This 'second' phase of the PEMP Project delimits the scope of objects to the formulation of public policies for policing European metropolises which, in particular cases, are signalled by the formu
lation of medium-term ‘strategic plans’ that run concurrently with elected terms of office (for example the four year term of office for the elected Mayor of London). In these terms the comparative work undertaken for the second phase of the Project delimits the objects of analysis to ‘public’ (not commercial, involuntary or informal etc.) policing, ‘policy formulation’ (not implementation or outcomes) that is ‘strategic’ and concerned with medium-term planning and agenda-setting (not operational policing). We want to ensure that there is a compatibility between the foci of comparison in the various case studies of metropolitan policing considered in this Project and to privilege, in the first instance, a concern with the capacity of metropolitan authorities to set their own policing agendas.
In this international research project (10 EU countries) 22 metropolises are compared on and "governmental arrangements" (role of the mayor, role of the public police and plural policing) and on "governance dispositions" (agenda setting on crime and disorder and programs and interventions). The objectives are to dissiminate a first transparent overview of different practices of social control in metropolises and fill in a knowledge gap, to analyse convergent and divergent tendencies and search for explanations of these differencies. The urban regime theory (Stone, 1989)is leading. ... [more]