Cultural change in the governance of security

Issues of cultural change typically plague advocates of policing reform. Scholars often argue that due to their defining capacity to exercise coercion, the police possess occupational sensibilities that tend to undermine new ways of thinking and acting introduced in reform programmes. A notable exception to this pessimism is found in the work of Janet Chan, who argues that cultural transformation can and does take place through iterative changes at the levels of “field” (structures) and “habitus” (practical dispositions) of the police. Extending the work of Brogden and Shearing, this article argues that further optimism can be reached by explicitly acknowledging the plural nature of security governance. Not only do different “nodes” of governance possess different ways of thinking and acting, they also take on the sensibilities of other nodes to maintain or improve their position in the security field. The normative possibilities raised by this explanatory line of inquiry will be examined.