Co-ordinator: Prof. Dr. Marleen Easton, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

• Riaz Ahmed Sheikh ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (Institute of Business & Technology, Biztek, Pakistan). Terrorism in Pakistan - Role of Military and Police for Curbing Terrorism
• Jacqui Baker ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (London School of Economics, UK). Power and Longing in the Reorganisation of the Coercive Apparatuses of the State
• Weichong Ong ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore). Whither Counterinsurgency? The Transformation of the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF)
• Michiel de Weger ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (The Netherlands). The Potential of the European Gendarmerie Force.
• Beatrice Jauregui ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (University of Chicago, USA). Civilizing Missions: The Co-Development of Police and Military Institutions in India
• Jelle Janssens ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy, Gent, Belgium). The European Security and Defence Policy and the Procurement of Public Security in Post-Conflict Societies

The military operates no longer exclusively at the high end of the spectra of violence but also at the middle (crowd and riot control, anti-terrorist squads etc) and even low end (i.e. theft and violence by individuals). At this low end the tasks are converging on the tasks of police officers. If the police successfully want to fight a war against terrorism and organised crime, and deal with serious urban disturbances, it has to adjust its methods and means.

In order to deal with these threats, the police have to train and equip officers to operate at the upper level of police violence. These changes will inevitably lead to a militarization of the police. Which development(s) will prevail? The constabularisation of the armed forces makes the military more suitable to do domestic security tasks. On the other hand, the capacity of police forces increases, they are increasingly using military tactics, organisational concepts and equipment to operate successfully in violent environments. What is happening in fact is that the two security organisations are increasingly overlapping and are becoming competitors in the same security market.

The question we have to ask ourselves is: do we want this? Do we want the police to militarise or should the armed forces have a more distinct role in national domestic security? Should the military's involvement in national security prevent a further militarisation of the police or should a further militarisation of the police stop an increasing military interest in public security?

Leading questions

1. How did the relation between military and armed forces, both at home and abroad, develop in western nations recent history? How did specialised military and civilian units develop, cooperate and compete in the middle part of the spectre of violence? What caused the development of their respective roles?
2. Is there indeed a development towards constabularisation of the armed forces? Which causes and mechanisms are at work? Are small nations forced to specialise in OOTW because of lacking military capacities for large-scale warfare? With which operational problems is the military confronted in deployments?
3. Is there a development towards militarisation of the police? Is there a paradox in relation to the police model called "community policing"?
4. What competencies are developed by western military and civilian organisations for performing policing tasks in operations abroad? Are these at the same time suitable and enabling military officials for facing domestic security threats? What lessons did the military learn from policing abroad? In which way is training adapted and improved to accommodate multi tasking roles?
5. What are the effects on society of an increased military involvement to beat social disturbances, to fight terrorism and organised crime? Do we want the military to become police or the police to become more military? Do we have to leave our traditional views on policing and the division of tasks between the military and the police due to the new security reality?