ABSTRACT

This chapter briefly outlines the historical context of the notion of 'international police' that captured the attention of early writings in International Relations (IR). It reviews the transformation of the role of police in UN peacekeeping operations. The chapter then explores the notion of police as a dual modulation of power: sovereign power and regulatory power. It examines the notion of security with the objective of outlining what might be specific to the security project of the police. The chapter describes the case that resilience and its attendant ontologies are fast becoming the primary security project of contemporary international interventions and the frameworks that are meant to guide them. It ends by making the argument that the police security project found in the present day frameworks of intervention as captured by the UN's Security Sector Reform (SSR) framework and its Protection of Civilian (PoC) agenda proposes reform and prevention strategies modelled on resilience.