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Policing and Retiring: An Eliasian Approach

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posted on 2025-01-15, 10:37 authored by Peter E. Emmerson

This thesis is an Eliasian investigation of UK policing and retiring with the aim of producing insights relevant to retiring in general. In Chapter 2 my first concern is to provide a theoretical platform upon which to develop the structure of the investigation. This requires a sociogenetic investigation of documentary evidence to ascertain the long-term figurational developmental processes related to retiring and policing which can be found in Chapters 3 and 4 respectively. Chapter 5 details a psychogenetic investigation into habitus to identify personal factors on policing and retiring. This also entails a report on a qualitative study involving a series of one-hour interviews with a sample of 12 retired police officers. The data from this investigation are assessed in Chapter 6. Using Eliasian methods requires a ‘detour via detachment’ which means taking a long-term perspective to identify a more consistent understanding of figurational and personal processes of change. An Eliasian approach recognizes the linguistic problems that emerged from this endeavour and prescribes the use of process concepts such as ‘figuration’ and ‘we-I balance’ to facilitate better engagement with ongoing change. Accordingly, I privilege process language and focus on ‘policing’ and ‘retiring’ rather than the more conventional ‘police’ and ‘retirement’. Furthermore, I attempt to enhance the conceptual reach of the Eliasian perspective by substituting ‘influence’ and ‘we orientation’, for ‘power’ and ‘we-I balance’, as well as introducing the concept of ‘heuristics’.This approach also draws attention to professional rivalries and how these relate to state formation and the emergence of state pensions. Overall, in this thesis I try to develop an understanding of policing and retiring as features of a civilizing process involving the long-term decline in violence and we-orientation, and the rising influence of shame.

History

Supervisor(s)

Jason Hughes; Michael Dunning

Date of award

2024-11-27

Author affiliation

School of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy

Awarding institution

University of Leicester

Qualification level

  • Doctoral

Qualification name

  • PhD

Language

en

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