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 democraciesand argues for disaggregating democratic policing into two more precise terms: policing for democracyand democratically responsive policing. The first term captures the contribution of the police tosecuring and maintaining wider democratic forms of government, while the second draws on politicaltheory to emphasise arrangements for governing police actors based on responsiveness. Applying twodistinct terms helps to highlight limitations to external police assistance. These terms are applied in anexploratory case study of fifteen years of police reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The paperhighlights early work securing the necessary conditions for political democracy in BiH but argues thatsubsequent EU-dominated interventions undermine responsiveness. A recent UNDP project suggeststhat external actors can succeed in supporting democratically responsive policing where they do nothave immediate security interests at stake