In Search of Moral Recognition? Policing and Eudaemonic Legitimacy in Ghana

Abstract

Ghana is widely considered as “a beacon of hope for democracy in Africa” (Gyimah‐Boadi 2010, 137). Yet substantive democratic transformations of policing have stagnated mainly because the police continue to act as a handmaiden of the state and powerful elites. Consequently, the reliance on performance in crime control and order maintenance as the bedrock of colonial police legitimacy (as judged by colonial administrators) has survived unscathed. Anxieties about violent crime, mainly in urban areas, have accompanied the pursuit of neoliberal economics and politics. Having staked their legitimacy on performance, the police view these anxieties and doubts about their effectiveness as potentially de‐legitimating. They have responded in a highly dramatic but violent fashion, including the extrajudicial killing of suspected violent offenders believed to be the cause of feelings of insecurity. This article examines the nature of this pathway to legitimacy.

What Future for Policing? Some Reflections on the Concept and Purpose of Policing and Their Implications for Police Reform in England and Wales

“…In her concerns over policing operations in post conflict transitions, Mani (2000) identifies the vagueness of policing concepts as an inhibitor to the development of police doctrines. This has been reported in a number of other works in post-conflict (Hartz, 2000;Harrington, 2006;Harrington, 2008;Hills, 2009;Albrecht and Buur, 2010;Hoogenboom, 2010) and post-colonial (Cole, 1999;Kapoor, 2013;Tankebe, 2013) transitions. Police reforms face a challenge in meeting both the political imperative of the state and the needs of the citizenry that often leads to partly realised ideals and practice.…”

“…One simple way of challenging these assumptions is to step outside of mainstream western discourse and to engage with different legal, social, cultural and political perspectives. To illustrate this, we draw on the international policing literature and post-colonial perspectives as they draw insight from different development contexts with varied social needs (for example, Cole, 1999;Kapoor, 2013;Tankebe, 2013). Ellison and Pino (2012) argue that any policing assistance to overseas states must be set alongside, or as an enabler for economic, social, political and cultural change and must also nurture a democratic process.…”

“…This politically utilitarian approach is reiterated by other western scholars such as Szikinger (2001) and Pino and Wiatrowski (2006) as well as by some state development organisations (Denney and Domingo, 2017). Yet, as Tankebe (2013) and Kapoor (2013) note, in practice there is a misalignment between the intent to build stable democratic institutions with access to justice for all and the functions of post-colonial or post-conflict policing agencies which tend to support the established political order. Herewith, we identify fundamental differences in the conceptualisation of policing that relate to the contemporary social order.…”

A multidimensional model of police legitimacy: A cross-cultural assessment.

“…Ekeh argues that people have weak moral identification and commitment to this public. The reason for this condition is partly a failure by ordinary Africans to decouple, cognitively, colonial and postcolonial structures, and hence a transfer of legitimacy deficits from colonialism into the violation of the violation of the constitutional rights of citizens (Tankebe 2009b(Tankebe , 2013b. These conditions would seem to produce feelings of obligation to institutions that are not sufficiently compelling as to trigger support for such institutions or obedience to the laws of the civic public (Tankebe, 2009a).…”

Police killings and the vicissitudes of borders and bounding orders in Mathare, Nairobi

“…What’s more, it is precisely the alleged corruption and criminality of the police (Akech, 2005; Okia, 2011; Omenya and Lubaale, 2012; Ruteere, 2011) in the context of a what is widely deemed a malfunctioning justice system that gives rise to police vigilantism (see Hansen and Stepputat, 2005: 13; Jauregui, 2013, 2015, 2016; Owen and Cooper-Knock, 2014). Many people in Kenya consider “killer cops” a necessary evil to protect “the good side” (similar to Jauregui’s “impure police vigilante,” 2015; see also Tankebe, 2013). The “good side” is often conceived as comprising of hard working Nairobians, both rich and poor.…”