Locating the Public Interest in Transnational Policing

Abstract

This paper examines the basis on which we might argue that there is a 'transnational' public interest in transnational policing. Is policing beyond the state simply a matter of finding points of overlap between the security interests of different national communities. If so, it appears as a precarious and contingent achievement. But if not, how can we imagine that transnational public interest in thicker terms, as involving a state-transcending common interest? Would this not involve sacrificing the very idea of national security interests, or indeed any security interest based upon communities more local than the transnational level? The paper develops an argument that this need not be the case, and that we can imagine 'thick' security and policing interests at different levels of territorial community simultaneously.