Policing Insurgencies: Cops as Counterinsurgents. By Christine S. Fair and Sumit Ganguly (eds.). New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014. 362 pp. 995.00, $39.95, cloth.

• Date: 01 June 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12147
• Published date: 01 June 2015

Policing Insurgencies: Cops as Counterinsurgents. By Christine S. Fair

and Sumit Ganguly (eds.). New Delhi: Oxford University Press,

2014. 362 pp. 995.00, $39.95, cloth.

Reviewed by Klaus Schlichte, University of Bremen

Policing is a concept that has only recently attracted the attention

in the debate on counter-insurgency (COIN). For a long time,

COIN was seen as a purely military affair, clearly with a political

dimension, but conceived and discussed as a strategy that would

concern military personnel and civil administration. This volume

is one of the few that addresses the role of police forces in cases

of counter-insurgencies, mostly in South and Southeast Asia but

includes case studies on Kenya, Colombia, Iraq, and Northern

Ireland. It addresses two predominant assertions on the role of

police forces in counter-insurgency campaigns. The first sees

police as part of the problem as its repressive practices fuel rebel-

lion instead of offering security. The second see police forces as a

core component of a successful COIN. As David P. Fidler in his

succinct summarizing contribution points out, this volume really

goes beyond this dichotomy and adds to our knowledge on the

actual dynamics of situations in which police forces are part of

rebellions or outright civil wars.

The balance sheet of the 10 case studies in this book shows a

very mixed result. Contributions of police forces for the success

of COIN operations were at times really important as Kumar

Ramakrishna shows for the case of what is perhaps a bit euphe-

mistically called “the Malayan emergency,” a rebellion of leftist

peasants between 1948 and 1960. The “emergency” was an out-

right guerilla war and cost around 10,000 lives, mostly of rebels

who had fought against British colonial rule. Walter C. Ladwig

III’s article on a rebellion in the Philippines (1946–1954) also

only marginally addresses the political agenda of the Hukbalahap

rebels who fought against foreign rule and feudal domination.

Such a depoliticized account might look justified when the analy-

sis of police work is the real topic of investigation. However, one

might wonder whether police work is actually as apolitical as

some contributions present it. According to the authors, both

cases show that committed leadership, a professionalization of the

force, and an institutionalized responsibility toward the civilian

population as well as an end of indiscriminate violence at least

enhances the acceptance of the police and renders it seemingly

more efficient in fighting a rebellion instead of just fuelling vio-

lent escalation. Other cases, like the attempt of the British to

quell the Mao-Mao rebellion in colonial Kenya (1952–1960) or

Book Reviews 549