ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between the police and political development during the growth of modern European nation-states. It focuses on the mandate to regulate interpersonal relations within a community through the applications of coercive sanctions authorized in the name of the community. Four questions will be answered in the course of the analysis: What is the character of the police system in each country? When did these contemporary police systems emerge? What factors account for the emergence and rate of development of these systems? It also include: What factors account for the characteristic solutions each country found for its modern police problems? The development of the police in Germany was more attenuated than in France and Great Britain. A decentralized political elite may welcome military participation in policing. This was the case in Prussia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Military involvement in policing is more a function of political and bureaucratic disposition than organization circumstances.
