Conclusion

In their study into Scottish policing, Carson and Idzikowska adopted a broad, overarching structural approach in attempting to explain the course, nature and pattern of police development. Rather than viewing unevenness and diversity as a basis for abandoning a general, national explanation as some historians have done for other parts of the British Isles, ¹ Carson and Idzikowska argued that scholars should construct a model that accounts for local variations and circumstances. They offered ‘a broader framework within which to make sense of diversity itself’, arguing that unevenness in Scottish policing can be explained by the interplay between ‘macro-structural forces and more localized factors’. ² Underlying diversity was the ‘penetration of capitalist relations into Scotland’ as these ‘created the conditions under which the institution of police could emerge’. ³