Book contents
- Regime Type and Beyond
- Regime Type and Beyond
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Part I Framework
- Part II Authoritarian Policing: Past and Present
- Part III Democratic Transition and Authoritarian Resilience
- Part IV The Singapore and Hong Kong Exceptions
- Part V Conclusions
- 14 Authoritarian Police and Policing in East Asia
- Index
14 - Authoritarian Police and Policing in East Asia
Scope, Patterns, and Paradoxes
from Part V - Conclusions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2023
- Regime Type and Beyond
- Regime Type and Beyond
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Part I Framework
- Part II Authoritarian Policing: Past and Present
- Part III Democratic Transition and Authoritarian Resilience
- Part IV The Singapore and Hong Kong Exceptions
- Part V Conclusions
- 14 Authoritarian Police and Policing in East Asia
- Index
Summary
Assessing authoritarian police and policing in East Asia poses conceptual challenges – which institutions count as “police,” which functions constitute “policing,” which polities are “authoritarian,” what features are “East Asian”? Patterns can be understood in terms of common issues: functions or roles police are expected to perform; internal institutional structures of the police (including centralization/decentralization); horizontal relations with other institutions; vertical relations with the regime; relations with society; and external influences (from abroad and from the past). Policing is beset by several paradoxes and much ambivalence: scope versus effectiveness of police work; laws and the rule of law as both empowering and constraining police; bolstering legitimacy for the police versus for the regime; “police reform,” which can make police more benign (from a liberal perspective) or more potent tools of oppression and control. The country-specific assessments in this volume collectively reveal a complex pattern that includes fundamental similarities and significant diversity.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Regime Type and BeyondThe Transformation of Police in Asia, pp. 345 - 386Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023