what is the role of police in nation building essay

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Essay On Role of Police in Nation Building {Step by Step Guide}

Essay On Role of Police in Nation Building In English

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The way the army protects us from enemies and terrorists by being deployed on the border, similarly the police also plays an important role in our society.

The police of any country helps in maintaining security, law, and order within that country and also take care of law and order.

It is the duty of the police to stop any kind of crime, illegal act, etc. in society.

Any person can lodge a complaint with the police station at any time against any kind of serious problem or crime.

Through which he is immediately taken out of that situation by the police administration.

Police are the savior of society which helps in running the society in an orderly and smooth manner.

We cannot make the security system of our country without police, because only through the police, the atmosphere inside any country can be made humble and calm.

Police always inspire the people of the society to follow law and order well and follow other rules and regulations.

At the time of elections, the police guard the important election centers in the districts, inside the country, and in the states so that only the person chosen by the people can move forward.

If there were no police inside the country for the security system, then people would not have trust in each other, and acts like crime, illegal acts, kidnapping, violence, etc. would have been very high.

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Any person would attack another person and eventually there would be chaos in the society.

That is why the police are very important for the countrymen of our country because these people do duty only then we are able to sleep peacefully in our homes.

Many times the policemen also have to face bricks and stones during the riots, but despite that the police protect us.

No matter what the weather, day or night, the police station remains open 24 hours a day, which gives us immediate help.

However, there are some policemen among the policemen who misbehave towards the people by misusing their position, due to which questions arise on other policemen of the country as well.

All policemen and police officers should work under the law and ensure that people’s faith in law and order remains and people can live their life without fear in society.

The contribution of the police , along with maintaining peace and order, also contributes a lot in moving our country on the path of development because if people remain fear-free then only people will progress and if people progress then society will progress, and if society progresses then ultimately our country will progress.

Therefore, it is clear that the contribution of police in nation-building plays an important role .

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nation building

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nation building , a concerted project to construct or rebuild a nation-state and its underlying institutions and sense of community . The objective of nation building can be to create a cohesive nation-state that never existed or that never properly functioned or to rebuild one that has collapsed or has been destroyed. Generally speaking, nation building is not performed as a purely altruistic endeavor. States engaged in nation building abroad are generally motivated by some strategic objectives of their own, such as advancing their own wealth, security, or international standing. While nation building is mainly carried out by sovereign states, some civil society and international organizations (such as the Ford Foundation and the United Nations ) can also engage in it, sometimes under the less controversial rubric of international development.

Despite its name, the process of nation building is fundamentally two-pronged and involves the creation of a state and a corresponding nation, and their mutual alignment. Thus, nation building is both an institutional and a cultural project. Critiques of the concept of nation building are diverse , ranging from the argument that it is mainly an exercise in imperialism to the idea that nations are never truly purposely created but emerge organically.

At the most basic level, the state-building component of nation building involves creating security conditions so that the state can effectively claim a monopoly of power within its own territory—the very definition of the state , according to the German sociologist Max Weber . However, modern state institutions are not limited to having an effective army and police force ; the state is expected to fulfill other fundamental needs of its population , including providing basic infrastructure , health care, education , and the necessary conditions for a functioning economy.

Besides creating a functioning state apparatus, nation building aims at creating the nation itself, meaning a collective identity that corresponds, if imperfectly, with the boundaries of the sovereign state. As the political scientist Benedict Anderson has argued, cultural institutions, in particular mass media such as newspapers, can play a key role in creating the shared “imagined community” of the nation. Many scholars also highlight the critical role of education in nation building, because of its capacity to instill a sense of common identity and destiny in a whole generation. Various cultural initiatives can foster national identity; some can be implemented quickly, such as creating a new flag or anthem , while others, such as changes in education or the media, require a long-term commitment. In the nation-state paradigm , the nation and the state are closely intertwined and mutually reinforcing: the nation legitimizes the state and transforms it into a meaningful entity, while the state fulfills the essential needs and future of the nation and provides it with collective agency on the domestic and world stage.

The process of nation building can also be destructive of other identities (such as ethnic, regional, or religious identities) that resist, or are not easily subsumed under, the new national identity. Following the French Revolution , for example, the nascent French Republic embarked on a large-scale project to unify the country around a sole common language ( French ) and shared republican institutions and ideals. This French exercise in nation building, in which education played a key role, created the foundation of a rich national identity that endures to this day, but it also destroyed or diminished, often to the point of folkloric irrelevance, many regional cultures and languages, such as Breton and Occitan . Not all nation-building projects are this exclusionary, however, and it is possible to foster a national identity that can accommodate pluralism and difference.

Following the end of World War II , the United States led two of the most important exercises in nation building ever pursued—namely, the democratic reconstruction of postwar Germany and Japan. Both examples set the standard for post-conflict nation building, as they showcased the possibility of creating long-lasting and self-governing polities even after almost complete destruction and years of totalitarian rule. In both cases, nation building required investments and coordinated efforts in ensuring security, reconstructing the countries’ infrastructures and economies, providing humanitarian relief, creating a working civil administration , and creating the cultural and institutional conditions for democratic rule .

After the end of the Cold War , nation-building projects multiplied with the emergence of a plethora of new but weak states. In the 1990s the U.S. government alone, under the Bill Clinton administration, engaged in an average of two nation-building exercises per year. The concept of nation building was popularized in the early 2000s following the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War , in which the United States led an occupation of both countries and sought to transform both into sustainable democracies . While nation-building efforts were initially more successful in Afghanistan, they ultimately failed, as the Taliban recaptured the country in 2021 and reestablished its theocratic regime. More than two decades after the U.S.-led invasion, Iraq is still struggling to establish both a competent state serving its population and a nation that transcends ethnic and sectarian fault lines. While nation building itself has far from disappeared, its popularity faded following these two failed attempts.

Nation-Building 101

The chief threats to us and to world order come from weak, collapsed, or failed states. Learning how to fix such states—and building necessary political support at home—will be a defining issue for America in the century ahead

"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building. I think our troops ought to be used to fight and win war."

—George W. Bush, October 11, 2000

"We meet here during a crucial period in the history of our nation, and of the civilized world. Part of that history was written by others; the rest will be written by us ... Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own: we will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more." (italics added)

—George W. Bush, February 26, 2003

The transformation of George W. Bush from a presidential candidate opposed to nation-building into a President committed to writing the history of an entire troubled part of the world is one of the most dramatic illustrations we have of how the September 11 terrorist attacks changed American politics. Under Bush's presidency the United States has taken responsibility for the stability and political development of two Muslim countries—Afghanistan and Iraq. A lot now rides on our ability not just to win wars but to help create self-sustaining democratic political institutions and robust market-oriented economies, and not only in these two countries but throughout the Middle East.

The fact is that the chief threats to us and to world order come today from weak, collapsed, or failed states. Weak or absent government institutions in developing countries form the thread linking terrorism, refugees, AIDS, and global poverty. Before 9/11 the United States felt it could safely ignore chaos in a far-off place like Afghanistan; but the intersection of religious terrorism and weapons of mass destruction has meant that formerly peripheral areas are now of central concern.

Conservatives never approved of the so-called "humanitarian interventions" undertaken during the 1990s, including those in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor. Liberals, for their part, remain unconvinced by the Bush Administration's rationale for its invasion of Iraq. But whether for reasons of human rights or of security, the United States has done a lot of intervening over the past fifteen years, and has taken on roughly one new nation-building commitment every other year since the end of the Cold War. We have been in denial about it, but we are in this business for the long haul. We'd better get used to it, and learn how to do it—because there will almost certainly be a next time.

Critics of nation-building point out that outsiders can never build nations, if that means creating or repairing all the cultural, social, and historical ties that bind people together as a nation. What we are really talking about is state-building—that is, creating or strengthening such government institutions as armies, police forces, judiciaries, central banks, tax-collection agencies, health and education systems, and the like.

This process has two very separate phases, both of them critical. The first involves stabilizing the country, offering humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, rebuilding the infrastructure, and jump-starting the economy. The second phase begins after stability has been achieved, and consists of creating self-sustaining political and economic institutions that will ultimately permit competent democratic governance and economic growth.

The first of these phases is well understood, and although difficult, it lies within the capability of both the United States and the broader international community. (The United States Agency for International Development has a very spotty record in promoting long-term economic growth but is actually pretty good at delivering humanitarian assistance.) The second phase, the transition to self-sustaining development, is far more challenging; and it is even more important in the long run. The key word is "self-sustaining": unless outside powers are able to leave behind stable, legitimate, relatively uncorrupt indigenous state institutions, they have no hope of a graceful exit.

What long-term lessons can we draw from the American experience so far in the reconstruction of Iraq? The Bush Administration has been heavily criticized for its failure to plan adequately for the postwar period; but we must remember that nation-building is inherently difficult. If an unexpected problem arises, that does not necessarily mean there was a planning failure, because it is not possible to anticipate every contingency.

Administration officials argue that they did considerable planning for which they don't get credit, because it had to do with contingencies that never arose. Chemical and biological weapons, and also oil-field sabotage and fires, were much discussed before the war. But the Iraqis evidently had no such weapons; and, largely because the country was occupied so fast (the result of a war plan that emphasized lightness and speed over numbers and redundancy), the oil fields were not sabotaged. Before the war some 60 percent of the Iraqi population lived on food donated by the UN World Food Programme, and the Administration worked quietly with that agency to ensure that food would flow to the whole Iraqi population during the war. Extensive plans were made to deal with a major humanitarian or refugee crisis like the one that followed the Gulf War of 1991—but none emerged.

For what, then, can the Administration justly be held accountable? By far the most important oversight was its failure to develop contingency plans against the possibility that the Iraqi state would almost completely collapse. The Administration hoped to decapitate the country's Baathist leadership and allow new leaders to take over quickly. Instead there was a severe breakdown of order, as the army melted away, the police stopped patrolling the streets, and government ministries stopped functioning. The consequences of this disorder were significant: the government's physical infrastructure disappeared, as ministries were stripped of doors, toilets, and wiring and then torched; the search for weapons of mass destruction was compromised by the looting of weapons sites; and many Iraqis' first impression of their "liberation" was one of crime and chaos.

There were precedents for what happened in Iraq—most obviously the aftermath of the U.S. intervention in Panama in 1989, when days of looting and disorder resulted in billions of dollars' worth of damage. Could the Bush Administration, with better foresight, have hedged against the possibility of large-scale chaos in Iraq?

Perhaps. One consequence of the decision to invade the country with a very small force—about 150,000 strong—was that after major combat operations there were simply not enough soldiers to spread around the country. Flooding the zone with forces would have helped. But combat troops are notoriously unprepared to deal with civil disturbances and police functions, and often make things worse through the heavy-handed use of force. The United States does not maintain a national police force for use in such situations; the only option would have been to bring in follow-on peacekeeping or constabulary forces such as Italian carabinieri , Canadian peacekeepers, or the Spanish Guardia Civil.

But before we assume that a multilateral approach would have prevented looting in Iraq, we should recall that earlier multilateral missions, to deploy police forces in Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, were poorly organized and understaffed, and in most cases arrived too late to perform their functions when they were most needed. It is not likely that a slow-moving international police force would have made much difference. The Italians did eventually send the carabinieri to Iraq, but they arrived long after the looting had subsided.

America's involvement in nation-building over the past fifteen years has yielded some significant knowledge about organizing for the task, as a recent study by the RAND Corporation demonstrates. But the Bush Administration failed to draw on this institutional knowledge. Its most serious planning mistakes were to set up its postwar-reconstruction organization at the last minute, to endow it with insufficient authority, and to put it under the overall control of the Pentagon, which did not have the capacity to do the job properly. The result was an organization that, instead of hitting the ground running after the end of major combat, wasted precious weeks and months building its own capabilities.

Sometime in August of 2002 President Bush signed the executive order that put in train final military planning for the war, and U.S. forces began deploying to the Persian Gulf toward the end of the year. But not until January 20 of last year was Jay Garner, a retired lieutenant general, appointed to coordinate the new Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. He had less than two months to pull together the planning efforts of various U.S. agencies before the ORHA was relocated to Kuwait, on March 17, at the start of the war. The ORHA went from a staff of six and a phoneless office in the Pentagon in late January to an organization with a staff of 700 just three months later—an impressive feat of institutional creation by any standard. Nevertheless, since the State Department, USAID, the CIA, and the Army War College had prepared extensive plans for the postwar period, the question remains why the Administration did not seek to integrate their recommendations into a coordinated process as soon as the war planning began (see "Blind Into Baghdad," in this issue).

There was, moreover, a serious problem of authority. Garner, who had led humanitarian relief efforts in Kurdistan after the Gulf War, was a former three-star general, and thus not in a position to give orders to the four-star CENTCOM Commander Tommy Franks. Garner was succeeded in mid-May by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, a very senior foreign-service officer and counterterrorism expert who now heads the Coalition Provisional Authority, the successor to the ORHA. Bremer was far more visible and well known back in Washington—an insider who could command much more authority than Garner could.

The unfortunate public perception is that Garner was replaced for having presided over a chaotic and disorganized reconstruction effort. In fact he did an amazing job under the circumstances. It had been the Bush Administration's plan all along to replace Garner with a more distinguished and visible administrator; so why wasn't Bremer, or someone of his stature, in place before the beginning of the war?

The Administration has argued that it could not have begun coordinated postwar planning in the fall of 2002, because it was still seeking the approval of the international community for the war. This argument is disingenuous: the President clearly signaled that he would proceed with or without the approval of the international community, and did not wait for the United Nations before deploying military forces to the Gulf—a deployment that, like Von Moltke's railroad schedules in July of 1914, could not easily be reversed. In reality, the late planning and weak command were rooted in a series of interagency battles that took place in the fall of 2002.

The first phase of nation-building—post-conflict reconstruction—is extremely difficult to implement, because the necessary capabilities are widely spread out among a host of government and civilian agencies. Earlier nation-building exercises suffered from poor coordination, both within the U.S. government and within the broader international community. In Bosnia, for example, the Dayton Accords gave military authority to NATO, whereas civil authority was divided among the Office of the High Representative, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Some functions, including the creation of an international police force, fell through the cracks. Within the U.S. government the military clashed with civilian agencies over its role in noncombat missions such as demobilization and policing.

The U.S. officials involved learned some important lessons during the 1990s, which the Clinton Administration codified in Presidential Decision Directive 56, in May of 1997. PDD 56 established an interagency framework for coordinating the U.S. response to post-conflict emergencies, and was used during the reconstruction of Kosovo following the 1999 NATO intervention there. Owing in part to the better U.S. coordination, the nation-building effort in Kosovo was much better organized on an international level than the one in Bosnia, with greater unity of command and considerably quieter interagency squabbles.

At the beginning of the Bush Administration, efforts were made to replace PDD 56 with a new directive that would have put the White House's National Security Council staff in charge of coordinating any nation-building activities. By all accounts this was a sensible idea, but the President never signed the draft, apparently because of persistent objections from the Defense Department. Then came September 11, the Afghan war, and the ensuing reconstruction effort. The Bush Administration still had no agreed-upon policy framework for nation-building, and many officials regarded the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan as a fiasco.

This was the background against which the Pentagon put forth, shortly after passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1441, in November of 2002, its "big idea" that all postwar planning should be centralized under its own control. The delay in the appointment of a reconstruction coordinator was due to the big fight that ensued from the big idea.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had some serious reasons for wanting to retain control over the reconstruction effort. Previous nation-building exercises had always had two chains of command, one dealing with military security and the other—through the local ambassador and the State Department—with civil affairs. In Rumsfeld's view, this split authority tied down U.S. forces, because the civilian chain of command could never agree on an exit strategy and was constantly calling on the military to do things for which it was not prepared, such as police work. This problem, according to Rumsfeld, was particularly acute in Bosnia, where U.S. forces were still deployed seven years after the signing of the Dayton Accords, and it had emerged in Afghanistan after the United States ousted the Taliban.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon had been fighting for months with the State Department and the intelligence community over the role of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. At the extremes were those in the Pentagon who believed that the democratization of Iraq could be delegated entirely to Chalabi, and those in the State Department and the intelligence community who thought him unfit for any role in postwar Iraq.

By late December of 2002 Rumsfeld, the consummate bureaucratic infighter, had prevailed. President Bush agreed to give control to the Pentagon because the idea of a unified command appealed to him. But this strategy had distinct disadvantages: the Pentagon, which lacked the institutional knowledge or capacity to do many of the things that need to be done in reconstruction, did not turn to the right places. The Defense Department does not have any particular expertise in writing constitutions or in producing attractive TV programs to compete with al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya for the hearts and minds of Arab viewers. It does not have good relations with the international NGOs that provide humanitarian services; nor does it have a way of coordinating activities with the UN and other multilateral institutions.

Once it became clear that the reconstruction of Iraq was going to be far costlier and longer than expected, there were immediate calls in Congress for international help. But although such help would be welcomed by American taxpayers, the international community is no better coordinated for nation-building than the U.S. government.

To begin with, no central authority exists within the international community to lead nation-building efforts. Much as other countries might like to give this responsibility to the United Nations, that is not a practical solution. The UN does not have the expertise or the resources, human and otherwise, to run nation-building programs authoritatively. For these it depends on the heavyweight funders—namely, the United States, the European Union, and, to a lesser extent, Japan.

Moreover, no one has solved the more serious problem of how to implement the second phase of nation-building—the transition to self-sustaining indigenous institutions. As the human-rights expert Michael Ignatieff memorably put it, whereas the mantra of the international community is "capacity building," the reality is often "capacity sucking-out," as well-endowed international agencies, contractors, and NGOs arrive with their cell phones, laptops, and First World salaries. In a recent article in the Journal of Democracy , Gerald Knaus and Felix Martin argue that Bosnia seven years after the Dayton Accords has become a "European Raj," in which the High Representative acts as a viceroy presiding over a colonial dependency that is without either democracy or self-government. Neither there nor in Kosovo is an exit strategy evident, because the departure of the international community would leave both places with the intractable political problems that led to intervention in the first place.

None of this means that the United States should exclude the international community from future nation-building exercises. Multilateralism means the difference between the $70 billion contributed by foreign powers to pay for the Gulf War and the $13 billion they have pledged for reconstruction this time around. The international community can provide constabulary forces, water engineers, land-mine-removal experts, and other resources that the United States often cannot field quickly. What is needed is a standing U.S. government office to cooperate with this community, with an eye to the long lead times that are inevitable.

The Bush Administration's experience in Iraq does not teach new lessons about nation-building but, rather, reinforces some old ones that have been forgotten. The first is that nation-building is a difficult, long-term enterprise with high costs in manpower, lives, and resources. The places where it has been most successful—Germany, Japan, and the Philippines—are ones where U.S. forces have remained for generations. We should not get involved to begin with if we are not willing to pay those high costs.

That being said, we are now fully committed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are likely to take on other nation-building commitments in the future, simply because the failed-state problem is one that we cannot safely ignore. It therefore behooves us to draw some lessons from our recent experience.

The problems that the Administration faced in Iraq were not so much the results of specific misjudgments as the predictable by-products of the Administration's poorly thought-out institutional structure. Fixing that structure would involve at least four things.

First, the United States needs to create a central authority, backed by a permanent staff, to manage ongoing and future nation-building activities. One possibility, recommended by the Commission on Post-conflict Reconstruction of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is to appoint a director of reconstruction. The director could be located in any of a number of places in the government, though the White House would be the most logical, given the delicate interagency relationships involved. (Recognizing that it had been a mistake to grant the Pentagon primacy over the reconstruction of Iraq, the White House staff moved to take back that authority in October of 2003.) The director's office would serve as a fund of institutional memory, so that we would not have to perpetually run around teaching ourselves what we already knew.

Second, this coordinating office must be endowed with sufficient authority to bring the government's warring agencies under control when a crisis emerges. That means a civilian equivalent of the CENTCOM commander should be appointed to take charge of postwar civil planning, coincident with and on a par with military planning.

Third, any standing organization devoted to nation-building should maintain ties with similar agencies in other countries. Although the international community has—through efforts in Somalia, Bosnia, and East Timor—gotten better at nation-building, it, too, lacks the means for preserving institutional memory, and could use American help.

Finally, the reconstruction effort must remain under clear civilian control as it moves from the first stage, stabilizing the region, to the second stage, creating self-sustaining institutions that will ultimately allow the United States a graceful exit. Decisions about how rapidly to turn over authority to local actors, what the sequence for political reform should be, and when and how to reduce aid levels and presence in a country cannot be left to the Department of Defense, which will always be biased in favor of a quick exit.

This bias will be of particular importance as the reconstruction of Iraq progresses. Donald Rumsfeld has articulated a strategy of nation-building "lite," involving a rapid transition to local control and a tough-love policy that leaves locals to find their own way toward good government and democracy. This is a dubious approach, at least if one cares about the final outcome. The new Iraqi government will be administratively weak and not regarded by its citizens as fully legitimate. It will be plagued by corruption and mismanagement, and riven by internal disagreements—witness the fight between the Iraqi Governing Council's Shia and non-Shia members over how to draft a new constitution. Nation-building requires a lot more than training police and military forces to take over from the United States: unless such forces are embedded in a strong framework of political parties, a judiciary, a civilian administration, and a rule of law, they will become mere pawns in the internal struggle for power. Nation-building "lite" risks being used as an intellectual justification for getting out, regardless of the mess we leave behind.

A standing U.S. government office to manage nation-building will be a hard sell politically, because we are still unreconciled to the idea that we are in the nation-building business for the long haul. However, international relations is no longer just a game played between great powers but one in which what happens inside smaller countries can have a huge effect on the rest of the world. Our "empire" may be a transitional one grounded in democracy and human rights, but our interests dictate that we learn how better to teach other people to govern themselves.

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Article Contents

1 introduction, 2 state-building in contemporary international society, 3 the purpose of state-building in conflict-prone areas: dilemma of world international society, 4 state-building in the process of the formation of modern nation states: the dilemma of the concentration of power, 5 the validity of state-building as the means to overcome the structure of internal armed conflicts: the dilemma of liberal peace-building and local ownership, 6 conclusion.

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Peace-building and State-building from the Perspective of the Historical Development of International Society

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Hideaki Shinoda, Peace-building and State-building from the Perspective of the Historical Development of International Society, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific , Volume 18, Issue 1, January 2018, Pages 25–43, https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcx025

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This article examines the relationship between post-conflict peace-building and state-building. In so doing, the article illustrates the process of the expansion and transformation of “world international society”. By comparing the process of the formation of sovereign states in modern Europe and state-building activities in post-conflict societies in the contemporary world, the article seeks to identify dilemmas of peace-building through state-building. First, it describes the dilemma at the level of overall international order concerning world international society and regional discrepancies of peace-building through state-building. Second, it also highlights the dilemma at the level of state-building policies concerning the concentration of power and the limitation of concentrated power. Third, it illustrates the dilemma concerning liberal peace-building and local ownership. Then, the article argues that post-conflict state-building needs to be understood in the context of the long-term state-building process.

This article is intended to examine the relationship between post-conflict peace-building and state-building in the context of the process of the expansion and transformation of ‘world international society’. 1 In turn, the article compares the process of the formation of sovereign states in modern Europe and state-building activities in post-conflict societies in the contemporary world.

The article sets out to answer the question, what are the fundamental dilemmas of peace-building through state-building, as seen from the perspective of world international society? The question deserved to be answered, as there are numerous theoretical and policy-oriented issues concerning such dilemmas. Then, the article presents three dilemmas relevant to this question. 2 First, there is the dilemma at the level of overall international order concerning world international society and regional discrepancies of peace-building through state-building. Second, there is the dilemma at the level of state-building policies concerning the concentration of power and the limitation of concentrated power. Third, there is the dilemma concerning liberal peace-building and local ownership.

The article argues that post-conflict state-building needs to be understood in the context of the long-term state-building process. There are usually many fragile elements, including armed conflicts, in such a process. In the process, we will be able to see a long-term process of state-building, which covers conflict-prone states in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Developing countries, de-colonized in the process of the formation of ‘world international society’, constitute the conflict zone of the contemporary world, stretching from Africa to South East Asia. The fragility of these states can be explained in terms of the rapid universalization within international society of sovereign nation states in the 20th century after the geographical expansion of European international society in the 19th century. Armed conflicts, seen from a historical perspective, are not occasional appearances of ‘holes’ in a once-complete international society, but rather the constant appearances of hidden structural tasks in our ‘world international society’.

There are similarities and differences between state formation in modern times and state-building in the contemporary world. Nation states, including modern European states and latecomers, such as the United States and Japan, overcame the social structure of internal armed conflicts by joining international society, where they exposed themselves to competition with other states. Until the 19th century, competition among nation states was not just a sad reality; it was part of nation-state-building itself. In contrast, state-building activities in post-conflict societies in the contemporary world are promoted by international assistance. No competition among nation states is assumed in our universalized international society, where there is no more geographical room for external expansion of state power. While we need strong states to sustain peace, we do not need stronger states to threaten peace. State-building is an attempt to create a strong state, which must also be sufficiently constrained by international norms. The way in which we identify the problem of state-building in post-conflict societies is a reflection of the problem of international order in our contemporary world.

The article also touches upon the debate concerning liberal peace-building and local ownership. It has been widely discussed that the orthodox doctrine of peace-building activities is more or less based upon liberal values. This could imply that peace-building is a set of Western-centric intervention activities to a great extent. This observation indicates that this Western-centric nature of peace-building may clash with another key principle of peace-building, namely, respect for local ownership. In turn, this poses a fundamental dilemma regarding the attitudes of peace-building.

The article provides an overall description of state-building as an issue of contemporary peace-building activities in the first section. Then, the second section illustrates the dilemma of state-building in the context of world international society. The third section discusses the dilemma concerning the concentration of state power for peace-building. The fourth section highlights the dilemma between liberal peace-building theory and the principle of local ownership.

It is commonly understood that state-building constitutes a pillar of peace-building activities focused on resolving armed conflicts throughout the world. The expansion of international peace-building activities since the end of the Cold War has promoted the role played by the United Nations (UN), regional organizations and other international organizations in rebuilding state functions. The widely shared analysis is that, in many cases, the root causes of conflicts involve the fragility of governance, which has necessitated state-building activities, even led by international actors. Accordingly, the principles that guide state-building are regarded as key in contemporary peace-building activities, such as the rule of law ( Shinoda, 2003 ).

Since the large missions in East Timor and Kosovo, as established in 1999, UN peacekeeping operations have involved state-building activities on an extensive scale. The United States advanced the trend by unilaterally introducing large state-building activities in Afghanistan and Iraq in the context of the War on Terror after 2001. This was ironic, given that George W. Bush had criticized the Clinton administration’s engagement with ‘nation building’ in the 1990s over Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. But the fact is that US policies in the age of the War on Terror have paradoxically strengthened the myth of ‘democratic peace’ theory as a conceptual tool to justify wars by democracies against non-democracies in order to facilitate regime changes, leading to a domino effect of democratization ( Fukuyama, 2006 ).

Technical terms for peace-related operations, such as disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR), security sector reform (SSR) and the protection of civilians, were coined around the turn of the 21st century to reinforce efforts for state-building. Civilian experts on state-building emerged to take active roles in the fields of peace operations, development aid, human rights, etc. They assisted, advised, and often almost supervised host governments. The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), together with Department of Field Support (DFS), in the 2008 handbook of principles and guidelines known as the ‘Capstone Doctrine’, argued that the UN respects the principle of impartiality, instead of neutrality, by complying with international law and peace agreements (UN DPKO and DFS, 2008, pp. 33–34).

Recent trends have seen a growing collaboration between the UN, and regional and sub-regional organizations, as well as other international actors, in the field of peace operations. In the era of ‘partnership peacekeeping’, the European Union (EU), Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), African Union (AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and many others are among the major implementers of peace operations involving complex means of sequential and functional cooperation. The understanding is that, in order to confront global issues such as terrorist attacks, stakeholders in the international community are increasing the scale of multilayered involvement by multiple institutions, as well as the range of multidimensional policy options ( United Nations, 2015 ).

Roland Paris discussed ‘liberal peace-building’ theory by promoting academic discussion on how to understand it. According to Paris, many international peace operations in the 1990s led by the UN as the promotor of liberal values failed due to hasty approaches to democratization and introducing market economies. Donors sought to find successful project examples and create formal institutions, while being mindful of the gap between the needs of the respective local society and the needs of international society ( Paris, 2002 ). The dilemma here is that liberal peace-building theory tends to be misplaced state-building efforts by local societies ( Paris and Sisk, 2009 ).

A critic of liberal peace-building theory, Oliver Richmond, shares the view that peace-building practices by international organizations and donor states are more or less based upon the value system of liberal democracy. Furthermore, he criticizes such an attitude towards peace-building by saying that local stakeholders are forced to become dependent upon foreign interventions ( Richmond, 2011 ). Other critics, such as David Roberts, express the view that liberal peace-building is peace-building by external actors, which destroys traditional local conflict resolution mechanisms. Worse still is that liberal peace-building led by external actors often strengthens the mechanism of resource distribution, which is maneuvered by power holders exploiting fragile governmental systems. This inevitably deteriorates the existing unjust social structure ( Roberts, 2011 ).

In this manner, the current form of state-building in post-conflict or other types of fragile states is mainly being implemented by the Western donor community, which is concerned about the prospect of their own agendas, including security issues in the age of the War on Terror. 3 The mainstream international community is also strengthening the normative power of the international legal regime, such as international humanitarian and human rights laws. It should also be noted that the more the mainstream international community strengthens its universalistic attitude, the more the gap between the mainstream and the periphery widens.

In the last 25 years or so since the end of the Cold War, there have been some crucial changes in trends regarding armed conflicts in the world. There was a sharp rise in the number of armed conflicts at a global level at the beginning of the 1990s. The number gradually decreased, although a significant reversal began several years ago, such that the number of armed conflicts has now surpassed its historic record after the end of the Cold War. 4

Armed conflicts tend to take place in geographically specific areas where fragile states are accumulated. First of all, most of them occur as internal conflicts in states that became independent in the latter half of the 20th century on the tide of decolonization. Namely, the conflicts have been mainly happening in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Their social foundations to sustain sound governmental functions have been rather weak and in fact have been fragile since their independence.

There are some more specific trends. Southern Africa and South East Asia were significantly volatile during and shortly after the Cold War. But these areas are now comparatively stable. On the other hand, the center of the world’s conflict zone is now the Middle East, especially since the Arab Spring. Africa, especially North Africa and the Sahel, remains volatile, even though African states are performing comparatively better now than previously.

It goes without saying that these conflict-prone areas are found in the world’s least developed areas. They are more or less fragile, corrupt in governance, 5 low in terms of the human development index, 6 complex in the composition of identity groups, 7 dependent upon natural resources ( UNCTAD, 2012 ), and high in population growth with the clear indication of a ‘youth bulge’ ( Beehner, 2007 ). Thus, it seems natural that the international community should mobilize not only security and political measures, but also social and economic assistance to these fragile areas, where the need for comprehensive strategies of state-building is hardly surprising.

In the post-Cold War era, there has been a widely shared understanding of the background of armed conflicts. Fragility arises out of the bad governance of decolonized states without sound social and economic infrastructure ( United Nations, 1998 , pp. 3–5). The international community needs to identify this symptom as a serious structural problem, as a majority of states may apparently or potentially be fragile. If the spread of fragility is not prevented, the entire international community would have to experience a collapse in the existing international order. It is natural for the mainstream international community to respond to crises in fragile states, as it needs to establish international order by introducing comprehensive strategies of state-building in order to sustain social order in sovereign states ( OECD, 2001 ).

Those who are responsible for governance in each state are the key stakeholders in the context of international order. Once they become corrupt, or exploit their positions through state mechanisms, the fragility of such a state is inevitable and international order is at stake. Analysts such as Paul Collier and Frances Stewart have discussed the social and economic aspects of the causal factors behind armed conflicts, which create opportunities or greater inequalities for the greedy to exploit among the unprivileged ( Collier and Hoeffler, 2000 ; Collier, 2007 ; Stewart, 2008 ). But, in the end, such structural changes can only happen when political initiatives are introduced with competent government functions: namely, they all require state-building types of peace-building, even provided by international actors.

State-building is conducted in the form of international assistance by major donor countries or international organizations in recipient fragile states. It responds to national peace-building agendas, as well as the maintenance of international order at the same time. It is somewhat paradoxical that, for the sake of independence, some independent states ask for external intervention for the purpose of state-building/peace-building.

This represents a dilemma between the maintenance of universal order in international society based upon the independence of each sovereign state and the reality of fragility among a great number of developing countries, which eventually require external assistance. Peace-building through state-building comprises activities that are intended to solve the problems arising out of such a dilemma faced by world international society.

The perspective of the historical development of international society clearly illustrates the relationship between conflict-prone areas and intervening actors involved in state-building activities. Intervening actors often exploit the growing normative power of international legal regimes, such as the UN Charter and international humanitarian law, to justify their engagement in state-building activities. Regardless of the concrete wording of UN Security Council Resolutions, both the UN and other organizations, such as NATO or the AU, in addition to ad hoc coalitions of the willing, are taking bolder and broader approaches when conducting state-building activities, as if they represent the entire international community.

The belief that there are universal values, rules, and institutions is the existential foundation of international society itself ( Bull, 1977 ). It is significantly linked to the worldview that those responsible for international order are responsible for defending international societies against its challengers. World international society is not just geographically worldwide: since it is a community of values, rules, and institutions, it is also intended to be universal in ideas. The enhancement of the validity of international values, rules, and institutions is the effort to strengthen the foundation of universal international order ( Shinoda, 2015 ).

Hedley Bull asserts that international society is a society of states, which has its origin in Europe. In the early period, international society was a ‘Christian international society’ of those European states sharing Christian values. Secularization of political societies took place in Europe around the 17th century, when ‘European international society’ emerged as a society of states in Europe, which shared the same regional institutions, such as the balance of power. Meanwhile, the 19th century saw the worldwide spread of European states’ imperial ambitions to the extent that the entire planet was dominated by a single international society of sovereign states. The heavy blows suffered in the course of the two World Wars in the first half of the 20th century led to the disruption of European imperial powers, with numerous new independent states created in the process. As ‘European international society’ came to an end, a new international society called ‘world international society’ was introduced with the universal application of the principle of self-determination.

The zone of decolonized newly independent states is where most contemporary armed conflicts are taking place. It is the zone in which people are struggling to establish their own sovereign state by overcoming conflicts, poverty, bad governance and other serious problems through state-building efforts. Many of them were supported by the superpowers during the Cold War. Now, they receive international assistance in order to sustain their national existence.

When we think of the relationship between armed conflicts and state-building, we often assume that once-perfect international society is now revealing its flaws as it is confronted by some ad hoc problems. The fact is, however, that international society has never been perfect or complete. Fragility did not result from a series of dysfunctional events, but rather evolved out of the fundamental structural nature of ‘world international society’. It is more appropriate to say that ‘world international society’ managed to come into existence despite continuous fundamental structural fragility. ‘World international society’ was as fundamentally fragile in the beginning as it is now. State-building efforts in our contemporary world represent a series of activities seeking to establish ‘world international society’ in substance after its formal existence was widely acknowledged. Without such state-building efforts to strengthen the constitutive components of ‘world international society’, it could disastrously collapse, thereby destroying international order.

The number of constitutive units in ‘European international society’ continuously decreased since its beginning in the 17th century. At the time of the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, there were hundreds of political communities in Europe. Following a series of consecutive wars and territorial settlements over a number of centuries, only a handful of great powers in Europe remained. At the beginning of the 20th century, only about six states were fully recognized as sovereign states in Europe, while other smaller states were called ‘semi-sovereign’ or ‘half-sovereign’ states ( Tilly, 1975 ).

Why did the number of sovereign states continue to decrease prior to the collapse of the European empires after the two World Wars of the 20th century? Great powers survived the extreme level of competition between various political communities by advancing industrialization and militarization through a capitalist market economy. Those states that were unable to compete against the most advanced states were left behind and absorbed by stronger powers. The logic of state-building, based upon competition, was intrinsically enshrined in ‘European international society’, while the consequence was totally in opposition to the situation of ‘world international society’. Only then did the international society of sovereign states experience a dramatic decrease in the number of sovereign states, along with the worldwide expansion of international society itself. The nature of ‘European international society’ makes a critical contrast with ‘world international society’ where there is no longer any geographical expansion, while the dramatic increase in the number of sovereign states is a constant phenomenon.

Political and industrial revolutions since the 17th century brought about structural changes in political communities and international society in Europe. The birth of nation states was, in particular, an epoch-making event. The revolutionary doctrine of the existence of a nation being identical with a state with a collective will was a product of the political culture introduced during the French Revolution.

War was the most significant dimension of the emergence of modern nation states. Revolutions in England, North America, and France were all wars seen from the perspective of international society, that is, internal armed conflicts linked with international conflicts. The Glorious Revolution of England was only possible with the military intervention of the Netherlands. The American Revolution was the War of Independence with interventions from countries such as France. The French Revolution was defended during the continental Napoleonic Wars. Germany, Italy, Russia, China, and Japan are among those countries that created nation states through revolutionary wars. For instance, the Meiji Revolution was achieved through the Boshin War. The reforms for state-building introduced by the Meiji government led to the waves of internal armed conflicts especially for the first 10 years. The consequences of wars determined the structures of nation states.

Wars stimulated state-building and created nation states, while war and preparation for war determined the concentration of administrative powers and financial resources. As Anthony Giddens observes, states transformed themselves in order to conduct war, or did so as a result of war ( Giddens, 1985 , p. 112).

According to Hedley Bull, war was an institution of ‘European international society’ in the 18th and 19th centuries ( Bull, 1977 , ch. 8). When the configuration of power relations changed, war brought about a new form of the balance of power. When critical incidents took place, war brought about sanctions to challengers of international order. In the 19th century, only a handful of great powers were said to be truly sovereign states, while other smaller states were only given the status of ‘half-sovereign states’. ‘European international society’ was a society of oligarchical order ( Shinoda, 2000 ). Unless states were great powers, which were capable of pursuing such enforcement measures as war in order to maintain international order, states were simply objectives within the context of the balance of power calculation, while their existence as independent states could be compromised at any time.

In accordance with the institutionalization of a nation state mechanism, financial, and administrative capacities of central governments also developed. Michael Mann highlights the historic moment in the 19th century when non-military expenditures surpassed those of the military, in line with the evolution of government functions of nation state mechanisms. The more the population participated in political and military activities of their state, the more the administrative power of government advanced; the more internal administrative functions developed, the more external war capacities expanded. This was a rapid process in the formation of the nation state in Europe in the 19th century (Giddens, p. 113).

European absolutist states accumulated resources to heighten their military capacities to wage wars. The process facilitated innovation in military technologies, which advanced the great powers’ dominance in the region and their imperial expansions outside the region. The intensive military capacity of the central governments of nation states ushered in nationwide administrative mechanisms. These governments’ capacity to collect tax was one significant condition of the expansion of governmental functions, including conscripted military. This higher capacity of central government to administer the population in detail was the condition for the birth of nation state, defined by Max Weber as a ‘monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force’.

A large standing army is essentially linked to the establishment of a nation state. The belief in the identification of a nation and a state justifies the taxation and conscription of the population needed to create a large standing army. Actual wars against external threats strengthened the spiritual foundation of a nation state to justify further strengthening of state capacity to administer the entire nation. Social security for a large number of government officials, including conscripted soldiers, was a byproduct of the birth of nation states. The rise of communism in the 19th century was more or less accommodated by the accumulation of expanded administrative functions of nation states, especially after the two world ‘total wars’ in the first half of the 20th century ( Mann, 1988 , p. 158).

Universal suffrage was introduced in accordance with the development of nation states. Bismarck introduced such a measure to strengthen the logic of a nation state to build a strong military. The First World War necessitated countries such as Britain to introduce universal suffrage. Wars involving nation states led the way to mass political participation and welfare state systems ( Giddens, 1985 , p. 234).

The modern nation state contributed to an incredible advancement in control over communication and information. This means that the modern state now enjoys considerable power in administering citizens’ lives through advanced police power ( Giddens, 1985 , pp. 172–192). The geographical expansion of colonial powers was the result of the development of logistical technologies. These technologies were rapidly advanced by the military conduct of modern nation states ( Giddens, 1985 , pp. 222–232). According to Giddens, the nation and its large military are twins of citizenship, which was dramatically advanced by the total wars in the 20th century ( Giddens, 1985 , pp. 233–235).

According to Giddens, the system of sovereign nation states requires both domestic stability and external wars at the same time. This theoretical model of the nation state is valid, even in the case of contemporary peace-building activities in post-war societies. ‘DDR’ and ‘SSR’, for instance, are measures to create a nation state as the ‘monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force’. Capacity development for good governance is intended to help establish an effective central government, given that a strong state mechanism is believed to be a way to overcome a social structure involving internal armed conflicts.

Despite the assumption about the effectiveness of the concentration of power, the issue about the war-conducting capacity of the modern nation state is not typically emphasized in the context of state-building as peace-building. If the model were a typical modern European-style nation state, war-conducting capacity would be key to state-building. There is no historical sample of nation-state-building without preparation for war-conducting capacity ( Cohen et al. , 1981 ). The more state-building succeeds in building centralized administrative power, the more the state becomes capable of conducting effective military operations.

Successful state-building with a concentration of strong military power greatly incentivizes political leaders to pursue external activism. Historically rare are the simultaneous achievements of both the creation of a strong centralized military to prevent internal wars and constraints over the external use of the military.

War was the strongest factor that facilitated the process of state-building; without war, it could not have been possible to establish the modern nation state system. If so, however, what are the implications of ongoing wars in our contemporary world, which the mainstream international community is trying to mediate? If war is the mother of modern nation states, how should contemporary world international society look at war as the evil to be simply abolished?

It is also true that even if some aspects of war might have been the mothers of modern nation states, not every single element of war can be a mother of a modern nation state. But given that the creation of contemporary world international society is a work in progress, the manner we cope with the dilemma between strengthening the state and limiting the state, namely, the dilemma between avoiding war and building upon the effects of war is one of the fundamental questions that policymakers for peace-building/state-building ought to take into consideration.

These observations illustrate some of the relevant points concerning the manner in which internal wars ended throughout history. Put another way, there is no example in the history of modern European nation state formation whereby domestic social order was constructed through a peace agreement. Successful nation states, such as Britain, France, and Germany in addition to such non-European countries as the United States and Japan experienced severe internal wars at the time of state-formation. Their revolutionary wars ended with victory for one of the conflict parties over the other(s). Their manner of state-building was a form of peace-building by the victor.

In the contemporary world, there is a natural assumption that third party mediation is the most desirable form of conflict resolution. Furthermore, ceasefire is seen as worth pursuing, while peace through an agreement is also a pregiven goal to achieve. But we do not know whether a peace agreement can really promise longer peace than a military victory ( Licklider, 1995 ). The mainstream international community demands that contemporary armed conflicts should be mediated in a manner not experienced by their own home countries.

If contemporary peace-building activities focus upon the limitation of governmental powers through negotiated peace, war might miss the chance to strengthen the state in accordance with the historical precedents of European nation states. The history of state-building betrays liberal peace-building practices. Should we consider the possibility of the moment to ‘give war a chance?’ ( Luttwak, 1999 ). If so, when should we?

A peace agreement through mediation is understood to be desirable from the perspective of humanitarian concerns in order to prevent further loss of human life. This does not mean, however, that mediated peace is always a form of consolidated peace. Sri Lanka terminated the prolonged war in 2009 following victory on the part of the government. It is questionable whether the pattern set by Sri Lanka jeopardizes peace-building through effective state-building, even when compared to cases such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, where an artificial peace agreement mediated by external powers was the foundation of state-building.

The process of the creation of a modern state seeks to concentrate state power in the hands of the central government as a measure to overcome the structure of internal armed conflicts. Peace agreements are introduced to implant liberal values to constrain state powers. Both are compatible when Western-style constitutional states are our models. But is it really universally applicable? Should it be so?

The tendency among the mainstream international community to rely on liberal peace-building theory is on account of the dilemma of state-building. The policies of peace-building, such as DDR and SSR, only make sense if strong military capacity is constrained by the liberal regime of the rule of law. It is rational that international organizations, such as the UN and EU, never abandon liberal values as the framework for peace-building, given that state-building ceases to be a form of peace-building without such a framework. State-building is only peace-building when the government is strengthened, but constrained by the social belief in the rule of law. Despite the criticism against Western-centric approaches to peace-building, the mainstream international community will never be able to leave behind liberal peace-building theory.

Here is another dilemma: peace-building practitioners respect local ownership and the homegrown internal development of state-building ( Shinoda, 2015 ). But, in the process of trying to ensure the effectiveness of peace-building, both internally and externally, they find it impossible to implant a culture that embodies the liberal rule of law without mobilizing the necessary financial, material, and human resources for liberal peace-building from outside. Implantations from outside and homegrown development from inside are always difficult to simultaneously achieve. But this represents the fundamental dilemma regarding peace-building and the fundamental challenge in establishing world international society.

State-building through contemporary peace-building activities is different from the historical examples of nation-state-building in modern ‘European international society’. External intervention is abhorred, but never abandoned, while liberal peace-building theory is never an official doctrine to be promulgated outright, nor ignored in peace-building practices.

In the age of world international society, there is no physically external sphere where new nation states can find room for expansion. They strengthen their state capacity without having any opportunity to exert their strengthened state capacity. They advocate local ownership based on homegrown social values, even when receiving overwhelming foreign assistance to implement Western-style liberal values. This paradoxical situation represents the fundamental challenge to be considered by policymakers of contemporary world international society.

This article has tried to compare contemporary forms of state-building, as peace-building activities in post conflict or fragile states, with historical examples of nation-state-building in modern European international society. In turn, the article has argued that the emergence of world international society has created a dilemma between the universality of sovereign states and regional discrepancies in reality. It has also discussed whether the sovereign state as the ‘monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force’ creates dilemmas regarding the possibility of using force against external actors. Liberal institutionalism should impose the necessary constraints upon central governments. But liberal peace-building theory is not a desirable guideline, as it goes against the principle of respecting the local ownership. Still, world international society cannot afford to abandon liberal values in order to control sovereign states.

Contemporary world international society is not in a position to abandon the sovereign state as the most fundamental constitutive unit of international order. State-building is a panacea with which to overcome the structure of internal armed conflicts, even though it creates dilemmas in respect of universal international order, the concentration of state power and liberal peace-building theory.

There is no easy exit from these dilemmas. In contemporary world international society, we conduct state-building by constraining state capacity, and implement liberal peace-building, while abhorring such a form of peace-building practice. What is required is a well-balanced understanding and implementation of such critical dilemmas.

This article distinguishes between peace-building and state-building. The former points to activities needed to create the social foundations for a durable peace, while the latter is concerned with activities to create functional state institutions. See OECD, 2008 . State-building is usually distinguished from nation-building, as the latter concerns the creation of group identity of the people as one single community. See Anderson, 1991 . But state-building could go hand in hand with nation-building. State-building and nation-building are not mutually exclusive. So this essay could use the term ‘nation-state-building’. As for the definition of international society, with reference to the difference between ‘European international society’ and ‘world international society’ see Bull, 1977 . A group of states constitutes international society when they share certain common values, rules and institutions. When the common set of values, rules and institutions is particularly Europe-specific, we may identify ‘European international society.’ ‘World international society’ appeared in the latter half of the 20th century, when the set of values, rules, and institutions became universally extensive.

A number of literature on conflict resolution and peace operations share the view that durable peace can be founded upon well-governed states. While many concrete issues arise as a result, more theoretical discussions on the view ought to be addressed to refine the fundamental framework.

While European and North-American countries traditionally led peacebuilding-related assistances, which are influential within the United Nations too, it is also true that non-Western countries have also made significant contributions in peacebuilding-related affairs. Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, and China are among those non-Western countries active in assistances in post-conflict areas. But Japan and RoK tend to resonate with the manner Western countries conduct assistances. The members of OECD DAC (Development Assistance Committee) where aid policies are coordinated consists of 30 members mainly from Europe, North America, and Oceania. Japan and RoK are the only exceptional, but harmonious, members from Asia.

As for the data set for armed conflicts, see UCDP website: http://www.pcr.uu.se/data/ (26 September 2017, date last accessed). See also ‘UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset v.4-2012, 1946-2011.’

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Lessons from a long career in expeditionary diplomacy

The recent fall of Kabul is a stark reminder that policymakers need to understand much more about the problems of nation-building. Some may try to swear off any further involvement with nation-building, but these problems cannot be ignored when failures of law and governance in weak states underlie a pressing migrant crisis on America’s own borders. As the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction has noted, America’s refusal to prepare for future stabilization missions after the collapse of South Vietnam did not prevent the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but instead ensured that they would become quagmires. 1 To begin thinking more carefully about these vital problems, a good place to start is with Keith Mines’s book Why Nation-Building Matters .

Keith Mines has participated in most of America’s foreign nation-building missions since the 1980s. His first service was in the U.S. Army, where he served as a paratrooper in Granada and taught counterinsurgency in Central America. He then joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1991. In this valuable book, he discusses experiences and lessons from his long career in expeditionary diplomacy, including missions to Colombia, El Salvador, Somalia, Haiti, Darfur, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Mines has written this book as an experienced practitioner of nation-building, and I have read it as an economic theorist who shares his view that a deeper understanding of nation-building is greatly needed. In the quest for this understanding, I hope that he might agree with me that a combination of our practical and theoretical perspectives could be helpful. In particular, economists study agency theory to learn how the structure of an effective organization can depend on problems of coordinating agents who observe different information, and this theoretical perspective helps me to see broader principles in some of Mines’s key insights. Mines has emphasized that a nation-building mission needs to rely on field officers who can closely observe the political challenges in different communities, and he has recommended that such officers should get more flexibility in spending funds to support local political development. I would argue that these are key points for understanding why a nation-building agency is needed and how it should be structured. But first, I should highlight and summarize some parts of Mines’s book that I found especially insightful, in his chapters on El Salvador, Iraq, and Darfur.

Rediscovering Counterinsurgency in Central America After Vietnam

In 1984, as part of the American response to insurgency in El Salvador, Mines was assigned to help train soldiers for counterinsurgency in Central America. It was a time when memories of Vietnam made U.S. policymakers highly averse to nation-building, but Mines’s assignment put him in the one place where Americans were still focused on the challenges of nation-building. Mines’s chapter on El Salvador contains a magnificent section entitled “Counterinsurgency Rediscovered” which offers a distilled summary of what he learned then from masters of the previous generation, who had experienced counterinsurgency warfare in Vietnam, Cuba, and the Philippines during the 1950s and 1960s. His mentors while working on Central American counterinsurgency (including Lt. Col. Reynaldo Garcia and Col. John Waghelstein) warned against the dangers of relying on large American forces and heavy weapons to solve the political problems of another country. They taught that a nation-building intervention should involve a balanced mix of military and political support for its indigenous hosts, and America’s contribution must be strictly limited so that the hosts should never forget that it is their country to win, and it is their responsibility to offer a better deal for people throughout their country.

In discussing the missions where he has served, Mines regularly reminds us that the results of any nation-building mission are likely to include a complex mixture of successes and failures. In El Salvador, the notable success in negotiating a political settlement to end the war in 1992 was followed by a profoundly disappointing failure to secure the subsequent peace, allowing criminal violence to grow in a region that has become today the source of a serious refugee crises confronting America. Conversely, although America’s intervention in Somalia in 1994 conspicuously failed to forge a political settlement there, we should recognize that it did succeed in ending a massive famine in that country.

A Key Perspective on the Occupation of Iraq

Among the assignments that Mines has undertaken, one of the most important was his service as governance coordinator for Al Anbar province in 2003 during the occupation of Iraq. There he had primary local responsibility for responding to some of the toughest political challenges of the growing Sunni insurgency. His chapter on Iraq is the longest in the book, and it offers an insightful perspective on this mission.

The book’s subtitle (“political consolidation, building security forces, and economic development”) summarizes the mission’s priorities as Mines assessed them after he arrived in Al Anbar late in the summer of 2003. He saw that job-creating economic development could offer people some hope for a better life, but economic development was impossible without basic security, and security would ultimately depend on political reconciliation of groups that could act as spoilers. So among the challenges of rebuilding Iraq, political consolidation had to come first.

The formation of a broadly representative provincial council was key to any hopes for political reconciliation. During the early months of the occupation, civil affairs officers had done what they could to recruit various local leaders and sheikhs into a provincial council, and Mines later organized a series of local caucuses to elect council members who could be more properly representative of communities throughout the province. The provincial council served as a regular channel for complaints from people in Al Anbar, but its effectiveness was frustrated by its lack of any ability to exercise authority over a budget.

A group of sheikhs proposed to organize a Civil Defense Force to protect roads and power lines in the province, if the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) would provide regular funding and equipment for tribal security forces. They were offering to do essentially what was done through the Anbar Awakening three years later, but Mines was unable to get the funding that was needed to do this in 2003. Instead, the CPA put resources into national programs for recruiting and training security forces. However, in the absence of any national political consensus, such national security forces would be seen in Al Anbar as outsiders with no local accountability, and so it is not surprising that people turned to insurgent resistance.

In the fall of 2003, the CPA head Paul Bremer began a series of monthly one-day meetings with his provincial governance coordinators. Mines describes one such meeting where there was vigorous debate about Bremer’s plans for economic austerity measures, where Mines and other provincial coordinators argued that government-funded jobs programs could play a vital role in winning support for the new regime. I would suggest that, in such debates, we can see the importance of bringing local political perspectives into central policymaking discussions. There has been much ex-post facto criticism of Bremer’s early decisions about de-Baathification and disbanding the Iraqi army in May 2003, but what was needed was a broad debate that included locally informed officials when the decisions were made. Such policies, which would fundamentally affect political realities in every part of the occupied country, should have been formulated in consultation with provincial governance coordinators who were working to earn the trust of local political leaders throughout the country.

From this perspective, it seems severely problematic that Mines and other provincial governance coordinators were not even appointed until after these fundamental postwar policies were formulated. If America had established an effective agency for coordinating stabilization operations, this agency could have ensured that the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan would have, from the start, a team of local stabilization officers ready to monitor local political challenges and provide vital guidance for the strategic direction of these interventions.

Lessons from the Mission to Darfur

The costly frustration of massive American-led interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq has prompted policymakers to seek different models for how a limited American involvement might effectively support an intervention that is led by countries in the region. The most promising model for such nation-building missions may be found in Mines’s chapter on Darfur.

In 2007, Mines was sent to head a field office in Darfur, where he coordinated American support for peace-keeping forces from the African Union. If American policymakers could study just one chapter in this book, this is the one that I would recommend for them to see how a strictly limited American involvement can provide valuable support for peace-keeping missions led by countries in the region. But the chapter deserves careful study, to fully draw out the lessons from Mines’s involvement in Darfur.

With authorization from a United Nations resolution, the African Union sent a peace-keeping force that was spread across Darfur in a series of outposts. Each outpost had a U.S.-contracted military observer to help with operational planning and intelligence, and so Mines was sent to oversee a team of field agents who were well placed to monitor and respond to events on the ground throughout Darfur.

One fundamental point that Mines emphasizes in the Darfur chapter is the vital importance of stationing officers in the field to get local information on the ground where the conflict is. Even before he got to Darfur, Mines was advised that, whatever uncertainties he might have, after ten days in Darfur he would know more about the situation there than the rest of the U.S. Foreign Service, and so he should be prepared to offer decisive leadership there. Mines’s basic observation about the essential value of field presence for building a peaceful national order may be worth quoting here:

Making peace requires hard work that goes beyond a declaration or a conference. It includes the gritty detailed tasks on the ground: reassuring, reporting, and shaping the political environment. It often goes against the interests of numerous stakeholders, and on a higher level includes directed force, sanctions and international pressure, and negotiations. But it starts with people on the ground, and the closer they can get to reality, the more effective and well-calibrated the policies will be. 2

Perhaps a simple peace conference could have been enough if the conflict had been between two highly disciplined organizations with clear, coherent leadership, but such conditions cannot be expected from a conflict in a failed or fragile state.

In fact, among the challenges confronting Mines in Darfur were problems of banditry by former separatist fighters, and the worst offenses were actually committed by troops from the one separatist faction that had signed a peace agreement with the government of Sudan. By agreeing to peace, the leader of this faction had lost the ability to send his fighters on profitable raids against government bases, so he no longer had the resources to pay and control his troops.

Mines observes that, in Darfur, the essential first step toward ending the conflict was inducing rebel groups to form a unified organization that could negotiate with the central government to forge a new political order in Sudan. The billions that America spent to support the Darfur intervention might have been more effective if even a fraction of that amount had been invested in compensation schemes as incentives for local leaders to back a peace deal.

Thus, a second fundamental point that Mines emphasizes in the Darfur chapter is the critical value of flexible finance (or “walking-around money”) for field officers to support positive political development in a distant country. A U.S. officer in the field might readily see how the goals of peace-building could be effectively advanced by allocating money to pay and equip the forces of cooperative local leaders in Al Anbar or Darfur. But in Washington D.C., where these local leaders are unknown, such an expense could seem harder to justify than a much larger allocation for training and arming the forces of recognized national allies, even when those national forces are distrusted by people in the conflict zone.

Mines notes that the U.S. military observers formed the backbone of the peace-building force, and worked in difficult circumstances to stop a genocide, for which they received little public recognition. But there was no regular system for keeping American officers in the field for missions like Darfur, and so as Mines and his colleagues left Darfur, they were not replaced. Thus, the Darfur mission was limited by basic issues of funding and staffing.

Toward a Doctrine for Nation-building

Before discussing the conclusions that Mines summarizes in the book’s Epilogue, let me say something about his basic decision to use the term nation-building instead of the term state-building , which many of us have used almost synonymously. If there is a difference between the two terms, it would be that nation-building should include not only developing the capacity of the government, but also encouraging people to identify with their nation as a whole. I was initially surprised by Mines’s expressed preference for nation-building as the term to describe his work, since he never seemed to get involved in any kind of public relations drive to foster people’s patriotic feelings. However, much of his professional service was devoted to helping to develop a trustworthy working relationship between local leaders and national leaders. I would suggest that perhaps a true basis for people’s patriotic feelings could be found in their confidence that respected leaders of their communities can have a positive role in the greater nation. If so, then popular enthusiasm for national unity would depend on a generally accepted distribution of powers and responsibilities between local leaders and national leaders.

So perhaps Mines is right to prefer the term nation-building , if it can help to remind us of this imperative to develop the essential local foundations for a strong national political system. Then a mission to develop the capabilities of Afghan government ministries and security forces could be properly called state-building , but it should not be called nation-building without some complementary effort to ensure that respected local leaders have a constructive role in the national political system.

Such a reminder is needed. When he attended a conference in Canada shortly after his service in Iraq, it seemed to Mines that the potential importance of federalism in nation-building was getting more discussion in Canada than in the United States. Mines observed that “U.S. thinkers and policymakers, with a thin understanding of the complexities and options in federalism, tended to miss many of the opportunities that might have been available in getting the country to the right political end-state.” 3 This observation seems astonishing when we consider that the United States of America was actually established by a revolution to defend the powers of provincial assemblies, and the need to maintain an appropriately balanced distribution of powers between national and local governments has remained a vital concern in American politics since the U.S. Constitution was written. But somehow, when Americans try to support nation-building abroad, there has been a common tendency to ignore the lessons of America’s own history and assume that foreigners could not have similar concerns about national centralization of power.

In the language of the American Revolution, the people who formed the fundamental basis for the new nation were understood to be the enfranchised inhabitants acting together in their local communities throughout the land. If this understanding had been applied in Afghanistan, the first principle of a nation-building project there should have been respect for the autonomous authority of traditional village institutions; instead, the American intervention focused on building a centralized national government that implicitly threatened them.

So we need a doctrine that lists key points to bear in mind when approaching complex missions like nation-building, and Mines’s book includes a valuable Epilogue in which he summarizes lessons that he would include in a doctrine for nation-building. Mines emphasizes that the first priority for nation-builders must be to support the development of a political compact that can bring people together in the nation. This settlement should address the local concerns of people in all parts of the nation, and economic reforms should not be pushed before the political compact is consolidated.

Mines also lists the development of effective security forces as an essential priority. But I would suggest that perhaps there should be more emphasis on the question of to whom these forces will be accountable. Without clear accountability, even newly trained security forces can be as abusive as in any authoritarian regime, as Mines saw in Haiti. However, accountability for security forces can be defined only in the context of a political settlement. So again we should recognize the priority of the political compact, but with a broader understanding that it should include decisions about the allocation of control over police and military forces. Where local groups do not fully trust the national authorities, some locally accountable police forces might be needed. This point may have sufficiently general applicability to belong also in a basic doctrine for nation-builders.

Finally, Mines discusses the need for an agency to provide standby capability for future nation-building missions, with a cadre of trained and experienced local stabilization officers who would be prepared for the challenges of helping a failed state to consolidate a new political compact and reconstruct effective government. Compared to what America invests in maintaining large, magnificently-equipped military forces which are prepared for conflict anywhere in the world, preparations for the challenges of post-conflict political reconstruction have been negligible.

We should emphasize here that the critical importance of flexible finance for local officers in a nation-building mission has fundamental implications for how a nation-building agency should be structured. To induce positive political change, its field officers must identify key local leaders and offer them appropriate incentives to cooperate in forging a national political compact. For this purpose, the effectiveness of foreign assistance depends on its local political conditionality, so that local leaders should understand that they and their supporters can benefit from foreign assistance only if they cooperate with a wider program of national political reconstruction. In a typical project for international economic development, we might measure results by counting the number of people who have observably benefited from our assistance. But when the goal is political development, it is essential to understand which local groups are benefiting and what they and their leaders have done to support national reconciliation, and such local political conditions are very hard for anyone outside the country to assess.

So there are fundamental reasons why a nation-building agency may need to operate under different kinds of fiscal controls from other agencies of the U.S. Federal Government. A basic principle for structuring operations in most Federal agencies is that American tax-payers’ money should be spent only with regular controls that can assure meaningful accountability to the American people through their elected political representatives. But in foreign nation-building missions, the ultimate goal is to support the development of a government that is accountable to its people, not to America. For American assistance to support this development, the criteria for distributing assistance must depend on conditions that can be understood by the local recipients, even if not necessarily by people in America. Thus, when America’s political leaders have decided that a mission to help rebuild a failed state would be in America’s interest, the budgeted resources for the nation-building mission should be managed by a team of field officers and supervisors who, by their selection and training, can be trusted to spend the money appropriately according to local conditions in remote communities of the failed state, where normal controls of the U.S. Federal Government would be very difficult to apply.

The possibility of future nation-building missions is not just an abstraction. Even today, the United States is challenged by a continuing flood of refugees from Central America who are desperate to escape from crime and oppression in their home countries. The problem of reducing this migration is a first-order political issue for the current U.S. Administration, but the problem is unlikely to abate until these countries develop legal and political institutions that can protect their citizens. Governance reforms have been resisted by small but powerful local groups that have a stake in the oppressive status quo. Increased economic assistance to these countries will not induce the reforms that are needed unless the assistance is supervised by field officers who can direct the aid to benefit key local leaders when they support these reforms. So the migrant crisis today should be seen as a nation-building problem, and this reviewer would be more confident of an effective mission to address it if experts like Keith Mines were directing the mission. PRISM

1 Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, What we need to learn: lessons from Afghanistan Reconstruction (August 2021), xii, 96, available at <https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-46-LL.pdf>.

2 Mines, 152.

3 Mines, 282.

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Solving racial disparities in policing

Colleen Walsh

Harvard Staff Writer

Experts say approach must be comprehensive as roots are embedded in culture

“ Unequal ” is a multipart series highlighting the work of Harvard faculty, staff, students, alumni, and researchers on issues of race and inequality across the U.S. The first part explores the experience of people of color with the criminal justice legal system in America.

It seems there’s no end to them. They are the recent videos and reports of Black and brown people beaten or killed by law enforcement officers, and they have fueled a national outcry over the disproportionate use of excessive, and often lethal, force against people of color, and galvanized demands for police reform.

This is not the first time in recent decades that high-profile police violence — from the 1991 beating of Rodney King to the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 — ignited calls for change. But this time appears different. The police killings of Breonna Taylor in March, George Floyd in May, and a string of others triggered historic, widespread marches and rallies across the nation, from small towns to major cities, drawing protesters of unprecedented diversity in race, gender, and age.

According to historians and other scholars, the problem is embedded in the story of the nation and its culture. Rooted in slavery, racial disparities in policing and police violence, they say, are sustained by systemic exclusion and discrimination, and fueled by implicit and explicit bias. Any solution clearly will require myriad new approaches to law enforcement, courts, and community involvement, and comprehensive social change driven from the bottom up and the top down.

While police reform has become a major focus, the current moment of national reckoning has widened the lens on systemic racism for many Americans. The range of issues, though less familiar to some, is well known to scholars and activists. Across Harvard, for instance, faculty members have long explored the ways inequality permeates every aspect of American life. Their research and scholarship sits at the heart of a new Gazette series starting today aimed at finding ways forward in the areas of democracy; wealth and opportunity; environment and health; and education. It begins with this first on policing.

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad traces the history of policing in America to “slave patrols” in the antebellum South, in which white citizens were expected to help supervise the movements of enslaved Black people.

Photo by Martha Stewart

The history of racialized policing

Like many scholars, Khalil Gibran Muhammad , professor of history, race, and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School , traces the history of policing in America to “slave patrols” in the antebellum South, in which white citizens were expected to help supervise the movements of enslaved Black people. This legacy, he believes, can still be seen in policing today. “The surveillance, the deputization essentially of all white men to be police officers or, in this case, slave patrollers, and then to dispense corporal punishment on the scene are all baked in from the very beginning,” he  told NPR  last year.

Slave patrols, and the slave codes they enforced, ended after the Civil War and the passage of the 13th amendment, which formally ended slavery “except as a punishment for crime.” But Muhammad notes that former Confederate states quickly used that exception to justify new restrictions. Known as the Black codes, the various rules limited the kinds of jobs African Americans could hold, their rights to buy and own property, and even their movements.

“The genius of the former Confederate states was to say, ‘Oh, well, if all we need to do is make them criminals and they can be put back in slavery, well, then that’s what we’ll do.’ And that’s exactly what the Black codes set out to do. The Black codes, for all intents and purposes, criminalized every form of African American freedom and mobility, political power, economic power, except the one thing it didn’t criminalize was the right to work for a white man on a white man’s terms.” In particular, he said the Ku Klux Klan “took about the business of terrorizing, policing, surveilling, and controlling Black people. … The Klan totally dominates the machinery of justice in the South.”

When, during what became known as the Great Migration, millions of African Americans fled the still largely agrarian South for opportunities in the thriving manufacturing centers of the North, they discovered that metropolitan police departments tended to enforce the law along racial and ethnic lines, with newcomers overseen by those who came before. “There was an early emphasis on people whose status was just a tiny notch better than the folks whom they were focused on policing,” Muhammad said. “And so the Anglo-Saxons are policing the Irish or the Germans are policing the Irish. The Irish are policing the Poles.” And then arrived a wave of Black Southerners looking for a better life.

In his groundbreaking work, “ The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America ,” Muhammad argues that an essential turning point came in the early 1900s amid efforts to professionalize police forces across the nation, in part by using crime statistics to guide law enforcement efforts. For the first time, Americans with European roots were grouped into one broad category, white, and set apart from the other category, Black.

Citing Muhammad’s research, Harvard historian Jill Lepore  has summarized the consequences this way : “Police patrolled Black neighborhoods and arrested Black people disproportionately; prosecutors indicted Black people disproportionately; juries found Black people guilty disproportionately; judges gave Black people disproportionately long sentences; and, then, after all this, social scientists, observing the number of Black people in jail, decided that, as a matter of biology, Black people were disproportionately inclined to criminality.”

“History shows that crime data was never objective in any meaningful sense,” Muhammad wrote. Instead, crime statistics were “weaponized” to justify racial profiling, police brutality, and ever more policing of Black people.

This phenomenon, he believes, has continued well into this century and is exemplified by William J. Bratton, one of the most famous police leaders in recent America history. Known as “America’s Top Cop,” Bratton led police departments in his native Boston, Los Angeles, and twice in New York, finally retiring in 2016.

Bratton rejected notions that crime was a result of social and economic forces, such as poverty, unemployment, police practices, and racism. Instead, he said in a 2017 speech, “It is about behavior.” Through most of his career, he was a proponent of statistically-based “predictive” policing — essentially placing forces in areas where crime numbers were highest, focused on the groups found there.

Bratton argued that the technology eliminated the problem of prejudice in policing, without ever questioning potential bias in the data or algorithms themselves — a significant issue given the fact that Black Americans are arrested and convicted of crimes at disproportionately higher rates than whites. This approach has led to widely discredited practices such as racial profiling and “stop-and-frisk.” And, Muhammad notes, “There is no research consensus on whether or how much violence dropped in cities due to policing.”

Gathering numbers

In 2015 The Washington Post began tracking every fatal shooting by an on-duty officer, using news stories, social media posts, and police reports in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Brown, a Black teenager in Ferguson, Mo. According to the newspaper, Black Americans are killed by police at twice the rate of white Americans, and Hispanic Americans are also killed by police at a disproportionate rate.

Such efforts have proved useful for researchers such as economist Rajiv Sethi .

A Joy Foundation Fellow at the Harvard  Radcliffe Institute , Sethi is investigating the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers, a difficult task given that data from such encounters is largely unavailable from police departments. Instead, Sethi and his team of researchers have turned to information collected by websites and news organizations including The Washington Post and The Guardian, merged with data from other sources such as the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Census, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A Joy Foundation Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Rajiv Sethi is investigating the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers,

Courtesy photo

They have found that exposure to deadly force is highest in the Mountain West and Pacific regions relative to the mid-Atlantic and northeastern states, and that racial disparities in relation to deadly force are even greater than the national numbers imply. “In the country as a whole, you’re about two to three times more likely to face deadly force if you’re Black than if you are white” said Sethi. “But if you look at individual cities separately, disparities in exposure are much higher.”

Examining the characteristics associated with police departments that experience high numbers of lethal encounters is one way to better understand and address racial disparities in policing and the use of violence, Sethi said, but it’s a massive undertaking given the decentralized nature of policing in America. There are roughly 18,000 police departments in the country, and more than 3,000 sheriff’s offices, each with its own approaches to training and selection.

“They behave in very different ways, and what we’re finding in our current research is that they are very different in the degree to which they use deadly force,” said Sethi. To make real change, “You really need to focus on the agency level where organizational culture lies, where selection and training protocols have an effect, and where leadership can make a difference.”

Sethi pointed to the example of Camden, N.J., which disbanded and replaced its police force in 2013, initially in response to a budget crisis, but eventually resulting in an effort to fundamentally change the way the police engaged with the community. While there have been improvements, including greater witness cooperation, lower crime, and fewer abuse complaints, the Camden case doesn’t fit any particular narrative, said Sethi, noting that the number of officers actually increased as part of the reform. While the city is still faced with its share of problems, Sethi called its efforts to rethink policing “important models from which we can learn.”

Fighting vs. preventing crime

For many analysts, the real problem with policing in America is the fact that there is simply too much of it. “We’ve seen since the mid-1970s a dramatic increase in expenditures that are associated with expanding the criminal legal system, including personnel and the tasks we ask police to do,” said Sandra Susan Smith , Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice at HKS, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute. “And at the same time we see dramatic declines in resources devoted to social welfare programs.”

“You can have all the armored personnel carriers you want in Ferguson, but public safety is more likely to come from redressing environmental pollution, poor education, and unfair work,” said Brandon Terry, assistant professor of African and African American Studies and social studies.

Kris Snibble/Harvard file photo

Smith’s comment highlights a key argument embraced by many activists and experts calling for dramatic police reform: diverting resources from the police to better support community services including health care, housing, and education, and stronger economic and job opportunities. They argue that broader support for such measures will decrease the need for policing, and in turn reduce violent confrontations, particularly in over-policed, economically disadvantaged communities, and communities of color.

For Brandon Terry , that tension took the form of an ice container during his Baltimore high school chemistry final. The frozen cubes were placed in the middle of the classroom to help keep the students cool as a heat wave sent temperatures soaring. “That was their solution to the building’s lack of air conditioning,” said Terry, a Harvard assistant professor of African and African American Studies and social studies. “Just grab an ice cube.”

Terry’s story is the kind many researchers cite to show the negative impact of underinvesting in children who will make up the future population, and instead devoting resources toward policing tactics that embrace armored vehicles, automatic weapons, and spy planes. Terry’s is also the kind of tale promoted by activists eager to defund the police, a movement begun in the late 1960s that has again gained momentum as the death toll from violent encounters mounts. A scholar of Martin Luther King Jr., Terry said the Civil Rights leader’s views on the Vietnam War are echoed in the calls of activists today who are pressing to redistribute police resources.

“King thought that the idea of spending many orders of magnitude more for an unjust war than we did for the abolition of poverty and the abolition of ghettoization was a moral travesty, and it reflected a kind of sickness at the core of our society,” said Terry. “And part of what the defund model is based upon is a similar moral criticism, that these budgets reflect priorities that we have, and our priorities are broken.”

Terry also thinks the policing debate needs to be expanded to embrace a fuller understanding of what it means for people to feel truly safe in their communities. He highlights the work of sociologist Chris Muller and Harvard’s Robert Sampson, who have studied racial disparities in exposures to lead and the connections between a child’s early exposure to the toxic metal and antisocial behavior. Various studies have shown that lead exposure in children can contribute to cognitive impairment and behavioral problems, including heightened aggression.

“You can have all the armored personnel carriers you want in Ferguson,” said Terry, “but public safety is more likely to come from redressing environmental pollution, poor education, and unfair work.”

Policing and criminal justice system

Alexandra Natapoff , Lee S. Kreindler Professor of Law, sees policing as inexorably linked to the country’s criminal justice system and its long ties to racism.

“Policing does not stand alone or apart from how we charge people with crimes, or how we convict them, or how we treat them once they’ve been convicted,” she said. “That entire bundle of official practices is a central part of how we govern, and in particular, how we have historically governed Black people and other people of color, and economically and socially disadvantaged populations.”

Unpacking such a complicated issue requires voices from a variety of different backgrounds, experiences, and fields of expertise who can shine light on the problem and possible solutions, said Natapoff, who co-founded a new lecture series with HLS Professor Andrew Crespo titled “ Policing in America .”

In recent weeks the pair have hosted Zoom discussions on topics ranging from qualified immunity to the Black Lives Matter movement to police unions to the broad contours of the American penal system. The series reflects the important work being done around the country, said Natapoff, and offers people the chance to further “engage in dialogue over these over these rich, complicated, controversial issues around race and policing, and governance and democracy.”

Courts and mass incarceration

Much of Natapoff’s recent work emphasizes the hidden dangers of the nation’s misdemeanor system. In her book “ Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal ,” Natapoff shows how the practice of stopping, arresting, and charging people with low-level offenses often sends them down a devastating path.

“This is how most people encounter the criminal apparatus, and it’s the first step of mass incarceration, the initial net that sweeps people of color disproportionately into the criminal system,” said Natapoff. “It is also the locus that overexposes Black people to police violence. The implications of this enormous net of police and prosecutorial authority around minor conduct is central to understanding many of the worst dysfunctions of our criminal system.”

One consequence is that Black and brown people are incarcerated at much higher rates than white people. America has approximately 2.3 million people in federal, state, and local prisons and jails, according to a 2020 report from the nonprofit the Prison Policy Initiative. According to a 2018 report from the Sentencing Project, Black men are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated as white men and Hispanic men are 3.1 times as likely.

Reducing mass incarceration requires shrinking the misdemeanor net “along all of its axes” said Natapoff, who supports a range of reforms including training police officers to both confront and arrest people less for low-level offenses, and the policies of forward-thinking prosecutors willing to “charge fewer of those offenses when police do make arrests.”

She praises the efforts of Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins in Massachusetts and George Gascón, the district attorney in Los Angeles County, Calif., who have pledged to stop prosecuting a range of misdemeanor crimes such as resisting arrest, loitering, trespassing, and drug possession. “If cities and towns across the country committed to that kind of reform, that would be a profoundly meaningful change,” said Natapoff, “and it would be a big step toward shrinking our entire criminal apparatus.”

Retired U.S. Judge Nancy Gertner cites the need to reform federal sentencing guidelines, arguing that all too often they have been proven to be biased and to result in packing the nation’s jails and prisons.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard file photo

Sentencing reform

Another contributing factor in mass incarceration is sentencing disparities.

A recent Harvard Law School study found that, as is true nationally, people of color are “drastically overrepresented in Massachusetts state prisons.” But the report also noted that Black and Latinx people were less likely to have their cases resolved through pretrial probation ­— a way to dismiss charges if the accused meet certain conditions — and receive much longer sentences than their white counterparts.

Retired U.S. Judge Nancy Gertner also notes the need to reform federal sentencing guidelines, arguing that all too often they have been proven to be biased and to result in packing the nation’s jails and prisons. She points to the way the 1994 Crime Bill (legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware) ushered in much harsher drug penalties for crack than for powder cocaine. This tied the hands of judges issuing sentences and disproportionately punished people of color in the process. “The disparity in the treatment of crack and cocaine really was backed up by anecdote and stereotype, not by data,” said Gertner, a lecturer at HLS. “There was no data suggesting that crack was infinitely more dangerous than cocaine. It was the young Black predator narrative.”

The First Step Act, a bipartisan prison reform bill aimed at reducing racial disparities in drug sentencing and signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2018, is just what its name implies, said Gertner.

“It reduces sentences to the merely inhumane rather than the grotesque. We still throw people in jail more than anybody else. We still resort to imprisonment, rather than thinking of other alternatives. We still resort to punishment rather than other models. None of that has really changed. I don’t deny the significance of somebody getting out of prison a year or two early, but no one should think that that’s reform.”

 Not just bad apples

Reform has long been a goal for federal leaders. Many heralded Obama-era changes aimed at eliminating racial disparities in policing and outlined in the report by The President’s Task Force on 21st Century policing. But HKS’s Smith saw them as largely symbolic. “It’s a nod to reform. But most of the reforms that are implemented in this country tend to be reforms that nibble around the edges and don’t really make much of a difference.”

Efforts such as diversifying police forces and implicit bias training do little to change behaviors and reduce violent conduct against people of color, said Smith, who cites studies suggesting a majority of Americans hold negative biases against Black and brown people, and that unconscious prejudices and stereotypes are difficult to erase.

“Experiments show that you can, in the context of a day, get people to think about race differently, and maybe even behave differently. But if you follow up, say, a week, or two weeks later, those effects are gone. We don’t know how to produce effects that are long-lasting. We invest huge amounts to implement such police reforms, but most often there’s no empirical evidence to support their efficacy.”

Even the early studies around the effectiveness of body cameras suggest the devices do little to change “officers’ patterns of behavior,” said Smith, though she cautions that researchers are still in the early stages of collecting and analyzing the data.

And though police body cameras have caught officers in unjust violence, much of the general public views the problem as anomalous.

“Despite what many people in low-income communities of color think about police officers, the broader society has a lot of respect for police and thinks if you just get rid of the bad apples, everything will be fine,” Smith added. “The problem, of course, is this is not just an issue of bad apples.”

Efforts such as diversifying police forces and implicit bias training do little to change behaviors and reduce violent conduct against people of color, said Sandra Susan Smith, a professor of criminal justice Harvard Kennedy School.

Community-based ways forward

Still Smith sees reason for hope and possible ways forward involving a range of community-based approaches. As part of the effort to explore meaningful change, Smith, along with Christopher Winship , Diker-Tishman Professor of Sociology at Harvard University and a member of the senior faculty at HKS, have organized “ Reimagining Community Safety: A Program in Criminal Justice Speaker Series ” to better understand the perspectives of practitioners, policymakers, community leaders, activists, and academics engaged in public safety reform.

Some community-based safety models have yielded important results. Smith singles out the Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets program (known as CAHOOTS ) in Eugene, Ore., which supplements police with a community-based public safety program. When callers dial 911 they are often diverted to teams of workers trained in crisis resolution, mental health, and emergency medicine, who are better equipped to handle non-life-threatening situations. The numbers support her case. In 2017 the program received 25,000 calls, only 250 of which required police assistance. Training similar teams of specialists who don’t carry weapons to handle all traffic stops could go a long way toward ending violent police encounters, she said.

“Imagine you have those kinds of services in play,” said Smith, paired with community-based anti-violence program such as Cure Violence , which aims to stop violence in targeted neighborhoods by using approaches health experts take to control disease, such as identifying and treating individuals and changing social norms. Together, she said, these programs “could make a huge difference.”

At Harvard Law School, students have been  studying how an alternate 911-response team  might function in Boston. “We were trying to move from thinking about a 911-response system as an opportunity to intervene in an acute moment, to thinking about what it would look like to have a system that is trying to help reweave some of the threads of community, a system that is more focused on healing than just on stopping harm” said HLS Professor Rachel Viscomi, who directs the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program and oversaw the research.

The forthcoming report, compiled by two students in the HLS clinic, Billy Roberts and Anna Vande Velde, will offer officials a range of ideas for how to think about community safety that builds on existing efforts in Boston and other cities, said Viscomi.

But Smith, like others, knows community-based interventions are only part of the solution. She applauds the Justice Department’s investigation into the Ferguson Police Department after the shooting of Brown. The 102-page report shed light on the department’s discriminatory policing practices, including the ways police disproportionately targeted Black residents for tickets and fines to help balance the city’s budget. To fix such entrenched problems, state governments need to rethink their spending priorities and tax systems so they can provide cities and towns the financial support they need to remain debt-free, said Smith.

Rethinking the 911-response system to being one that is “more focused on healing than just on stopping harm” is part of the student-led research under the direction of Law School Professor Rachel Viscomi, who heads up the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program.

Jon Chase/Harvard file photo

“Part of the solution has to be a discussion about how government is funded and how a city like Ferguson got to a place where government had so few resources that they resorted to extortion of their residents, in particular residents of color, in order to make ends meet,” she said. “We’ve learned since that Ferguson is hardly the only municipality that has struggled with funding issues and sought to address them through the oppression and repression of their politically, socially, and economically marginalized Black and Latino residents.”

Police contracts, she said, also need to be reexamined. The daughter of a “union man,” Smith said she firmly supports officers’ rights to union representation to secure fair wages, health care, and safe working conditions. But the power unions hold to structure police contracts in ways that protect officers from being disciplined for “illegal and unethical behavior” needs to be challenged, she said.

“I think it’s incredibly important for individuals to be held accountable and for those institutions in which they are embedded to hold them to account. But we routinely find that union contracts buffer individual officers from having to be accountable. We see this at the level of the Supreme Court as well, whose rulings around qualified immunity have protected law enforcement from civil suits. That needs to change.”

Other Harvard experts agree. In an opinion piece in The Boston Globe last June, Tomiko Brown-Nagin , dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at HLS, pointed out the Court’s “expansive interpretation of qualified immunity” and called for reform that would “promote accountability.”

“This nation is devoted to freedom, to combating racial discrimination, and to making government accountable to the people,” wrote Brown-Nagin. “Legislators today, like those who passed landmark Civil Rights legislation more than 50 years ago, must take a stand for equal justice under law. Shielding police misconduct offends our fundamental values and cannot be tolerated.”

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Understanding Law Enforcement

The purpose of law enforcement is to protect communities, hold individuals accountable, and ensure justice. But how exactly do police carry out these duties, and what other responsibilities have they taken on? Who controls the police force at different levels of government and who holds them accountable? How can we bridge gaps between citizens and officers?

Table of Contents

Introduction, putting it in context, the role of government, current challenges and areas for reform, thought leaders and resources, ways to get involved/what you can do.

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View the Executive Summary for this brief.

By nature, police and communities are intertwined, and both are essential stakeholders in debates surrounding police reform. Dr. Karen Bartuch, Sgt. Sofia Rosales-Scantena, and Toni McIlwain joined The Policy Circle to discuss the role of police and the role of community involvement, and how citizens can help bridge gaps between communities and police officers:

According to Sir Robert Peel’s Nine Principles of Policing , the basic mission for which the police exist is “to prevent crime and disorder,” but it is also necessary to “recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of [police] existence, actions and behavior, and the ability of the police to secure and maintain public respect.” This is because police officers are in a unique position , being “both part of the community they serve and the government protecting that community.” This position was the focus of the Obama administration’s President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing , an endeavor to strengthen relations between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve, and it was at the heart of nationwide protests that erupted in May 2020 and sparked national debate over the role of police .

A May 2021 report from the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice found that homicide rates declined from their 2020 peaks during the first quarter of 2021, but are still elevated compared to recent years. Aggravated and gun assault rates are also elevated. On the whole, 2021 saw homicide counts continue to climb , but at a slower pace than in 2020.

Crime maps indicate city centers, the sites of anti-police protests, did not experience these upticks; rather, the low-income neighborhoods outside of the city centers are seeing violence peak. These increases in criminality – and in some cases disregard for the law – have made life on the street for the average police officer much more difficult. Lockdowns and protests against the police sidelined the social institutions that tend to keep communities safe, leaving streets emptied  “ of eyes and ears on their communities .”

Why it Matters

In colonial times, law enforcement was a localized endeavor , carried out voluntarily by citizen groups, or sometimes by part-time officers privately funded by local communities. The Texas Rangers that patrolled Texas settlements in the 1800s became the basis from which state law enforcement agencies grew. In 1838, Boston established the first municipal police department , and was quickly followed by New York City, Chicago, New Orleans, and Philadelphia.

There are over 660 law enforcement academies that train the officers who go on to work in almost 19,000 local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. The bulk of these agencies are at the state and local level; state and local police departments employ over 930,000 people, with roughly 718,000 officers with power of arrest. In total, there are about 2.2 officers for every 1000 individuals living in the U.S.

Spending on state and local police  increased from $42 billion in 1977 to $115 billion in 2017 (adjusted for inflation), over 85% of which is local spending. Local spending on police “has outpaced the overall growth of city and county budget” over that time period, “rising faster than K-12 education, sanitation and parks and recreation.” Determining how much is spent on policing is difficult because funding comes from multiple sources; it is not enough to look at a city, county, or state budget alone for a full picture. In 2017, for example, Las Vegas spent less than 2% of its budget on police, but Clark County spent 15% of its budget on police; in Chicago that same year, the city spent almost 20% of its budget on policing, but Cook County only spent 2% of its budget.

Violent Crime & Deaths

Based on the FBI’s annual report of serious crime and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ annual crime survey , crime in the U.S. fell by 50%-70% between 1993 and 2018. Yet in 18 out of 22 surveys conducted between 1993 and 2018, at least 60% of respondents said they believed there was more crime in the U.S. compared to the year before. There are on average 8.25 million criminal offenses each year, resulting in about 10 million arrests.

As of mid-2022, the most recent statistics available are from 2020. Since 2015, law enforcement agencies have been transitioning to a detailed (but more complicated) format known as the National Incident-Based Reporting System. The new system involves financial and technical hurdles for many police departments across the country. Less than 60% of America’s local law enforcement agencies voluntarily submitted data in the new format, meaning national-level and state-level crime data is not universally available.

Crime statistics from the FBI for 2020 show that homicides rose 30% between 2019 and 2020, to 6.5 killings per 100,000 people. In the 1990s, this rate peaked at 9.8 per 100,000 people. Experts have pointed to the pandemic, fallout from social justice protests, and economic disruptions as possible causes, although overall crime fell by 6% between 2019 and 2020. Agencies across the country voluntarily submit data for these statistics. For 2020, 85% of eligible agencies submitted data ; some missing include agencies in New York, Chicago, and New Orleans.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Crime Victimization Survey , through which U.S. residents self-report whether they have been victims of violent crime, reported 4.6 million total violent incidents in 2020, down from 5.8 million in 2019. In total, numbers have held relatively steady since 2010. It is important to note differences between self-reported crime and national statistics; based on comparisons to statistics from the FBI, about 40% of violent victimizations were reported to police in 2020.

According to the Washington Post’s police shootings database , 1,021 people were shot and killed by police in the U.S. in 2020. Of those civilians who lost their lives, 652 were reportedly in possession of a gun and 175 were reportedly in possession of a knife, while 60 were reported unarmed. An article published in The Lancet indicates deaths involving police may have been undercounted in the U.S. (by as many as 17,000 data back to 1980) due to discrepancies between independent tallies and government data of death certificates. Others note the independent tallies come from crowd-sourced databases, which may not be reliable based on specific criteria used in classification.

Although Black Americans made up 14% of the U.S. population in 2019, they accounted for 26.6% of arrests and 24% of individuals shot and killed by police . White Americans, at 60% of the population, accounted for 69.4% of arrests and 45% of individuals shot and killed by police . “A simple count of the number of police shootings that occur does little to explore whether racial differences in the frequency of officer-involved shootings are due to police malfeasance or differences in suspect behavior.” In light of population proportions, some point to these figures as proof of systemic racism and that Black Americans are more likely to be killed by police than White Americans. Others look at violent crime statistics that indicate Black Americans are more frequently involved in criminal incidents, which could mean they are more likely to have encounters with police.

Diving deeper into these statistics, the FBI estimates Black Americans were 39% of offenders in murder incidents in 2019, almost three times greater than their share of the population. Still others point to statistics that indicate Black Americans are even more likely to be victims of violent crime than offenders; at 14% of the population, Black Americans were 54% of murder victims in 2019.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2019 Crime Victimization Survey , violent criminal incidents with Black offenders and Black victims accounted for 70% of violent incidents involving Black Americans in 2019, a share much greater than their share of the population. In comparison, violent crimes with white offenders and white victims, at 62% of criminal incidents involving White Americans, is approximately equivalent to the population of White Americans. According to the 2020 survey , this rate did not significantly change over the course of the next year. 

The chart from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2019 Crime Victimization Survey examines the race and ethnicity of violent incident offenders and victims.

The U.S. Constitution “established a federal government of limited powers. A general police power is not among them .” Congress does, however, have legislative powers that allow it “to enact legislation that relates to law enforcement matters.” Federal laws , such as those related to immigration, bankruptcy, civil rights laws, and tax fraud, apply in every state. Data collection on crimes and law enforcement is mainly done at the federal level to compile national statistics. The federal government is also the largest provider of law enforcement training, primarily through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers under the Department of Homeland Security. Finally, the federal budget includes provisions for supporting state and local law enforcement via justice assistance grants and public safety programs.

Federal Agencies

The  Department of Justice (the DOJ ) is the primary federal agency dedicated to public safety and controlling crime. The Attorney General (AG) supervises and directs the DOJ and its agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Bureau of Prisons; and the U.S. Marshals Service.

For FY2021, total funding for the DOJ amounted to $55.3 billion. Law enforcement operations totaled $18.7 billion.

In total, there are 65 federal agencies and 27 offices of inspector general that employ full time personnel authorized to make arrests and carry firearms. These include the DOJ offices mentioned above as well as U.S. Customs and Border Protection under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); the Park Service Rangers under the Department of the Interior ; and lesser known security offices and details under the Departments of Commerce , Labor , and State , among others.

Congress can influence policing at the local level via the relationship between the DOJ and police throughout the country. Both the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary provide oversight of the DOJ and DHS. In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee’s  Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism oversees the DOJ’s criminal division and most offices, including the FBI and DEA. In the House, the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations has jurisdiction over the Federal Criminal Code, sentencing, prisons, parole, and pardons.

State and Local

The Constitution gives authority over policing to the states . Each state and territory has its own legal and court system to handle criminal matters. State and local agencies make up the bulk of the almost 19,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, and local police departments employ the vast majority of all law enforcement officers, employing approximately 650,000 officers.

Each state has an attorney general who acts as “ the chief legal officer of the state ” and oversees law enforcement and reform. The attorneys general of each state and Washington D.C., and the chief legal officers of Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands are all members of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG).

At the local level there are municipal, county, tribal, and regional police departments that “uphold the laws of the jurisdiction, provide patrol, and investigate local crimes.” Sheriffs offices are granted authority by the state to enforce the state law at the local level in the more than 3,000 counties in the U.S. Police chiefs , who oversee departments, report to local elected officials such as a mayor, a city manager, or a city council.

Local police department officers have the most interaction with their communities. City, county, and municipal officers are those who respond to 911 calls, and monitor roadways and enforce traffic laws . Traffic stops are the primary way most people interact with law enforcement personnel. Most importantly, local law enforcement, like hospitals, operate 24 hours, 7 days a week; people turn to police departments when they do not know who else to turn to.

A series of incidents of excessive use of force in 2020, including the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Elijah McClain, sparked calls for more police oversight and reform. Mounting concern about violent crime in the U.S. has tempered some of these calls. In a July 2020 poll by Gallup , 58% of all Americans said that there were “major changes needed” for police reform. In mid-2021 , 61% of Black Americans, 41% of White Americans, and 30% of Hispanic Americans reported having very little or no confidence in the criminal justice system. By late 2021, the share of adults who want more funding for policing in their area increased to 47% , up from 31% in June 2020.

Accountability

Misconduct & excessive use of force.

Use of force is one of the greatest concerns for many Americans. A June 2020 PEW poll found that only 35% of Americans believe the police do a good or excellent job of “using the right amount of force.”

Finding data to verify these assumptions is difficult. A 2017 Harvard study on police use of force and racial bias found  “[d]ata on lower level uses of force…are virtually non-existent,” and “the analysis of police behavior is fraught with difficulty including, but not limited to, the reliability of the data that does exist.” The study examined data from New York’s City’s Stop and Frisk policy, the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Police-Public Contact Survey , and officer-involved shooting data reported voluntarily from twelve police departments across the country. The main findings ( p. 29-30 ) report:

“On non-lethal uses of force, there are racial differences – sometimes quite large – in police use of force, even after controlling for a large set of control designed to account for important contextual and behavioral factors at the time of the police-civilian interaction. As the intensity of force increases…the overall probability of such an incident occurring decreases but the racial difference remains constant. On the most extreme uses of force, however – officer-involved shootings with a Taser or lethal weapon – there are no racial differences in either the raw data or when accounting for controls.”

Mandating body cameras is a suggestion for ensuring reliable data and accountability. Live footage can guarantee police reports are accurate. It will also help target individual officers for wrongdoing as opposed to intense and lengthy investigations into entire police departments that may interfere in officers’ abilities to respond to community needs. As of mid-2022, seven states mandate body cameras for law enforcement personnel (Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Carolina). About half of local police departments have acquired body cameras as of 2018. Urban Institute further breaks down each state’s body camera laws and regulations.

While body cameras have generally received wide-spread support, other means of equipping police officers have been called into question. The 1033 program authorizes the transfer of U.S. military equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies. This includes necessary ammunition and medical supplies, but also sometimes armed assault vehicles and weapons reserved for military conflict. Equipping local law enforcement officers properly is essential to their protection and that of their communities, but excessive weaponization of police has been linked to more cases of excessive use of force, and “ exacerbates the gap between police and those they are supposed to serve.”

Unions & Collective Bargaining

Other barriers to holding police officers accountable for misconduct can sometimes be found in police contracts negotiated by unions. Police unions emerged alongside many other labor unions at the beginning of the 20th century. Although they initially enjoyed little public support, roughly two-thirds of American police officers are part of police labor unions today.

Police officers are government employees who require civil service protections in terms of demotions or transfers, layoffs or discharges, and pay and benefit determination. Additionally, due to the nature of police officers’ work, misconduct by officers can have more serious consequences than misconduct by other public employees. For this reason, state labor laws and Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBRs) “provide police officers with due process protections during disciplinary investigations that are not given to other classes of public employees.” Collective bargaining by unions ensures these laws are included in police department contracts to protect officers who use their discretion in dangerous situations.

The concern is how collective bargaining contracts can affect departmental policies and even entire disciplinary processes. A study of 178 police union contracts around the country found that many “contain provisions banning civilian oversight, obstructing brutality complaints, inhibiting investigations in police misconduct, and restricting the ability of officials to track and identify officers with a pattern of civilian abuse.” Most frequently, contracts:

• Limit departments’ abilities to investigate civilian complaints, such as throwing out complaints that have been filed after a certain period of time following an incident;
• Mandate the destruction of disciplinary records after a certain period of time, which means officers that have been fired or have resigned over misconduct can be hired elsewhere with an apparently clean record;
• Limit the influence of a civilian oversight board, or prevent civilian oversight entirely;
• Dictate the disciplinary process police commissioners must follow and give arbitrators instead of police supervisors the authority to make final disciplinary decisions.

Despite having the authority “to compel cities, under threat of litigation, to invest in costly reform measures aimed at curbing officer wrongdoing,” even the DOJ still needs to work around union contracts. This makes interventions at the national level difficult. Instead, states can mandate transparency in police union contract negotiations . According to the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin , collective bargaining agreements are usually negotiated in private between union representatives, some elected officials, and certain police department officers. One argument for making collective bargaining open to the public is that groups who are most affected by the police – those who live in the communities police serve, and therefore are at the greatest risk of police misconduct – would be present at the negotiating table.

Qualified Immunity

Another barrier to accountability is what is known as qualified immunity , “a judicial doctrine that shields public officials, like police officers, from liability when they break the law.” Section 1983 of the Enforcement Act of 1871 strictly states that any state actor (like a police officer, a government employee) is liable for “‘the deprivation of any rights’” of citizens. In the 1960s, the Supreme Court judicially amended Section 1983 with the qualified immunity doctrine so the new standard of liability was the deprivation of “‘clearly established’” rights rather than “‘any rights’.”

Under the new terminology, “‘clearly established’” refers to precedent. This is another protection for officers who use their discretion in dangerous situations, but it also creates “ a high and unnecessary bar ” for proving officer wrongdoing. For example, when deputies in Georgia accidentally shot a 10-year-old child when aiming for a dog, the lawsuit the family filed was thrown out because the court “could not find precedent declaring this type of conduct unconstitutional.”

Ending qualified immunity would require federal legislation , which has been just one piece of the contentious debates in Congress. As of mid-2022, lawmakers have been unable to reach an agreement on police reform; bills passed the House but not the Senate.

States can take matters into their own hands. For example, they can bypass qualified immunity through their own legislation. Colorado’s SB217 “essentially bars government actors from using qualified immunity in state courts.” At a department level, liability insurance for law enforcement personnel, much like medical malpractice insurance for doctors, could offer police officers protection without shielding them from discipline. At the individual level, body cameras can protect officers from dubious claims while still holding them accountable for wrongdoing.

Reimagining the Police & Communities

Police culture.

In addition to the inherent dangers of their profession, police officers “experience job-related stressors that can range from interpersonal conflicts to extremely traumatic events, such as vehicle crashes, homicide, and suicide.” Congress passed the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act of 2017 in acknowledgement of the need for mental health resources for police officers, but whether this has made a significant difference is unclear; according to Blue H.E.L.P. , officer suicides increased from 149 in 2016 to 239 in 2019, then fell to 174 in 2020 and 177 in 2021.  

The FBI reported 89 officers were killed in line of duty in 2019 , 93 were killed in 2020 , and 129 were killed in 2021 .This means more officers die by suicide annually than in the line of duty , and that is already considering suicide deaths are likely undercounted since there is no database that collects suicide-related data specific to law enforcement.

Low-risk encounters can inadvertently escalate when officers face heightened pressure, stressors, and trauma while on the job. Feeling overburdened, ill-equipped, and misunderstood creates a scenario in which officers can feel alienated from the communities they serve. Resources dedicated to helping officers develop techniques such as stress-coping skills, crisis management, and emotional intelligence training is one step towards addressing the “‘ police warrior ’” mindset and bridging gaps in community-police relations.

One method may be to redistribute officers across districts; a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found more experienced officers use less force and make fewer arrests, but due to seniority-based process, districts with the most violent crime are staffed with less experienced cops that may be less effective at reducing that crime. Based on the assumption that senior officers are more effective at deterring crime, resolving situations, and exercising judgment due to experience, researchers determined crime would be reduced by almost 5% if senior officers were distributed across districts .

Sergeant Fred Jones notes that while “there will always be those that will not comply with the laws of society, and they will do anything not to be taken into custody,” emotional intelligence training plays an important role in police officers’ behavior, affecting how they treat others and themselves as they face these challenges on a daily basis (15 min):

Police Department Budgets

Spending on police has outpaced spending on education and community services in the past few decades. The premise behind the movement to defund the police “is that government budgets and ‘public safety’ spending should prioritize housing, employment, community health, education and other vital programs, instead of police officers.” Those who advocate defunding the police seek to redistribute a portion of funds that previously went to policing operations and correctional facilities. Instead of calling the police “to handle every societal failure,” funds and resources would instead be redirected to “supports for housing, mental health, addiction and employment” that could be more effective than arrests and jail time in solving underlying problems.

All of this makes cuts difficult, and the jobs of police chiefs to work within these constraints is made more difficult as well. In fact, by October 2020, 18 police chiefs from the U.S.’s 69 largest cities had “ resigned, retired, been pushed out or fired ,” citing protests for police reform and calls for budget cuts. On the whole, however, reporting from late 2021 indicates law enforcement staffing as a whole has been fairly stable.

Across the country from New York to Los Angeles , elected officials approved plans to cut police budgets, although “many of the cuts are cosmetic, temporary or represent a relatively small part of budgets.” Bloomberg CityLab data reports that 50 of the largest U.S. cities reduced their 2021 police budgets by about 5%, but that most of this was part of “broader pandemic cost-cutting initiatives,” and law enforcement as a share of expenditures was practically unchanged and even increased slightly in these cities. Cities including Minneapolis and Seattle paused these changes, and many more proposed funding increases for 2022 after rises in crime over the course of 2020. In New York City, current mayor Eric Adams ran on a platform that kept police funding stable . 

Even with intentions to redistribute funds elsewhere, defunding the police could backfire. “When police command staff are presented with a reduced budget,” explains former FBI special agent Errol G. Southers , “[t]hey will cut the costs of the many programs police departments provide that are outside of day-to-day law enforcement,” mainly those that engage young people and police officers. This leaves few interactions between the community and the police, and therefore few opportunities to increase levels of trust.

A compounding issue is that drops in police-civilian contact are often followed by increases in crime, particularly in minority communities, according to Harvard economist Roland Fryer . In these communities and many others, response infrastructure and regular patrols mean that police officers are often the quickest to respond to 911 calls.

Public concern about violent crime in the U.S. has shifted attitudes about police funding, with decreasing support for defunding the police and increasing support for more local police funding .

Another possibility could be, instead of defunding the police, ensuring police first responders  have the funds to equip them with the training and resources necessary to respond appropriately to all calls for help.

Others “are skeptical that existing police departments can ever be reformed” and believe “demolishing what is currently in place and starting from scratch” is the best option for transforming policing in America. They call not only to defund but to abolish the police . What this looks like is unclear. In June 2020, Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood closed down precincts in response to mass demonstrations, and police did not respond to calls coming from the neighborhood. A group of local business owners sued the city , claiming, “‘Seattle’s unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public’ resulted in enormous property damage and lost revenue.”

On the opposite side of the country, Camden, New Jersey embarked on a campaign that actually did abolish the police department in 2013, but the city had a clear plan in place that “set about rebuilding the police force with an entirely new one under county control.” Prior to 2013, “the police were despised by residents for being ineffective at best and corrupt at worst,” and in one case five officers were charged with evidence planting, fabrication, and perjury. The transition took time and involved dismantling police union contracts and overhauling the system for rating officers’ performance. Today, the force still faces issues with transparency and high turnover rates, but the homicide rate and rates of excessive use of force have dropped considerably. For more on Camden’s transition, see this feature (5 min):

Community Policing

Community policing is “a police strategy that utilizes local partnerships and greater decision-making authority among street-level officers in an effort to solve community problems.” Focusing on partnerships between police and communities directly addresses the conditions that result in public safety issues, and has been found to reduce crime as well as fear of crime and increase public satisfaction and positivity towards police. The Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Service saw an increase in funding for FY2022.

Implementing community policing does not always result in a department-wide mindset shift; instead, many departments treat “this model of policing as a one-sided transaction carried out by a few officers in a special unit or through sporadic events or meetings.” Such departments may sustain the “‘ police warrior ’” culture with tactics such as suppression style policing, which “casts a wide net over a high crime area” by flooding it with law enforcement personnel. In doing so, explains Josh Crawford of Pegasus Institute , “you catch the big fish that are committing the overwhelming majority of violent crime in that area. The problem is, you catch a whole lot of small fish and you catch a whole lot of things that aren’t fish at all.”

This tactic presents a challenge for police-community relations . While it may be effective in catching criminals and deterring crime, there is “a growing body of research that suggests that citizen evaluations of the police are more connected to the way the police interact with the public than to the effectiveness of policing on crime.” If a community does not trust the police, they may not be willing to cooperate and it may be more difficult for police to solve crimes. If police have low crime resolution rates, the community may be even less trusting, creating a cycle of police-community alienation. Captain Chip Huth explains how these tactics affected the Kansas City Police Department, and what happened when officers changed their systems and mindsets (10 min):

Within individual cities and communities, changing training priorities may help police officers and citizens find middle ground. Of the 700 hours of average training for police recruits, about 60 hours are dedicated to firearms training and 50 hours to self-defense training. In contrast, fewer than 30 hours are dedicated to community policing, which includes mediation skills, conflict management, and human relations. The New Haven Police Department incorporated community policing as a training requirement for recruits. Recruits completed community projects in the city, such as organizing after-school activities or playing sports with kids at local parks. After the projects, recruits noted their time “substantially altered their perception of the neighborhoods” they would be serving.

Social worker Derrick Jackson of the Washtenaw County, Michigan Police Department explains how problem-oriented policing works , and how even former convicted criminals can make positive changes in their communities when the opportunities exist (9 min):

Increasing communications is an important step police departments can take. Although studies suggest citizens do not frequently access police department websites , the ones who do have positive views of police effectiveness and legitimacy. This provides police departments with an opportunity to create user-friendly websites and engaging social media accounts that support community-police collaborations by disseminating information to the public as well as inviting the public to share information.

Communities in Action

Eugene, Oregon: CAHOOTS

When calls to the Eugene Police Department do not involve legal issues or risk of violence, dispatch operators will forward those calls to the medics and crisis workers that are part of the White Bird Clinic’s Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets (CAHOOTS) program . CAHOOTS, a collaboration between community social workers and police, has served as an alternative to police intervention since 1989. After receiving a call, a medic and crisis worker “ go out and respond to the call , assess the situation, assist the individual if possible, and then help that individual to a higher level of care or necessary service if that’s what’s really needed.” On average, the clinic’s teams answer between 15% and 20% of the calls that come to the police, and have needed to call for police backup on less than 1% of calls. The estimated savings for the city of Eugene are around $8.5 million annually.

See more about CAHOOTS in this feature (5 min)

Greater Syracuse, New York: 211

The city of Syracuse and surrounding suburbs have struggled with high levels of poverty since the 1970s, but the area’s plan to end unsheltered homelessness has been fairly successful. Instead of calling 911, a “robust 211 provider coordinates outreach response and shelter referrals and provides diversion assistance on a 24/7 basis” under the Continuum of Care system. Through the process, “City and County staff, who are charged with addressing homelessness, pro-actively engage with police, fire/EMS, and other first responders, as well as the local healthcare, criminal justice, and child welfare system.”

Volunteers in Police Service

Volunteer programs can also help law enforcement agencies “fulfill their primary functions and provide services that may not otherwise be offered,” such as social media outreach, community meetings, surveys, and civilian oversight boards. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Memphis, Tennessee, faith-based institutions have partnered with local police departments for specialized academies that train clergy members on police activity, allowing them to serve as ambassadors that can help build trust and communication among the congregation, community, and police.

The Volunteers in Police Service (VIPS) program, managed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Bureau of Justice Assistance under the DOJ,  is a support system for police departments seeking to develop or expand citizen volunteer programs, or citizens looking to be more involved with their local law enforcement agencies.

Research is another integral component in helping law enforcement. Programs, volunteers, and community organizations are essential, but indications as to which services and systems are having the greatest impact is not always clear. This is where the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab saw an opportunity to assist. See what they’re doing (7 min):

The role of the police is to ensure the safety and security of those who uphold the law, and to protect and help communities from those who do not. But they need to do so without using tactics that disrespect civil liberties or generate animosity in the neighborhoods they serve. Policies and practices that focus on transparency and accountability can help bridge gaps between law enforcement personnel and communities. Individuals and communities that take responsibility for their safety can also foster mutual trust and understanding with law enforcement. Collaboration and opportunities to work together can make officers’ roles easier and make communities safer for everyone.

The Policy Circle would like to thank the following contributors for their assistance during the creation of this brief:

Brianna (Walden) Nuhfer, Stand Together Associate Director of Criminal Justice

Greg Glod, Americans for Prosperity Criminal Justice Fellow

Phil Andrew, Principal of PAX Group consultancy and former FBI agent and crisis negotiator

Quentella Enty, Director of Strategic Sourcing & Sustainability at KFA, Inc.

NCSL: Law Enforcement Overview

• Body-Worn Camera Interactive Map
• Legislative Responses for Policing – State Bill Tracking Database

George Mason University Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy

NYU Policing Project

Police Data Initiative

• Participating Agencies

University of Chicago Crime Lab

National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice

Top Priority Podcast on Qualified Immunity with Greg Glod of Americans for Prosperity and Casey Mattox of Charles Koch Institute.

Measure : Find out what your state and district are doing about policing.

• Start by investigating the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer or the DOJ’s Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics .
• USA Today breaks down police department budgets in the 50 most populous cities in the U.S. – be mindful that some departments’ budgets are also funded by the county. 
• What are your state’s policies regarding reforms such as body cameras or use of force definitions ?
• How does your state or local law enforcement agency report data? Are they part of the Police Data Initiative ?
• Has your city or state enacted community policing legislation ?
• Do you know how law enforcement officers are trained in your state or community?

Identify: Who are the influencers in your state, county, or community? Learn about their priorities and consider how to contact them, including elected officials , attorneys general, law enforcement, boards of education, city councils, journalists, media outlets, community organizations, and local businesses.

• Are you familiar with your local law enforcement officers and their day-to-day roles?
• Who is your state attorney general ?
• Do you know the role of police unions in your state?
• Are there organizations or programs in your community, such as faith-based organizations or after-school programs, that engage with law enforcement?

Reach out: You are a catalyst. Finding a common cause is a great opportunity to develop relationships with people who may be outside of your immediate network. All it takes is a small team of two or three people to set a path for real improvement. The Policy Circle is your platform to convene with experts you want to hear from.

• Find allies in your community or in nearby towns and elsewhere in the state.
• Foster collaborative relationships with law enforcement officers, first responders, faith-based organizations, local hospitals, community organizations, school boards, local businesses, and academic institutions.

Plan: Set some milestones based on your state’s legislative calendar .

• Don’t hesitate to contact The Policy Circle team, [email protected] , for connections to the broader network, advice, insights on how to build rapport with policy makers and establish yourself as a civic leader.

Execute: Give it your best shot. You can:

• Volunteer with your police department or ask to participate in a ride-along to better understand police responsibilities.
• Ask your local officials to review local and county budgets, and ask them to invite public comment on budgeting to identify resources and funding gaps as well as understand what police obligations contribute to funding levels.
• Consider if there is an opportunity to bring a police-mental health collaboration to your community.
• Consider assessing the components that are integral to the function of police departments

Working with others, you may create something great for your community. Here are some tools to learn how to contact your representatives and write an op-ed .

Suggestions for your Next Conversation

Explore the series.

This brief is part of a series of recommended conversations designed for circle's wishing to pursue a specific focus for the year. Each series recommends "5" briefs to provide a year of conversations.

The Community Series

Essay on Role of Youths in Nation Building for Students and Children

500 words essay on role of youths in nation building.

It is a well-known fact that the youth of any country is a great asset. They are indeed the future of the country and represent it at every level. The role of youths in nation-building is more important than you might think. In other words, the intelligence and work of the youth will take the country on the pathway of success. As every citizen is equally responsible, the youth is too. They are the building blocks of a country.

Role of Youth

The youth is important because they will be our future. Today they might be our partners, tomorrow they will go on to become leaders. The youths are very energetic and enthusiastic. They have the ability to learn and adapt to the environment . Similarly, they are willing to learn and act on it as well to achieve their goals.

Our youth can bring social reform and improvement in society. We cannot make do without the youth of a country. Furthermore, the nation requires their participation to achieve the goals and help in taking the country towards progress.

Likewise, we see how the development of any country requires active participation from the youth. It does not matter which field we want to progress in, whether it is the technical field or sports field, youth is needed. It is up to us how to help the youth in playing this role properly. We must make all the youth aware of their power and the role they have to play in nation-building.

Ways to Help the Youth

There are many ways in which we can help the youth of our country to achieve their potential. For that, the government must introduce programs that will help in fighting off issues like unemployment, poor education institutes and more to help them prosper without any hindrance.

Similarly, citizens must make sure to encourage our youth to do better in every field. When we constantly discourage our youth and don’t believe in them, they will lose their spark. We all must make sure that they should be given the wind beneath their wings to fly high instead of bringing them down by tying chains to their wings.

Furthermore, equal opportunities must be provided for all irrespective of caste, creed, gender , race, religion and more. There are various issues of nepotism and favoritism that is eating away the actual talent of the country. This must be done away with as soon as possible. We must make sure that every youth has the chance to prove themselves worthy and that must be offered equally to all.

In short, our youth has the power to build a nation so we must give them the opportunity. They are the future and they have the perspective which the older generations lack. Their zeal and enthusiasm must be channelized properly to help a nation prosper and flourish.

FAQ on Essay on Role of Youths in Nation Building

Q.1 What role does youth play in nation-building?

A.1 The youth plays a great role in nation-building. It has the power to help a country develop and move towards progress. It also is responsible for bringing social reform within a country. The youth of a country determine the future of a nation.

Q.2 How can we help youth?

A.2 As well all know youth is facing too many problems nowadays. We need to give them equal opportunities in every field so they can succeed well. They must be given all the facilities and also encouraged to take the challenge to achieve success.

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Role of police in nation building essay writing please friends I'll mark as brainlist answer ​

The role of police in nation building essay is as follows.

Role of police in nation building

• The police authorities are related to keeping up with the well-being, authorization of regulation, protection, defending of privileges of public, recognition and examination of crimes. Subsequently, police assumes a significant part for country building.
• Police commonly are liable for keeping public control and wellbeing, implementing the law, and forestalling, distinguishing, and examining crimes. These capabilities are known as policing. Police are frequently likewise dependent on different authorizing and administrative activities. Police are the primary body whom we approach in the event that any wrongdoing or wrong is finished against us. Police are the person who enrols the First Information Report and cops are liable for the upkeep of public requests and peace.
• New studies have shown that cops endure side effects characteristic of PTSD at a comparable rate as veterans of the military . Somewhere in the range of seven and 19 per cent of cops display side effects of PTSD, contrasted with 3.5% of the overall population. Overall, cops experience the ill effects of combined PTSD. Law implementation officials can diminish pressure by Planning feasts and pursuing smart dieting decisions. Quit eating fatty cheap food. Booking get-aways and individual free time.
• The absence of remunerations for good work execution, inadequate preparation, and unnecessary desk work can likewise add to police pressure. The law enforcement framework makes extra pressure. Court appearances disrupt cops' work tasks, individual time, and, surprisingly, resting plans.

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Explanation:

police force or service perform the duties assigned them by the law by protecting the public against violence, crime and other harmful acts. Police officers must act in accordance with the law, ensuring that it is respected and applied in a manner consistent with their level of responsibility......

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• Role of Youth in Nation Building Essay

Long and Short Essay on Role of Youth in Nation Building

The role of Youth in nation-building or development is very important, and this is because the development of any nation lies in the future generation. Democracy, economy, technology and the improvement of medical science all lie in the hands of the Youth. Poverty, unemployment, global warming, and pollution of many types are the problems that the world is facing today. The answer to solving all these problems lies with the next generation.

History is evident that the next generation has been the answer to solve future problems. As time passes by, it is required to adapt to the changes and bring a change in society. The Youth is capable of doing so; we can bring a change in society. So what is the role of the Youth for a better tomorrow? What are the qualities that are required to bring a change in society?. These two questions are very important, and all the students should know the answer to them. To answer these questions, the role of Youth in nation-building essays is written. 

Below a long and short essay on the role of youths in nation-building and frequently asked questions on the essay about the role of the Youth in our society is given. Students can refer to these essays and understand the importance of Youth in the development of the country and make a speech on the role of youth in nation-building.

Long Essay on Role of Youths in Nation-Building

Swami Vivekananda once said, 'My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation and out of them will come to my workers. This quote describes the impact the Youth can have on society. More than 60% of the Youth helped Germany win the first world war far better or the worst. The mission to make the first person walk on the moon consisted of more than 80% of the Youth who helped in planning the whole mission. Likewise, Indian Youth also played an important role to make our country free from British rule. Youth has the power to change the world. When the Youth is united, we can make the world a better place to live, and when we are divided, we also have the power to destroy the world.

Youth is the most dynamic and important segment of the population in any country. Statistics show that the developing countries which have a huge youth population could be seeing tremendous growth in all the sectors of the countries provided they inc=vest in young people's education, health and protect and guarantee their rights. It is believed that today's young minds and tomorrow's leaders, creators, builders, and innovators.

For Youth to be good leaders, inventors and innovators, it is important that they are supported and are provided good health, training, and education to transform the future. There will be a boost in the economy of the country when the Youth is working and earning rather than being dependent on anyone.

As we all know that half of the world's population is now under the age of 25, and 1.8 billion people are between the age of 11-25. This is considered to be the largest youth generation to ever exist. Many countries such as Sweden, Japan, and Germany have already started gaining from the Youth by providing them opportunities in different sectors. It has been more than 80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Any country would be devastated by the loss of lives and the destruction that was caused during that time, but Japan did not stop, and over the decades, the government of Japan has started investing in the Youth and the investment they made in the Youth during that time is giving them the profit now. More than 80% of Youth in Japan are responsible for the economic boost of the country. Industries such as Manga and Anime consist of 90% of young minds that are responsible for generating a revenue of 1.3 billion every year to the country. This is the impact that Youth can make on the country's growth. Here the role of Youth in the national development article is discussed.

Indian Youth- Confused or Confident? 

Let us talk about the Youth of India; Today, India is one of the youngest nations in the world, with more than 55% of the population is below the age of 25, and more than 60% of the population is the working age, which is between 15 to 60 years. It is estimated that the average age of the population by the year 2023 would be 29 years old and in India, whereas, in Japan, it would be 47 years, and in the United States of America, it would be 40 years old. The presence of younger people in our country gives us an edge over the demographic dividend over other countries. The demographic dividend is the growth in the economy of the country due to the change in the age structure of the country. The Youth of our country today are increasingly becoming restless and trying their best to make a difference, but it has not been enough. More effort should be made if we all want to end unemployment, poverty, corruption, and violence in the country. Due to the presence of these diseases in our society, there has been a delay in the development of the country.

India is the biggest democracy in the world, and still, it lags in achieving economic and socio-political growth. The two things which our freedom fighters fought for were freedom and the growth of the country, and after all those years, we have failed in achieving both goals. For 72 years, we have failed to fight unemployment, poverty, corruption, illiteracy, and violence in our country. India's ranks in the various development index have barely grown in recent years. For example, India ranks 116 in the Human Capital Index, 144 in the World Happiness Index, 131 in the Human Development Index, and 141 on the Gender Development Index. This shows the state in which our country is. If India wants to improve all these indices, then it is the responsibility of the Youth to come forward and take responsibility to fight against the multiple inequalities and contribute to the development of the country.

Statistics show that India has the upper hand over other countries as 62 % of the population is the Youth. Young minds are known to be innovative and hard-working that will help in the development of the country. Youth can change the country only if proper opportunities in the various fields are given to them. In our society, we have been guided to pursue careers in either engineering or medical science. This could be because of the pressure from the family or the trend in society. This has become a major cause for the downfall of the Youth. A statistical report suggests that about 55% of engineering Youth are unemployed because they don't have the required skills to crack a job. The Youth can change society if they consider pursuing a career in different fields like arts and politics. If proper opportunities are given to the Youth to represent their ideas in fields such as politics, then we can expect a drastic change in the country's growth. Young minds should be motivated to take part in politics and occupy high positions such as education minister, finance minister, bureaucrats, and even the Prime minister.

Youth has the power to bring change. They have the power to demand justice. For example, a mass protest by the Youth against the CAA bill in Delhi or the mass protest by the Youth in Delhi for justice of Nirbhaya cases are some of the examples of the strength of the Youth. TRO makes the Youth the ultimate power of the country, and educational programs should be developed that aims to teach the young people from the school level the importance and the impact they can have on the country. They should be taught about how the country works and how it can be a significant part of the development of the country. Youth should be motivated to consider different career options such as politics, which eventually helps in running the country. 

Our nation has been facing a lot of problems, and Youth has the power to resolve most of them. All the Youth of today need is a chance to prove themselves. Through many protests against corruption, rape against women, we have witnessed that the Youth have the power to unite individuals from various ethnic groups. The world has been facing many problems such as Racism and Islamophobia. Everyone is fighting with each other because of the religion to which they belong or the complexion of their skin color. These fights within the Youth are created by political leaders or the people with power because they know that the only way they could defeat the power of Youth is when we are divided. This is the reason why we need Youth in politics as youth leaders could convince other fellow men and women to live in peace and harmony. The differences and all these issues should not allow the Youth to be divided. Instead of focusing on these differences, youth leaders should lead the way and help the majority focus on the real issues that matter, such as poverty, crime against women, unemployment, and many more. The Youth has the ability to bring a change in the country. 

To conclude, the role of the Youth is very important in the building of a nation. They can be a positive influence in society and can also solve the problem by introducing innovative and impactful ideas that will only help in the betterment of the country. They have the ability to create an identity for themselves, which will help in creating an impact. All the youth needs is the support of their family and friends, and I can assure you that they can make our country great. 

Short Essay on the Role of Youth in National Development

India is the world's largest democracy and the second largest populated country in the world.65% of the population comprises the Youth, and this is enough to show the importance of Youth and how big of an asset they are for the country.

The role of Youth in nation-building is very important. The work they do and the ideas they help to bring to the table will take the country on the path to success. In spite of being the largest democracy in the world, India is still lagging behind in achieving the economic success that will help to make a mark in the world. It has been 72 years since the freedom of our country, and throughout all these years, India has been infected by a few diseases such as corruption, unemployment, poverty, malnutrition, no proper healthcare services, and a crime against men and women. Indians are ranked 144 in the world happiness index, 141 in the gender development index, and 145 in the Global burden Index. India's rank in the various development indexes has not improved over a few years. The only way India can improve the ranks in all these indices is through empowering the Youth of the country. The Youth need to take charge and come forward to fight for a better tomorrow, and that can only be done if proper opportunities are provided to Youth in different fields.

If anyone wants to bring a change in the system, the only option is to study and get into it. The Indian Youth should consider joining politics and running for different roles such as the governor, bureaucrats, Home minister, and even Prime minister. Youth have the advantage of being a young mind and more connected to today's generation. A youth running the country will help in solving the problems that other Youth faces every day.

Youth has the ability to face any issue and solve it. There has been a rise in the cases of Racism and Islamophobia all across the world. Instead of focusing on important topics such as unemployment, poverty, and corruption, the Youth in our country is divided into a few not-so-important topics. This is because the majority of the Youth has been influenced t=by greedy political leaders who think all about themselves. This is why we need the Youth to be part of politics. Imagine a youth leader who unites every fellow Youth to focus and fight for what will matter for the future, and our country would be great.

To conclude, the Youth has the power to build a nation that will only help in its development. To do so, the Youth of our country should be supported by friends and family members. The Youth should be supported to pursue careers in various fields such as cinema, arts, and politics. The support which everyone will give today to the Youth will help in making our country great in the future. The important role of the youth in nation-building has been discussed here, and students can take a cue for writing an essay on my role as a youth in nation-building.

FAQs on Role of Youth in Nation Building Essay

1. Why is it important to build a nation?

A Nation is a group of people with a common language, beliefs, traditions and culture. Countries have been built from the basis of the shared interest, identity and aspirations of their people coming from different backgrounds. When you say you are Pakistani, Indian or American etc., what comes to your mind? Education, education and education. You have a common identity with all the people living in that particular country which is why you feel united in helping each other in times of need. A nation is a place where all the people live together with harmony and peace because they are united under one umbrella, which is the identity of that particular nation. Building a nation is important because a strong nation can only lead to a stronger economy, which in turn will bring about positive changes for the people living in that country and make their lives easier.

2. What are the traits of a good leader in nation building?

A good leader is a person who has vision and clarity about where he or she wants to take the country. He has complete knowledge about what needs to be done to achieve his goal, whether it's peaceful negotiations between countries at war or building roads within the country. He is a good motivator and knows how to bring out the best in people. He is honest and has high moral values. Last but not least, he is a true leader who can lead from the front and guide others to work for the common good. If a nation has a good leader, it can be possible to bring positive changes in every sector and make the country a better place to live in. With the help of a good leader, a nation can be built in a better way. A good leader can change the destiny of a nation.

3. What are the responsibilities of the youth in nation-building?

Youth has the responsibility to do their bit for nation-building, along with the common people like students, workers etc. Youth should make decisions after much thought and consideration because they hold the future of our generation in their hands. They should work together with all sections of society to bring about positive change in the country. They should also be involved in activities that promote national unity and solidarity. Youth should focus on their education and build a bright future for themselves and their country. They should join the army, civil services, police etc., to serve the nation in their respective capacities. The Youth play a very important role in Nation Building. They are the future of our country, and it is very important to groom them to become good leaders. Youth should be encouraged to take up sports and social work to strengthen our society. If a country has a responsible youth, then that Youth will definitely lead the country to a better future.

4. How can the youth be more involved in nation-building?

The Youth should take up jobs that benefit society. They can join the army, police or civil services to serve our nation. The Youth are our future and should be encouraged to take up sports and social work. Our Youth need to be educated because we cannot progress without them. We all must encourage our Youth to take part in nation-building activities so that together we can create a better future for everyone. With the help of our Youth, many problems can be solved. They should stop taking drugs and other harmful substances. Volunteering for community support activities is a very good way to give back to society while helping our Youth grow stronger in their personal life, health and well-being. If our Youth takes part in nation-building activities, then definitely our nation will be built in a better way.

5. What is the role of women in nation-building?

Women play a very important role in nation-building because they keep the family unit intact and pass on values to the young children. They must not neglect their household work and try to give equal importance to their traditional role while also training themselves to be good citizens. Women should strive for a healthy environment in society and join groups that work to bring about positive changes in their community. They can also involve themselves in nation-building activities like blood donation camps, tree plantation drives etc. There are many jobs women can take up, such as becoming police officers, nurses etc., to serve our nation. The role of Youth in Nation Building is very vital. A responsible youth can definitely lead the country to a better future. Youth should be encouraged to take up jobs that benefit society. Women contribute to nation-building in many ways like working with police, forest department etc. Women play a very important role in nation-building. Nowadays, women are given more freedom, and they play a vital role in society. Women involve themselves in nation-building activities like blood donation camps, tree plantation drives etc. women are taking up jobs in many fields like policewomen, nurses etc. So, women definitely play a very important role in nation-building, and they should be given more opportunities to serve our nation.

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Civil Rights — Understanding and Addressing Police Brutality in the United States

Understanding and Addressing Police Brutality in The United States

• Categories: Civil Rights Law Enforcement

About this sample

Words: 603 |

Published: Feb 12, 2024

Words: 603 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

What is police brutality, causes of police brutality, curbing police brutality, factors contributing or leading to police brutality, police brutality conclusion.

• Adler, A. (1973). The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology (2nd Ed). Radin, P. (Trans.). Tatowa, J.: Littlefield (1920).
• Atlansk, J. (2009). Truly reforming law enforcement-ending police brutality!
• Bennett, A. (1990. The Untapped Potential of Psychological Assessments. The Police Chief, LVII (2), 23-25.
• Bennett, T. (2008). End police brutality in the United States: Law enforcement crimes committed in minority communities.
• Cao, L. (2002). Curbing police brutality: What works? A reanalysis of citizen complaints at the organizational level, Final Report. U.S. Department of Justice.
• Earl, J. (n.d). Police brutality: A lifelong learning process.
• Loree, D. (2006). Corruption in policing: Causes and consequences. A review of the literature. RCMP.
• Lucent Overview Series. (n.d.). Police Brutality.
• Muwakkil, S. (2001). The global costs of police brutality in the US. Chicago Tribune.
• Pagewise. (2002). Police brutality: Causes.
• Ryan, G. (2007). Study: Police abuse goes unpunished.
• Smith, S. (2010). What is police brutality?

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