Cross-national research. A new frontier for police studies

Across different countries, there is extreme heterogeneity among police systems concerning the number and types of forces, their links to political authorities and territorial organisation of control centres, their oversight mechanisms, agents’ status, and their behaviours. This heterogeneity is observed despite the apparent similarity between the various functions assigned to police forces, such as law enforcement, crowd control, peacekeeping, and border protection, among others. Comparative policing is a new frontier for policing studies. Without a comparative approach, this diversity cannot be identified and integrated into testable ‘middle-range theories.’ At present, the main obstacle for comparative policing research is conceptual. The very concept of police is ambiguous. At the same time, a deeper understanding of the political establishment and regulation of police systems is required. Scholars require portable concepts such as accountability or decentralisation for example, as well as reliable data to address cross-country comparison. This first volume of Comparative Policing Review suggests there is some interests and indeed, a burgeoning comparative literature emerging to take up the challenge. This paper suggests the key concepts and understandings that are required if we are to effectively develop a viable comparative approach to policing studies.