Is centralisation the right way to go? The case of internal security policy reforms in Switzerland in the light of community policing
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852315581806 |
| Author | Julien Niklaus,Caroline Jacot-Descombes |
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2016, Vol. 82(2) 335–353
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852315581806
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International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
Is centralisation the right way to
go? The case of internal security
policy reforms in Switzerland in
the light of community policing
Caroline Jacot-Descombes
Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP),
Switzerland
Julien Niklaus
Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP),
Switzerland
Abstract
Looking from the angle of the allocation of tasks between cantons and municipalities in
Switzerland, this article analyses how security reforms tend to concentrate police insti-
tutions at the cantonal level and eliminate local police in order to improve efficiency. As
the shift to centralisation is being implemented through consensus-building, cities claim
to be special cases and succeed in conserving their local police. The analysis focuses on
two cantonal reforms through qualitative data. The results show that institutional
changes have led to three main arrangements after reform: the centralisation of
police (the municipalities buy the services of the cantonal police); regionalisation
(several municipalities implement their policing activities together); and decentralisation
(the city conserves its local police). In regard to which arrangement produces the best
impact, an evaluation of the perception of actors (citizens and police) shows that the
police’s work and the feeling of security are better in a decentralised setting.
Points for practitioners
Political issues are at the centre of reforms that aim for a new distribution of respon-
sibilities between levels of public authorities in the Swiss security sector. They can
strongly influence the new arrangements introduced by reform. Even if cantonal
decision-makers have solid arguments to centralise a task, the power of municipalities
is stronger. This leads to an asymmetric federalism, where cities can maintain their
police and municipalities have to buy cantonal police services. As the decentralised
Corresponding author:
Caroline Jacot-Descombes, IDHEAP, Quartier UNIL Mouline, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Email: caroline.jacot-descombes@unil.ch
option is better evaluated by citizens and the police, centralisation reforms are difficult
to implement where there is a tradition of local police.
Keywords
Allocation of tasks, community policing, decentralisation, fear of crime, local security,
performance contract, police, regionalisation
Introduction
Whereas security reform in Western countries has generally tended to (re-)decen-
tralise tasks in order to strengthen local police and set up community policing
(Bonvin, 2004), Switzerland, as a very decentralised country, has launched a
wave of reforms to centralise the competences of internal security. This tendency
follows a large movement of reforms of the distribution of power and responsibil-
ities between the three levels (Confederation, cantons and municipalities) of the
Swiss political system, which began in the 1970s.
1
These reforms have responded to
economic and social pressure, which has prompted political actors on all levels
to adjust the political balance of power in the federal system. The economic crisis of
the 1990s and pressure from the European Union (EU) led public authorities to
undertake more intense reforms in order to improve efficiency (Ladner, 2009).
Consequently, certain tasks and responsibilities were centralised to eliminate
redundancies, and the financial competences of the various levels were balanced
in view of revising the fiscal system of equalisation. It can thus be said that over the
past two decades, numerous reforms have been carried out between the
Confederation, the cantons (states) and the municipalities, and that these reforms
have touched on a series of areas, such as social security, health, education, secur-
ity, urban planning and so on. This article focuses on reforms between cantons and
municipalities, and looks particularly at the field of internal security policy and
community policing. Security policy can be defined as a public policy that aims at
protecting citizens and organisations and at dealing with threats against the state
and public order. Community policing is ‘a decentralized police, accepted by the
population, which intervenes under a mandate in order to better deal with the
plurality of security demands’ (Malochet, 2007: 25, own translation), and that
resets the partnership, including citizens and other public actors, at the heart of
security measures (Niklaus, 2011). This policy is locally implemented but can be
managed and steered at the municipal, regional or cantonal levels. This choice of
public policy has been made because most cantons wish to centralise the imple-
mentation of responsibilities in this area, but contrary to other sectors, internal
security policy – and community policing in particular – requires a local decision-
making process and local implementation. Hence, institutional changes have fluc-
tuated between centralisation, regionalisation and decentralisation. Based on two
cantonal security reforms aiming for a new distribution of tasks between cantons
and municipalities carried out in the 2000s in francophone Switzerland (the cantons
336 International Review of Administrative Sciences 82(2)
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