Globalising the Local: A Genealogy of Sector Policing in South Africa

In: International relations: the journal of the David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies, Band 21, Heft 2, S. 163-182

Abstract

A framework for analysing policy transfer developed by David Dolowitz and David Marsh has begun to attract the attention of criminologists interested in understanding how crime policies travel. This article uses this framework to assist in tracing the genealogy of a style of local, geographically responsible `sector' policing which is currently being implemented by the South African Police Service. After locating sector policing as a distinctive approach within the broader tradition of community policing, the article considers the origins and development of geographically responsible policing in Great Britain and the United States before focusing on its adoption and adaptation in post-apartheid South Africa. Answers to the seven questions suggested by Dolowitz and Marsh's framework are then sought in an effort to understand more fully the genealogy of sector policing in South Africa and the role of international policy transfer in it.