Zed Books Policing Post-Conflict Cities

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Policing Post-Conflict CitiesBy Alice HillsZed Books LtdCopyright © 2009 Alice HillsAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-84277-969-9ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, vi, ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS, vii, 1 ORDER IN AN URBAN CENTURY, 1, 2 CONTROLLING CITIES, 28, 3 INTERNATIONAL POLICING, 60, 4 GHETTO SECURITY, 88, 5 SOCIAL CONTINUITIES AND THE PRODUCTION OF ORDER, 120, 6 MAKING THEIR OWN RULES, 150, 7 RE-EMERGENT ORDER, 179, 8 CHALLENGING ORTHODOXY, 201, NOTES, 224, REFERENCES, 231, INDEX, 253, CHAPTER 1ORDER IN AN URBAN CENTURYAlmost every post-conflict city experiences acute insecurity. Baghdad, Kabul, Mogadishu, Monrovia and Sarajevo all saw an increase in looting, revenge attacks, armed robbery and kidnappings. Street-level security was minimal as factional leaders positioned themselves, occupying militaries protected themselves, and indigenous police burned their uniforms, or hid in their neighbourhoods. Later, Western attempts to reconstruct indigenous security forces on democratic lines ended in failure. Yet none of these cities has disappeared. Some were partially destroyed and their inhabitants displaced, but none experienced anarchy, and all offered business opportunities to men such as Osman Ato, who in the early 1990s controlled much of Mogadishu's qat trade, provided many of the vehicles used by the militias and owned most of the houses rented by NGOs. This book is about the re-emergence of order in such cities, and the challenges of managing it.It is impossible to explain how and why order re-emerges after conflict without considering cities, for they have a political, cultural and physical significance that rural areas lack. Above all, cities are significant because their known history means that they offer a laboratory in which to trace the social and political continuities moulding the re-emergence of order. They represent units of analysis for examining the interface between order and security, which is typically made visible by the activities of their police, and they offer discrete case studies of order and security; of who provides it, and how, and whose needs are prioritised. Based on developments in a range of cities, I argue that – and this is my central thesis – order and security are interwoven, but that, while security facilitates order, order is necessary for meaningful security. In other words, security is best understood as a process and a variable within order, rather than its end.The topic is given urgency by the failure of US-led operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it is of broader relevance than this suggests. Not only do these issues present themselves acutely in cities, but also their development suggests explanations for the meaning of security, the nature of policing, and the relationship between security and development more broadly. And they emphasise the extent to which Western understanding remains rooted in historically specific forms of Westphalian order: law and order are invariably seen as the primary means for managing post-conflict disorder and insecurity.To see how the processes of order and security relate to one another and are managed in major cities that are emerging from conflict (hereafter 'post-conflict cities'), we need first to relate developments to the broader urban environment; that is, to the context in which order and security are to be created. This chapter offers an overview of cityscapes before considering what is meant by security and order, and their supporting concepts of power and stability.CITIESContemporary conflicts display an urban bias. Although most wars are fought in rural areas where the state has little oversight or presence, and where the infrastructure is easily destroyed, cities are usually a target for belligerents, and the size and density of their population and its associated infrastructure mean that the political significance and societal impact of conflict are typically greater in them than