Police Legitimacy Conflicting Centres

Abstract

The chapter examines police legitimacy in the context of peacetime transition states, South Africa and Zimbabwe in particular, and argue that the complexity of legitimacy cannot be axially viewed as ‘acceptance of the moral authority of a police force and its right to enforce laws and issue commands' (Weitzer, 1995, p. 83) or ‘a belief that induces people to feel personally obligated to defer to authorities' (Tyler, 2006, p. 376). There are unconsidered complexities to police legitimacy that compel attention. The chapter makes three observations: 1) police legitimacy is conferred, often by opposing congress of three factors - the people, state and the international community; 2) the police are always trying to balance opposing factors, or play off one against the other(s); and 3) police service has no total or permanent legitimacy. Based on these assumptions, a compelling question could be whether or not police in transition societies have legroom to exercise discretional powers as they mediate between state and civilian populations.