Policing and Society

An International Journal of Research and Policy

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Thoughts on sovereignty

Clifford Shearing

To cite this article: Clifford Shearing (2004) Thoughts on sovereignty, Policing and Society, 14:1,
5-12, DOI: 10.1080/1043946042000181520
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1043946042000181520

Published online: 31 Jan 2007.

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Policing & Society, Vol. 14, No. 1, March 2004, pp. 5–12

Thoughts on Sovereignty
Clifford Shearing
C.ShearingSecurity 21: International Centre for Society and Justice, Regulatory Institutions Network, Law ProgramAustralian National UniversityAustraliaclifford.shearing@anu.edu.au

These introductory remarks canvas some of the debates over shifts in the governance of
security that prompted the development of this Special Issue of Policing & Society. They
show how while there is an Anglo-American/Continental European focus to these
debates, they draw attention to issues that extend beyond this particular context. At the
heart of these, and the wider debates of which they are a part, are questions about the
nature of contemporary sovereignty.

Keywords: Policing; Governance; Sovereignty

This issue of Policing & Society has been developed with the aim of encouraging an
Anglo-American and Continental dialogue (with a particular emphasis on the
French context and French scholarship) on how policing should be thought of and
studied. In thinking about this, I am reminded of the many debates I have had with
European colleagues in France, Germany and Spain about developments in the
governance of security. I have had similar conversations with non-English-speaking
colleagues (or more precisely colleagues whose first language is not English) in
Argentina, Brazil and Quebec.
A central theme of these conversations has been that while the descriptions
of developments in the governance of security that I and my colleagues have
developed—in particular, the privatization of policing—might accurately describe
what has happened in Anglo-Saxon countries, they do not always fit well with
developments in non-English speaking parts of the world (for excellent comparative
empirical analyses, see De Waard, 1999; Mawby, 1999; see also Los, 2002). Similar
comments have been made, on occasion, by English-speaking colleagues who
contrast North American experiences with those elsewhere (see Jones & Newburn,
1998, 1999a, 1999b, 2002; and the response to them by Kempa et al., forthcoming).
In thinking about these lively and enriching debates, it is clear that a focus on
privatization sometimes masks a deeper critique. This critique is not so much about
the developments that have been collected under the sign of privatization, but rather

Correspondence to: Clifford Shearing, Security 21: International Centre for Security and Justice, Regulatory
Institutions Network, Law Program, Australian National University Australia. E-mail: clifford.shearing@
anu.edu.au. Thanks to Michael Kempa for his helpful comments on a draft of this article.

ISSN 1043–9463 (print)/ISSN 1477-2728 (online)  2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1043946042000181520
6 C. Shearing
about the conception of states that is seen as underlying interpretations of privatiza-
tion. This explains the concerns raised by colleagues in places like Brazil (e.g.,
Caldeira, 2000; Huggins, 2000, 2001) and South Africa (e.g., Irish, 1999) about the
privatization thesis even though they agree that privatization is an important feature
of the governance landscape in both these countries.
At the heart of this deeper critique is a challenge to claims that the privatization
of governance expresses and promotes an erosion, or fracturing, of state sovereignty.
What raises particular concerns are claims, like Macauley’s, that “private govern-
ments” have become a central feature of contemporary governance; or similar claims
that contemporary governance has feudal resonances. It is these claims about
sovereignty that I want to focus on in these introductory remarks as each of the
following articles contributes to the debates surrounding them in one way or
another.
A couple of years ago David Bayley and I (Bayley & Shearing, 2001) sought to
contribute to this debate about privatization and its implications for sovereignty by
arguing for a distinction between auspices and providers of governance—that is,
between entities that authorize and direct governance and those that act to enact
these authorizations. The value of this distinction, we suggested, was that it would
separate out developments that simply involved a shift in the way governance was
provided that did not directly touch the sovereignty issue from shifts in the authority
under which governance took place that was central to sovereignty. In exploring this
distinction, we argued that while empirically the state might be a dominant auspice
and/or provider of governance, these roles should not be accorded any conceptual
priority. What was important was developing a conceptual framework that was not
tied exclusively to any particular space-time period. This, of course, did not mean
that there might not be periods where the state (or any other location or locations
of governance) might not be empirically dominant both as an auspice and a
provider. Our point was simply that the conceptual framework itself should not
maintain that things could not be otherwise. The framework itself should make no
empirical claims, but rather operate as an analytic tool to be used in making such
claims.
Recently I, both alone and with colleagues, have sought to develop this analysis by
proposing that we adopt a nodal approach to governance (e.g., Shearing, 2001;
Johnston & Shearing, 2003; Shearing & Wood, forthcoming; Kempa & Shearing,
2002). Within this “nodal governance” approach, nodes are identified as locations of
knowledge, capacity and resources that can be deployed to both authorize and
provide governance. Nodes may or may not form governing assemblages, and they
may or may not develop networks that traffic in information and other goods to
enhance their efficacy. This framework is put to good use by Gilles Favarel-Garrigues
and Anne Le Huérou in their article in this issue that explores the recent history of
developments in the governance of security within Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.
They demonstrate convincingly both the complexity of nodal arrangements for
governing security and the way in which nodal assemblages are constantly being
re-figured over time.
 Policing & Society 7

This issue of nodal assemblages and the linkages between nodes is also taken up
in Benoı̂t Dupont’s analysis of networks. He makes use of a nodal framework to
develop an analysis that moves beyond a state/non-state binary. At the same time,
he shows how this enables a move beyond an Anglo-American/Continental divide.
In doing so, he draws constructively on Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of multiple
capitals—symbolic and tangible resources that agents mobilize in an effort to secure
their aims—to explore the ways in which nodes use networks, and the assemblages
they enable, to enhance their capitals.
Jennifer Wood takes up several of the themes explored by Dupont in an
examination of how mentalities of governance differ across nodes and how mental-
ities migrate between nodes. She shows how, seen within a nodal framework, policies
designed to reshape mentalities of governance needs to be grounded in analyses of
the resources and roles of different sets of auspices and providers. She concludes her
analysis with an account of the normative work she and others are undertaking in
Argentina to create a forward-looking culture of governance within very local
institutions for governing security.
Wood’s focus on local governance is taken up by Jérôme Ferret, who questions the
focus on a private-public multilateralization of governance in favour of an explo-
ration of national-local dynamics as an appropriate framework for exploring the
evolution of the governance of security in France and Continental Europe more
generally. In developing his position, he contributes directly to the thrust of this
special issue—namely to stimulate more cross-cultural and social history sensitive
analyses.
Frédéric Ocqueteau gives concrete expression to Ferret’s call for a greater respect
for social history in his exploration of the “mutations” that have transformed the
governance of security in France over the past several decades. He shows clearly how
within a French context—with its distinctions between national security, judicial
police and administrative police—tracing what takes place within the state sphere is
of critical importance. The “glocal” features of contemporary life he shows have as
much to do with tensions within state structures as they have to do with the
public-private distinction. Like Ferret, he pays particular attention to the central-
local dimension as a critical guide to analysis. The critical tension, he argues, is not
a public-private one, but rather one that exists between the centre and the periphery
where the local is understood as including both state and non-state players.
In thinking about the contemporary period, David Bayley and I argued further
that what has characterized developments in the governance of security empirically
has been a proliferation of both auspices and providers of governance. This
multilateralization of governance, we suggested, had fundamentally reshaped the
governance landscape. One consequence of this has been that, as an empirical
matter, states in many parts of the world are today no longer as hegemonic as they
once were with respect to either authorizing or providing governance. I want, in
what follows, to simply accept this claim as given on the ground that there is
considerable empirical evidence for it. David and I assembled some of this evidence
in our monograph (Bayley & Shearing, 2001), and I have done so with other
8 C. Shearing
colleagues in a paper prepared for the Law Commission of Canada (Hermer et al.,
2002). Having said this, I want to explicitly acknowledge that there is nonetheless
considerable room for discussion about the variation that exists within this general-
ization.
Starting from this empirical observation, I now wish to explore what I take to be
the nub of the debate I have referred to—namely, the implications that the
multilateralization of governance has had for state sovereignty. More specifically, I
want to explore the extent to which multilateralization has been associated with a
diminution of state sovereignty. The position taken by the Continental scholars, some
of whom are represented in this special issue, has tended to be that the situation
within Europe, whatever the extent of privatization, does not imply a diminution of
sovereignty. The state, they argue, retains its position as a “supreme ruler” (see the
New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary’s (1993) entry on “sovereignty”) notwith-
standing any evidence there might be of multilateralization. It is this position that
unites these Continental scholars with the views expressed by the Brazilian and South
African colleagues I referred to earlier.
There is a normative aspect to these arguments, as well as conceptual and empirical
aspects. The normative aspect is that not only does the state retain a supreme
position, but that it is vitally important that that this claim to supremacy not be
undermined lest we fall back into an anarchic world in which life becomes “nasty,
brutish and short”. Anything that suggests a move away from a strong Hobbesian
state is viewed with suspicion as a potentially dangerous “anti-state” argument. This
position is Hobbesian in the sense that it sees the state not only as one possible
bulwark against anarchy, but as the only, or at least the only proper, bulwark. The
grounds for the argument that it is the proper bulwark typically rests on the claim
that as so much of our democratic technology is premised on the existence of a strong
state, to suggest that the state is simply one auspice among others is to court, and
indeed encourage, the possibility of non-democratic forms of governance.
While Continental scholars sometimes tend to regard this position (or some
variant of it) as specific to them, it is in fact a very widespread stance, and indeed
is a dominant view, within Anglo-American thinking. This is evident in the
considerable consensus that now exists around the argument that states now “rule
at a distance” (Rose, 1996; Rose & Miller, 1992) and that this rule is enabled through
processes of “responsibilization” (O’Malley, 1992; O’Malley & Palmer, 1996; Garland,
2001) that have together established new “regulatory states” (Braithwaite, 2000;
Grabosky, 1994) that are more engaged in the “steering” than the “rowing” of
governance and that these states are now, as often as not, “meta-” rather than
direct-regulators. This assemblage of ideas is an important strand in analyses of
neo-liberalism (both by its advocates and its critics).
There is considerable evidence for this view of state sovereignty as being even more
extensive (albeit more indirect) now that governance has become multilateralized.
This evidence clearly supports the views to be found in several of the articles in this
special issue that the pluralization of governance alone does not warrant the
interpretation that state sovereignty has been diminished. Indeed, as the rule at a
 Policing & Society 9

distance argument makes clear, quite the reverse seems to be the case. This is true
both because what has happened has been facilitated by state law and because it has
very often been encouraged by states through processes of devolution that, for
example, contract out services that previously were provided by state agencies to
private agencies (what Johnston (2000: 158–163) poetically refers to as the “state
pulling the strings which lead to its own unravelling”).
This is all true—or more accurately it is partially true. It is only partially true
because this state-focused understanding of multilateralization misses entirely a
critically important dimension—namely, that powerful nodes of governance outside
the state now operate in ways that are not state-directed as the “rule at a distance”
metaphor suggests. These non-state nodes are not simply engaged in enacting state
directions. While this indeed is sometimes the case it is certainly not always the case.
Furthermore, and this is what is important here, it is when state sovereignty is not
being extended by multilateraliztion that it is most conceptually interesting, and
politically challenging.
The emergence of private security provides a good example. Here we find
considerable evidence favouring the “rule at a distance” argument. States constitute
important clients of private security agencies and have established contractual
relationships with them to undertake activities on their behalf. Furthermore, recent
proposals to reshape the governance of security (such as the proposals of Independent
Commission on Policing Reform in Northern Ireland, 1999) have sought to develop
and extend this mode of state governance by encouraging states to manage generic
budgets rather than state agency-specific budgets. While these developments are
undoubtedly very significant, to leave matters here and suggest that private security
should be understood primarily as an instrument of state rule would be grossly
misleading. Private security has emerged in part, and indeed in the main, because
corporate entities have, for a variety of reasons that I will not canvas here, decided
to take responsibility for governing security in particular domains by both authoriz-
ing and providing policing services. The fact that they have looked to, and utilized,
spaces within state law that have enabled them to do so legally should not be taken
to suggest that they are operating under state direction. It does mean, however, that
in seeking to operate within state law—although they are often able to choose which
states’ laws—these corporations find it prudent to recognize and take advantage of
laws as this allows them to pull the strings that lead to their empowerment.
So, what does this mean for the question of sovereignty? It means, I suggest, that
while state law has in most instances remained supreme, this supremacy has been
utilized to promote and enable the emergence and operation of auspices of gover-
nance that operate outside of state structures and state direction. In other words, state
law has been deployed to promote non-state governmental power. This enactment
of state-bounded, non-state governance makes the feudal metaphor particularly
apposite, for here too we see non-“state” entities (assuming the term “state” can be
used here) taking charge of significant domains of governance within a wider context
of “state” regulation.
To return to the debate to which I have been referring, it is clear that within this
10 C. Shearing
framework there are many questions that can be asked across space and time as to
just what relationship exists between state and non-state nodes within governance
assemblages. Also clearly there is room, within this nodal context, for different
normative arguments as to what the appropriate relationship between state and
non-state entities should be. Particularly important here is the issue of the extent to
which states should adopt a meta-regulatory role, and more specifically, the degree
to which they should be the primary meta-regulators.
This issue brings me to the recent and very stimulating thinking of Colin Scott
(forthcoming) who has suggested that we might already be moving beyond a
situation where the answer to this normative issue may have been extended beyond
state-focused meta-regulation. In making this argument, he has pointed to the
growing role of other entities as meta-regulators within states, across states and at a
supra-state level. This has led him to suggest that we might already have moved to
a “post-regulatory state” environment. While this line of thought accepts the
necessity of meta-regulatory functions, it questions (as it should) whether the only
way to provide meta-regulation within a multilateralized world is through state-
based regulation. What Colin Scott is suggesting is that we are living in a period of
meta-regulatory experimentation in which possible non-state meta-regulatory possi-
bilities are being explored. This experimentation is premised on a recognition of the
necessity of meta-regulatory processes, but does not assume a priori that this can
only be done, or should only take place, under and through state auspices. It is
impossible at this stage to tell just what this exploration will yield or just what
meta-regulatory possibilities are likely to be imagined and realized. What we can and
should do, however, is insist on utilizing a conceptual framework that can compre-
hend both the present actualities as well as other as yet unimagined possibilities. It
is precisely this that a nodal framework is intended to accomplish.
This brings me back once more to the debate over Anglo-American and Conti-
nental differences that has anchored these remarks. These differences can, within the
context of this discussion, be thought of as ideas about what can and cannot be
imagined (and, once imagined, realized) in these different contexts. This is, of
course, a wider debate than that between Anglo-American and Continental societies
that has to do with broader differences between legal and political cultures and their
implications for meta-regulation. In legal and political cultures that have their roots
in Continental Europe (or adopt a similarly hierarchical view), the argument being
advanced by scholars most familiar with these contexts is that meta-regulatory
mechanisms are likely to be state-based or operate through relatively integrated
supra-state structures such as the European Commission (e.g., Walby, 1999). By
contrast, Anglo-American scholars are somewhat (though this should not be exag-
gerated) more open to the possibilities of a “post-regulatory state” environment.
What can, and I think should, integrate these different scholarly cultures is not
agreement over what is either empirically most likely or normatively most desirable.
Rather what is important is shared concepts that facilitate rather than close down
communication—ones that leave open, rather than foreclose, a wide gamut of
governmental possibilities.
 Policing & Society 11

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