Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: For scholars of international relations, policing reform in Northern Ireland illustrates the impact of global governance on transforming a key institution of state power --the police-- in a conflict or post-conflict society. The Independent Commission on Policing (aka the Patten Commission) and its incorporation of international "best practices" in its recommendations for policing reform in Northern Ireland qualify it as an authoritative interlocutor of global governance. For feminist scholars of IR, the policing reform question in Northern Ireland also reveals important gender constructions and gender politics at work, both in the Patten Commission recommendations and in the debates over their implementation within Northern Ireland. This paper explores the competing models of hegemonic masculinity at work in the debates about policing and the implementation of policing reform in Northern Ireland in the context of neoliberal globalization..