Policing and Decolonization: Politics, Nationalism and the Police, 1917-65 (Studies in Imperalism)

This study looks at the problems facing the imperial police forces during the acute political dislocations following decolonization in the British Empire, from Ireland to India and in the Asian and African colonies. This book examines the changing roles and experiences of the police forces involved. As imperial political authority was increasingly challenged, sometimes with violence, locally recruited police forces became the front-line guardians of alien law and order. The contributors to this volume look at the heightened political involvement of the police, the increase in the size of the force, improvements in armaments and the development of Special Branches. The book also explores the degree to which the central coordination of police activities conflicted with local sympathies and crises in loyalty and recruitment.