Shifting paradigms: Policing in Northern Ireland

Abstract

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 was the explicit base for the politically shared, though tenuous, internal government of Northern Ireland. This ensuing process has highlighted the centrality of the national police, as a country or state attempts to shift towards a contemporary, pluralistic democracy. To clarify, the police force, which was previously an instrument of control, must now become an organization that strives for the consent and support of the public. Using Mawby’s models of policing as an organizational framework, this article focuses attention on the policing paradigms of Northern Ireland over the course of its social history. It puts forth the argument that, despite some strategic changes, it is only upon the heels of the Good Friday Agreement and the consequent governmental change that the police force has begun to shift its operational paradigm away from the colonial model toward an Anglo‐Saxon paradigm.

Citation

McGloin, J.M. (2003), "Shifting paradigms: Policing in Northern Ireland", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 118-143. https://doi.org/10.1108/13639510310460323