Nodal governance: toward a better understanding of node relationships in local security governance

ABSTRACT

This article explores the intricacies of the local security network in France, identifying local security actors (nodes) in order to trace their formal and informal exchanges. We outline the workings of nodal governance by looking at the different groups created informally within the local security network to reveal how resources are exchanged between nodes. Three categories of nodes are identified: a first are the most involved nodes, those who lead the local security network; a second are security actors who, while active, do not participate at the same level as the leading team; the third are nodes that use more security than they provide. The characteristics of the first group are similar to those of the super structural nodes discussed by Burris, Drahos, and Shearing in 2005. The main characteristics of the operating mechanisms of these superstructural nodes are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Nodal governance
• security network
• local security
• policing
• coproduction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The exponential urbanization of cities following the Second World War and the related sociological changes were followed by a massive increase in crime and frustration. The first urban riots appeared in hyper-urban neighborhoods in the early 1980s and peaked in 2005 (Haddad and Balz 2006).

2 The recruitment of this sub-sample was undertaken through the first author’s professional network, considering he worked as a municipal police officer trainer from 1999 to 2013. If this insider/outsider position (Headland et al. 1990) facilitated access to the local security network and the disclosure of information, it also represented a risk related to a possible bias. It was to mitigate this risk that the first sample included 24 different municipalities spread over the entire national territory, and covering the two main political parties, including areas where the first author had never previously worked.

3 Loi n° 2007-297 of the 5th of march 2007 relative to the prevention of deliquency

4 Loi n° 99-291 of the 15th of april 1999 relative to municipal police

5 148,400 police officers, 98,900 gendarmes, 11,000 municipal police officers in 2017.

6 Decree of 17 July 2002 and enshrined in Article 1 of the law of 5 March 2007 on crime prevention.

7 What the General Secretariat of the Interministerial Committee for Delinquency Prevention, the state agency in charge of designing and circulating policies regarding local security, calls ‘local governance of crime prevention’ is fully detailed in the ‘mayor’s prevention booklet’, published in 2013 (SG-CIPD 2013, pp. 21–32).

8 Because we were not able to interview magistrates as part of this research, the following discussion is based on what we learned through interviews with other actors, supported by the research of Donzelot and Wyvekens (2004) on local justice partnerships.