Community policing is one of the more significant recent developments in policing and the notion has been widely discussed and applied around the world. This thesis examines its various conceptions as discussed in the literature and in practice, with particular emphasis being given to the role of trust between police and citizens in this context. The investigation adopts a constructivist and qualitative comparative analysis based in two countries: Mexico and the UK (with two case studies in each country) and with data primarily collected through interviews with samples of police and citizens. Key findings are that: The variety of conceptions about community policing highlight the complex nature of the notion and the many factors shaping its varied practices. Police assumptions as to what constitutes good practice in community policing and what success might look like, deserve to be re-examined. The social constructions that police and citizens hold about community policing provide valuable sources of insight which challenge some of the conventional understandings regarding policing priorities. Trust is a vital ingredient for successful community policing and needs to be based as much on the police trusting citizens and communities as the other way round.

This study explores, analyses and seeks to explain the processes by which legislative changes were achieved to overcome the problems associated with the role and duties of the office of coroner from the mid nineteenth century to the 1920s. From time to time during the period, the office was exposed to political and public scrutiny that brought calls for reform. Despite that, and the general recognition that change was necessary, the process was extremely protracted and reform limited so that when the 1926 Act reached the statute book, it was greeted with a level of subdued dissatisfaction. Throughout the period, the coroners resisted change based on an appeal to their traditional links with the people and representing the office as an ancient institution rooted in long established custom and practice. Despite that, the coroners were unable to evade the impact of changes associated with developments in local and national government which had an indirect, though significant, effect on coroners' reform. For most of the period, the policy of successive governments was to have no policy on coroners. To fill that void,various groups with conflicting interests and ambitions proposed changes to meet their needs and attempted to influence the government to implement them. A slow, complex, haphazard, fragmented and undirected process evolved that had its own dynamic. There was no strategist, no over-riding driving force, no single source. Suggestions were adopted, modified or rejected to produce a 'policy' that was eventually accepted by the Home Office. From the detailed examination of the complex events, issues and stances adopted by the various bodies, including the Home Office, an explanation for the unusual, slow and tortuous process of reform emerges. Coroners' problems were a minor issue for the government and carried little weight in the wider scheme of politics. With such a low priority rating, the government was reluctant to intervene except under the pressure of public criticism when events created a crisis or near crisis. Eventually, a minimum legislative intervention brought closure, but left important problems unresolved. The coroners still investigated unexplained deaths on behalf of the Crown and retained intact their traditional authority, independence, common law powers and discretion.

Like consociationalism and territorial pluralism, centripetalism is a multiculturalist way of managing ethno-cultural diversity. Many scholars have examined how a consociational or territorial pluralist formula might help Turkey to resolve its long-running Kurdish problem. To date, no one has paid enough attention to the merits of centripetalism by scrutinising whether they might contribute to the solution of the problem. There is a general neglect of centripetal solution in the academic literature on Turkey's Kurdish question. As an interdisciplinary study, this thesis seeks to fill the centripetal research gap in the literature. The thesis argues that neither consociationalism nor territorial pluralism might be the optimal multiculturalist approach that Turkey should embrace in resolving its Kurdish issue. The thesis comes up with an original centripetal formula for the resolution of the issue. The proposed formula is constructed on the following three cornerstones: 1) a parliamentary system which is built on a 560-member legislature elected via an original version of the Alternative Vote Plus electoral system; 2) asymmetric territorial autonomy for each Kurdish-populated province; and 3) cultural autonomy for individual Kurds residing in the Turkish-dominated provinces. According to the thesis, this centripetal formula might enable Turkey to satisfy or begin to satisfy all main Kurdish demands, the fulfilment of which is regarded by almost all segments of Kurdish society as the basic requirement for the solution of the Kurdish problem. The formula might also create a multiculturalist Turkey less likely to witness some problematic political scenarios that would happen should the Republic establish a consociational or territorial pluralist model for the solution of the problem.