ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the concept of institutional selectivity as a way to better observe and analyze this dynamic. It examines different dimensions of social and political power and shows how these lead to different understandings of state bias. The chapter explains the understanding of public safety organizations within an institutional framework, drawing on theoretical insights from organizational sociology. It focuses on the concept of normative order, defined as a way to better understand the workings of fire control and policing infrastructures in the United States. A "professionalization movement" in policing imposed new standards of eligibility and training on American law enforcement, in particular. The chapter defines normative order as the interplay between bureaucratic structures and procedures, agency subcultures and the micro-foundational aspects of organizational life, that is, the cognitive orientations of state actors and their "taken-forgranted" assumptions about what particular agencies do. Organizations have "task environments" to the extent that they must serve a given constituency or set of clients.
