Mark Neocleous, "A Critical Theory of Police Power: The Fabrication of the Social Order" (Verso, 2021)
A Critical Theory of Police Power: The Fabrication of Social Order\xa0(Verso, 2021)\xa0offers a\xa0critical look at policing and the power of the state, examining the relationship between our ideas of order and wider social and political issues.\nFirst published in 2000, this new edition of Mark Neocleous' influential book features a new introduction which helpfully situates this ever-relevant text in the context of contemporary\xa0struggles\xa0over police and policing.\nNeocleous argues for an expanded concept of police, able to account for the range of institutions through which policing takes place. These institutions are concerned not just with the maintenance and reproduction of order, but with its very fabrication, especially the fabrication of a social order founded on wage labour. By situating the police power in relation to both capital and the state and at the heart of the politics of security, the book opens up into an understanding of the ways in which the state administers civil society and fabricates order through law and the ideology of crime. The discretionary violence of the police on the street is thereby connected to the wider administrative powers of the state, and the thud of the truncheon to the dull compulsion of economic relations.\nContent warning:\xa0the last 2 minutes of the interview include a brief discussion of Mark's current work on suicide.\nListeners who enjoyed this interview may enjoy\xa0my recent\xa0interviews with Mark on his most recent\xa0book\xa0The Politics of Immunity, with undercover police ("Spycop")\xa0victims\xa0Helen Steel and Alison about\xa0Deep Deception, and\xa0with counterterrorism scholar\xa0Rizwaan Sabir about\xa0The Suspect.\nMark Neocleous\xa0is Professor of the Critique of Political Economy at Brunel University in London, and is well-known for his\xa0work on police power and security. His recent books include\xa0The Universal Adversary: Security, Capital and 'The Enemies of All Mankind'\xa0(2016);\xa0War Power, Police Power\xa0(2014);\xa0and the newly-reissued\xa0A Critical Theory of Police Power: The Fabrication of Social Order\xa0(2021).\n\nCatriona Gold\xa0is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London. She is currently researching the US Passport Office's role in governing Cold War travel, and broadly interested in questions of security, surveillance and mobility. She can be reached by\xa0email\xa0or on\xa0Twitter.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law