Speaking truths to power - Jarrett Blaustein

Speaking Truths to Power: Policy Ethnography and Police Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina presents a rigorous analysis of the effects of globalisation on local policing, drawing on data generated from two ethnographic case studies conduscted in 2011 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By examining structures, mentalities, and practices, it situates the phenomenon of 'glocal policing' in relation to the convergence of development and security discourses, and raisesimportant questions about the purpose and value of criminological engagements with transnational policing fields. The idea of 'speaking truths to power' (as opposed to a single 'truth') is illustrated by the author's fieldwork, covering active police capacity building projects implemented by international development agencies. Both studies illustrate that global power inequalities affect police reform projects, but also that nodal opportunities exist for seemingly disempowered stakeholders, specifically international development workers and rank-and-file police officers to mediate their effects. Thismediatory role is analysed through the conceptual lens of 'policy translation', providing an innovative framework for interpreting how policy meaning and content are altered as a result of their transmission between contexts.Through detailed and persuasive investigation, Speaking Truths to Power argues that it is time for criminologists to look beyond the established structural critiques of transnational policing power in order to ensure that this growing body of research reflects the diverse interests, experiences, and understandings of the agents and institutions who collectively populate these fields of policy and practice. Conceptually sophisticated and thematically ambitious, the book will be ofinterest to scholars in the fields of criminology, sociaology, international relations and socio-legal studies as well as those who are researching and studying transnational policing, police reform, and the global governance of crime.

Dr Jarrett Blaustein is a Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, at Monash University. He holds a PhD in criminology from the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include comparative and transnational aspects of criminology and policing and he has spent the past few years researching the normative and sociological aspects of police capacity building projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Few topics are more important than learning the lessons, negative and positive, of policing reform in post-conflict Bosnia. Jarrett Blaustein's book tells the story of security sector reform
in a nuanced fashion. It is a contribution with deft use of social theory that advances criminological and peacebuilding praxis, as well as our understanding of a Bosnian politics of place.
John Braithwaite, Australian National University

This study provides a sophisticated, meticulous analysis of an oft-neglected aspect of liberal state building: the role of individual agency in adopting and adjusting foreign security models. It is a careful and nuanced contribution to the policy transfer debate, skilfully integrating concepts from different academic disciplines into one coherent argument. It is written with a clear purpose in mind and remarkable insight into the tensions and challenges local actorsin BosniaHerzegovina face when trying to improve public safety and policing.
Dorian Schaap, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice

With this important book on police reform efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jarrett Blaustein demonstrates the importance of a glocal perspective that acknowledges local agency and the relational and competing discourses and policies forwarded by donors and recipients.
Blaustein wisely discusses how reflective ethnographic research, engagement, and collaboration have the capacity to improve the political dialogue so that local empowerment and democraticallyresponsive policing practices can be more effectively promoted, created, and sustained.
This book is a must-read for scholars studying and researching transnational policing, police reform, and global governance.
Nathan W. Pino, Professor of Sociology, Texas State University

A really excellent book that should be of interest to all scholars engaged in debates about globalisation and policing, democratisation in post-conflict societies, and cross-national policy transfer. A rare example oftransnational 'policy ethnography', it provides a number of significant theoretical insights based on very detailedempirical research. Carefully argued, conceptually sophisticated and empirically rigorous, Blaustein has provided a compelling analysis ofthe interaction local and global influences in the development of policing and community safety initiatives in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina. He charts a middle way between the overwhelmingly negative assessments of international policing interventions by radical scholars on the one hand,andthe nave universalism of neo-liberal reform models on the other. In doing so, he sets out the way forward for more realistic and just pathways to reform.
Prof. Trevor Jones, University of Cardiff

Jarrett Blausteins book is a must-read for those interested in police development assistance in transition settings, and in particular police reform projects at the local level, such as community-based policing.
Amelia Padurariu, Rutgers