Police reform: Peacebuilding through ‘democratic policing’?

This essay explores the role that police reform has played in the political and economic reconstruction, and social rehabilitation, of post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). In particular, it focuses on the evaluation of two UN programmes – the minority police recruitment policy and the certification process for all Bosnian police officers – which were developed with the aim of contributing to the broader peacebuilding agenda in BiH. The UN minority police recruitment policy was designed to help in the refugee return process, whereas the certification of police officers was designed to assist in the reconciliation process. Under these programmes, BiH police reform became an integral part of the international agenda of transforming the Bosnian state and society. The findings question the assumption that police reform can be used to engineer broader social change and further suggest that the ‘democratic policing’ mandate could have the unintended consequence of undermining the morale and efficiency of the police. Although much of what this essay discusses refers to the UN period (end 1995–end 2002), the analysis also includes some remarks on the post-2002 phase and the EU Police Mission (EUPM).