Chair: Dr Kieran Mitton, Senior Lecturer in International Relations

Discussant: Dr Liam O’Shea, 2020/21 London School of Economics Dinam Fellow 

Speakers:

Dr Ignacio Cano, Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences of the State University of Rio de Janeiro 

Dr Erica Marat, Associate Professor and Chair of the Regional and Analytical Studies Department at the US National Defense University. 

Dr Zoha Waseem, Postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Global City Policing, University College London and co-coordinator for the Urban Violence Research Network

 

Join us for this joint Conflict, Security and Development Research Group (CSDRG) and Urban Violence Research Network (UVRN) panel discussion, part of the ‘How to Reform the Police’ series organised by LSE IDEAs and UVRN.

In the wake of widespread pandemic lockdowns and popular protests around the world, demands for police reform have increasingly come under a global spotlight. How and why do police use excessive force, and what works to prevent police abuses? Given the truly global nature of this problem, a second important question arises: how important is local context to these issues, and how can policymakers and scholars better account for it?

As elsewhere, police reform remains a key challenge in the Global South. Recent protests demanding an end to police abuses and wider reform in Nigeria, ​Colombia, and Indonesia, amongst other contexts, have underlined the critical need for better understanding of what works – and what doesn’t – in transforming policing in developing contexts. Although there is much scholarship discussing such problems as the militarisation of police, lack of accountability, and corruption, there is a need for greater understanding of how these issues can be effectively and sustainably addressed in different cases, where resources, policing, and socio-political contexts may vary considerably.

This panel brings together leading experts working on police reform to explore these and related issues. In the first hour, panellists will consider the challenges and promises of police reform in different contexts across the Global South, drawing on their research in South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. The final half-hour will be opened up for Q & A  with the audience.

 

Bios

Dr Ignacio Cano is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), where he is a founder of the Laboratory for the Analysis of Violence (LAV). Over the last 20 years, he has researched different issues related to public security, violence, human rights and education in Latin America. He has undertaken impact evaluations of several public security interventions in the region. He is currently a consultant at the African Civilian Oversight Police Forum in Cape Town, South Africa.

Dr. Erica Marat is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Regional and Analytical Studies Department at the US National Defense University. Erica’s research focuses on violence, mobilization and security institutions in Eurasia, India, and Mexico. She has authored three books, including most recently The Politics of Police Reform: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries (Oxford University Press 2018). She is currently focused on completing a book on mobilization against violence in India and Mexico and is also engaged in a research project on China’s and Russia’s provision of public services for illiberal governances in 15 countries across five continents. 

Dr Liam O'Shea is the 2020/21 London School of Economics Dinam Fellow. His research is primarily on police and police reform in non-Western contexts and he leads the development of the www.howtoreformthepolice.com project, a platform to consolidate and synthesise the evidence on police reform for researchers and practitioners. From 2018-2020 Liam was a Governance Adviser in the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund. He has also advised various organisations on security and justice in developing countries and fragile states.

Dr Zoha Waseem is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Global City Policing, University College London and co-coordinator for the Urban Violence Research Network. She studied law at the School of Oriental and African Studies and did her masters and PhD in security studies from King’s College London. Her research draws from political science, sociology and criminology, and her academic interests include comparative policing, police-military relations, urban security, institutional reform, and postcolonial policing in South Asia and beyond. She is currently researching on police-minority relations and police reform in Pakistan and the United Kingdom.