Local strategies for glocal challenges. Comparing policing agendas in Amsterdam and Rotterdam

摘要

In this chapter we analyze the politics of policing, with a specific focus on policing agendas in the two largest cities in The Netherlands: Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Both metropolises are considered metropolises facing ‘glocal’ challenges related to multicultural populations in urban areas, social inequalities in terms of household income, international harbors, crime and disorder. The term ‘glocal’ refers to the interlinkages between global challenges and local communities. In order to get an understanding of the tendencies towards divergence and convergence in urban policing in the metropolises under study we start with a summary of general trends in policing in the Netherlands in the second section. In the third section national, regional and local governmental constitutional arrangements, discretionary powers and public police management are presented. The remainder of the chapter compares and contrasts policing agendas in Amsterdam and Rotterdam and concludes with an overview of their regimes and possible explanations for convergence and divergence in the politics of policing in these metropolises. The search for the regimes in the background of policing agendas in these two embedded case studies reveals both convergence and divergence towards the national agenda and between the agendas in both metropolises. Possible explanations for these trends could be found in the political ‘circuits of power’ (Devroe, Edwards, Ponsaers, this volume) of the municipal ruling coalition and in wider institutional arrangements in place.