Pondering Paramilitarism:

The exchange in this issue of the British Journal of Criminology between the author and P. A. J. Waddington constitutes the second round of a debate begun in 1987 with the publication in this journal of an article by each writer on the subject of ‘paramilitarism’ in the British police. The present writer attempts in this article to show how the dispute between himself and Professor Waddington on this subject is rooted in a difference of standpoint rather than in a failure to engage with each other's arguments. He addresses Waddington's four challenges in the order they are presented in the latter's article in this issue, namely, definitions, facts, the ‘viewpoint from below’, and the question of idealism.