Wilson's theory of local political culture revisited in today's police organizations: Findings from longitudinal panel study

摘要

Purpose - Over the course of the past 40 years Wilson's theory of local political culture hasrninfluenced many students of policing. Wilson argued that variation in structural arrangements inrnpolice organizations can be explained largely by the form of municipal government structure in place.rnFor example, police departments using a strict law enforcement style of policing tend to work within arnmore bureaucratic structure (e.g. hierarchically differentiated) than their counterparts employing arnwatchman style of policing. The purpose of this study is to test the application of Wilson's theory ofrnlocal political culture in today's police organizations.rnDesign/methodology/approach - Longitudinal agency survey data for 280 police departmentsrncollected through the 1990s were analyzed using a random-effects panel technique.rnFindings - The findings observed suggest that there was only a very limited relationship betweenrnlocal political culture and the five principal dimensions of organizational structure - formalization,rncentralization, functional differentiation, specialization differentiation, and occupational differentiationrnderived from Peter Blau's measures among these police agencies during the 1990s.rnResearch limitations/implications - The theory of local political culture may have limited utilityrnin the analysis of the structural arrangements in contemporary police organizations. At the same time,rna longer period of time is required in the study of local political culture.rnPractical implications - The identification of key determinants of structural arrangements inrnpolice organizations is an important issue because there is a lack of consensus on the role of localrnpolitical culture. The research used two approaches and found that organizational structure in policernagencies is largely determined by socioeconomic factors.rnOriginality/value - The study represented an original study of police organization, using panel datarncollected by the authors during the 1990s.