The thesis examines the state of Thai police administration by analysing the opinions of senior and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) in the Royal Thai Police about the recommendations of the country’s Police Reform Committee (PRC), 2006—2007. Opinions were collected by means of a countrywide survey and face-to-face interviews in metropolitan police stations in Bangkok and urban and rural stations in Surat Thani in the South and Chang Mai in the North. The survey was clustered and stratified by station size, operation section and officer rank. The final sample matched national profiles. Interviews were conducted with the Chief and one NCO from each operations section of each police station. Interviews were also conducted with senior members of the PRC itself about the reasoning behind the committee’s recommendations, including the Head of the PRC. The PRC’s priorities were: devolving administration, budgets and personnel management; increasing accountability by an Independent Complaints’ Committee and Bureau Police Policy Committees; and civilianization. PRC deliberations were framed by the question, How could more open and participatory policing be achieved? Priorities of decentralization and accountability were seen as clearing the ground for development of community-oriented approaches longer-term. From serving officers’ and PRC members’ accounts the key barriers to reform were political interference and nepotism, especially corruption of the annual cycle of nominations, transfer and promotions. Local policing often involved more interference by informal networks of officials, politicians and business-interests, which badly affected the workings of police station committees too. Thai police administration remains centralized and essentially unchanged, despite more controversy and scandal in the period 2006-2011. The PRC’s aim to adapt ‘democratic’ models to the Thai context failed. The dilemma for the PRC had been that although its reform strategies were well-founded its establishment was politically motivated. It was not immune to interference by competing political factions.

This thesis examines the development of a modern urban police force - professional and civil - and its role in the everyday life of the Portuguese capital city, between the start of the city's modern growth in the 1860s and the Republican Revolution of October 1910. It begins by examining the political process of institutional reform during the early 1860s, which led to the creation of Policia Civil de Lisboa in 1867. Using the daily orders of Policia Civil as the anchor source, the thesis concentrates attention on the processes of organizational shaping that marked the development of this police force. The social and cultural diversity within this police force is examined by considering both the rank-file and also the police leadership and the professional specialization that began emerging in the end of the century. But the main focus of this work is on the beat policeman. The thesis examines the organizational strategies devised to 'fabricate' a civilised policeman, as well as their daily enforcement. The evolution of the police's manpower and its deployment throughout the city's territory, together with the arrangement of the working routines, demonstrate that the police increasingly became a central actor in the mediation of social relations in the city. On the part of the population, the growing expectation of the police's availability to intervene was another key factor in the general evolution of the 'idea of police' during this period. Finally, this thesis argues that, while the population became used to 'calling the police', popular criticisms of police actions were also central in the shaping of policing practice.

RADAR is an excellence self-assessment tool which is commonly used to assess results and approaches in excellence models. It could also be used successfully in assessing the strategy formulation process in Dubai' s government. The Thesis is a qualitative research that deploys a case study approach to understand the role of RADAR techniques and practices, and how these can be used in assessing the Dubai Governement 's strategy formulation process, focusing on the justice and security sectors in general and the Dubai Police Force in particular. The researcher always attempts to answer particular questions about why and how RADAR informs and helps in assessing and controlling the strategy formulation process. The study obtained valid information from semi-structured interviews with 17 senior and middle government, security and Police staff members working in the Dubai Police Force, Civil Defense and Immigration Departments. Generally, the findings indicated that: Firstly, RADAR can be used successfully in these researched organisations and can be seen to be important in security assessment function when taking into consideration the cultural aspects of Dubai which are based on Arab and Islamic cultural values. Secondly, the strategy formulation process in Dubai Governement is affected widely by Islamic and Arab culture. Thirdly, the definition of 'citizen' is very complex as Dubai is a cosmopolitan city. This makes it difficult to cater to the stakeholders' needs in the strategy formulation process due to the diversity of the cultures of the different nationalities. Fourthly, the bureaucratic nature of managers in the public sector makes it difficult to deploy the excellence self-assessment tools as they tend to believe that assessment is merely criticism rather than that it supports continuous improvement. Finally, the leadership of Dubai Governement plays a crucial role in leading the strategic thinking and quality drive in both public and private sectors. The leadership vision is to cater to the cultural needs of the different nationalities living in Dubai and translate them into sound strategies.