The Securitisation of Routine Policing? A Case Study of the Impact of Counter Terrorism Policy on Local Policing

An influential body of research into policing and security has suggested that routine policing in Western European democracies has been subject to a process of ‘securitisation’. Securitisation refers to the identification of ‘existential threats’ which require emergency powers and extraordinary counter-measures outwith ‘normal’, democratically accountable, government (Weaver, 1996). Such is the preoccupation with the threat posed by transnational terrorism that it is argued routine policing is increasingly driven by this logic of securitisation (King and Sharp, 2006; Virta, 2008). However, the extent to which routine policing is actually being securitised remains a moot empirical point. This is due in part to the fact that such arguments are based primarily on textual analyses which tend to impute action from talk, by inferring policy impact on the frontline from policy rhetoric and exhortation. This thesis contends that research needs to move beyond a concern with policy elites and the ‘textual footprints’ of their talk and decisions and focus on the action of everyday, local police routines, in order to establish the extent, nature and impact of ‘securitisation’. This research study employs a single, embedded case study approach to examine the extent and nature of 'securitisation' of routine policing in one British police force area. The research design facilitates the opportunity to move beyond the corroboration/falsification of the securitisation thesis in relation to empirical findings about actual police routines and practices. It draws on Pollitt’s (2001) propositions about the policy process and the implementation gaps between policy ‘talk’, ‘decisions’ and ‘actions’ to generate empirical findings, and adapts the securitisation thesis in order to build theory about the relationship between securitisation and routine practice. The research found that empirical evidence of securitisation varies across the three policy levels and decreases as the empirical focus moves from policy ‘talk’ and ‘decision’ to the level of police practice or ‘action’. It is argued that this study has developed a robust methodological approach to the empirical capture of routine policing that can be replicated in other research sites as a basis for comparison in future research.