Bureaucratization and Social Control: Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation
Author(s)
Deflem, Mathieu
Abstract
A theoretical framework developed on the basis of the writings of Max Weber is used to analyze historical developments in the formation of international police organizations. The focus is on the most famous and enduring of such structures, the International Criminal Police Commission, the forerunner of the organization known as Interpol since 1956. From a Weberian perspective of bureaucratization, the formation of international police organizations was made possible when public police institutions were sufficiently detached from the political centers of their respective states to function autonomously as expert bureaucracies. Under such circumstances of institutional autonomy, police bureaucracies fostered practices of collaboration across the borders of their respective national jurisdictions when they were motivated by a professionally defined interest in the fight against international crime.
