliable during 1921-22 against the growing violence and
intimidation of Mussolini's Fascist gangs. Police ranks were
filled with lower-class individuals and their officers were
middle-class men of a nationalistic stripe - precisely the ki

of people to whom Fascism appealed most (Fried, 1963: 161
The Berlin police at first defended the revolution of 1848
but later the same year welcomed back the army which was
sent into Berlin to destroy the liberal government. During the
Weimar period Berlin policemen were caught between the
forces of the radical right and left in defense of a government
they did not consider wholly legitimate. In 1932 they acquiesced in the supercession of the Prussian government by the
Reich and in 1933 accepted Hitler without demurrer, as did
most Germans. Subsequently they stood aside as Nazi party
units repressed opposition political groups, but they did fight
against cooption of regular police duties by such groups (Liang,
1970).
The police of India have given loyal service to whatever
regime has been in power, whether it be British Raj, Congress, or Communist. Their loyalty and patience will be increasingly strained in the years ahead as politics becomes more
frenetic, more confrontational, and radical politicians come to
power demanding an active police policy supportive of ideological and partisan programs. This has already occurred in
Kerala between 1957 and 1959 and is happening today in

West Bengal.
106 LAW AND SOCIE'TY REVIEW/AUGUST 1971
American and British police have not been forced to choos

sides during dramatic moments of national political unrest
They have been spared the most searing experience to whic
police may be subjected.
Extensive political intelligence work has been associated
with the French police since their formation. Sartine boasted
to Louis XV in the middle of the 18th century that if three
people gathered together to talk anywhere in Paris, Sartine
could recount the conversation the following morning. The

French reputation for ubiquitous surveillance, through "mou-
chards" (spies), became legendary. Dossiers were supposedly

kept on anyone of any political importance. During the 19th
century the practice was openly admitted (Payne, 1966: Ch. 8).
Prussian and German police forces did the same thing but
evidently less extensively. Frederick II was critical of the
expense and subterfuge of the French system. (Emerson, 1968:
6).16 British officials have collected information on political

activities since the Civil War and probably before. Intelligence
agents were employed directly by Secretaries of State and
later by the Home Office; parish-constables do not seem to
have been utilized. Even after an effective police instrumen-
tality was created, the central government did very little

coordinating of political intelligence. During the Chartist
movement initiative was left to local officials who had to
support intelligence activity out of their own funds (Mather,

1959: 225). The Commissioners of the London police were well
aware of the deep antipathy of the British people to plain-
clothes work of any kind, even criminal investigation. A fullfledged C. I. D. division was not created until 1878.17 The
Special Branch of the C. I. D., entrusted to this day with

gathering political intelligence, was created in 1884, largely
as a result of Irish activity. The Indian police, too, has its
Special Branch, while American political surveillance is han-
dled by the F.B.I. nationally, with its local units throughout
the country.
Three factors account for the extent to which police forces

are engaged in political activity, whether open or clandestine:
(1) the manner of their creation, (2) the location of police

authority with respect to political power, and (3) the exigencies of political life. Some police forces have been involved in politics from their inception. This is true of the
German, Italian, and French police. In these cases the police

were created to serve the purposes of the state. Unlike the
British police, they did not grow primarily as a response to

the needs of private individuals. They were created as instruments of governing; police power in the Absolutist states was
indistinguishable from the authority to rule. This accounts for
the wider range of functions that was entrusted to the police
in Germany and France. In Britain, on the other hand, governing and policing were separately conceived. Policing was a
function government might take on but was not obliged to;
police were established by government in response to needs
predicated on private individuals. This was true as well in
the United States.
Political activity is also a function of the location of
police authority. British police were based on local government units. Except in London after 1829, those British politicians who directed the fortunes of large parties did not have
police forces at their disposal. There was a disjunction between partisan political power and police power. This is not
true in most continental police systems. It has generally been

true in the United States, though the growth of the F.B.I.
since the 1920s represents a major departure.18 It is also clear
that prolonged political turmoil can thrust the police into a
more active role in national life. Would the British police

have been able to define their tasks so circumspectly if the
Irish campaign for independence had been violent earlier and

continued longer? American policemen have been overwhelmed by politics in the mid-1960's. For the first time in a
generation they are being called upon to mediate deep social

and political cleavages in the streets of the country. The result
is a marked politicization, both in the nature of their duties
and in their own individual engagement with politics. Police
units are now political forces to be reckoned with in several
American cities.
There is another factor - a variation on the point about

manner of creation - that has conditioned the political pro-
clivities of a special sub-set of the world's police force: that
is colonialism. Police forces created by colonial regimes, no

matter the heritage of the metropolitan country, have been
closely tied to political purposes. The Indian police were used
continually by the Raj to watch, control, and resist politicians
espousing the cause of independence. Colonial regimes, like
European Absolutist states, could not help conceiving of the
police in political terms. At the same time, the ethos of the
police forces with respect to politics may have been shaped
powerfully by the political culture of the metropolitan po

It would be worth contrasting this aspect of police development in new states. It is possible that colonial conditioning
in the metropolitan model is more of a continuing restraint
than has generally been recognized. Certainly in the Indian
case, police officers have a deep reluctance to become involved
in partisan politics; they shrink, as generally do army officers,
from assuming political power. The political restraint of
Indian civil servants of all sorts, at least so far, and their
loyalty to political superiors is persuasive evidence of the
power of colonial teaching in the face of partisanship by the
colonial government itself and, as in so many new nations,
continued unrest after independence.
Policemen affect political life not only directly through
their actions, but by the manner in which they handle their
duties. Though the proposition has yet to be empirically
demonstrated, it is reasonable to expect that policemen are
among society's most influential agents of political socialization. They are ubiquitous in their presence; they are uniformed, hence particularly visible, and are clothed with authority to use force. Their activities touch the most sensitive areas
of human life and well-being. They may protect or they may
threaten, but in each case because they possess a monopoly
of force they are symbols of enormous emotional significance.
In the most profound of life's social crises, policemen are often
participants or primary observers. The way in which policemen behave may affect attitudes not only toward themselves,
but toward law, authority, government, and conflict.
The peculiar potency of the police in political socialization has been recognized by only a handful of scholars. This
situation may be changing. Charles Reith has suggested that
the operations of the new police in England remade age-old
habits of social interaction. The low-key, nonpunitive demeanor
of English policemen is not a product of English temperament,
rather English temperament is a product of police demeanor.
The English were not law abiding at all in the 18th and 19th
centuries; they became so because the police inculcated a new
standard of public conduct with respect to the law (Reith,
1948: 83-84). Another scholar has suggested that the British
policemen have played as important a role in socialization
there as the American schoolteacher did in the United States
(Gorer, 1955: 38). Students of the Weimar period have noted

the incongruity between authority patterns in society, especially
family and school, and those required of democratic govern

ment (Eckstein, 1966). Only one, however, has noted this
conflict in the lives of policemen, demonstrating how ineffectual were the measures taken during the 1920s to make the
police force supportive in behavior and commitment to democratic
political institutions (Liang, 1970). Samuel Eldersveld, et al.,
have explicitly examined the bureaucratic culture of Indian civil

servants, among them the police, in order to determine the
nature of authoritative contact between ruler and ruled (Eldersveld, Jagannadham, and Barnabas, 1968). David Easton and
Jack Dennis have shown the saliency of the police as an authority symbol among primary school children in America (Easton
and Dennis, 1969: Ch. 10 & 11). Finally, in India and the United
States there is evidence of pronounced differences in attitudes
toward the police among various social groups; the effect of
negative experiences upon personal attitudes is also clear and
it colors evaluations of other aspects of police behavior (Bayley
and Mendelsohn, 1969: Ch. 5). It is a short step to the con-
clusion that lessons taught by police to different sections of a
populace may affect more than attitudes toward the police;

they may help to differentiate basic political attitudes among
social strata.
Unfortunately, there has been on study so far which has

proven the vitality of the police as socializing agents. The linkage, while strongly indicated, remains to be demonstrated
empirically.
Conclusion
The neglect of the study of the police in political perspective, whether in a single country or comparatively, is puzzling
and disturbing. During the 1960s public events thrust the
police into new prominence. Abroad, the dramatizing force
was experience with political subversion, "wars of national
liberation," and insurgency; in America it was violent urban
riots and confrontations between young people and the police.
Neither the promptings of theory nor sheer empirical contiguity (police to courts, for example) led more than a handful
of political scientists to study the police. It may have been
that the police were thought to be the preserve of sociologists,
especially criminologists. It may have been that the police were
thought of only as another organization to be studied as an
instance of public administration. Whatever the reason, fashion

or oversight, the police were an unworthy item of study for
political scientists.
Now that the salience of the police has been so dramat-
ically shown, there is a quickening of interest. Theories will

undoubtedly be extended to fix the police function in the intellectual firmament; empirical studies will multiply rapidly.
But there is now another constraint developing that may be no
less limiting of profitable study than former ones. New-found
interest may evaporate in the heat of ideological conflict.
Police, like the military, are controversial bodies; it is increas-
ingly difficult to approach them without having, or being

required to have, a point of view about their use. Individuals
who study them are beginning to find themselves contaminated
by association. The question is even now being asked on several
campuses whether money and university facilities should be

allocated to the study of the police - let alone the training
of them - rather than to the alleviation of basic social prob-
lems that would reduce the need for police.

In short, the years of disinterest are over, but the years of
productive study may not yet have arrived. Ideological fashions
may be no less destructive than professional ones of serious
research into the relation between the police and politics.

FOOTNOTES
1 The District Armed Police in India and the Gendarmerie in Germany

which is used for rural policing.
2 London is an exception. There, uniformed officers - Superintendents

are supervised by the Commissioner and his staff. The Commissioner
is accountable to the Home Secretary.
3 The Metropolitan Police Act and the Local Government Act, respectively.
4 For an excellent short discussion of the police of the ancien regime see
Radzinowicz (1957: Vol. 3, Appendix 8).
5 This is the date of the Police Act, which regularized policing after the
Mutiny and the Government of India Act, 1858.

6 This point is discussed at length in Bayley (1969: Ch. 2).
7 The Questore is deputy to the Prefect. In effect he is provincial chief of
police.
8 Information on force strengths is very difficult to obtain. Statistical
information in American libraries on foreign police forces, whether in
English or foreign languages, is meager. One of the most urgent tasks
facing the study of comparative police development is to gather adequate
statistics on force strengths, especially in the period before the 20th
century. This will require archival research in foreign countries.
" Many Improvements Acts were passed in the 18th century under which
specified towns were permitted to undertake to provide services, including policing.
10 This may not be true for countries not examined in this paper.
11 Hitherto Parliament could only debate police matters involving London,
for only London's police were responsible to the central government.
2 Almond and Verba (1963) questioned respondents in Italy, Mexico, Germany, and Great Britain about their relation with the police. They used
this information to determine whether citizens had a sense of political
efficacy and of being fairly treated by government.
13 Eldersveld, Jagannadham, and Barnabas (1968) have done such a study
for India. They found important differences among civil servants in the
police, health services, community development, postal services, and the

Delhi municipal bus company.
14 For a detailed discussion of these modalities see Bayley (1969: Ch. 1).
15 For example, until 1847 a law prohibited newspapers from discussing
Prussian or German political affairs. See Eyck (1950: 18).
16 Information on the extent of intelligence activity is impressionistic and
somewhat contradictory (Holborn, 1969: 110; Jacob, 1963: 141). One study
done by the British in 1917 found that the Berlin police intelligence unit
numbered only 17 men. That is not a great many considering the turbulence of Berlin at the time (Liang, 1970: 120-121).
17 Though there was an investigation unit composed of two inspectors and
six Sergeants since 1842 (Critchley, 1967: 57).
18 The temptation to use such power by national politicians is irresistible.
Jamie Whitten, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on
Agriculture, sent out the F.B.I. in 1968 to disprove the existence of
hunger in America, especially in the South. F.B.I. agents called upon
people who had given testimony in reports that appeared before Congress on malnutrition in the South. While the F.B.I. double-checking could
be portrayed as concern with accuracy, the effect on many people,
especially poor blacks, was intimidation (Kotz, 1969: Ch. 6).

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The Police and Political Change in Comparative Perspective

Author(s): David H. Bayley

THE POLICE AND POLITICAL CHANGE IN

DAVID H. BAYLEY University of Denver

largely from the point of view of public administration; they

1967; National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1967;

1969). The kindling of interest in the police is new; it may be

The neglect among political scientists is particularly curious

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Prepared for delivery at the Sixty-sixth

92 LAW AND SOCIETY REVIEW/AUGUST 1971

The purpose of this essay will be to present some findings

hand. Specific note will be made of information that should

be collected in order to advance more rapidly the study of

The word police has many usages; it is attached to a wide

"police" is used in this paper it will refer to the function of

In examining the relation between the police and political

The number of dimensions along which police may be

Contemporary police systems come in a remarkable variety

Bayley / THE POLICE AND POLITICAL CHANGE 93

as Great Britain-command authority is dispersed and cannot

case of decentralization: It has been estimated that there are

about 40,000 separate forces in the country. India and Germany

The variety in modes of control is equally bewildering.

94 LAW AND SOCIETY REVIEW/AUGUST 1971

stern discipline; courts in unified legal systems may be la

The image of the policeman differs dramatically from

country to country. It also varies considerably within countri

Britain predicated its modern police forces on boroughs and

states (Kochanek, 1968). Vesting police authority in the federal

Bayley / THE POLICE AND POLITICAL CHANGE 95

regional aggregation of political power in India. The German

The manner in which police accountability is assured fits

ability in an immediate way would be seen as opening the

India a compromise has been reached between Anglo-Saxon

96 LAW AND SOCIETY REVIEW/AUGUST 1971

and also to the police establishment, terminating in the stat

Where police forces, as well as tasks, have grown out of

ized and supervised by a civilian bureaucracy. Where police

The characteristics of contemporary police systems, such as

their structure, manner of control, and image, change very

and responsible to a representative political body (Critchley,

of the country during the ensuing sixty years. The essential

Bayley / THE POLICE AND POLITICAL CHANGE 97

(Payne, 1966). They had as their immediate antecedents the

The development of the contemporary German system was

built on the back of centralized police power; the Boards of

98 LAW AND SOCIETY REVIEW/AUGUST 1971

cates of centraliztion won the point, and with consolidatio

Carabinieri - are Piedmont inventions, dating from 1852 and

There are and have always been substantial differences

Bayley / THE POLICE AND POLITICAL CHANGE 99

18th century (Emerson, 1968: 4; Mulhall, 1903: 446). Criminali

ently collected until relatively recently. The most striking

security and creation of a reformed police system is to be foun

icle exactly - followed the establishment of the French police

many, and followed that of Italy. India's police system was a

been defeated and the threat of Jacobinism had receded. Louis

creation of the national police system. American and Indian

100 LAW AND SOCIETY REVIEW/AUGUST 1971