Power, Knowledge and Domination [1 ed.] 9788763003070, 9788763001960

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Raymond Daniel Gordon Power, Knowledge and Domination

© CBS Press and the authors 2007

1st printed edition 2007 The e-book is published in 2013

Series editors: Stewart R. Clegg and Ralph Stablein E-book production: PHi Business Solutions Ltd. (Chandigarh, India)

ISBN (e-book edition): 978-87-630-0307-0 ISBN (printed edition): 978-87-630-0196-0

CBS Press Rosenoerns Allé 9 DK-1970 Frederiksberg C Denmark [email protected] www.cbspress.dk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage or retrieval system – without permission in writing from the publisher.

Advances in Organization Studies Series Editors: Stewart Clegg Professor, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Ralph E. Stablein Professor, University of Otago, New Zealand Advances in Organization Studies is a channel for cutting edge theoretical and empirical works of high quality, that contributes to the field of orga­niza­ tional studies. The series welcomes thought-provoking ideas, new perspecti­ ves and neglected topics from researchers within a wide range of disciplines and geographical locations. www.organizationstudies.org

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Acknowledgements I would like first and foremost to thank Professor Stewart Clegg. His theo­ retical knowledge and prodigious research skills are rightly renowned. As a colleague and friend, he guided, goaded and encouraged me in the writing of this book. Attending one of the subjects he lectures at the University of Technology Sydney titled “Doing Exemplary Research” had a profound effect on my research thinking and practices; while it may be a little auda­ cious of me to say, I believe that many of the academics that I have listened to discussing their research in colloquiums throughout the world would benefit from attending Professor Clegg’s lectures. I would also like to thank Professor Peter Manning for his review of the manuscript as well as Professor Mark Haugaard, Professor Ralph Stablein and Professor Nelson Phillips for their review of an earlier version of the manuscript. The comments and suggestions that these writers provided helped me immensely. I would also like to thank Cleo Lester for her help in collating the research data and Sita Chopra for her help in preparing the manuscript.



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Dedication This book is dedicated to my wife Liz and my children Kate, Tom and Bennet, as well as my parents Ray and Yvonne. They have all given me much love and support for which I am truly grateful. I would also like to dedicate the book to all the hard working police officers, who, as I witnessed first hand, battle with “the monster” each and everyday. This was especially the case for James Richie who decided he could no longer do so.



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Table of Contents PART I 1. Introduction ................................................................................

13

2. Histories of the NSW Police Service ......................................... 2.1 Colonial Beginnings 1788–1861 ............................................ 2.2 Consolidation of Police Power 1862–1959 ............................ 2.3 Police Rationality 1960–1979 ................................................ 2.4 Change That Resulted in More of the Same 1980–1995 ....... 2.5 Conclusion ............................................................................

18 18 20 23 29 35

3. 1996 Royal Commission into Police Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service ........................................ 3.1 Forms of Corruption Discovered in the Service ..................... 3.2 Entrenched and Systematic Corruption ................................. 3.3 The Commission’s Assessment of the Overall Problem – Inadequate Leadership ........................................................ 3.4 Commissioner Ryan’s Response: His Reform Plan for The New South Wales Police Service ..................................... 3.5 Conclusion ............................................................................

37 37 48 51 56 63

PART II 4. Streams of Power ....................................................................... 4.1 The Idealist Stream: Ideas About How Power “Should” Be ... 4.2 The Pragmatist Stream: Accounts of How Power “Actually” Is ......................................................................... 4.3 Conclusion ............................................................................ 5. Leadership Through the Power Lens ........................................ 5.1 Traditional Approaches to Leadership ................................... 5.2 Dispersed Approaches to Leadership ..................................... 5.3 Dispersed Leadership: Problematic Considerations in Regard to Power ................................................................... 5.4 Conclusion ............................................................................

67 70 83 99 101 102 105 111 114

PART III 6. The Research and Methodological Framework ....................... 119 6.1 Contextual Issues for Organizational Research ..................... 119 6.2 Broad Methodological Considerations .................................. 124 

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6.3 The Research Framework ...................................................... 127 6.4 The Methodology .................................................................. 130 6.5 Conclusion ............................................................................ 134 7. Methods, Instruments, Contexts and Trends ........................... 7.1 The Research Questions ........................................................ 7.2 Selecting the Research Subject ............................................... 7.3 Crafting Instruments and Protocols ....................................... 7.4 The Constraint and Strategic Use of the Archaeology ............ 7.5 Data Collection Strategies ..................................................... 7.6 Data Analysis Process ........................................................... 7.7 Conclusion ............................................................................

136 136 137 138 142 143 151 163

PART IV   8. Data Analysis: Watching the Detectives .................................. 167 8.1 Taken for Granted Realities ................................................... 169 8.2 Conclusion ............................................................................ 192   9. Data Analysis: History and Sensemaking ................................ 9.1 Historical Patterns of Decision Legitimacy ............................ 9.2 Historical Delineation of Relationships ................................. 9.3 Patterns in Sensemaking ........................................................ 9.4 Conclusion ............................................................................

194 195 204 209 216

10. Data Analysis: Policing the Boundaries, Maintaining Order, and Words Versus Deeds ........................................................... 10.1 Boundaries of Discursive Practice ....................................... 10.2 The Ordering of Statements ................................................ 10.3 Words Versus Deeds ........................................................... 10.4 Conclusion of Data Analysis ..............................................

217 219 223 233 241

11. Conclusion: The Historical Constitution of Power .................. 244 11.1 Propositions ....................................................................... 254 11.2 The Historical Constitution of Power in the New South Wales Police Service ............................................................ 259 Postscript .......................................................................................... 263 Appendices ....................................................................................... 273 Appendix A – Key Limitations and Assumptions ....................... 273 Appendix B – Notes on the Way the Research was Conducted ... 274 References ........................................................................................ 275 Topic Index ....................................................................................... 288 Name Index ...................................................................................... 290 

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List of Tables Table No. Name of Table 3.1 Commissioner Lauer’s view of police role changes when moving from a police force to a police service. 4.1 Summary illustration of how management writers separated authority and power. 5.1 Reproduction of the table that Sims and Lorenzi (1992: 297) use that leaves the cell for power in the Superleader scenario blank. 5.2 How the main categories in the leadership literature address the constructs of structure, power and identity. The double line represents a key shift in the literature. Shaded cells represent areas where a contribution to research can be made. 7.1 Concepts represent underlying theory of traditional and disper­ sed leadership approaches, which will be used as a priori trig­ gers and guides for the data collection and analysis stages of research process. 7.2 Structures Node – Trends and Comparisons. 7.3 Forms Node – Trends and Comparisons. 7.4 Practices Node – Trends and Comparisons. 7.5 Effects Node – Trends and Comparisons.

List of Figures Fig. No. 3.1 3.2 3.3

4.1

5.1 5.2 6.1

Name of figure New South Wales Police Service 1994. New South Wales Police Service 1997. Proposed structure of Local Area Commands. See page 18 of Ryan (1996) “Reform of the New South Wales Police Service – Phase 1” pre­pared for the Hon Paul Whelan and the Royal Commission into Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service. Relative flows of streams and sub-streams of literature that make up the ­power in organizations literature. Also shows the paths that the literature review will take. Traditional approaches to organizational leadership, common links and under­lying concepts. Dispersed approaches to organizational leadership, common links and under­lying concepts. The research framework.



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7.1

7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5

Cornell Local Area Command Structure. Note: Detective and Highway Patrol Officers are now members of an operations team and report to a team leader. Outline of relationship between Project, Records and Nodes for the database. Outline of research project’s database – root node, node and sub node tree structure. Database model – shows node and sub-node relationships. Data saturation process.

List of Appendices Name of appendix A Key Limitations and Assumptions B Notes on the way the research was conducted

Glossary Please note: many of the terms listed below describe corrupt and/or crimi­ nal practices and other colloquialisms exposed by the Royal Commission into Corruption within the New South Wales Police Service (Wood, 1997). A graders

Barbeque set Dog Dudded Eighty Wheeler

Green-lighting Headquarters

Investigator Load up

expression used by police to describe the perceived elite members of the Servic – usually referring to senior members of specialists squads and task forces. clique of senior and or corrupt police in the 1980s who regularly socialized together. an officer who reports other officers or breaks the code of silence. term used to refer to being mislead or manipulated. term referring to when officers, who don’t toe the boss’s line, are transferred to a remote geographical location in the New South Wales. when police permit criminals to conduct robberies or drug dealing in return for money and/or information. located in College Street Sydney where the Minister for Police, the Commissioner of Police, the Commissioner’s Executive Team, other Senior Executive Officers and support staff work. Detectives are now referred to as investigators. where police charge an individual with a crime or crimes the person did not commit – usually by plan­ ting evidence or forced admissions by the person.



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Local Area Command term used to describe a geographically based police organization made up of several police stations. Regional Command term used to describe a geographic region consis­ ting of several Local Area Commands. Scrumdown a police term for the practice of getting together to ensure police statements and/or evidence are consis­ tent. The Bush terms used to refer to a remote geographic location for police work – normally regional Australia. The laugh the term given to a system of corrupt payments, during the 1980s and early 1990s, between Kings Cross Detectives and local criminals for protection from prosecution. Whale in the bay a coded message used to warn colleagues of an internal investigation. Whistleblower term given to an individual who reports miscon­ duct or corruption of another member or members within the same organization. Whoop Whoop term used to refer to somewhere many miles away.

Abbreviations ABC AFP CIB CIU CMSU CMU GD GDO DO IM IPSU LAC

Australian Broadcasting Commission Australian Federal Police Criminal Investigations Bureau Criminal Intelligence Unit Crime Management Support Unit Crime Management Unit General Duties Officer General Duties Officer Duty Officer – senior officer, part of LAC’s management team Investigations Manager (Chief Detective) Internal Police Security Unit Local Area Command – geographic region containing several police stations or, Local Area Commander – Most senior office (in charge) of LAC NSW New South Wales – a state of Australia RC Roster Controller RES Researcher SO Senior Officer TL Team Leader TM Team Manager

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PART I

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Chapter 1

Introduction

“Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche’s monstrosities, as he was well aware, were far more likely to be found in the small things that make up the everyday lives of ordinary people rather than in the dramatic acts of the “great” and the “good”. He would argue that more often then not leaders infatuated with the presumption that their “greatness” and “goodness” can make a difference are likely to find themselves staring into the abyss. Indeed, this was the case for the present study – the monster that needed to be grappled with by the organization in question was initially defined as corruption. A new leader, hired on the basis of recruiting a leader uncontaminated by the abyss of corruption, sought to implement a change of power relations. In doing so he followed the advice of standard management theory, which, as this study illustrates, was merely staring into the abyss from another angle – one that could not see the hidden monstrosities lurking there. To see these requires a much longer and harder look at the institutions of power, a look that detours from the familiar to the less explored. It requires, as Clegg (2002) and other poststructuralist writers on power have argued, a theoretical understanding of power that, regrettably, most contemporary management theory does not even aspire to. Accordingly, this book has three main aims. The first is to report the results of a deep empirical study into the nature of power in organizations. More specifically, the study seeks to explore the nature of power relations in an organization attempting to introduce more democratically oriented control systems. Bolman and Deal (2003) argue that the introduction of such systems is indicative of a broader trend in organizational change that has occurred over the last two decades; this change is characterised by the use of, amongst other things, flatter structures, teams and empowerment strategies (see also Bolman & Deal, 2003). More importantly, Hardy and Clegg 13

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(1996) argue that the introduction of such systems represent a shift in the “limits to power” that have shaped power relations throughout the modern era. The second aim is to conduct the study with respect to an intellectual tradition that has been largely ignored by the mainstream management writers until recent times. The tradition starts with Machiavelli, moves through Nietzsche to Foucault, and then continues in the work of contemporary writers such as Clegg (1975; 1989; 2001), Haugaard (1997; 2002) and Flyvbjerg (1998; 2001). Unlike the mainstream management literature, this tradition has a more pragmatic focus; it is less inclined to proffer ideas about how things “should” be and more inclined to study how things “actually” are. The significance of the difference between these inclinations is central to the study and is elaborated on shortly. The third aim is to enhance the study’s contribution to knowledge by developing a research and methodological framework that can help researchers bring the effects of the forms of power that are consistent with those central to the more pragmatic intellectual tradition, into plain view. These forms of power are less readily observable because they are deeply embedded in an organization’s social system to the point where they become part of the “natural order of things” (Haugaard, 1997). The overall purpose of the book is to highlight to management theorists and practitioners that, due to the shift in the limits to power being experienced in organizations, not to mention broader social systems, they may need to change their way of thinking about power in organizations. As will be shown, management writers have demonstrated a preoccupation for articulating ideas about how things “ought to be” (Flyvbjerg, 1998); in many cases however, the idealistic and problematic nature of such an articulation is neglected: this study illustrates how, to coin a Foucauldian phrase, “what we actually do often makes our ideas about what we ought to do, groan with protest” (see also Haugaard, 1997). That being said, the book does not set out to provide an anti-management thesis, nor is it aimed at discouraging the pursuit of one’s ideas about how things “ought” to be, but it is critical of the normative assumptions and starting points that many mainstream management writers employ when conceptualising such “oughts”. A point in case is the prevailing concern in the mainstream management literature with the pursuit of rationality. While such a concern may have its merits, contributors to this literature, when promulgating that “things ought to be rational”, more often than not take the validity of their version of rationality as a given. That is, management writers typically refer to rationality in terms that suggest that that which con

The study acknowledges that the work of Machiavelli has been given some extended coverage in the management literature. The extent and nature of this coverage is outlined in Chapter 4.

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stitutes rationality is tangible and defined in singular terms. However, the findings of this study reinforce what Machiavelli, Nietzsche and Foucault argued, and what both Clegg (1975) and Flyvbjerg (1998) have since empirically verified: rationality has a plurality. In contrast to the assumption that appears to pervade the mainstream management literature, rationality does not exist independent of context and time (Flyvbjerg, 1998); on the contrary, it is dependent on context. Moreover, the context of rationality is power. To explain further, Flyvbjerg argues: Power blurs the dividing line between rationality and rationalization. Rationalization presented as rationality is shown to be the principle strategy in the exercise of power (Flyvbjerg, 1998: 2).

In other words, whether or not something is considered to be rational depends on how it is rationalized. The process of rationalization is strategic and subject to power. Similarly, when it comes to considering constructs such as power (not to mention culture, leadership and many others), management writers also refer to them in tangible and well-defined terms. For instance, power is referred to as something that an entity (usually a person or a group) either has or does not have, and it is more often than not linked to the control of tangible resources, as well as being grounded in readily observable decisionmaking scenarios. The present study empirically verifies that power involves much more; it is not necessarily something that somebody has or does not have nor is it necessarily linked to the control of resources or decision-making scenarios. In regard to the background of the study, it grew, in the first instance, out of an interest in the modern versus postmodern debates that occurred throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Spending time immersed in literature pertinent to these debates however causes one to recognize that conducting an empirical study into the effects of the perceived epistemic shift from modernity to postmodernity is fraught with problematic consequences. The postmodern literature is complex and in many instances inconsistent, which renders the operationalization of postmodern theory a difficult, actually an impossible, task. With an operational focus in mind, rather than deal with the abstractness associated with the difference between modern and postmodern theory, the process of de-differentiating historically constituted power relationships associated with the shift to postmodernity became the focus. More specifically, of central concern was what happens to power relationships when organizations with a history of utilizing salient differential boundaries of power based on hierarchical structures and authoritarian practices attempt to introduce alternative structures and practices aimed a facilitating the empowerment of lower level workers. As is discussed in detail in Chapter 4, the 15

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empowerment of lower level workers, at least theoretically, blurs the salient nature of hierarchical based differential boundaries. The study is concerned with the effects of this blurring and the potential tensions between the historically constituted “old” way of doing things and the recently theoretically espoused “new” way of doing things. Weick (1999) argues that researchers need to select research settings that are most likely to replicate their theoretical interests. Accordingly, an organization that, after an extended history of practicing orthodox forms of organization, was attempting to implement new organizational forms that challenged its historically constituted boundaries of power was sought. Of interest in such an organization would be the tensions between what remained of its “old” forms, which are most likely embedded in unobtrusive antecedent forms of social order, and the “new” structures, policies and practices recently introduced. In 1997, the results of a Royal Commission into Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service were released and indicated that the Service was subject to widespread corruption. Numerous officers, including senior officers, were indicted and more than 500 found it within their best interest to resign from the Service (Ryan, 2002). Amongst other things, the Royal Commission recommended that the Service move away from its orthodox structures and practices towards forms that were more attuned to contemporary organization theory and practice. Since then, acting in response to these recommendations, the Service initiated a reform program aimed at employing, amongst other things, more democratically oriented control systems. New forms of organizing (Bolman and Deal, 2003) characterized by flatter structures, teamwork and empowerment strategies, were introduced. The objective of introducing these forms of organizing was to give the vast majority of officers, who in the past had been muted by the police officer’s well documented (Van Maanen, 1988) informal yet powerfully constraining “code of silence”, the voice they required to speak up against corruption. With its past history and immediate change initiatives evident, the New South Wales Police Service emerged as a prime candidate as a research setting. Here, one could hypothesize, there were likely to be tensions related to power between the historical antecedents of the New South Wales Police Service and its newly implemented structures, policies and strategies. Thus, 

It is important to note that while the research subject is a police organization, the study is designed with the intention to contribute to a broader spectrum of organization literature: the focus remains the tensions related to power between traditional and new organizational forms, not police organizations per se. Time was spent reviewing the police organization literature, however the review will not be presented here, suffice to say that some of the more notable contributions to this literature include, Egon Bittner’s (1967) The Police on Skid Row: A Study of Peace Keeping, Aaron Cicourel’s (1968) The Organization of Juvenile Justice, Peter Manning and John Van Maanen’s (1978) Policing: a View From The Street, Maurice Punch’s

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the focus of the study became how historically constituted forms of power within the New South Wales Polices Service affected the practices of its members and, whether the nature of this affect reinforced or undermined the Service’s subsequent reform initiatives. This introductory chapter has presented the aims, purpose and background of the thesis. The theoretical focus of the book is how unobtrusive forms of power affect people in organizations. More specifically, how an organization’s historical constitution of power affects the practices of its members. The historical constitution of power is recognized as being made up of antecedent forms of power embedded in the socio-cultural meaning systems that actors refect on to make sense of their worlds. As will be illustrated these antecedent forms of power go largely unnoticed because they are considered part and parcel of everyday life. Before readers read on and begin their journey into the everyday life of police officers in New South Wales it should be noted that the book is structured in four main parts. The first part, which includes this chapter and Chapters 2 and 3, sets the scene for the study by providing an historical analysis into the New South Wales Police Service. Part 2, which includes Chapters 4 and 5, offers a critical review of what mainstream management writers have had to say about power, and identifies areas in which contributions can be made to this literature. Part 3, which includes Chapters 6 and 7, develops the research and methodological framework along with the methods, instruments and protocols that are required to conduct an empirical study aimed at addressing the deficiencies in the literature identified in Chapters 4 and 5. Part 4, which include Chapters 8, 9, 10 and 11, present the data findings, recommendations and conclusions. One final point before you read on, while the book has been written to guide readers as they explore power in the New South Wales Police Service, it has also been designed to leave room for readers to make their own conclusions about the nature of this power.

(1979) Policing the Inner City: A Study of Amsterdam’s Warmoesstraat, John Van Maanen’s (1988) Tales From the Field, and Janet Chan’s (1997) Changing Police Culture: Policing in a Multicultural Society. What is notable about these writings is that they each provide important methodological insights into the study of a police organization; more specifically, each provides a rich sociological account of police at work and highlights the suitability of ethnographic methods to the study of these organizations.  While I draw on the work of other writers, I would like to acknowledge Justice Wood (author of the 1997 Royal Commission into Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service). The findings of the Royal Commission are central to the present study and for this reason I followed Justice Wood’s historical review of the development of the Service to construct the narrative presented in Chapters 2 and 3; this narrative tells the story of how and in what forms power was historically constituted in the Service. I would also lika to acknowledge the work of Professor M. Finnane, his historical writings on the Service also helped me formulate this narrative.

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Chapter 2

Histories of the NSW Police Service

The history of the NSW Police Service can be broken into five main periods, with each characterized by key events and actions that signify the Service’s evolving approach to power, both internally in regard to its governance, and externally in regard to its position and role in NSW. The first period, 1788 to 1861, provides insight into how the Service was formed and the nature of its role in society life at that time. A review of the following period, 1862 to 1959, emphasises how the Service both acquired and consolidated its power in the broader community. An assessment of the third period,1960 to 1979, draws the reader’s attention to the way the Service, more specifically the Commissioner of Police, acquired a voice in the State’s broader political arena. During this time, the police not only appeared to lose track of their mandate but seemed to construct their own version of reality: one that resonated with the term “noble cause” corruption. The period from 1980 to 1995 was a stage of change; however, as will be shown, it was a time also marked by continuities.

2.1 Colonial Beginnings 1788–1861 When the British founded what became known as Sydney (1788), policing in Britain had traditionally been carried out at a local level with local communities appointing their own constable. The role of the community constable was voluntary and often shared between community members. More significantly though, the maintenance of order was carried out with respect to the community’s social values (Finnane, 1996). In Sydney however, which was a garrison from the outset, things were quite different. As a penal colony, it was predominantly occupied by British military personnel, convicts and the local Indigenous population. In contrast to Britain, rather than community constables, the military carried out policing, security and other acts of force in Sydney. However, this sole military involvement was not to last. Finnane (1996) indicates that after approximately a decade Governor Philip began to ap18

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point the “best of convicts” and later “freemen” to the position of constable. He adds that this first group of constables became known as the “constabulary”. In rural areas, constables were appointed and overseen by local justices and subsequently became known as Bench Police or “Benchers” (Swanton and Hannigan, 1985). Shortly after Governor Philip’s appointment of constables in Sydney from outside the military, Sir Robert Peel changed the face of policing in Britain by establishing the “New Police Force” in 1829 (Finnane, 1996: 13). This signalled both the beginning of the link between police organizations and governments in Britain, and the role of police in the maintenance of a normative form of social order. From this point on the police became not only the enforcers of law, but also, what is termed here, the “gatekeepers” of normalcy. Finnane (1996) suggests that the nature of normalcy, at this time, was largely determined by the colony’s political elite. With the advent of Peel’s changes to the British model of policing, the Empire began to establish authoritative police forces throughout its colonies. In NSW however, the Force developed in a context of high crime, especially theft and assault, and convicts comprising the majority of the community. To overcome these issues, the colony of Sydney passed legislation that increased the powers of police. One of the first of these Acts was passed in 1833, and gave the police the power to remove and prevent nuisances and obstructions in the Port of Sydney (Swanton and Hannigan, 1985). To help police achieve this charter the Vagrancy Act was passed in 1835. Finnane (1996) points out that because of ambiguous guidelines, this Act significantly enhanced the discretionary power of police by effectively allowing them to interpret, and therefore determine, what constituted vagrancy. He adds that the public dissent with policing that emerged throughout the following year was directly related to how the Vagrancy Act was being employed. Over the following years, this dissent grew and culminated in riots on New Years Eve, 1849. Instead of leading to a review of the execution of the Vagrancy Act, these riots resulted in the introduction of the Colonial Police Act 1850. Under this legislation, the role of the Colony’s judicial officer to supervise police was removed, and the police effectively became under self-control. (Swanton and Hannigan, 1985). In summary, throughout this period, the nature of Sydney’s community highlights a difference between the foundation of British police organizations and Australian police organizations. While British policing had its roots in the traditional role of the community constable and social values, policing in Australia was grounded in military organization with a clear link to a centralized governing body. This link was strengthened by the settlement conditions and the defining events of the period, such as gold rush riots and the advent of bush ranging. These events demonstrated that the colony had to rely on the NSW Police Force to help shape and maintain 19

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social order. To this end, a number of Acts were passed which enhanced the discretionary power of police to the final point of self-control in 1850.

2.2 Consolidation of Police Power 1862–1959 While the Colonial Police Act 1850 formally gave the NSW police the power of self-control, it was the Police Regulation Act 1862 that consolidated and centralized this power. In accordance with this Act, the constabulary, and by this time the additional divisions of Mounted Police, Sydney Metropolitan Police, and Water Police, were amalgamated into a centralized force under the leadership of a single person – the Inspector-General of Police (Swanton and Hannigan, 1985). Interestingly, after only a decade or so of self-control, the conduct of police came under scrutiny. The first official inquiry into police conduct came in 1867 when commissioners were appointed to investigate the alleged corrupt relationships between magistrates, police and bushrangers (Wood, 1997). Other inquiries that occurred soon after included: a Royal Commission in 1891 into bribery links between Chinese gambling organizations and police; a Royal Commission in 1912 into the administration of the law in regard to Disorderly Houses in Newcastle (Edmonds, 1912); an inquiry in 1918 into whether fictitious evidence was concocted by police (Wood, 1997); and a Royal Commission in 1920 into the dubious methods employed by police to convict and sentence a citizen (Charles Reeve; see Ewing, 1920 for details). Throughout this period police also continued to practice their role as the gatekeepers of normalcy. This gatekeeping involved surveillance of people who were considered by the political elite at the time as troublesome. For example, during World War One police action was directed towards those in opposition to the war and conscription. Police liaised with the military and the Counter Espionage Bureau, and regularly attended the Domain to take notes of “seditious” speeches (Wood, 1997: 52). Furthermore, the police used legislation such as the War Precautions Act 1914 and the Unlawful Associations Act 1916, to target individuals and groups that were considered to be “dangerous”; that is, those who were considered by the police to be functioning outside of the boundaries of normalcy. As Wood (1997) reports, in 1916 twelve members of the left wing group known as the Industrial Workers of the World were arrested and convicted on charges related to arson and sedition. However, in the process of gaining a conviction, the police were accused of verballing, planting and manipulating evidence, and bribing in the course of their inquiries (Wood, 1997: 52–53). The Royal Commission that followed in 1920 found that several of the officers involved were worthy of censure and that, due to a reliance on the 

It is from this Act that the present NSW Police Service dates (Wood, 1997).

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uncorroborated evidence of police informants, many of the convictions had not been “right and just” (Ewing, 1920). In 1927, the Pistol License Act barred people from carrying concealed firearms without a police license. This Act made the straight razor a popular weapon in underworld groups, and those groups who used them became known as the Razor Gangs (McCoy, 1980). Wars between these gangs caused considerable public concern and resulted in amendments to the NSW Vagrancy Act in 1929. The revised legislation significantly enhanced the discretionary power of police to the point where they could arrest people who they thought were merely associated with criminals. Furthermore, the public concern with the Razor Gangs led to the formation of the Criminal Investigations Bureau (CIB), one of the first elite detective groups in the Force. As the Wood Royal Commission reports, in 1935 the CIB began to become a power unto itself within the Force as it increased its detective numbers by creating a number of specialist criminal investigation squads (Swanton and Hannigan, 1985). While these amendments to the Vagrancy Act enabled the police to crush the Razor Gangs, they also gave police almost blanket discretion to arrest and question whoever they wanted (Brown, Farrier, and Weisbrot, 1996). Police have openly acknowledged that the power associated with the threat of prosecution that this Act handed them was often used as a lever for extracting information (Wood, 1997: 53). Such discretionary power was ripe for abuse: in time, it became an instrument of corruption and a means for establishing improper relationships with so-called co-operative criminal figures (1997: 53). Not surprisingly, these co-operative criminals often provided information that, while leading to arrests and convictions, also strengthened their own criminal activities and organizations. A Royal Commission in 1936 found that police framed people for offences, gave false evidence, forced accused parties to plead guilty, unlawfully entered private premises and used unreliable evidence from paid police informants (Markell, 1936). In 1920 the Police Association of New South Wales was formed. At this time, there was clear dissatisfaction with the Force’s disciplinary and promotion system. The Police Regulations Act 1923 established a disciplinary appeals board; however, the promotion process remained in the control of the Inspector-General (Seggie, 1988). In the early 1930s, following negotiations with the Police Association, and in order to avoid charges of favouritism, the NSW Police Force introduced a promotion system based on seniority. A short time after this, however, the then Commissioner of Police, John MacKay challenged the Association by introducing a promotions list



Note the title of the Head of the Police Force changed from that of Inspector-General of Police to Commissioner of police.

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which was perceived by the Association as favouring some while casting aside those officers who did not have “friends at court” (Brien, 1996: 79). In 1941, the Association lobbied for a return to the seniority system (MacCormaic, 1988: 29). During this period, many of the Association’s objectives were in conflict with those of Commissioner MacKay. The rela­ tion­ship between the two deteriorated and came to a head in 1942, with publication of an article in the Union newspaper presenting the Com­ missioner of Police in an unfavourable light. In response, the Com­mis­sioner summoned 17 members of the Association’s executive and demanded that they present their individual opinions on the article. When they refused, the Commissioner transferred them to country areas, thereby dismantling the executive. The incident caused an outcry, which was only defused when the NSW Premier at the time, Sir William McKell, took over the police portfolio and rescinded the transfers (Wood, 1997). These were not however, as shall be seen in the data supporting this study, the last “penalty transfers” for those who dared to question their superiors, especially the Commissioner. Despite incidents with the Police Association, Commissioner MacKay did introduce major structural reform that reflected organizational theory at the time. The changes were characterized by departmentalized structure, largely based upon specialist divisions which focused their operations in the areas of vice, pillage, homicide and arson (Blight, 1962). Specialization came with hidden consequences though and by the 1960s the CIB had acquired a privileged status within the Force. As Wood (1997) points out, the CIB became a powerful group that forcefully resisted change and, due to long term association with the criminal underworld, formed close relationships with crime figures. These relationships had a significant influence on the misuse of power and the emergence of corruption in the Force. Evidence of this corruption arose soon after the Second World War when, during a Royal Commission, the NSW Police Force’s own Counsel admitted that “it is quite possible, indeed it may even be probable, that certain members of the Vice Squad have succumbed to the bribes offered” and that “a certain amount of corruption may have existed” (Maxwell, 1954: 97). It is important to note that the first half of the twentieth century was a period in which the NSW Police Force also transformed from a military garrison into a sophisticated bureaucratic institution. While the military model of command and control continued to underpin the institution, specialization and new technologies were embraced. The change reflected a scientific management discourse which, through the work of Taylor (1947) and his counterparts, dominated management and organizational theory over the same period. Some key developments for the Police Force included: the consolidation of specialist branches; the introduction of unions; specialist training programs and a rank system based on seniority; the utilization of new 22

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technologies, such as motorization and radio communications; and the development and use of scientific methods, such as forensics, finger printing and surveillance techniques. In summary, this period represented a number of significant changes with respect to the consolidation and exercise of power by, and within, the NSW Police Force. While informally the CIB and other divisions exercised power at will, formally power within the Force was centralized into the hands of a single individual – the Commissioner of Police. The role of police as the gatekeepers of normalcy was consolidated over this period, with evidence of minority groups being targeted and marginalized. Further, the period marks changes to legislation, particularly the Vagrancy Act, which significantly enhanced the discretionary powers of police. These new powers were significant because they appear to mark a change in the relationship between the government and the police in that rather than the government as the representative of the people determining what is normal or orderly conduct, normalcy was subject to the discretion of the police. Over time, it became taken-for-granted by the police that they determined the boundaries of normalcy. However, the high rate of public inquiries into the conduct of the police at the time may indicate that many questioned the police’s version of what constituted normalcy and social order. Furthermore, scientific management principles underpinned the Force’s transformation over the period with unity of command emerging as a central feature of the work environment. Events throughout this period indicate that those who held the position Commissioner of Police were prepared to exercise dominance and expected to be obeyed: a clear message was sent to the Force’s members – disobedience would not be tolerated.

2.3 Police Rationality 1960–1979 This period was one in which the reputation of the NSW Police Force was not only damaged by allegations of corruption, but marred by the outbreak of gangland warfare in the late 1960s. Specifically, there was a general perception, from both within and outside the Force, that corruption, spurred by the money that flowed into Sydney from the middle of the decade from US soldiers on rest and recreation leave from Vietnam, was rife. As Wood (1997) reports, the booming drugs trade, illegal gaming, SP betting and vice resulted in police being “paid off” to turn a blind eye to the operations of criminals. In fact, these pay offs were an “open secret” in the Force, that is, a secret that appeared to be conveniently ignored. During the 1960s there were a number of scandals that suggested the police abused their detention and interrogation powers (Wood, 1997). For example, a Mr Ng Biu Kuen was allegedly assaulted by police for blowing 23

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the whistle on senior police for being present at an illegal casino in Dixon Street; a Mr William Stanevics was hospitalised with injuries sustained during his detention at Sydney Central Police Station in 1965; and, a Mr Geoffrey Rixon was assaulted by police in 1968, which resulted in a successful civil action against the perpetrators. While there were numerous calls for judicial inquiries into these and similar cases, investigations were successfully resisted by Premier Askin and the Commissioner of Police at the time, Mr Norman Allan. Instead, some police were dismissed and disciplined during Mr Allan’s service as Commissioner (1962–1972). Indeed, Commissioner Allan was well known for his use of the standard political and police propaganda of the day, that is, the claim that those officers who were dismissed and disciplined were simply a few “rotten apples in the otherwise clean force”. Interestingly, Commissioner Allan was forced to retire early after the government withdrew support for him in 1971 when a Detective Sergeant, Phillip Arantz, publicly revealed police falsification of crime rates and performance records. As reported in the Wood Royal Commission, the senior officers in the Force initially responded to these allegations by claiming that Arantz was criminally insane, even arranging for him to be placed in a mental hospital and later dismissing him from the NSW Police Force. In 1989, the Greiner government partially rectified Arantz’s unfair treatment by changing his dismissed status to one of “retired” (Arantz, 1993). In 1971, the transcripts from an interview with a sex worker, Ms Shirley Brifman, were tabled in State Parliament. She named 34 NSW and QLD police and accused them of being involved in criminal activities such as bribery, protection rackets and robbery – Ms Brifman was later found dead. Commissioner Hanson, who replaced Mr Allan, was alleged to have allowed the named officers to leave the organization under the status “hurt on duty”, and the investigation into their conduct was never fully resolved (Wood, 1997: 59). Soon after, the Moffit Royal Commission (1974) investigated whether and if so why, the government and police had covered up a link between organized crime, the management of licensed premises and the poker machine industry. While Justice Moffit found that there was insufficient evidence of a police cover-up, he did criticize several members of the Special Investigations Team for the inadequacy of their investigation into the matter. He accused these officers of masking the true position on organized crime and that the investigations they conducted were ineffective because of a clear over-friendliness, if not conflict of interest, they had with suspects (Moffit, 1974). Apart from the formation of the Crime Investigations Unit (CIU), little action was taken as a result of the Moffit inquiry. Interestingly, Justice Moffit was so 

See 1997 Wood Royal Commission for details.

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concerned about this lack of remedial action in the face of what were clear signs of corruption he subsequently published in 1985 a warning entitled “A Quarter to Midnight” – a text in which he discusses organized crime and the decline of the State (Moffit, 1985; Wood, 1997). Not surprisingly, the Force responded defensively to the Moffit’s writing, a response which was symptomatic of a by now entrenched police mentality resistant to any public criticism. No more than a year later, in 1975, police were accused of both conspiring to steal large sums of money and an amount of illicit drugs from Mr Mark Kruse and Mr Steven McGill, and perverting the course of justice by helping these men escape prosecution. Furthermore, as reported in the Wood Royal Commission, it was alleged that a solicitor and a magistrate became part of a conspiracy in which false passports were obtained to enable these men to flee Australia while on bail. These allegations were also never fully investigated. At the same time a police officer, who had been convicted of heroin importation, publicly announced that corruption existed in the highest echelons of police forces and that organized crime and senior police officers were often one and the same (Keenan, 1985). Later, in 1977, the newly elected Labor Party instigated an internal undercover operation to investigate the allegations that police were involved in organized crime and its protection (Kilburn, 1996; Wood 1997: 61). In particular, a number of the Crime Investigations Unit (CIU) officers were said to be heavily implicated in organized crime rings that were involved in drug trafficking, prostitution and armed hold ups. The power of the CIU is evident in their response: during the course of the investigation, which involved telephone tapping of police, crime figures and prominent citizens, CIU ­officers raided the investigator’s premises, confiscating tapes and transcripts of these telephone taps on the basis that tapping was illegal. In consequence, the investigations ground to a halt. The CIU’s actions illustrate that it was prepared to use its power, even in the face of a government-initiated inquiry. It also highlighted, at this time, the CIU’s assumed superiority over, and disdain for interference by, the government, as well as their lack of respect for any mandate which suggested it served the public. In the 1970s, the town of Griffith in the south west of NSW gained notoriety as a centre for the growing and distribution of marijuana. Mr Donald Mackay, who was an anti-drug campaigner in the region, disappeared in July 1977. A police investigation failed to find his whereabouts or the identity of those responsible for his assumed murder. His disappearance was one of the events that lead to the Woodward Royal Commission in 1979. This Commission concluded that Mackay probably died because he represented 

See 1997 Wood Royal Commission for details.

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a threat to a drug related organization, known locally as the Italian Mafia. It also concluded that there was reason to suspect that some police officers stationed at Griffith could not be trusted and that the Italian Mafia had received benevolent treatment from certain members of the NSW Police Force (Woodwood, 1979; Nagle, 1986). In 1979 the Commonwealth-NSW Joint Task Force into Drug Trafficking, involving the Federal and NSW police, was formed. Although this Task Force made many arrests and convictions before being wound up in 1988, during the 1996 Wood Royal Commission it was revealed that many of its members at the time were involved in seriously corrupt practices. The Commission also revealed that the relationships between many of the corrupt officers and crime figures continued well after the conclusion of the Task Force (Wood, 1997: 63). During this period, the CIB was the main power base in the Force in which elements were reputed to be corrupt (Wood, 1997: 64). The Branch and its various squads had become a law unto themselves (Shepherd, 1996). Transfers to and from the Branch could happen overnight under the guise of being in the “interest of the service” (Kellock, 1996). Various squads within the Branch, particularly the Vice squad, the Consorting squad and the No. 21 Special squad, were renowned in the Force for their use of “police verbals” and “loads” (methods of falsifying and planting evidence). Moreover, investigations were seen by other police as being unpredictable when the CIB, which had the power to move in on any investigation, took them over (Wood, 1997: 64). The 1970s and 1980s were periods in which a group consisting mainly of CIB officers became known as the “barbecue set”. This group “wined and dined” members of the Police Association and had strong links with the media (Shepherd, 1996). Some of the group were also able to maintain a degree of influence within the Force, even after leaving it (Schoeffel, 1996), which they used to foster corrupt relationships and to gain access to confidential information (Wood, 1997: 64–65). Not surprisingly, the No. 21 Special Squad, which was responsible for enforcing gaming and vice laws, acquired a reputation for doing nothing (Avery, 1994). This changed at the end of the 1970s when Mr Merv Beck took over the No. 21 Special Squad. However, during the proceedings of the Wood Royal Commission Mr Beck claimed that his attempt to change the squad was severely hampered. He gave evidence of receiving threats, being advised by a senior officer to leave certain things and places alone, and having photographs of his undercover agents circulated among those who ran gaming houses, enabling them to be identified by their targets (Beck, 1996). In 1994, the then Commissioner of Police Mr Lauer, conceded that there was a distinct possibility that relationships had developed within the CIB that permitted “green lighting” (where police permitted criminals to con26

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duct robberies or drug deals in return for money and/or information). He also conceded that the length of time it took to achieve any significant rank contributed to the entrenchment of corruption, in that it allowed poor management practices to develop, which in turn let corruption take hold (Wood, 1997). The Wood Royal Commission concluded that there were three main factors that allowed corruption to flourish in this period (Wood, 1997: 66): • Corrupt police recruited junior police to participate in corrupt activities. Then junior officers followed them through the ranks. Initially, corrupt police were mainly attached to the CIB, however upon its devolution they took their practices, and their associations, to the other regions and specialist squads that remained. • Corrupt or inept management resulted in potential whistleblowers having nowhere to go with their complaints about corrupt behaviour. It was well known in the Force that reporting corruption effectively meant the end of an officer’s career. • This corrupt management resulted in an inability and unwillingness to target corrupt police who had well-established links with senior police. Wood (1997: 66) concludes in regard to this period that, The reluctance or inability on the part of management to face up to the problems, which emerged in this period, allowed such behaviour to continue unchecked. It also gave the appearance of tacit approval by senior officers to what was often perceived as “noble cause” corruption, and as informal control of crime through allowing preferred and powerful criminals a licence or “green light”, in return for the elimination of their competitors, the avoidance of worse criminality, and the provision of information.

The events of this period seem to suggest the police believed they were above the law and could commit “noble cause” crime, which was crime committed by them in the interests of maintaining order. The police clearly enhanced their role as the “gatekeepers of normalcy” not to mention how they rationalised what was “normal”. Their action appears to reflect the assumption, on their part, that they knew the best interest of the public. At the end of this period, the relationship between the police and the public was one that clearly reflected division and mistrust on both sides. The nature of the division between the two was evident in the Force’s non-acceptance and strong reaction to public criticism throughout the period (Wood, 1997). The acquisition of these powers by the police created ambiguity with respect to the “proper” domain of Ministerial authority and that of the Commissioner of Police (Finanne, 1995). Indeed, the attitude and actions of the police suggested that they had lost track of their mandate to serve the public. Rather,

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they appeared to be shaping their own mandate. In consequence, while the Commissioner of Police still reported to the Minister under legislation, the Commissioner, through the consolidation of the power and recognition vested in the police’s role in maintaining order, began to speak on public ­issues. In short, the role of Commissioner of Police had acquired a political identity and power in its own right (Finanne, 1995; Wood, 1997). At this point one could be left wondering who was actually in charge – the police or the government. For nearly half a century after the appointment of the first NSW Commissioner of Police in 1930, the voice of the Commissioner of Police was largely unchallenged in most Australian states. It was not until the 1970s when South Australia’s Dunstan Labor Government clashed with the State’s Commissioner of Police in regard to the handling of anti-Vietnam War demonstrations that the voice of a Commissioner of Police was confronted. Interestingly, in regard to the police’s understanding of their mandate, during this challenge the Commissioner stated that the Minister (and thus the Government) had no right interfering with police business (Finnane, 1996). Similarly, highly personalized conflict between the Minister and Commissioner of Police appears to have been characteristic of police administration in NSW. In 1992 the Minister of Police, Mr Ted Pickering, was forced to resign because of his inattention to police reports regarding the detention and attempted suicide of a youth in a public cell. Due to legislation, the government could not remove the Commissioner of Police without grounds for dismissal, which Pickering was unable to prove (Finnane, 1996). In sum, throughout this period, one sees the consolidation and centraliza­ tion of the NSW Police Force’s power in regard to the broader governing bodies in the State. The NSW Police Force itself centralized power into the hands of the Commissioner, who thus acquired a powerful voice in NSW’s broader political arena. From the time of its formation the CIB detective group acquired a position of dominance in the Force. It appears as though the enhancement of this group’s discretionary power, in fact the discretionary power of the NSW Police Force in general, has led many police to construct their own version of how things “ought” to be. This is particularly evident in the concept of “noble cause” corruption. The police appear to have assumed that they knew the public’s best interest, better than the public did themselves. Further, at the end of this period it seems that the NSW Police Force was a political entity with a power unto itself. This resulted in attitudes and practices of police that created a distinct division, based on 

Interestingly, Around the same time, Manning (1978) discussed a similar concern in regard to the police mandate in America.  A move that was rapidly emulated in the other states and territories throughout Australia.

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mistrust on both sides, between the Force and the people that they were supposed to serve.

2.4 Change That Resulted in More of the Same 1980–1995 In 1979, a Royal Commission was held in which Justice Lusher investigated the administration of the NSW Police Force. More specifically, he investigated the appropriateness of the Police Force’s structure; organization and management policies; rules and policies governing recruitment, appointments, promotions, seniority, classification, training and development; and the nature of the relationship between it and the Government. Justice Lusher released the following findings in 1981(Wood, 1997: 67): • There were no management procedures directed towards checking cor­ rup­tion. • Long established patterns of hierarchy had stifled the Service’s capacity for innovation and responsiveness. • There was a lack of planning, ineffective supervision and control, an authoritarian and outdated style, a lack of consistency in managers as a result of transfers, a deficiency in appropriate skills as a result of promotion by seniority, a lack of clear roles and accountability, an absence of financial awareness, limited auditing and inspection, a need for the roles of police officers and public servants to be defined, and a general laxity in the Service’s administration. • There was a lack of delegation of authority, problems with the struc­ture of senior executives, and confusion with the roles and lines of responsibilities. • The existence of acknowledged corruption pointed to serious management deficiencies, revealing the absence of procedures in place to deal with it. Advocacy of the “rotten apple” theory of corruption led the internal affairs branch to pursue the individual in an adversarial context, rather than assessing complaints as “symptoms” of wider institutional corrup­tion. The changes that followed included (Wood, 1997: 68): • The introduction of anti-corruption measures in the form of the strengthen­ing of the Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) and increases in penalties for departmental offences. • Attempts to change the police culture to reflect that of a service rather than a Force, and the promotion of integrity.

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• Structural change that reflected geographic regions, devolution of hierarchy, and an overall flattening of the command hierarchy. • The adoption of community based policing as the principle operating strategy. • The merger of the police department (public service admin support) and the Police Force to create a single police service. • The establishment of a Police Board responsible for promotions on the basis of merit, career development and training. • The restructuring of training and recruitment. • The extension of the powers of the Ombudsman to oversee complaints against police. Subsequently, the 1980s were a period of change for the NSW Police Force. Mr Avery, the then Commissioner, in response to Justice Lusher’s recommendations, established a number of new agencies. These included a Police Board, the purpose of which was to prevent senior executives dominating, amongst other things, the decision process in regard to pro­motions; the Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC), which acted as a watchdog against corruption in the NSW Police Force and other government bodies; and the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP). Above all, however, Commissioner Avery attempted to change the culture of the Police Force to that of a service organization. One might view this action as an attempt to remind police that their mandate was to serve and not dominate the public. On this issue, Commissioner Avery went as far as officially changing the name of the NSW Police Force to the NSW Police Service (Wood, 1997). As will be seen however, Commissioner Avery’s approach was distinctly functionalist in orientation: it ignored the unobtrusive side of power and politics and assumed that changes to structures, policies and procedures would lead to both cultural and be­havioural change. In 1981 the CIU which was formed because of the earlier Moffit report into police corruption, was detached from the CIB, enlarged and renamed the Bureau of Crime Intelligence (BCI). An organized crime squad was formed within the BCI to focus and enhance its powers into the investigation of organized crime. In 1982, based on criteria related to resource utilization, a squad of 25 detectives was detached from the now infamous CIB and amalgamated with the surveillance arm of the BCI. Several officers of the BCI surveillance arm voiced their concern about the amalgamation, stating that it risked the infiltration of the group by untrustworthy members of the Force and, consequently, would reduce the group’s effectiveness against organized criminals (Wood, 1997: 69). Major restructuring of the service did not actually take affect for several years after the Lusher inquiry. In 1987, four police regions were established and previously centralized agencies and squads were decentralized into geo30

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graphically based patrols. The regions were microcosms of the whole organization, duplicating and sharing all functions equally (Jarrat, 1994). The CIB was dismantled and its detectives were spread throughout the four Regional Crime Squads and new patrols. It was expected that such spreading would break up the power bases that existed within the CIB and thus, bring to an end the widely acknowledged corruption that had previously flourished throughout the branch. Not surprisingly this change was met with strong resistance with Commissioner Avery even reporting that he received death threats. In 1990, the Police Service Act was introduced to consolidate the changes that Commissioner Avery had instigated. This made official the name change of the State’s police from the NSW Police Force to the NSW Police Service. This change of name symbolically signalled to the public that the police were committed to a role of service to the community rather than one in which they saw themselves as the controllers of the community (Avery, 1992). Unfortunately, as was found later in the 1996 Wood Royal Commission, Commissioner Avery’s extensive changes to the structural mechanisms of the organization had the effect of simply spreading the corrupt elements through other parts of the Service and the State (Wood, 1997). In consequence, the scandals that marked the previous two decades continued. These scandals re-emerged in the first instance with a Police Tribunal in 1982, which found that the former Deputy Commissioner, Mr Bill Allen, had brought discredit on the Service by (Wood, 1997: 71): • Obtaining, from crime figures, free airline tickets to the United States and accepting free accommodation. • Openly associating with alleged criminals. • Paying $2500 to Sergeant Warren Molloy, a licensing sergeant based in the inner Sydney suburbs of Kings Cross and Darlinghurst. • Receiving visits at Police Headquarters from a major crime figure. In 1982, he was allowed to retire from the Service at the reduced rank of Sergeant First Class. As Wood (1997) reports, the Deputy Commissioner’s actions were indica­ tive of the open door policy that existed in the early 1980s for crime figures to gain access to senior police at the CIB building in the Remington Centre, Liverpool Street, Sydney and at Police Headquarters in College Street, Syd­ ney (see also McPherson, 1995; Shepherd, 1996). It was around this time that trade-offs were established with a Mr Arthur Stanley (Neddy) Smith. Neddy Smith received a “green light” from the CIB to carry out a number of armed robberies. As mentioned earlier, being given a “green light” meant that police would allow Smith to commit certain robberies if it helped them arrest other criminals. During 1986 to 1988, a number of such robberies 31

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were carried out, for which Smith claimed he was given a “green light”, and that police were involved in their execution. These allegations and the police involved became subject to the ICAC Milloo Inquiry in 1993. One of the police involved was Detective Sergeant Roger Rogerson, who came to public prominence when he shot dead a drug dealer, Mr Warren Lanfranchi, in June 1981. The Coroner found that Rogerson had shot Mr Lanfranchi “whilst endeavouring to affect an arrest”; a jury however, declined to find that the shot was fired in self-defence (Wood, 1997: 71). In June of 1984, Detective Sergeant Mick Drury of the Drug Squad was shot at his home. This led to the following series of events (Wood, 1997: 72): • A police investigation was initiated into the shooting by a Task Force under the command of Superintendent Angus McDonald. It was largely inconclusive but did generate a host of allegations, and counter allega­ tions, concerning the reasons behind the shooting, attempts to bribe police in relation to a related drug prosecution, and the possible cover up and protection of police officers involved in both these matters and the shooting. • Charges were brought against Detective Sergeant Rogerson for attempting to bribe Mr Drury to change his evidence. Mr Rogerson was found not guilty by the jury when that matter came to trial in 1985. • Internal Affairs detectives reopened investigations later that month paving the way for departmental charges against Mr Rogerson for impairing the efficiency of the Force, and improperly associating with known criminals, in particular Neddy Smith. • Later, with the input of Task Force Omega, Mr Rogerson was charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice, arising out of attempt to cover up his dealings with a known drug dealer Mr Maurice Nowytager, and the deposit of monies into his bank accounts that were registered under a false name. • These proceedings were successful, resulting in Mr Rogerson’s dismissal from the Service in July 1996 and later his conviction for conspiracy. • Task Force Omega re-investigated the Dury Shooting and subsequently charged Mr Rogerson with conspiracy to murder. In 1984, Mr Steven Bazley, an associate of the head of the “Mr Asia” drug syndicate, publicly alleged that a number of NSW police were heavily in­ volved with drug trafficking and “stand-over” rackets (ABC, Four Corners, 1984). Interestingly, it was revealed that the Australian Federal Police passed these allegations on to the NSW police some 15 months earlier. As the 1996 Wood Royal Commission found, the NSW Police Service was heavily criticized by the Ombudsman for its failure to promptly investigate the Bazley

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allegations and for the ineffective nature of the investigation that was eventually carried out. Not surprisingly, during the 1980s two Commonwealth/State Royal Com­ mis­sions confirmed that corruption within the Service was prevalent. The first was a Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking in 1981 in which Justice Stewart reported that there was evidence of many corrupt police practices including the theft of drugs and money from offenders and suspect drug traffickers, planting of drugs on suspect persons, falsifying evidence in return for money and other forms of pay offs, and taking money for the supply of confidential information. Justice Stewart concluded that the corrup­ tion revealed by previous inquiries was clearly still present despite public declarations by senior police and politicians stating that “all is well”. Such declarations were clearly inaccurate and flew in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (Stewart, 1983: 570). The second inquiry was the “Age Tapes” Royal Commission in 1985 in which Justice Stewart found that members of the NSW Police Service had been illegally intercepting telephone calls for almost 20 years (Stewart, 1986). There were a number of other incidents that occurred throughout the 1980s that resulted in the role and practices of NSW police investigators and prosecutors being further scrutinized. These included (Wood, 1997: 74–77): • Inquiries into the conviction of members of the Ananda Marga sect in 1985 for allegedly being responsible for the “Hilton Bomb” incident. After serving more than a decade in prison, the convicted had their charges acquitted and were released from jail. • Inquiries into the activities of special police squads, such as the Tactical Response Group (TRG) and the Special Weapons Operations Team (SWOT), arising out of the fatal shootings of Mr David Gundy in 1989, and later, the shooting of Mr Darren Brennan in 1990. • In 1986 the Select Committee of the NSW Legislative Assembly into Prostitution heard evidence that police corruption in this area had in­creased, moving from individual street prostitutes paying police to avoid arrest, to brothel managers paying protection money. The Com­ mittee concluded that brothel protection had been a facet of police cor­ rup­tion for a considerable number of years. • In 1988, the Internal Police Security Unit (IPSU) initiated Task Force Flinstone, to investigate the role that police and civilians played in the conversion of stolen motorcars and their disposal. As a result of the investigation a detective sergeant from the Motor Squad was dismissed from the Service following his conviction for attempting to pervert the course of justice (see also Blanco, 1995). • Investigations were made into the injuries suffered by Angus Riggs while in police custody and into the subsequent police investigation into the matter. 33

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• The State-Commonwealth Royal Commission, between 1987 and 1991, into Aboriginal deaths in custody, was heavily critical of the police (Johnstone, 1991). • In 1993, ICAC conducted the Milloo inquiry into the relationship between police and criminals. This inquiry focused on the alleged “green lighting” of armed robberies; the operations of the Gaming Squad; and allegations that some prosecutions were fixed. Prosecutions commenced relating to perjury, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, as well as a number of disciplinary proceedings. The inquiry resulted in the disbanding of the Gaming Squad in December 1993, the adoption of a new Informants Management Plan for the Service in March 1994, and the implementation of an Internal Informers Policy in 1994. In summary, this period was one in which some of the problems that led to corruption in the NSW Police Service were acknowledged and attempts to make corrective action were made. First, a new structure was introduced in order to disperse the power that had been centralized into the hands of dominant individuals and groups. The re-structure directly targeted disbanding the infamous CIB group, which had become well known for its corrupt practices and its link to organized crime groups. Commissioner Avery also attempted to change the culture of the police by: attempting to reduce the division between police and the public; reorientating a self-acclaimed sense of superiority that resulted in police assuming that they knew the best interests of the public; and, by acknowledging that many police were adept at constructing their own version of rationality in regard to what constituted acceptable forms of behaviour. In consequence, the police mandate became ambiguous. Commissioner Avery attempted to re­mind police that their mandate was to serve and not control, punish and dominate the public. However, while there was significant structural change to the NSW Police Service throughout this period, it is clear that corruption continued. Accordingly, in the 1996 Royal Commission into Corruption in NSW Police Service, Justice Wood (1997: 77) concluded that: A significant lesson to be learned from this era is one that changes, which are merely structural, are not enough. More is required to gain attention of the Service, and to recruit the active participation of those who can actually do something about its problems.

What this statement indicates is that “something” at a deeper level to that of structural change, something that is more unobtrusive and embedded in everyday life of police officers, enabled corruption to not only continue, but to flourish. The later chapters of this book attempts to shed light on what this “something” might be.

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2.5 Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter has reviewed the history of the NSW Police Service from colonial beginnings to the 1997 Royal Commission into ­Cor­rup­tion within the NSW Police Service. While the events that make up the Service’s history are obviously wide-ranging, here the focus has been on the constitution of police power, both within the broader community and the Service itself. The chapter showed that the NSW Police Service’s roots emanated from colonial beginnings in 1788 and were somewhat different to those of policing in Britain, even though the British model is historically recognized as the forerunner to Australian police organizations. While British policing was based on the community based constable, the NSW Police Service had a military model of organization at its core, since it was the military that handled policing at the time Sydney was founded. Soon after colonization however, while maintaining the military model, a separate police force was formed and legislation was introduced giving the Force power over the control of its own operations. What is more, control of the Force was placed in the hands of a single position, which is now known as the Commissioner of Police. It is also important to note that during this early period of colonization, the police, because of the nature of social life in a penal colony, acquired power and recognition in their role as the gatekeepers of normalcy, as formally legitimised by legislation. The period 1862 to 1959 marked a distinct change in the nature of the relationship between the NSW Police Force and the government. As the chapter shows, perhaps through the actual practice of increased discretionary power, the Force not only policed the bounds of normalcy but began to construct its own version of normalcy. Interestingly, this period marked the beginning of numerous public inquiries into the behaviour of police. In addition, as in broader society and other organizations at the time, science impacted the Service’s structure and practices. In particular, the Service began to adopt scientific management principles: the division of labour led to the formation of the detective branch, characterized by the use of specialist scientific detection strategies and fingerprinting, and the use of technology such as automobiles and radios saw policing move from humble, local levels of control, coordination and communication to a broader surveillance oriented role. The acceptance of science consolidated and legitimised the privileged status of those professions underpinned by scientific principles: for the police, these were detective divisions within the Service. The period 1960 to 1979 provides evidence of the relationship between the police and the government becoming more distant and, at times, strained. It is in this period that the police gained recognition for their political voice in broader society’s political arenas, which further enhanced the power of the 35

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Commissioner: in fact the Commissioner became a political entity in NSW society. In consequence, however, the police showed signs of losing track of their mandate or perhaps it is more appropriate to say that the police rewrote their mandate. In consequence, one is left questioning whether the police served the public or, as the police seemed to think, the public served them. The events of this period indicate that the police appeared to have convinced themselves that they knew the best interests of the public better than the public did themselves – this being clearly evident in the concept of “noble cause” corruption that emerged at this time and persisted. This period also marks the time that the CIB detective branch acquired a position of dominance within the Service and became a power unto themselves. The period leading up to the Royal Commission into Corruption in the NSW Police Service, that is, 1980 to 1995, is one of change. Unfortunately, however, it was change that resulted in more of the same. At this time, the need for both structural and cultural reform was recognized. Subsequently, the structure of the organization was changed in an attempt to break down and disperse dominant groups (CIB and other detective groups). In order to transform the culture of the organization, and emphasise the role of serving the public, its name was formally changed from Police Force to Police Service. The Royal Commission into Corruption within the NSW Police Service however, as will be seen in the next chapter, clearly shows that the changes that occurred through the 1980s had little effect. The nature of this change was indicative of the management literature at the time, focusing on organizational design changes, with the assumption being that such modifications would lead to cultural and behavioural change. The Royal Commission shows that the dominance of certain individuals and groups was not broken down; on the contrary, their dominance was enhanced and their corrupt practices continued to flourish.

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Chapter 3

1996 Royal Commission into Police Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service

This chapter is a summary of the findings of the 1996 Wood Royal Commission into Police Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service. The main question the Commission addressed was not whether corruption existed, as this was clearly evident, but whether the corruption that did exist was systematic and entrenched in the Service (Wood, 1997: 83). Indeed, the magnitude of the corruption problem is highlighted when one considers that not all the complaints investigated by the Commission made the final report

3.1 Forms of Corruption Discovered in the Service The following are examples of the main forms of corruption that the Commission found to still exist in the Service, despite the extensive reforms of the 1980s aimed at the elimination of such practices.

3.1.1 Process corruption Process corruption includes evidence of perjury, planting evidence, assault and other forms of pressure to induce confessions, gilding of evidence, impersonating solicitors to advise suspects to co-operate with police, and tampering with electronically intercepted recordings. One of the more notable examples of process corruption was the use of ‘scrumdowns’, in which police would meet to ‘refresh each other’s memories’, so that there were no pitfalls in the prosecution case – even if that meant giving false evidence. As the Commission reported, former Detective Sergeant Neville Scullion admitted that on the first occasion he was required to give evidence, his statement was prepared for him and contained matters of which he had no knowledge. He recognised that manipulation of evi

The Wood Royal Commission was published in 1997.

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dence was something that he learned on the job from others in the same way that “an apprentice learns his trade” (Wood, 1997: 84–94).

3.1.2 Gratuities and improper associations The Commission found that while in some instances the provision of favours was relatively innocent, and even the product of friendship, in most cases it was not. Gratuities were commonly the result of tacit extortion or arrogant exercise of power, and also used as a convenient method for “blooding”, that is testing new police arrivals to the squad. Unfortunately, it was more often the basis for the formation of unhealthy relationships with criminals that led to more serious forms of corruption (Wood, 1997: 95–97).

3.1.3 Substance abuse The Commission found early on in its inquiries that police had serious problems with drinking on duty and the use of recreational and heavier drugs. The seriousness of this problem can be appreciated when one considers that police have high discretionary power and are required to make judgements about people’s lives and property, and are in control of motor vehicles, not to mention dangerous weapons. Alcohol abuse was explained by many detectives who gave evidence to the Commission as a key part of their introduction into the “brotherhood”. Several detectives from the North- West Region admitted to various forms of undisciplined behaviour, including heavy drinking and long lunches with well-known criminals, which were paid for by the latter (Wood, 1997: 97–101).

3.1.4 Fraudulent practices While fraudulent practices were numerous and took many forms, common to each was a lack of appreciation by the police implicated in the “impropriety of the criminality involved in obtaining financial benefit via deception”. In one example, a senior constable, who initially provided misleading in­forma­tion to the Commission, later admitted to arranging the theft and consequent fraudulent insurance claims of a number of motor vehicles owned by associates (Wood, 1997: 97–104).

3.1.5 Assault and abuse of police powers Justice Wood’s investigations exposed numerous incidents in which private citizens were subject to assault and serious abuse of power by police. He suggested that these incidents symbolized a police service that contained a number of ill-disciplined and aggressive members who lacked any real appreciation of the responsibilities of the office they held, and who placed little emphasis on compliance with the law. The way in which officers involved

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were quick to go on the defensive when challenged signified a reluctance or inability to recognize their own wrongdoing (Wood, 1997: 104). Some police appeared to have the false perception that they represented the law, indeed they were above it. In one incident in mid-1990, several young men were arrested and taken by patrol wagon to Kings Cross Police station where they were bashed with batons as a group, and then on an individual basis, while being interviewed by Kings Cross Detectives and other police colleagues. The injuries inflicted were sufficient to attract the concern of the officer in command of the Sydney Charge Room, leading him to insist that one of the detectives attend the Police Centre to record these injuries. The record was in a loose sheet form and, when investigated by the Commission, had gone missing. Later, two police involved in the affair confirmed the assaults occurred and admitted to the Commission that they gave false evidence at the prosecution and subsequent appeal hearings. Furthermore, they admitted to sending a civilian witness, who had intended to change his initial statement, away from the courthouse. The statement, while in favour of the police, was untrue. The two officers, one of whom has now been dismissed for an unrelated assault on a person in his custody, admitted that anger and retribution were behind the incident. One of the officers indicated that she had been angry with the person she had assaulted because he had “upset a perfectly lovely night” (Wood, 1997: 106). Justice Wood discussed many similar incidents and indicated that they were significant because they showed the unnecessary and totally undisciplined way that both detectives and uniform police resorted to violence, the lack of any real supervision by senior staff which allowed such assaults to occur, and the readiness of police to conspire together to present false evidence (Wood, 1997: 104–108).

3.1.6 Prosecutions – compromise or favourable treatment The Commission uncovered evidence of various ways in which police provided favourable treatment to certain crime figures under investigation and prosecution by interfering in the prosecution process. This occurred in return for bribes, encouragement for informants, and in support of criminals with whom they had an inappropriate relationship. Police were known to steal drugs and, or, money recovered during inquiries and arrests in order to reduce or stop charges being laid. One example of this favourable treatment occurred during the conduct of Operation North. This Operation, run in a region north of Sydney, led to the arrest and conviction of a number of persons for serious drug trafficking. However, three former detectives and one civilian provided evidence to the Commission that they had taken and shared a substantial amount of monies obtained in return for favourable treatment towards some of those people arrested. 39

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Justice Wood (1997) also reported that certain intermediaries, such as legal practitioners and private detectives, often assisted this form of corrupt practice. Intermediaries assisted criminals in negotiations with police to fix prosecutions and, or, to secure improper benefits. Another serious aspect related to this form of corruption involved the use of informants outside the Informant Management Program, which was the official program for the management of informants usually under protective custody. Officers admitted placing false or misleading evidence concerning informants before the courts, in order for informants to be alleviated from prosecution for offences they had committed. One of the most telling examples of this form of corruption occurred when detectives from the Major Crime Squad North-West admitted to the Commission that they regularly weakened prosecution cases and assisted persons accused of serious crime in return for payments. The detectives altered statements so as to leave loopholes in the Crown case, reduced the quantity of drugs recovered in an arrest to prevent the quantity from being deemed an indictable offence, moved the location of drugs to make possession more difficult, or easy, to prove, did not oppose bail, and provided false information or intelligence as to whether certain persons were drug dealers (Wood, 1997: 109–114).

3.1.7 Theft and extortion The Commission reported that sufficient evidence was collected to show that theft from, and extortion of, criminals had become a regular occurrence in some sections of the Service. While there are many examples reported in the Commission, those officers who did partake in such activities usually escaped detection because, as one can appreciate, it was not in the best interests for an offender, caught in the possession of drugs or other proceeds of crime, to make a complaint if police then steal that property. For example, Sergeant Trevor Haken revealed to the Commission that money seized during the search of premises of a struck-off barrister was shared between some members of the police rather than being reported, and that monies found in a search of the premises of two drug dealers were also divided amongst a number of police. One of the worst instances of this type of corruption involved the police retaining more than $300,000, as well as quantities of drugs found in the garage of a drug offender in Manly. Eight eyewitnesses admitted to receiving a share of this money. Additional evidence was given that indicated some ill-feelings developed in regard to how the money was apportioned by those members who came to share it. This group later became known as the Christmas Club (Wood, 1997: 116). 

The Christmas Club will be elaborated on later.

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The attitude towards such police behaviour is highlighted by the evidence of Detective Sergeant Neville Scullion, who indicated that a senior officer had stated that he was opposed to anyone accepting retainers, but had added that “if you went somewhere, searched a place and there was a whippy, it is all right – that’s a free for all” (Wood, 1997: 118). In short, officers believed that their status and role in society entitled them to the proceeds of crime. Indeed, the Commission found that there was more than sufficient evidence to demonstrate that this was an attitude shared by many detectives; some of them referring to it as a form of “taxation” and a way of making sure that criminals were sufficiently punished for their activities. Such an assurance seems somewhat ironic if one considers the practice of “green lighting” that was mentioned earlier. Interestingly, the Commission found that this attitude emerged in almost every area that they investigated.

3.1.8 Protection of drug trade, vice and gaming operators The Commission reported that there was an overwhelming body of evidence supporting a close relationship between police and those involved in the supply of drugs. This relationship was characterized by a variety of activities ranging from police “turning a blind eye”, to the dealings of favoured criminals in return for payments, to active assistance when the criminals were caught by other police, to tip-offs of pending police raids, and to affirmative police action against the favoured criminal’s competitors (Wood, 1997: 119). While there are numerous examples of such activities in the Commission’s documents, perhaps one of the more notable, because of its complexity and degree of organization involved the sharing of protection payments between a particular group of sergeants known as “The Laugh”. “The Laugh” was not confined to drug dealers but also involved the protection of club, private and hotel operators who permitted other criminals, such as prostitutes, drug dealers and practitioners of other vice-related activities, to operate from their premises.

3.1.9 Drug trafficking Justice Wood reported in the Commission’s documents “that perhaps the most disturbing of all was the extent to which police admitted to being directly involved in the supply of cocaine, heroin and cannabis. In most cases this involved the recycling of drugs seized in various operations that had simply not been booked up” (Wood, 1997: 133). As reported in the Royal Commission, the following are just a few examples from the North-West Regional Division of Sydney:  

“A whippy” means an amount of untraceable money, drugs or similar illicit goods. “The Laugh” is discussed in more detail later.

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• A dealer provided $12000 to police to finance a “buy bust”. A “buy bust” occurs when an undercover agent purchases drugs and then arrests the dealer. The objective was for the financing dealer to get rid of, and steal drugs from, a competitor. In this case, the police kept the money and then shared the drugs with the financing dealer to cover his losses. • Ten pounds of cannabis was stolen by police in a job set up by criminal informants and it was then resold by them with the proceeds being shared between the police involved in the operation. • A dealer gave police information in order to close down a competitor in return for a half share of the heroin that police might find. One pound of heroin was seized from the raid. The police then cut this with glucose. A small amount of the then cut heroin was given to the informant who was never advised of the amount that was seized. The police then sold the remainder to another competitor, a major heroin dealer, for $80,000. This money was then shared amongst those police associated with the raid.

3.1.10 Interference with internal investigations and the code of silence Justice Wood (1997) argued that the greatest obstacle to the Commissioner’s investigation was the “code of silence” and police solidarity in the face of criticism of the Service or the prospect of internal inquiries. He added (Wood, 1997: 134): In some quarters, this has been referred to as a brotherhood, which supports those who close ranks, and punishes viciously those who put duty first. It has become so powerful a feature of the police culture that it rarely requires express enunciation. Rather, it has been understood, accepted and blindly followed without regard to the harm to the service it causes, or to the risk, it creates for honest people.

An appreciation of why police react so strongly to criticism can be acquired if one reflects on their consolidation of power and development as a political entity throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and the subsequent confusion in regard to their mandate, not to mention the perceived shift in role from gatekeepers of justice to both gatekeepers and determinants of normalcy. As mentioned earlier, such a reaction and its rationale are evident in the attitude of one Commissioner of Police who maintained that the government as representatives of the people “should keep their noses out of policing”. The Commission inquiries found that the “code of silence” was most prevalent within the lower police ranks at operational and street level; however, it was also practiced at higher levels of the Service. For operational police, this code was essentially a shield against complaint in circumstances where an officer had stepped out of line in the heat of the moment, but 42

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it also shielded deliberately corrupt practices. Among more senior ranks, the code was viewed as a means by which to protect the reputation of the Service. Due to their past experience and exposure to similar influences, most Commanders appeared to have been acculturated, and thus attuned, to the discourse of the brotherhood and its code of silence.

3.1.11 Corruption Case Studies In addition to the general details and examples of corruption outlined above, Justice Wood provided a number of case study examples that provided rich insight into the nature of corruption in the Service. The object of these case studies was to examine whether there were any common factors at work, particularly of the institutional kind. Here, a summary of just a few of these case studies is presented. In the Regions A regional detective admitted to the Commission that out of 70 jobs that he was involved with during the period under investigation by the Commission, 31 involved corruption in some form. Justice Wood claimed that the experience of this officer, who acknowledged that widespread corruption pervaded the Service at that time, proved typical of many others. This officer had a history of corruption, which (Wood, 1997: 178) began as minor opportunistic forms of corruption when he was transferred to plain clothes detective duties; then escalated when he was transferred to a more elite Regional Crime Squad (RCS) in which he and other police stole a quantity of cigarettes that had been recovered from an investigation into a van hijacking. The corruption became more organized when the officer was transferred to a specialized Consorting Unit within the Major Crime Squad where he received payments from thieves allowed to work race meetings, and a share in payments collected by members of the city-based Consorting Unit from illegal gaming interests. The corrupt practices reached its peak when he was transferred to the Drug Unit of the Major Crime Squad where he and other police regularly stole and resold drugs in the course of their investigations. Justice Wood added that the activities of this detective, and other likeminded officers, sent a somewhat unhealthy message to junior police who aspired to be detectives. He made note of one young and essentially principled officer’s reflection on his actions when he secretly returned his share of money stolen by other police: I was just starting my detective’s career and if I had said anything with the climate and the culture of the police service at the time, I would have automatically been branded what’s termed a dog, and what would have meant virtually the finish of my career … it would have been passed around amongst

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other officers … that … I couldn’t be trusted in the sense that I would back up other people if I had done anything about it at the time (Wood, 1997: 178).

Another officer gave an account of his thoughts when he was first posted to a Drug Unit and was handed money: I put it in my pocket, went outside, and took it home. I thought about it … It wasn’t something that I was happy with. Then I thought that if I did give it back, that would be basically stating that I didn’t want to be in the squad anymore, couldn’t be trusted and you’d be looking for another spot …in my mind it seemed to be the fact that if you didn’t partake in those goings on, partake in the way they did things, you were going to be ostracized. That just wouldn’t be ostracized in the particular squad you were in; that would be ostracized in the detectives in general. … it would follow you wherever you went. It didn’t matter if you transferred to another district or transferred to another division, another squad, someone would contact someone in the other squad or someone would ring up and you’d find out basically they’d say, “Don’t trust him, he couldn’t be trusted” (Wood, 1997: 179).

Justice Wood suggested that other officers confirmed these perceptions; he noted one detective’s description of the “bush telegraph” that operated in regard to new arrivals to police groups: They would get news that someone was about to arrive and, on an informal basis, ask: “What do you know about this bloke?” and someone might say, “Oh he’s right, he can be trusted.” The same happened when any bloke came. Someone would either know him or know where he came from and know somebody from that station or – and you’d find out along these lines … somebody would make a phone call and you’d know before they got there, or you’d just find – you’d find out. … We’d leave him on the outer until we knew something … Eventually everybody would know if he could be trusted or not (Wood, 1997: 179).

In the City Justice Wood reported how the inner city patrol of Kings Cross practiced various forms of corruption. Kings Cross is characterized by a cross-section of population profiles, including a high-density residential population, and thriving commercial businesses, ranging from high class hotels and restaurants, to strip clubs, video and sex shops, brothels, street prostitutes, drug outlets and illegal casinos. The patrol’s corrupt practices included: theft of drugs and money; “shakedowns” or subjecting drug dealers to acts of extortion; collection of regular payments from drug dealers, gaming operators, clubs and brothels; protection of certain criminal figures; process corrup

See 1997 Wood Royal Commission for a more detailed account of this case study.

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tion; assaults; and inappropriate associations with criminals, which extended to handouts, luncheons, overseas trips and the like. In setting the scene for this case study, Justice Wood revisited a 1989 investigation by the Internal Police Security Unit (IPSU) into allegations of the supply of amphetamines by one of the patrol’s officers, Detective Larry Churchill. At the time, Senior Detective Graham Fowler was Chief of Detectives and Detectives Larry Churchill and Dennis Kimble Thompson were his next in command. Detective Churchill pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to supply a prohibited drug. During the inquiry, it emerged that Detective Churchill made an agreement that in return for a payment of $10,000, charges brought against a drug dealer, Mr Allan Saunders, would be lessened and Mr Saunders’ future drug dealing would be protected. In March 1989, Detective Churchill struck an agreement with Mr Collin Frisk to arrange bail for a criminal associate in return for payment of $10,000. Upon Detective Churchill’s return from a holiday in the Philippines, Mr Frisk met with him to divide the proceeds of drug sales that had been arranged. Prior to this meeting, Detective Churchill received a telephone call from Detective Sergeant Kim Thompson to warn him that there was “a whale in the bay”; this was the phrase used by police to indicate to their colleagues that they were under investigation. Detective Churchill passed the message to his coconspirators (Wood, 1997: 164–165). During the investigation, Detective Sergeant Graham Fowler admitted, while being interviewed, that Detective Churchill had an association with Mr Laurence Wang. It was later revealed that this association extended to luncheons, and visits by both Detective Churchill and Detective Sergeant Fowler to the Philippines, paid for by Mr Wang (Wood, 1997: 165). The most surprising thing about these events, however, was the Police Service’s response. Despite their admissions, a number of the departmental charges were dismissed and Detective Sergeant Fowler and Detective Sergeant Thompson were returned to the positions of Head of Detectives and second in command for the Kings Cross patrol, respectively. Around the same time that this inquiry was being conducted, Detective Sergeant Trevor Haken was transferred to the Kings Cross Patrol. Detective Sergeant Haken’s story is particularly illustrative of the nature of police corruption and, as mentioned earlier, he was later to become one of the Wood Royal Commission’s key witnesses. Upon joining the Police in 1969, he served in the North Sydney area and was immediately exposed to corruption in the form of an existing network of police who received gratuities from tow truck operators and undertakers. He admitted to becoming a part of this network and witnessing assaults and verbals. In 1974 he was posted to the Number 21 Division (the training ground for young detectives) where he was exposed to improper associations between police and criminals, the 45

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protection of certain gaming and prostitution houses, substance abuse, and the exercise of police power that was beyond the law (Wood, 1997: 166– 167). Mr Haken admitted to the Commission that, in the late 1970s, while stationed as a junior detective at Chatswood, he was involved in the theft of drugs and money. He also admitted to thwarting subsequent internal investigations by “holding the line”, that is, sticking to a particular version of events that was untrue. From here, Mr Haken moved to the Criminal Investigations Bureau (CIB) where he encountered a more systematic approach to corruption. In 1983, he joined the Commonwealth-New South Wales Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking (JTF) in which, he admitted, his experiences served to reinforce the notion that corruption was part of the natural order of things in the NSW Police Service and that involvement in corrupt activities enhanced an up-and-coming officer’s reputation amongst those officers who “played A grade” (Wood, 1997: 167). By this time Mr Haken had reached the rank of Sergeant, but had developed a drinking problem. This, combined with the animosity that had developed between him and his superiors in regard to the uneven distribution of money stolen during an operation, saw him transferred to Central Detectives in Sydney where he continued to receive payments from criminals and manipulate evidence until his move to the Kings Cross Detectives’ Office. Upon his arrival at the Kings Cross Patrol, Detective Sergeants’ John Swan and Neville Scullion introduced Mr Haken to what was colloquially referred to as “The Laugh” – an arrangement through which police received payments from drug dealers and operators of strip clubs. Detective Sergeant Haken eventually became the person who collected and divided the money amongst members of “The Laugh” (Wood, 1997: 168). In late 1993, Detective Sergeant Haken was transferred to the City of Sydney Detectives under the immediate command of Detective Inspector Fowler. Mr Haken referred to this period as one in which there was little work done and long lunches. He still received his cut of “The Laugh” and other payments from businessmen for protection and extortion activities. In late 1994, Mr Haken learnt that he was under investigation by Internal Affairs. He was approached by, and agreed to assist, the Commission by working covertly for it (Wood, 1997: 168). During the Commission proceedings, Detective Sergeant Haken attributed his corrupt behaviour to the environment in which he worked. He acknowledged that there were detectives who did not take money, however, if one 

“A Grade” officers were a dominant group of detectives who were looked up to by colleagues for their ability to achieve high arrest rates; but, who were also using corrupt methods to do so.

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wanted to gain acceptance – “to join the club of detectives” – one had to engage in corrupt activities and join in drinking and similar practices. The alternative was to be treated as an outcast and to limit one’s career advancement opportunities. Therefore, and somewhat alarmingly, he was always able to find someone with whom he could “carry out untoward activity” (Wood, 1997: 168–169). The extent, to which such behaviour was considered to be the natural order of things, particularly for detectives in the Service, is reflected in Mr Haken acknowledging that he regarded the giving of false evidence as “part and parcel” of being a detective and as something that was encouraged by senior officers. His rationale for such behaviour was that assaulting criminals, obtaining information, and protecting informants, as well as fixing evidence, was a part of what detectives did to get the job done. He rationalized that the theft of money and drugs and other forms of benefit acquired by police only hurt criminals (Wood, 1997: 169). Mr Haken claimed that it was possible to be both an effective officer and a corrupt officer at the same time, and that he had seen many officers “work both sides of the street”. He cautioned that the more successful an officer was on the “sunny side of the street”, the more likely he was to succeed on the “dark side of the street” (Wood, 1997: 169). Such a perspective on what constitutes effective policing indicates that many police, particularly those in positions of dominance, such as detectives, had, in the pursuit of social and performance recognition within the Service, become victims of their own discretionary power. Their superior social position and assumed right to power appears to have led police to con­clude that they also had a right to punish and were in the best position to determine what was the “right” thing to do. This is no more apparent than in the following rationalization of process corruption presented to the Commission by an officer in the elite Joint Task Force (JTF) on drugs (Wood, 1997: 186): It came from being selected to go to the task force. You weren’t there to lose. You were there to win. If that meant bending the rules, so be it … To us these people were criminals: they were wrong doers. You can’t put a quantity of lives on the amount of heroin that was seized. All right, we might have done the wrong thing, but we saw it for the greater good. We didn’t see ourselves as criminals by assaulting someone or trying to put criminals behind bars. That was – you know, the morality that we saw. It was like if it was a perfect world, sir, the people who were guilty would plead guilty. It’s not a perfect world. You know, it’s like fronting up to somebody and saying, you know, Marquis of Queensberry Rules and they kick you in the balls. It’s not like that out there. My view of it is – and its somewhat cynical – it’s a big game and the criminals tell lies, the police tell lies, or did tell lies, and if you, shall we say, played it by the rules the whole time, you’d lose.

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Clearly this officer believed he was on the side of “right” and that those he considered criminals were on the side of “wrong” and thus he, or more accurately the police force in general, did not see their behaviour as being criminal but moral. The problem with this perspective however, is that the officer assumed that because he was a member of the police, he had a superior understanding of what constituted “right” from “wrong”, not to mention that his version of morality was “truer” than other versions. Another way to look at it is that he thought his wrongs were right, simply because he was a police officer.

3.2 Entrenched and Systematic Corruption As the Wood Royal Commission stated, it is important to gain an under­ standing of the reasons and non-detection of the aforementioned degree of corruption in the New South Wales Police Service: “Without such an understanding there is a danger of their repetition. The simple fact is that it does not emerge suddenly. By its nature it is spawned in stealth, and grows in a climate in which it is comfortable” (Wood, 1997: 189). Accordingly, this section reviews the Commission’s findings of the reasons as to why corruption became systematic, entrenched and undetected in the Service.

3.2.1 The Criminal Investigations Bureau tradition and the elitism of detectives The evidence collected during the Commission suggested that detectives, and in particular the CIB, had a myth surrounding them, which suggested that they were the people doing the “real cops and robbers stuff”. This myth gave them elite status in the Service and allowed them, in general, to hold a position of dominance with respect to, and exert inordinate influence over, other police. Justice Wood (1997: 190) reported that this was due to the elite status and institutional deference given to the CIB, particularly to those members who were self-proclaimed “A graders” with records of high profile arrests and convictions. Additionally, there was a history of failed prosecutions against these “A graders”, which, after they returned to work, caused other officers to recognize them as “being untouchable”; this along with their open resistance and contempt for supervision illustrated that they were a power unto themselves. In consequence, honest police feared the repercussions of standing up to these officers; they were left disillusioned and frustrated by being excluded, having their careers blocked, and knowing that any efforts they made to improve the Service would be resisted and defeated by these powerful factions (Wood, 1997: 190). Justice Wood added that a disturbing feature of this development was the unquestioning acceptance that the CIB way of doing things was the norm (Wood, 1997: 189–190). 48

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3.2.2 The code of silence The Commission reported that the code of silence in the NSW Police Service was so persuasive that it came, in the mind of many of its witnesses, to be synonymous with the “police culture”. The effect of this code is evident in the fact that, almost without exception, officers approached by the Commission initially denied ever witnessing or engaging in any form of corrupt activity. Even after being assured that they would not be disciplined for reporting corruption, and being offered an amnesty and the availability of protection against self-incrimination, officer after officer maintained the code of silence by continuing to deny witnessing or engaging in corruption; that is, until faced with irrefutable evidence to the contrary: “Each knew the truth, yet the strength of the code, and the blind hope that no one would break it, prevailed” (Wood, 1997: 192). The Commission added that the code of silence was strengthened by the “us and them” attitude which appeared to pervade the Service and encouraged police to adopt an adversarial position to anyone who was not a police officer or who challenged police activity (Demol, 1995). As Justice Wood (1997) reported, several witnesses described it as a “siege mentality” (see also Avery, 1994; Quinn, 1995; Bell, 1996). The Commission claimed that the code of silence contributed to the emergence and non-detection of corruption in a number of ways (Wood, 1997: 192). It conditioned honest and, in particular, inexperienced police to accept corruption as part of the job, leaving them little confidence in reporting any matter of concern. They were compelled to be silent about, and often to collaborate in, unacceptable forms of behaviour. In the minds of managers, there was a sense of futility attached to any attempt to address corruption or to introduce meaningful reforms. For corrupt police, the code of silence was seen as a means to manipulate and control fellow officers, particularly those who had earlier been compromised by the acquiescence or collusion. Internal investigators realized that the code of silence had the potential to predetermine the result of any investigation. The use of coded warnings such as the “whale in the bay” call alerted colleagues to pending investigations (Jarratt, 1995; Fowler, 1995; Thompson, 1995; Kellock, 1996; Chirchill, 1996) and served to reproduce the code. The use of “scrumdowns” brought police together to ensure they had a united response to inquiries (Demol, 1995). Additionally, corrupt officers developed counter-surveillance techniques (Kellock, 1996) and could exercise the ever-present threat of ostracizing and blocking the careers of non-corrupt officers (Dorrough, 1996; Beck, 1996; Hungerford, 1996).

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3.2.3 Protecting the reputation of the Service The Commission uncovered evidence that there was institutional pressure to suppress or contain the disclosure of corruption; the belief was that it was in the best interests of the Service. Witnesses gave examples of this pressure including suppression and editing of adverse audit reports or active discouragement of critical comment on the part of those whose task it was to identify problems (Bell, 1996), and, denial of the obvious to the point where those who brought problems to notice were branded as “trouble makers” who risked being transferred out of any job of significance – in other words, retribution and punishment. In addition, pressure was applied through an iron-fisted control over the release of information to parliamentary committees and to external watchdogs, which helped maintain the conviction that the Service was a law unto itself. Early warning and leaking of information to police under investigation was routine. Investigations were undermined and fragmented so that the opportunity to expose systematic corruption would be lost and, most importantly, there was ineffective support for internal informants (Wood, 1997: 193). The Commission argued that this kind of defensive mentality resulted in a collapse of command responsibility and the reinforcement of the “us and them” attitude: “It sent a very clear message to the ranks not only that the rhetoric to which they were exposed was empty, but that the opposite was expected” (Wood, 1997: 194).

3.2.4 Other Structural Factors Other organizational factors contributed to the entrenchment and non-detection of corruption in the Service. These included: the Service’s dis­ciplinary system that concentrated on minor disciplinary infractions and honest mistakes, and which punished internal informants and otherwise discouraged openness and honesty in admitting error (Wood, 1997: 194; see also Avery, 1994; Bell, 1996; Shepherd, 1996); no recognition and support for ethical conduct and individual initiative; and, the existence of too many regulations and instructions that focused on attributing blame and delivering punish­ ment rather than solving systemic problems. The management strategy was unhealthily focused on outputs, that is, it was “arrest-rate” driven. This led to various forms of process corruption, described by one officer as the “tricks of the trade”, as well as the formation of close and fiercely protected relationships between detectives and criminal sources. A tolerance of brutality, particularly in the form of unnecessary assaults on persons under investigation or in police custody, had become institutionalized. Undue centralization of decision-making left regional commands without sufficient power to deploy their resources to best value. The self-imposed isolation of the Service from external ideas and influences, particularly with respect 50

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to leadership, management and organization strategies, helped the negative elements of the police culture to develop in what was, essentially, a closed system (Wood, 1997: 194).

3.2.5 Command Accountability, Effective Leadership and Supervision The Commission determined that one of, if not the, major contributor to police corruption becoming entrenched and undetected was a lack of leadership, particularly, first line supervision. Commanders and supervisors failed to identify and deal with corrupt practices and Senior Commanders did not match their rhetoric with action because it was something they saw as being outside of their routine and direct operational responsibility. Within the Service’s bureaucratic structure, the responsibility for dealing with corruption lay with the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and its predecessors (Wood, 1997: 198). As a result, local Commanders and supervisors, who were best placed to identify and deal with corrupt practices, had no legitimate power to do so. The Commission identified the following problem in this area: the blind trust that Commanders and supervisors had in their staff meant that the command structure was ignorant of the signs of corruption, while Com­ manders and supervisors placed an emphasis on, and responded to, popularity rather than integrity, professionalism and fairness. In short, being a “good bloke” and “one of the boys”, even if you were a woman, was better for one’s career than acting with integrity and honesty. At a local level, there was an absence of any system aimed at identifying the telltale signs of corruption, such as overseas holidays, unexplained wealth and gambling. It was taken for granted that detectives did not need to submit to the command and direction of uniform officers, particularly Patrol Commanders, who more often than not simply delegated responsibility to the Chief of Detectives. The Commission emphasized that the need for critical assessment and review of leadership in general, and the performance of Commanders and supervisors in particular, could not be overstated: “Without such an approach, the possibility of identifying and redressing the root cause of corruption is lost, and its existence will never be accepted as a service-wide problem” (Wood, 1997: 199).

3.3 The Commission’s Assessment of the Overall Problem – Inadequate Leadership The Commission reported that central to the emergence of corruption was the problem of poor leadership. The Service’s approach to leadership re51

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flected its history; an emphasis was placed on command and control, autocracy and strong discipline. Within such an approach there was no room for subordinates to exercise any delegated authority; the contrary was the norm, subordinates were encouraged to pass decisions upwards. The seniority based promotional system, which resulted in officers achieving command positions late in their careers, at a time when their attitudes had been conditioned and set, contributed to such an approach to leadership becoming entrenched. In consequence, new ideas were treated with suspicion and often punished, resulting in the development and conditioning of an inward looking inflexible work environment. The Commission argued that the extent of this problem was evident in the “disappointing results of the competency tests associated with the Executive Development Program commenced in 1990” and, in particular, assessment appraisals for persons holding the position of Patrol Commander in 1996. On the basis of these assessments, only 36% of the Service’s people in leadership positions surpassed the minimum standards of competence for their position (Wood, 1997: 207). These results were not unique to the NSW Police Service; in a similar study, Cioccarelli (1994) found that the narrow nature of police training and social conditioning was the main reason why officers from the San Francisco Police force were not prepared for executive leadership roles. The Commission noted that despite the attempt through the 1980s and early 1990s to distribute responsibility throughout the regions and usurp the unhealthy dominance held by elite agencies and individuals, the command and control approach to management continued to demand that most decisions be passed up the chain of command. This was exacerbated by the State Executive Group (SEG), which was a forum of senior staff who, on a weekly basis, gained significant power by essentially positioning themselves as a point of obligatory passage (Clegg, 1989) in the decision-making process. The Commission argued that apart from creating an administrative bottleneck, the process reinforced an outdated approach to management, compounding the risk-averse attitude of the Service, its apathy to change, and discouraged autonomy and confidence in decision-making (Wood, 1997). Deeply entrenched in the attitude of the Service’s leadership and its culture was the view that “it possessed the special features that required it to be managed in a unique way” (Wood, 1997: 208). This was a “way” that was contrary to the progressive models that other large organizations had adopted, and did not involve lower level officers participating in the Service’s operational, let alone strategic and corporate, planning. In consequence, the Service’s leaders insulated the organization from influences that could have led to improved efficiency and the creation of a more egalitarian work environment which would sustain “healthy” politics and repel corruption (Clegg, 1990; Wood, 1997). 52

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During the Royal Commission, Commissioner Lauer, mapped the then old undesirable ways of the police when it was a “Force” and the changing nature of duties as it evolved into a “Service” (see Table 3.1) (Wood, 1997: 209). Unfortunately, however, the Commission found that the attributes in the left-hand column of Table 3.1 were a more accurate description of the Service at the time of the Commission’s investigations. Table 3.1: Commissioner Lauer’s view of police role changes when moving from a police force to a police service. FORCE ROLE

SERVICE ROLE

Authoritarian

Consultative

Reactive Only

Proactive

Closed Culture

Open Culture

Rank Status

Job Responsibility

No Mistakes Allowed

Learning From Experience

Limited Police Education

Extensive Education

Working In Isolation

Working Together

Attempts at reform in the Service were plagued by the lack of openness of its leaders. Information was unnecessarily controlled and rationed in its release to staff, the Minister for Police and the NSW Parliament. This further supported the argument that the acquisition and consolidation of police power led to the organization becoming a power unto itself and thus, with respect to the concept of “noble cause” corruption, constructing its own mandate and version of what was considered “rational”, “right” and “just”. The Commission pointed out that not only was information controlled and rationed but progressively sanitized and repackaged as it rose up the hierarchy, resulting in any critical comment that may have initiated remedial action being largely suppressed (Wood, 1997: 209). The sanitization and repackaging of information before it was presented to superiors reflected how staff management was orientated more towards domination through a “mix of control and fear” (Ryan, 1996) than good leadership or the recognition of integrity and good performance. Rank was the measure of success in the form of status, power and increased remuneration. Yet, work demands, skills and responsibilities were not necessarily linked to rank or its associated remuneration level. The Commission argued that the jockeying for promotional positions that it witnessed during its inquiries and the widespread dissatisfaction with the promotional process, were indicators of a failed system. 53

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The history of the Service is one that has presented flamboyant and unethical police as role models, rather than allowing ethical professional leaders to emerge as exemplars (Wood, 1997: 210). Unfortunately, those who stood up to corruption were more often than not treated with disdain and faced retribution for breaking the code of silence. History also showed that the Service, and more specifically its leaders, has seemed unable to come to terms with the different ethos and attitudes apparent in some detectives, particularly “those who ascribe to the mould of the hard street-wise officer with an implicit authority to cut corners” (Wood, 1997: 211). On the contrary, these detectives were often revered and consequently seen as the “real” leaders in the Service.

3.3.1 The Royal Commission’s recommendations for reform In 1994, the structural reform introduced by Commissioner Avery broke the Service into four equally populated regions, with each region incorporating a part of metropolitan Sydney. Each of the regions was divided into districts, and within each district there were a number of patrols. Across the State there were, in total, 25 districts, and 165 patrols. Within each of these patrols, there were sectors. There was also a further grouping that was commonly referred as the “fifth region”, which comprised support and special expertise groups such as the Solicitor of the Service, Strategy and Review, Human Resources, Corporate Services, Special Agencies, Task Groups, and Tactical Service Groups, to name a few. In addition, there was a Police Board, which exercised its functions subject to the Minister, and essentially concerned itself with matters of promotion, education and the employment of the senior executive of the Service. The Commanders of the four regions, namely the North, North-West, South and South-West, together with the Commanders of the Special Agencies and Operations Support, reported to the State Commander. The State Commander, and the Commanders of Education and Training, Human Resources, and Corporate Services, reported to the Deputy Com­mis­ sioner. The Deputy Commissioner, the Solicitor to the Service, the Executive Director of Strategy and Review, and the Commander of Re­sponsibility, reported to the Commissioner. The Commissioner was subject to the direction of the Minister and was responsible for the overall man­agement of the NSW Police Service. The Commission argued that the Service needed to flatten this structure, reducing its hierarchy and dispersing its leadership. In short, increased patrol capacity and performance were to be achieved by placing an emphasis on leadership at the patrol level. In addition, the Commission recommended that the Service needed to review job descriptions and management structures so as to return officers, who were confined to duties that could be carried out by un-sworn staff, to active service. Lateral entry and civilianiza54

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tion needed to be explored to secure the best talent available, particularly for specialist tasks; responsibility and remuneration needed to be reflected through positions held, rather than rank, and lateral rather than vertical career development needed to be encouraged. Officers, particularly those in leadership positions, needed to adopt a more open and honest relationship with the government and the community. The Commission suggested that this would require the Service to explain publicly what it intended to achieve and how it intended to use and manage its resources. A concentration on numbers of police needed to be replaced with a strategy that embodied efficient and effective policing; acknowledgement and communication of bad news needed to be addressed rather than suppressed; it needed to be accepted that the complaints system and the internal audit process were valuable tools that could help improve performance, rather than a potential source of embarrassment, and the Service needed to be open and honest with staff, listen to and communicate with them, and create an environment in which expertise and performance could be recognized above rank (Wood, 1997: 215). The Commission argued that much of the Service’s existing culture was positive and helped provide direction and good order. Moreover, if harnessed appropriately, it could, by its very strength, be an effective instrument for “good”. However, some cultural aspects were harmful and needed to be replaced. One of these was the “code of silence” that officers adhered to, which leads to the closing of ranks and the protection of the corrupt and wilfully incompetent. Traditions such as long lunches, the heavy consumption of alcohol, and other forms of personal misconduct, seen as a way to gain acceptance so a person could be “trusted”, also had to be eliminated. The elitism and mystique enjoyed by detectives and plain-clothes officers, particularly those working in closed squads, had to be removed. The networks that acquired inordinate power and distorted the promotion system needed disrupting, while the indifference and contempt in which outsiders were held, most particularly those reputed to be criminals and those suspected of anti-social offences which could lead to them being assaulted or otherwise deprived of their legal rights, had to be overcome (Wood, 1997: 216). The Commission went on to emphasize that “it is essential that there be a close focus on this, and that the solidarity and mutual support which were central to the culture at the time be turned around in support of a goal of integrity and professionalism” (Wood, 1997: 216).

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3.4 Commissioner Ryan’s Response: His Reform Plan for the New South Wales Police Service In November 1996, in response to the Royal Commission findings and recommendations, Commissioner Ryan, the newly appointed head of the Service, recruited from a teaching position at Brashill College Police Academy in England because of his “cleanness”, produced a report outlining his plans for reform of the Service (Ryan, 1996). Commissioner Ryan identified eight key reform areas that the NSW Police Service would focus on: • • • • • • • •

One direction, one boss, one service Structure Reallocating resources to frontline policing Expelling and repelling corruption Cultural change Quality of management Work practice improvements Measuring the change

These key areas of reform clearly resonate with the recommendations made by the Commission, with an emphasis being placed on leadership, structural change and cultural reform. In response to the Commission’s concern with leadership in the Service, Commissioner Ryan emphasised the need for “one direction, one boss, and one service”. Accordingly, within his plan he proposed the following mission statement for the Service: The police and the community working together to provide a safer en­viron­ ment by reducing violence, crime and fear (Ryan, 1996: 11).

In setting such a mission statement, Commissioner Ryan responded adeptly to the Commission’s findings. For the Service to adhere to this mission it would need to dismantle the differential boundary between itself and the public: it would need to dispense with the “us and them” mentality that pervaded the Service in its attitudes and actions towards the public. In light of the Service’s recent history, the mission statement subtly identified that NSW Police officers had to regain the public’s trust. However, this represented a slight tempering of Commissioner Avery’s attempt in the early 1980s to remind the Service that its charter was to serve the public, not to control it. Commissioner Ryan, within this mission statement, placed the police and the community on an even footing – “the police and the community together”. In light of recent histories in regard to the power of police, not to mention their abuse of it, this espoused equal footing was somewhat ideal56

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istic, particularly to members of the community who might have occasion to reflect on the history of, or personal experience with, New South Wales policing. In regard to “one direction, one boss, one service”, Commissioner Ryan pointed out: The Government has now decided to empower by statute the Police Com­ missioner to employ all personnel and to deploy them in the best interests of the management of the Service, subject to normal financial constraints. When introduced into Law, I will employ officers to carry out a wide range of activities in support of skilled investigators as part of a multi disciplined team. These officers will need to be authorized to carry out certain functions while operating as a member of a team. Such a team will target active influential criminals in the areas of fraud, drugs, money laundering, and gaming and vice (Ryan, 1996: 13).

Commissioner Ryan’s new powers centralized leadership responsibility in his position. Such a move was in line with traditional leadership theory and practice and, in this sense, responded to the Commission’s concern with poor leadership within the Service. However, such an approach, as will be seen in the following chapter, was out of synch with the more contemporary theory and practice of leadership. The Commission recommended that the Service introduce more contemporary leadership and management skills and practices, but it is not clear that such centralization represented this. In regard to the use of more contemporary leadership and management skills and practices, Commissioner Ryan did mention the use of multi-discipline teams. Central to the use of multi-discipline teams was the dismantling of divisional and departmental boundaries-based functions. Such a move responded to the Commission’s recommendations by subjecting previous “free-wheeling” groups, such as detectives, to the social constraint of a team environment. Effectively, being in the gaze of others and creating relationship dependence were recognized as a way of tempering the possibility that officers might engage in corrupt practices. In regard to the Service’s structure, Commissioner Ryan acknowledged in his reform plan that: Currently the Police Service is organized on the basis of Patrols, Districts, Regions and State apparatus. This classic military hierarchical model is outmoded. Under this regime, the people in the Service have been subject to codes of behaviour characterised by control, compliance and fear. Information has been tightly controlled. This has not led to the development of a Service characterised by integrity in and commitment to public service, nor has it built team play and mutual confidence … these principles underpin modern management thinking which emphasizes flat structures and wider spans of responsibility which has its objective increased participation and

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empowerment of the workforce. These principles are no less applicable to policing (Ryan, 1996: 14).

Accordingly, Commissioner Ryan’s reform plan revealed that the Service’s structure would be flattened so that from the 1 July 1997 it would only have three levels of management (Figure 3.1 shows the structure before 1 July 1997; Figure 3.2 shows the structure proposed for after 1 July 1997). In line with this devolution of hierarchy, Commissioner Ryan took time to emphasize the need to transfer leadership power, control and decision-making to the “front line” of policing. In his proposed new structure, this meant that leadership power, control and decision-making would be transferred to Local Area Commands (LACs). He stated: From the 1 July 1997 Local Area Commanders are to be the primary man­ agement of the Service … Commanders will be personally responsible for setting the strategic direction, business planning, solving community pro­blems and establishing relationships (Ryan, 1996: 18).

He estimated that there would be up to 150 people in a Local Area Command (see Figure 3.3) and the general make-up would comprise: a Local Area Commander; a senior grade administrative officer responsible for finance, administration and personnel issues; and six duty officers who would be operationally employed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and simultaneously act as team co-ordinators responsible for intelligence, tactics, deployment and people issues. Additionally, twenty to twenty four supervisors (team leaders) would lead teams of patrol officers in the field; 80 to 100 patrol officers would carry out the full range of operational patrol functions in teams; and administrative non-sworn staff, including an office manager, clerical support, general support officers, (possibly roster, intelligence, training) would also be employed. Commissioner Ryan’s proposed structure responded to the Commission’s recommendation to introduce contemporary approaches to organizational theory and practice. The proposed structure reflected models discussed in the “new organization forms” literature (Bolman & Deal, 1997), in which it had been argued that today’s social environments are characterized by discontinuous change. The sources of such change have been brought about largely by rapid advancement in technology that have resulted in the globalization of markets and heightened economic competition. In such environments, organizations have moved towards organic architectures that are characterized by flatter structures and subsequently the use of empowerment strategies (Bolman & Deal, 2003). The objective of new organizational forms is to achieve organizational flexibility and increased innovative capacity through a more fluid relationship with their environment. 58

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Figure 3.3: Proposed structure of Local Area Commands. See page 18 of Ryan (1996) “Reform of the New South Wales Police Service – Phase 1” pre­pared for the Hon Paul Whelan and the Royal Commission into Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service.

Commissioner Ryan’s proposed structure resembled a “network structure”, (Bolamn and Deal, 1997; Palmer and Dunford, 1997) with leadership and operational control being dispersed, that is, transferred to what he called Local Area Commands, which were to become fully autonomous police organizations. In short, the NSW Police Service was to move from a very centralized police organization to one in which there were many small police organizations. The proposed structure of each Local Area Command placed an emphasis on cross-functional team based operations to secure coordination. This shift also responded to the Commission by bridging the gap between divisional and functional boundaries; boundaries that privileged certain groups and marginalized others, resulting in the constitution of an “us and them” culture within the Service. Further, the reform was aimed at better co-ordination of, and dealing with, behavioural problems revealed by the Royal Commission. Underpinning the design of these cross-functional teams was the need for a more equitable work environment in which people would be subject to democratic control mechanisms. Behaviour would be subject to the social constraint that if somebody did not agree or like what a colleague was doing, they had the power and willingness to do something about it. 61

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Despite the Royal Commission identifying cultural change as one as one of the key areas requiring reform, Commissioner Ryan immediately set a proviso in regard to such reform, “Cultural Change – subject to funding” (Ryan, 1996). Commissioner Ryan, while acknowledging the need for cul­ tural change in his original reform plan, provided a financial argument to justify what appeared to be an intention to relegate cultural change to the “back­stage” of the reform agenda. He wrote: Cultural reform of any organization is essentially about people changing the way they do things. As people cannot be simply re-programmed a substantial investment is required in changing the way they view the world. This change must come from within each person and the organization as a whole. It requires many inputs, but mostly involves extensive training to assist people to think differently. Training is expensive in terms of operational time and by volume. If, for example, each member of the Service required 10 days training as part of the cultural change, a total of 163,200 days are required or over 447 years. This converts to $17.9m in salaries alone for participants. Thus, conservatively $50m will be required to make any serious effect on the culture of the service through training (Ryan, 1996: 32).

The Commissioner’s financial rationale for lessening the Service’s focus on cultural change allowed for the omission of any further reference to culture, let alone cultural change, in the plan. In effect, the cultural change section of the reform plan provided a functionalist-based human resources framework which discussed topics such as job redesign strategies, recruitment and assess­ment centres, drug and alcohol policy, sex based harassment policy, performance management, and complaints and disciplinary procedures (Ryan, 1996: 33–44). After reading this section, one is left wondering whether the author of the document had any knowledge of, or sense of value for, the cultural change literature. In summary, Commissioner Ryan’s plan for reform of the New South Wales Police Service – Phase 1 did respond to the recommendations made by the Commission to introduce a new structure and structural mechanisms that reflect more contemporary organizational theory and practice. However it failed to address the need for cultural change in the Service, which the Commission had also identified as a key area for reform. Justice Wood and the Commission assessed Commissioner Ryan’s re­form agenda positively. Justice Wood (1997: 243) commented on the new structure, maintaining that it appeared both workable and sensible; allowed for the obvious need to flatten the structure and to remove a sizable and largely unproductive bureaucracy; that the reduction in the size of the regions was likely to make the regional and Local Area Commands better informed and more responsive to the needs of the local region; and the concentration on 62

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the patrol as the primary management unit accorded with the objective of community policing and a shift to a managerial complaints and discipline system. Justice Wood also, however, demonstrated concern with Commissioner Ryan’s limited approach to cultural change (Wood, 1997). The Commissioner seemed to view cultural change as being of secondary importance, as something to be looked at once the more tangible, structural issues had been dealt with. In this sense, the Commissioner’s reform plan reflected a distinctly functionalist worldview. Functionalism would normally see cultural change as being dependant on structural change (Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Bolman and Deal, 1997). Thus Commissioner Ryan, as author of the report, appears to be a classical managerial functionalist. Of even greater concern however, is that Commissioner Ryan did not even mention power, let alone how he intended to deal with it, in his reform plan.

3.5 Conclusion The Royal Commission into Corruption within the New South Wales Police Service provided evidence of deep-seated corruption that took on a variety of forms which included the intimidation of witnesses, the falsification of evidence, assault, green-lighting, drug dealing and murder – clearly the organization needed to undergo not just structural, but also cultural, change. It laid the blame squarely on poor leadership within the Service, brought about by the entrenchment of outmoded ideas and organizational practices. The Commission recommended, among other things, that the NSW Police Service introduce leadership and management practices that were in line with contemporary management literature and the practices of other large organizations in Australia (see appendix 31 of Royal Commission documents). Interestingly, around the same time, the Karpin Report (1995), which was a large scale government research project into management in Australia, had made similar recommendations that Australian organizations needed to improve their management skills. Indeed, due to the nature of change in business environments, Australian organizations needed to focus more on leadership rather than just management skills. Justice Wood endorsed Commissioner Ryan’s reform agenda, which was characterized by a flatter structure and a consequent dispersion of leader­ ship power, control and decision-making, along with a commitment and focus of resources, to front line police operations. In accordance with the Commission’s recommendations, the resulting structure clearly reflected, the contemporary management literature on new organizational forms. New organizational forms reflect organically oriented network structures and 63

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promote flexibility, innovation, the use of team-based operations, and the empowerment of lower level workers. While Commissioner Ryan’s plan for reform did introduce structures and forms that are consistent with the new organizational forms literature, it was distinctly structural and had little to say about how deep-seated cultural change would be achieved. As will be seen, this observation acquires significance through what Commissioner Ryan and some of his senior executives had to say, some time later, about the possibility of future cultural change. Appendix 31 of the 1997 Royal Commission documents stated that the first key reform area is that of leadership and that “it is important to gauge whether leaders … are working with their teams on problems and re­forms, sharing information and exercising their delegated authority rather than being constrained to meet or anticipate the demands of superiors” (Woods, 1997: A246). This recommendation clearly indicated that not only leadership, but also a more decentralized approach to leadership, is of central importance to the Service’s successful reform. In the past, lower level officers were dominated and forced to obey and be silent, rather than think creatively, strategically and ethically about the behaviour of powerful groups and individuals. Amongst a host of other things including culture, two constructs appear to be central to the Royal Commission’s recommendations and Commissioner Ryan’s re­form agenda: leadership and power. The first of these constructs is clearly mentioned; the latter however, is implicit to the issues and topics discussed throughout the documents. As already pointed out, power is central to this study; for this reason, and because the Royal Commission recommended that the Service adopt structures and practices more in line with the con­temporary management literature, the following chapter will critically review what the mainstream management literature has to say about power.

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PART II

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Chapter 4

Streams of Power

The 1996 Wood Royal Commission into Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service and Commissioner Ryan’s reform agenda only implicitly refer to power. More accurately, the Royal Commission indirectly addresses power issues while Commissioner Ryan’s reform agenda (Ryan, 1996) ignores power completely. In the present chapter, it is shown that this neglect resonates with the normative approach to power adopted by writers with a functionalist orientation. Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to critically review the mainstream management literature focusing on power and to identify any deficiencies relating to how it addresses this issue. To do this, a comparison between the writings on power of the mainstream management writers and leading writers from the fields of sociology and political science is undertaken. The review takes the form of a comparative model in which two differentiated streams are presented, each with a different starting point of theorizing about power. These two streams are termed here: the “Idealist Stream”, of which the management literature is a sub-stream; and, the “Pragmatist Stream”. As shall be seen, contributors to the Idealist Stream concern themselves with promulgating ideas about how power “ought” to be in organizations, while the contributors to the Pragmatist Stream concern themselves with studying how power “actually” is in organizations. Figure 4.1 shows the paths that the literature review will take. The chapter will begin by travelling down the Idealist Stream. Marx and Weber are acknowledged as the founders of this stream with each of their voices representing a point from which a sub-stream of literature emanates: the “Management Sub-stream”, originating from Weber’s voice; and, the “Critical Sub-stream” emanating from Marx’s voice. The objective here is 

The vast majority of management writers adopt such a view of power (Hardy & Clegg, 1996). As outlined in the previous chapter Commissioner Ryan’s reform agenda reflects the management literature and subsequently also neglects power.  While Weber’s writings are recognized as a foundation of the idealist stream, it is more accurate to recognize Weber’s writings as a bridge between the two streams of literature. In short, as shall be seen later in the chapter, his work makes a greater contribution to the understanding of power in organizations than that acknowledged and adopted by management writers.

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Main stream of the power in organizations literature Path 1: The idealist stream of the power in organizations

Path 2: The management sub-stream of the idealist stream

Path 4: The pragmatist stream of the power in organizations literature

Path 3: The critical substream of the idealist stream

Figure 4.1: Relative flows of streams and sub-streams of literature that make up the ­ ower in organizations literature. Also shows the paths that the literature review will p take.

not to review Marx and Weber’s writings in detail, as numerous other writers have already done this (Eisenstadt, 1968; Owen, 1994; Morrison, 1995; Turner, 1999); rather, it is to illustrate how particular accounts of the nature of power in organizations emerged from their work. As the chapter travels down the Idealist Stream, it first engages with the Management Sub-stream and reveals that contributors to this path have a preoccupation with “rationality” as an ideal; that is, the authors adopt a rational approach to power in organizations, largely grounded in the “first dimensional resource dependency model of power”. In addition, the chapter incorporates the work of writers who argue that it is Parsons and Henderson’s (1948) interpretation of Weber’s voice, as opposed to Weber himself, which appears to be the foundation of this sub-stream. The chapter then moves down the Critical Sub-stream in which contributors are shown to be adopting a democratic approach to power. The indirect link between this stream and the Community Power Debates of the 1960s, 68

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as well as what have become known as the “second and third dimensions of power”, are discussed. The chapter then shifts away from the Idealist Stream of the power in organizations literature and travels down the Pragmatist Stream. Until recently, mainstream management writers have largely ignored the literature that makes up this stream. Machiavelli and Nietzsche are acknowledged as the founders of the Pragmatist Stream, while the main contributor in regard to contemporary work on power in organizations is Foucault. Machiavelli and Nietzsche’s writings will not be reviewed in detail, the objective being to show how particular accounts of power in organizations emerge from their work. While it is acknowledged that there are many writers who have employed Foucauldian analytics, this chapter focuses on the work of Foucault directly and the interpretation of his work by key post Foucauldian organizational theorists (Clegg, 1989; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985; Hardy and Clegg, 1996; Haugaard, 1997; Flyvbjerg, 1998; 2001) in particular. The work of these theorists has contemporary significance and offers theoretical and methodological insights into unobtrusive forms of power in organizations. Mainstream management writers have demonstrated a reluctance to engage with Foucault’s writings, which, as will be illustrated, may well be because his writings destabilize the nature of their theoretical and methodological frameworks. Finally, the chapter explores the differences between the Idealist and Pragmatist Streams and argues that the outcome of a research framework that adopts an approach similar to that of the writers that comprise the Pragmatist Stream is likely to make a valuable contribution to the man­age­ ment literature. More specifically, the chapter highlights that an approach conducive with theories of the post- Foucauldian power authors can identify problematic issues in the New South Wales Police Service’s reform agenda; problematic issues, that, if the Service is serious about stopping corruption, will require urgent attention.

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4.1 The Idealist Stream: Ideas About How Power “Should” Be Both Weber and Marx, like writers before them, adopted a common agency model, which viewed power as being possessed by entities; that is, power is possessed by a person, group, department and such like (Ball, 1978). As mentioned previously their work will not be reviewed here, rather, how their work acts as the foundation for particular accounts of power in organizational studies will be illustrated. Marx (1976) was concerned with class entities, more specifically issues relating to how “class” structures and social relations were attuned to the general conditions of economic domination and subordination (Poulantzas, 1973; Carchedi, 1987). He argued that irrespective of other forms or bases of identity, the class interests of people were structurally predetermined by their relative social position and, that these interests followed on from the relations of ownership and control of production. Some writers argue that Marx has not produced a specific theory of power (Clegg, 1979) but Marxian analysis, particularly in regard to the concepts of “real interests”, “hegemony” and “false consciousness”, is implicit in the approach to power adopted by more critical theorists such as Bachrach and Baratz (1962) and Lukes (1974; 2005). The differential between the capacity to labour and its effective realization has also been the focus of many forms of Marxian analysis, particularly of “alienation” (Schacht, 1971; Geyer & Schweitzer, 1981). Normal conditions of contractual employment restrict the capacities that people have to those aspects of labour for which they are hired. Selling their time and the disciplining of its use leads inevitably to some curtailment of people’s freedoms. Such freedoms are superfluous to the hiring of labour, with workers 

For instance, the seventeenth-century English political theorist Thomas Hobbes (1839) ideas, despite being presented centuries beforehand, are evident in the modern era’s approach to power in organizations. He promotes a legislative approach to power (Bauman, 1987; Clegg, 1989), meaning that he was concerned with legislating “what” power is; or perhaps more accurately, he theorized about what power “should” be. Indeed, he provides one of the first accounts of a governance model that rationalized the use of power to achieve an ordered society and ‘relatively autonomous, self managing discourse’ (Bauman, 1987: 2). Hobbes’s account was aired in the Leviathan. The Leviathan sought to legitimate a form of order premised on a distinct approach to sovereignty. Hobbes organized his reflections in terms of an emerging discourse, a discourse characterized by contemporary tools and new scholarship: what was to become the discourse of mechanics. Early political and social scientists were to conceptualise power through notions conceived in mechanics by Hobbes and his contemporaries (Clegg, 1989: 6). The central character of Hobbes Leviathan is an all-knowing, moral and heroic law bringer (Clegg, 1989: 6), which, as will be seen further on in this chapter, provides the grounds for the sovereign model of power that pervades the contemporary management literature and, because of their particular relevance to this study, the mainstream literature on leadership and policing.

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experiencing a form of estrangement as a result of the curtailment of freedom. This estrangement provides the framework for alienation as a process of relational severing between oneself, one’s product, process, tools, and fellows, at work. In short, the rationalization of labour dehumanizes workers, effectively dissolving notions of self with workers being cogs in the machine or units of production. Weber’s view of power was embedded in a sociological vision that stressed the centrality of the project of rationalization, which has framed modern times. This “project of rationalization” was derived from the Enlightenment project which involved European entities imposing what they considered to be a superior form of reason, and hence social practices, on the rest of the world. Other social groups, such as Indigenous peoples, were considered inferior savages that could only benefit from adopting European social ways and general laws of reason. In this sense, Weber’s work was used to rationalize less rational forms of existence out of existence (Clegg, 1989). However, Weber did not actually have an affinity for the rationalization process. Rather, he saw it as a corollary of fundamental transformations stemming from the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent epistemic shift to modernity: a response to the changing environment of the time marked by an increasing complexity of organizational structures and systems (Touraine, 1988), radically changing the fabric of society. Weber was culturally pessimistic, concerned that the “rationalization of the world would produce for modernity a bureaucratic ‘iron cage’ of bondage” (Clegg, 1990: 28). He saw the “discipline” of bureaucracy encroaching into all spheres of social life as a result of its technical superiority over any other forms of organization (Weber, 1948: 214). Weber adopted a different approach to power compared with Marx. Marxian theory provided little room for discretion and opportunities for strategic agency, with power relations reduced to those who own capital and those who do not. Weber acknowledged that while power was derived from owning and controlling the means of production, it was not reducible to ownership and non-ownership as power is additionally derived from the knowledge of “how” production could be achieved. For Weber, power relations also reflected the differential ability of people to control methods of production (Hardy and Clegg, 1996). In contrast to Marx, Weber saw people not as victims of their own “false consciousness”, or being deceived by the ruling class, but as members of an organization who were capable of making strategic use of their skills and knowledge of the production process. In short, Weber’s view of power is more complex than Marx’s, with all organizational members being recognized as having access to power (although some have more than others). Organizational members have some control over their disposition to exercise power, both to challenge and reinforce the formal organizational structure in which differential powers are 71

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vested, legitimized and reproduced. Thus, the foundation and maintenance of positions of dominance are not simply grounded in economically defined class relations, as Marx had argued (Weber, 1978: 942). Weber saw abstract labour power as representing a capacity embodied in a person to exercise discretion in regard to the application of their overall capacities at work. As the power of labour was embodied in employees, who held ultimate discretion over themselves, there always remained the potential for them to offer resistance to projects of managerial control (Hardy & Clegg, 1996: 624). Accordingly, a focus on providing managers with ways by which they might control, deflect or defeat labour’s discretionary power is evident in much of the early mainstream management literature. The most important strategy has been the use of rule systems which is the mainstay of Weberian analysis of organizations as bureaucracies. Weber and Marx’s work focuses on the way in which power is derived from owning and controlling the means of production, a power reinforced by organizational rules and structures. Collectively the work of Weber and Marx represents the foundation of the modern era’s approach to power. It is an approach fundamentally characterized by ideal views about how power “ought” to be in organizations. The differences in their views however, provide a “fork in the road” in regard to the evolution of the Idealist Stream of the power in organizations literature. As illustrated in Figure 4.1, this Stream of literature breaks into two distinct sub-streams: the Management Sub-stream (following Weber) and the Critical Sub-stream (following Marx). The chapter will now journey down these two sub-streams starting with the Management Sub-stream.

4.1.1 The Management Sub-stream: the “rational” approach to power As indicated above, Weber is acclaimed for providing the foundation for much of management theory, including that which addresses power. This is primarily because of Weber’s work on rationality. While one recognizes that the pursuit of rationality is at the heart of the mainstream management literature, it is important to note that Weber not only discusses rational legal power (authority), but also traditional power (blood lines) and charismatic power (personal power). A review of the mainstream management literature on power indicates that it has a preoccupation with Weber’s rational legal power at the expense of his work on traditional and charismatic power. The mainstream management literature assumes that rational legal power is the appropriate form of power for organizational environments. It omits 

The work of more “radical Weberians”, particularly those form the British organization theory literature (e.g. Clegg and Dunkerly, 1980) is acknowledged, but will not be reviewed hear.

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Weber’s discussions on forms of traditional and charismatic power, as well as how the nature of an organization’s meaning systems provides links between rational legal, traditional and charismatic forms of power. Weber’s pessimism in regard to what he saw as the unavoidable entrapment of the “iron cage” of rational bureaucracy is also noticeably absent from the mainstream management literature. Writers, such as Banton (1972) and Clegg (1975), argue that, in a sociological sense, early management writers adopt a relatively narrow approach to organizations. These authors contend that this approach can be traced back to the impact that the work of functionalist theorists, in particular Talcot Parsons, had on the social sciences throughout the mid twentieth century. The translation of a piece of Weber’s writing by Parsons and Henderson (1948) has been subjected to negative feedback with writers such as Gouldner (1971), Banton (1972) and Clegg (1975) arguing that the interpretation was flawed. Clegg (1975) highlights that the key problem with Parsons and Henderson’s interpretation lies with their translation of the word herrschaft, to mean rational authority. In discussing the relationship between power and authority, Weber however provides examples of herrschaft that indicate the word had two meanings. First, Weber discusses herrschaft in a way that suggests the word’s English translation means rational authority. Drawing on the work of Banton (1972), Clegg (1975: 56–66) points out that Weber also used the word to describe unobtrusive forms of domination. These two meanings will now be explained in further detail. Weber viewed the efficacy of authority as being contingent upon its social acceptance. Whether authoritative action was efficacious was con­ tingent on whether it was considered as being rational by those subject to this action. An individual attempting to exercise authority needs do so on the basis of a: legal norm … established by agreement or by imposition, on grounds of expediency or value rationality or both, with the claim to obedience, (to those) … who stand on certain social relationships or carry out forms of social action which in the order governing the organization have been declared to be relevant (Weber, 1968: 217).

The use of the term “the order governing the organization” encompasses formally sanctioned rules and positions of authority as well as socially constituted norms. Thus, obedience of a person attempting to exercise authority depends on the formal design and whether this person’s “right to power” is perceived as legitimate with respect to the norms of the social system (Clegg, 1975). In this sense, quite differently to Parsons and Henderson’s interpretation, Weber acknowledges that the legitimacy of rationality has a contextual and value laden dimension.

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Weber’s discussion of “structures of dominancy” supports the argument that his use of the word herrschaft does not simply refer to sanctioned authority. According to Clegg (1975) Weber’ explains, through reference to practical examples, that the norms underpinning the interpretation of rationality in social systems are actually imbued with power. These norms reflect differential power relations which, through customary social practice, result in the constitution of “structures of dominancy”. Weber explains why people orient themselves towards a particular form of social order: Without exception, every sphere of social order is profoundly influenced by structures of dominancy. In a great number of cases, the emergence of a rational association from amorphous social action has been due to domi­ nation and the way in which it has been exercised. Even where this is not the case, the structure of dominancy and its unfolding is decisive in determining the form of social action and its orientation towards a “goal” (Weber, 1968: 942).

In this extract, Weber suggests the rationality that emerges out of discursive social action is subject to social norms and also structures of dominancy. These structures of dominancy are taken for granted norms that are socially constituted over time through recurring practices and unobtrusively privilege certain ways of thinking and doing things. Adherence to these norms constitutes social relations in which certain individuals and groups are privileged and others are marginalized. Weber elaborates by pointing out that the actions of people in positions of dominance, because of the privilege invested in such positions, not only contributes to the constitution but also the reinforcement of these norms. Thus, the constraining nature of a system’s norms is likely to reflect a historically constituted “structure of dominancy”. While this description of a structure of dominancy may appear somewhat similar to the Marxian concept of hegemony, Weber does not see people as being victims of “false consciousness” but playing an active role in the formation of these structures of dominancy. It is evident that Weber’s definition of herrschaft extends beyond Parsons and Henderson’s (1948) translation to “formally sanctioned authority”. Weber’s work indicates that herrschaft can mean legitimate authority in specific contexts of action. This concept of legitimacy problematizes the assumption that emanates from Parsons and Henderson’s interpretation that formal authority is rational. Weber considered herrschaft in terms of both authority and domination, domination in the sense that authoritative action would be considered legitimate with respect to social norms that were not only imbued with, but also reinforced by, historically constituted structures of dominancy (Clegg, 1975). Parsons and Henderson’s account of authority disconnects itself from Weber’s “deeper” level consideration of structures of dominancy and thus constructs an interpretation of power in organizations 74

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that comparatively lacks depth. Their account suggests that the legitimacy of formal authority is seen as being the way things “ought” to be. Management writers have embraced Parsons and Henderson’s work and adopted an approach to power that reflects their interpretation of Weber’s writings. However, Hardy and Clegg (1996) point out that management writers’ acceptance of formal authority as legitimate power means that these theorists: have rarely felt it necessary to explain why it is that power should be hierarchical. In other words, in this stream of research, the power embedded in hierarchy has been viewed as “normal” and “inevitable” following from the formal design of the organization. As such, it has largely been excluded from analyses, which have, instead, focused on “illegitimate” power, i.e. power exercised outside formal hierarchical structures and the channels that they sanction (Hardy and Clegg, 1996: 624).

Hardy and Clegg highlight that contrary to what Weber appeared to state, mainstream management writers separate power and authority: authority, because of its taken for granted legitimacy is viewed as something different to power; power is reserved for action that is not sanctioned with authority. Table 4.1 illustrates how key studies within the mainstream management literature up to the early 1970s conceptually separated power from authority. These studies show that the exercise of power was attributed to political action on behalf of organizational members who were not formally sanctioned with authority and that such action was illegitimate, dysfunctional and thus, irrational. Interestingly, throughout this period, while management writers set about representing power in such terms, the problematic nature of “legitimate” systems of authority were under-explored. In consequence, the focus of management writings was on the use of authority as a means to defeat conflict (Hardy and Clegg, 1996) brought about by the illegitimate exercise of power. From a rational functionalist viewpoint, in a social system where there is legitimate authority, those who are not sanctioned with authority have a duty to obey; when one has a duty to obey, one “should” not engage in conflict. According to this view, in any social system where there is legitimate authority, there “should” be no conflict. Management writers associated power with conflict situations in which individuals engaged in political activities to realize there own vested interests at the expense of the organization’s interest as a whole: It is clear that political activity is activity, which is undertaken to overcome some resistance or opposition. Without opposition or contest within the organization, there is neither the need nor the expectation that one would observe political activity (Pfeffer, 1981: 7).

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Pfeffer implies that managers only engage in politics to overcome resistance on behalf of workers which results in an inefficient and ineffective use of an organization’s resources. In doing so, Pfeffer privileges managers with an intellectual superiority and relegates power to episodic conflict scenarios. He implies that power and politics would not even occur if workers did not resist management. Other writers had similar viewpoints in regard to power (see Mayes and Allen, 1977; Gandz and Murray, 1980; Enz, 1988): Politics refers to individual or group behaviour that is informal, ostensibly parochial, typically divisive, and above all, in the technical sense, illegitimate – sanctioned neither by formal authority, accepted ideology, nor certified expertise (Mintzberg, 1983: 172).

This approach to power sees politics and resistance premised on the assumption that organizations are rational arenas and managers are purely rational beings. Consequently organizations and managers would have to exist independent of context and time, free from the influence of contextual pressures and individual interests respectively. While the literature aligns legitimacy with respect to the organization’s best interests, it is somewhat problematic that the organization’s interests and those of management are assumed to be one and the same. Hardy and Clegg have stated “the possibility that managers might seek to serve their own vested interests [in a given context] is largely ignored” (1996: 629). As indicated above, Weber viewed the functioning of power as embedded in an organization’s structures of dominancy, which are unobtrusive in the sense that they reflect the outcomes of struggles from the organization’s past. The outcomes privilege certain ways of knowing and doing and thus help to shape the meaning actors attribute to things in the present. Parsons and Henderson’s exclusion of Weber’s discussion of these deeper level structures of dominancy masks important sociological variables pertaining to power in organizations. The result is that to this day, management writers continue to consider formal structure as a legitimate equilibrium starting point from which to promulgate how power “should” be in organizations. This starting point, which the work of Weber illustrates, misrepresents the complex nature of power in organizations (Hardy and Clegg, 1996; see also Clegg, 1989a; 1989b; Ranson et al., 1980; Deetz, 1985; Knights and Willmott, 1992).

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Table 4.1: Summary illustration of how management writers separated authority and power. A more detailed elaboration on the evolution of management writings on power and the information provided in this table can be obtained from Hardy, C. and Clegg, S.R. (1996). Some Dare Call it Power, in Clegg, S.R., Hardy, C. and Nord, W.R. Handbook of Organization Studies, London: Sage Publications.

Ground crew had power because aircrew relied on them for survival.

Dubin (1957): Study of power through essential tasks in organizations.

Formal hierarchically designed relations.

Organizational members that were closely linked to tasks that were essential to the ­functional interdependence of an orga­ nization’s operating system.

Bennis (1959): Formal and informal organization.

In the formal organization exists authority, which is the potential to influence through one’s position.

In the informal what exists is power, which is the ability to influence through many factors, including one’s position.

Mechanic (1962): Study of the link between technical knowledge and power.

Formal hierarchically designed relations.

Members who were not formally sanctioned with authority, but had technical knowledge, had power.

Cyert & Marsh (1963): Organizations as functionalist systems.

Formal hierarchical design of the organization constituted the legitimate governance of the system.

Systems functioned in uncertain environments, the ability to control uncertainty seen as a source of power.

Crozier (1964): Study of the power associated with the ability to control uncertainty.

Highly bureaucratized firm designed on scientific management principles with a production system formally designed and highly prescribed; production workers were paid on a piece meal rate basis.

Machine breakdowns could not be planned or regulated. Machine maintenance workers had power because the production workers’ earning capacity was dependent on the ability of the maintenance worker to fix (or sabotage) the production machines.

Hickson et al. (1971): Strategic contingency theory of power.

Formal hierarchically designed relations. Orga­ nizations made up of subunits with varying degrees of interdependence: interdependence based on the essential need for subunits to collectively reduce uncertainty and achieve organizational goals.

Sub-units with power were those that held a strategically contingent position to others i.e. they were least dependent on others to cope with uncertainty.

French & Raven (1968); Pettigrew (1973); Pfeffer & Salancik (1974): The resource dependency model of power.

Formal hierarchically designed relations.

Research workers have seldom regarded power … (they) have stressed the rational aspects of organization to the neglect of unauth­ orized or illegitimate power (Thompson, 1956: 290).

The strategic contingency theory of power assumes that sub-units are politically united and cohesive, and that management definitions and are “rational” and therefore should prevail: it offers no account for resistance (Hardy & Clegg, 1996).

        

POWER

Aircrew had formal ­authority.

            

AUTHORITY

Thompson (1956): Study of power be­tween USAF aircrew and ground crew.

            

THEORY EVOLUTION

Assumes a total theory of context. But, one can never achieve closure on which base of power is in play, it depends on contextual variables which renders bases of power infinite (Hardy & Clegg, 1996).

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4.1.2 The Critical Sub-stream: the “democratic” approach to power Like Marx and Weber, the critical theorists were concerned with the link between power and domination. More specifically, the critical theorists pondered why there was so little resistance from subordinate groups in organizations, and why these groups appeared to consent to their own subjugation (Hardy and Clegg, 1996). The Critical Sub-stream emerged indirectly from what became known as the Community Power Debates of the 1950s and 1960s. Political theorists, such as Dahl (1957; 1961) and Polsby (1963), focused their research on how decisions made in a community illustrated the nature of power relations in that context. Two opposing theories of what constituted “good” government emerged – elitism and pluralism. If the same groups or individuals were found to make most of the decisions in the key decision making arenas, the community was said to be elitist; if decisions were made in different arenas by different groups the community was said to be pluralist. Dahl (1957; 1958; 1961; 1968) is recognized as the main contributor to the Community Power Debates literature. In a series of publications, he mapped out a behavioural science oriented response to what he described as the much less rigorous work of the “elitist” theories of Hunter and Mills. Dahl regarded the work of the elitist theorists as methodologically slack. Subsequently, Dahl focused on the construction of a methodological approach that could capture and provide a formal model of power. To acquire precision, Dahl employed the principles of mechanics and focused on cause and effect relationships between forms in motion: the power of “A” could be measured through the response of “B” (Clegg, 1989). Dahl’s work met criticism with Newton (1969) arguing that Dahl’s empirical study implicitly proposed an elitist position and made arguments that could lead to elitist or pluralist conclusions. Bachrach & Baratz (1962) went further questioning the pluralists’ implicit assumption that decision-making processes were accessible to all members and that non-participation in decision-making reflected satisfaction with the process and its outcomes by nonparticipants. These authors, and later others (Lukes, 1974; Clegg, 1975; Saunders, 1979), asserted that unobservable conflict did not equate with no conflict and that interests and grievances could remain unspoken and outside of the decision arena (Gaventa, 1980; Saunders, 1980). At this point, research turned to how full participation in decision processes might be constrained (Hardy and Clegg, 1996). Schattschneider (1960) argued that the inaction of non-participants may be due to the suppression of information that might inform their interests and needs and thus, limit their knowledge and compound their ignorance. Building on this insight, Bachrach and Baratz (1962; 1963; 1970) developed the idea that power can also be linked to how decisions were not 78

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made. This has now become known as the “second dimension of power”. Bachrach and Baratz (1962; 1963; 1970) argued that a variety of previously unconsidered options were available to the more powerful members of an organization to prevent subordinates from participating in decisions. For ­example, through a form of negative decision-making brought about by endless committees, enquiries, or co-optations, the powerful may not “hear” the viewpoints or demands of the less powerful (Parry and Morris, 1974). Furthermore, non-decision making may also operate through Friedriches’s (1937) “rule of anticipated reaction” where B anticipates A’s likely opposi­ tion and consequently does not raise an issue. In short “potential pro­ tagonists remain mute, from the expectation that they would invoke strenuous opposition” (Clegg, 1989: 79). Resonating with the “rule of anti­cipated reaction” is Schattschneider’s (1960) “Mobilization of bias”: which refers to those situations where dominant interests may exert such a degree of control over the way in which a political system operates, and over the values, beliefs and opinions of less powerful groups within it, they can effectively determine not only whether certain demands come to be expressed and needed, but also whether such demands will ever cross people’s minds … Crucial issues thus never emerge for public debate, and to study the course of contentious issues (as Dahl did in New Haven) is merely to study what happens to the political crumbs strewn carelessly about by an elite with its hands clasped firmly around the cake (Saunders, 1979: 30–31).

This suppression of crucial issues is an example of what Bachrach and Baratz (1962: 950) refer to as a non-decision making process. “Latent” power conflicts remain hidden from the public face of power, which is confined to “the dominant values and the political myths, rituals, and institutions which tend to favour the vested interests of one or more groups”. The use of such options allows powerful members of an organization to influence decision outcomes from behind the scenes (Hardy and Clegg, 1996). The exercise of power in visible decision situations is thus not the full story when it comes to understanding the nature of power in organizations: those people making the decisions may not be the people wielding the power. Lukes (1974) maintained that Bachrach and Baratz’s research was limited. He argued that they focussed too much on how “decisions” were made, ­albeit “non-decisions” (Ranson et al., 1980: 8), and doubted the necessity of assuming that parties must be in conflict for non-decision-making power to be evident (Hardy and Clegg, 1996). Lukes built on the work of Bachrach and Baratz to develop what is now known as the “third dimension of power” by theorizing that power could be used to prevent conflict from occurring through the management of meaning. This management of meaning occurred by shaping people’s 79

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perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they view it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial (Lukes, 1974: 24).

Lukes maintained that power could not be confined to observable conflict, to the outcomes of decisions, or to the suppression of information; it must also consider the question of political acquiescence (Hardy and Clegg, 1996). In this sense, Lukes was concerned with how, through the natural order of things, people might be “duped, hoodwinked, coerced, cajoled or manipulated into political inactivity” (Saunders, 1980: 22). For Lukes, this use of power helped elite groups and individuals to sustain their dominance and reduce the likelihood of subordinates exercising the discretionary power they possessed. Along these lines, “power is most effective when it is unnecessary” (Ranson et al., 1980: 8). Accordingly, Lukes was concerned with identifying those mechanisms which perpetuated the status quo. His approach was characterized as a liberal reflection on a Marxian heritage (Clegg, 1989): “liberal” because he wanted to separate power from fate and structural determination, “Marxian” because of his use of Gramsci’s concept of “ideological hegemony” to describe situations where “a structure of power relations is fully legitimized by an integrated system of cultural and normative assumptions” (Hyman and Fryer, 1975: 199). The right to power of elite individuals or groups to make decisions becomes reified over time through the routine normalcy of their exercise of such power. The perceived superiority and right to dominance of social elites, such as owners, leaders and managers becomes part of the natural order of things. Lukes (1974) viewed power as operating when people have no awareness of, let alone the desire to realize, their own “real interests”. However, it is Lukes’ concept of “real interests” that renders his third dimension of power problematic. Benton (1981) identifies a paradox in Lukes’ idea that one can know other people’s “real interests”. Benton sees this paradox as similar to the “central problem” with which Marx has been confronted: In its simplest form this is the problem of how to reconcile a conception of socialist practices as a form of collective self-emancipation with a critique of the established order which holds that the consciousness of those from whom collective self-emancipation is to be expected is systematically manipulated, distorted and falsified by essential features of that order. If the autonomy of subordinate groups (classes) is to be respected then emancipation is out of the question; where as if emancipation is to be brought about, it cannot be self-emancipation. I shall refer to this problem as the “paradox of emancipation” (Benton, 1981: 162).

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In short, to achieve emancipation people need autonomy, but if, as Lukes and Marxist theory suggests, people are being “hoodwinked” by the ­social order in which they exist to the point that they are unaware of their ­“real ­interests”, and then such autonomy cannot lead to self-emancipation. Similarly, if people unaware of their “real interests” are emancipated by ­others, this cannot be emancipation. When Lukes suggests (1974: 33) that it is possible for power to be exercised over people against their perceived preferences but in their “real interests”, Benton (1981: 164–165) argues that such people would be unable to recognize this because of their lack of relative autonomy and democratic participation. This lack of autonomy and democratic participation means that those exercising the power must have made a judgment of what these people’s real interests are or should be. To make such a judgment requires one to deny a position of moral relativism; it assumes an absolutist position that, as Haugaard (1997) points out, adopts a self acclaimed intellectual superiority from which to enact a position of sovereign power. Clegg (1989: 102) notes that Lukes’ moral position on interests is of little value in determining their sociological reality or, even more problematically, their sociological unreality. According to Barbalet the consequence of Lukes’ moral relativism is as follows: If to be subject to power is to have one’s real interests contravened, and if real interests can be identified only outside of a subordination of power, then it is impossible ever to determine whether one is subject to power, except when it ceases to matter (Barbalet, 1987: 8).

As Clegg (1989: 102) suggests, in this sense Lukes’ treatment of power is “sociologically vacuous”: it misses a more discursive dimension. Barbalet (1985: 540) criticized the moral relativist view that Lukes (1974: 52) takes by arguing that in Lukes’ view, cigarette companies would not exercise power over public interests prior to the establishment of any causal link between smoking and cancer. Barbelet argued that such a view could only be seen in terms of a criterion of moral culpability. He added that what is more relevant in terms of power is cigarette marketing department practice of reproducing and expanding markets for the consumption of cigarettes while existing consumers died. In this sense, power would have been evident in the construction of a perceived “beneficial way of life” that embodied the practice of smoking. People may choose to smoke, but it would be foolish to think such a choice is free from influence brought about by the exercise of power on behalf of cigarette companies (see Clegg, 1989). Clegg (1989: 103) contends that Lukes three-dimensional view of power is problematic because Lukes does not explain how there might be an epistemological possibility of determining “real interests”. The three-dimensional approach does not succeed, as many have claimed, in delimiting a space 81

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in which a comprehensive view of power can be located. Despite the significance of these criticisms, Lukes’ work does make a major contribution, particularly with respect to how, through the management of meaning, the exercise of power does not necessarily have to be linked to conflict. In summary, for the contributors to the Critical Sub-stream, the Community Power Debates literature represents the first dimension of power. The main criticism of this body of literature is that full participation in decisions is assumed. The literature that constitutes the second dimension of power focuses on the study of non-decision-making: how decisions are prevented from being made. The main problem with this approach is that it assumes the exercise of power is grounded in conflict situations. The literature that constitutes the third dimension of power argues that people can manage the perceptions of others so that conflict does not occur, and thereby influence the nature of the decision process and hence the outcome of these processes. In this third dimension, Lukes (1974) draws upon Marx’s concept of “false consciousness” and Gramsci’s concept of “ideological hegemony” to argue that the power of dominant groups is legitimized by an integrated system of cultural and normative assumptions. Common to the Critical theoretical approach that underpins this Sub-stream is a concern for differentials in power within social systems and how these differentials result in some people being privileged while others are marginalized. In this sense, the literature is underpinned by the pursuit of an ideal of democracy. The critical theorists show an obvious link to Marx through their concern for people’s “real interests”. An assumption exists that others know the real interests of people better than the people do themselves. Such an assumption embodies the adoption of sovereign position of power, which is somewhat contrary to its grounding in the pursuit of democracy.

4.1.3 Mere “ideals” about how power “ought” to be While the Management and Critical Sub-streams are distinctly different, what is common to both of them has significance for this study. First, stemming from the work of Marx and Weber and pervading both Sub-streams, is a commitment to some ideal form of social order. For Marx and the Critical theorists the ideal is democracy. For Weber and the Management theorists the ideal is rationality. This commitment however, results in contributors to the Idealist Stream as essentially presenting versions of how things “ought” to be, which is supposed to represent “the” ideal end. In this sense, each Sub-stream aspires to a “grand narrative”. The problem with grand narratives is deciding which is the grandest and why is it grander than others. Second, the Idealist Stream can be referred to as a “power-as-entity” approach to power (Flevbjerg, 1998). Power is viewed as being possessed by entities and resides with somebody (person, group, organization etc.). In this 82

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sense, power resides with people and some have more or less than others. Such an approach defines power as something that “A” does to “B” to get B to do something that he would not otherwise do (Management theorists) or as against his “real interests” (Critical theorists). As shall be seen in the next section of this chapter, power is much more than something that somebody either has or does not have. Thirdly, because of the adoption of a power-as-entity approach, while the Critical theorists may argue otherwise, the Idealist Stream can be recognised as a collection of sovereign models of power. Marx and the Critical theorists, in their pursuit of “democracy”, paradoxically adopt a position of superior power by assuming they know other people’s “real interests” better than these people do themselves. Management theorists appear to adopt the ultimate position of sovereign power, under the guise of “rationality”, by suggesting that only “bad guys use power; good guys use something else” (Hardy and Clegg, 1996: 629): the good guys for them are managers using authority. In sum, while versions of how things “ought” to be may be “well” and “good”, they are mere ideas or theories which do not account for how things actually are. While organizational writers continue to expand both these Sub-streams with ideas about how power “ought” to be in organizations, there is an alternative conceptual framework for researching power in organizations. While this conceptual framework has only recently emerged in management studies, its heritage dates back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The stream of literature that constitutes this framework challenges idealistic and sovereign views of power; in doing so, it questions the work on power by not only the Management theorists but also the Critical theorists. This stream of literature, termed here “the Pragmatist Stream”, will now be discussed.

4.2 The Pragmatist Stream: Accounts of How Power “Actually” Is The literature that constitutes the Pragmatist Stream was largely ignored by Management theorists until recent times. Writers committed to Idealist frameworks, such as contributors to the Idealist stream of the power in organizations literature, have specifically dismissed much of the writings that comprise the Pragmatist Stream as crude and offensive. As discussed earlier, contributors to the Management Sub-stream adopted an equilibrium starting point based on the assumption that people formally sanctioned with authority will behave rationally. As Flyvbjerg points out 

Even Lukes’ link between hegemony and power still positions individuals with more or less power.

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however, for something to be rational in its purest form it must remain the same independent of context and time (Flyvbjerg, 1998). This would mean that the Management Sub-stream’s equilibrium starting point is based on the premise that people with authority can absolve themselves from the effects of context and time. Such a premise masks how people with authority might be affected by their own self-interests or broader political pressures. Consideration of contextual issues would be somewhat precarious for researchers who ascribe to rationalism as it risks rendering that, which is “believed” to be rationality, irrational. This risk largely explains why the approach adopted by contributors to the Pragmatist Stream has not only been avoided but also considered vulgar and crude by management researchers: it renders their work problematic. Contributors to the Pragmatist Stream do not adopt an Idealist starting point or framework. The contributors are not concerned with telling people how power “ought” to be used; rather they are concerned with studying “how” power actually is in organizations. The founding voices of the stream are Machiavelli and Nietzsche, while the main contributor in regard to contemporary work on power in organizations is Foucault, whose work, as shall be seen, draws on both Machiavelli and Nietzsche to shake those writers who adopt an idealist starting point to their very core. For Machiavelli, the achievement of order in organizations does not come from a commitment to an ideal form of governance through a benevolent sovereign but is secured by a strategically minded prince (Machiavelli, 1958) who is adept at acting politically. The Prince’s focus is on strategies, deals, negotiations, fraud and conflict in which myths (ideals) concerning moral action become game players’ resources (tools or weapons) rather than a topic which frames what the game should be (Clegg, 1989: 30).

Rather than an idealist framework, Machiavelli conceived power in terms of pure expediency and strategy, as distinctly empirical, with workings dependent on context and time (Bauman, 1987). Machiavelli (1984: 91) maintained that, “a man who neglects what is actually done for what should be done (pursuit of ideals) learns the way of self-destruction”. In a similar, but much later, vein, Nietzsche (1968) argued that ideals are myths and lies, claiming that rather than a will to ideals, morals and values, people have a will to power. In regard to the virtues of rationality, Nietzsche further argues that, “rationality at any cost … in opposition to instincts has itself been no more than a form of sickness” (1968: 34). 

One can refer to Weiss and Miller (1987) who provided a review of how widely cited articles have shaped definitions of rationality and other ideological terms, in a way that avoids any political connotations.

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Reflecting on the provocative nature of these statements, one can gain an appreciation as to why contributors to the Idealist Stream, particularly the Management Sub-stream might consider Machiavelli and Nietzsche’s work as vulgar and divisive. However, rather than dispel what Machiavelli and Nietzsche have had to say about power, this study considers their statements to be valuable for two reasons. Firstly the statements act as beacons that remind us that people cannot divorce themselves from context and time. Secondly their work indicates that having faith in the way things “ought” to be risks blindness to the way things actually are. In this sense, the work of Machiavelli and Nietzsche can be seen as a check to the blind pursuit of ideals, including the modern ideals of “rationality”, “truth” and “democracy” (Flyvbjerg, 1998; 2001). In more recent times, a number of writers in the field of organizational studies have been influenced by the work of the French post-structuralist philosopher Michel Foucault who in turn, was clearly influenced by Machaivelli and, even more so, by Nietzsche. Like Machiavelli and Nietzsche, Foucault was interested in the micro-dynamics of power and focused on the relationship between power and knowledge in social systems. Foucault’s work is not easily understood and, for normative writers attuned to the virtues of the modern era, appears quite revolutionary. Many authors have embraced his ideas, but in translation the diversity of interpretation has resulted in a voluminous secondary literature that is fragmented and often contradictory (O’Farrell, 1982). This section will both draw on Foucault’s work and interpretations of it, principally, because of their ­ contribution to organization and management studies (see the work of Clegg (1989), Haugaard (1997), Flyvbjerg (1998; 2001) (see also the work of Bau­man (1982), Rabinow, (1984), Smart (1985), Gane (1986) and Futtuin (1994)). Foucault’s work can be divided into three main phases: the “archaeological”, the “genealogical” and the “care of the self”. The archaeological writings include The Order of Things (1970), Madness and Civilization (1971), The Birth of the Clinic (1989a), and The Archaeology of Knowledge (1989b); the genealogical writings include Discipline and Punish (1977) and The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction (1981); and the care of the self writings include: The Use of Pleasure: The History of Sexuality, Volume 2 (1986) and The Care of the Self: The History of Sexuality, Volume 3 (1990). This study adopts genealogy as its principle methodological approach and accordingly focuses on Foucault’s first two phases. In his archaeological phase, Foucault uses history to show how things be

This thesis acknowledges that Machiavelli is given some attention in the management literature (Gable & Topol, 1991), but not in the same vein as it is here. His work is addressed normatively and is often referred to in distinctly negative terms.

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come taken for granted in everyday life: how things that people “take for granted” are accepted as being part of reality. Foucault highlights how different historical periods, such as the Renaissance, the classical and the modern periods (or “epistemes”) constituted different versions of reality: what was taken for granted as being real in one episteme would not necessarily be considered real in another. As Haugaard (1997) points out people from the modern era experience difficulty comprehending how plants could be considered as being up-side-down animals in the Renaissance (Haugaard, 1997). Alternatively, people in the Renaissance would find it difficult to accept that man could build machines which could fly at speeds faster than the speed of sound in the modern period. Furthermore, people from modern times may find it hard to comprehend their knowledge as anything other than superior to that of the Renaissance. However, Foucault argued against privileging one version of knowledge, epistemologically grounded or otherwise, over another. Foucault pointed out that irrespective of the scientific and technological advancements that underpin the knowledge of modern times, the extent to which modern day people would have a “voice” and thus power if they could travel back to the Renaissance must be questioned. If these people spoke of the things they knew to be the case in Renaissance times as understood today, they would be seen by the people of that time as speaking idiocy and untruths. People cannot travel back in time, so the argument used above may seem somewhat irrelevant. However the significance of the argument becomes more apparent when one considers, as did Foucault, the constitution of knowledge in a cultural sense. Foucault added that reality is not only time specific but also culturally specific, being historically constituted in both periods of time and cultural settings. One can appreciate what Foucault means by recognizing the differences in the systematic organization of knowledge reflected upon by some cultures. For example, in Indigenous cultures such as those of different clans of Australian Aboriginals, knowledge is based on myths, stories and legends – the Dreamtime. This differs from that of members from another culture who reflect upon knowledge constituted by religious doctrines, and differ again from those, like most western societies, who reflect upon knowledge based on the principles of science. Each culture has its own set of historical antecedents and thus constitution of knowledge. If people from different cultures are reflecting on different bodies of knowledge when they make sense of the world, it is highly likely that their perceptions of reality will also differ. The non-uniformity of knowledge implies, whether in a historical or present period, that in a culturally diverse world the perception of reality will have a plurality. Haugaard (1997: 43) observes that, “hence, there is no ‘true’ or ‘correct’ interpretation based upon the discovery of the truth”. Idealists may critique Haugaard’s observation by asking, “how can it be true that 86

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there is no truth”. Such a question however, is distinctly modern in the sense that it seeks absolutism and misses the point of Foucault’s message much as, to a certain degree, does Haugaard’s observation. Foucault would alter Haugaard’s observation slightly so that it read, “hence, there is no single ‘true’ or ‘correct’ interpretation based upon the discovery of truth”. In other words, Foucault acknowledged that people do have a perception of “truth”, but the perception comes from reflection upon their meaning systems which are underpinned by a culturally-specific constitution of knowledge: different cultures have different histories, different versions of knowledge, and therefore, viewpoints about “truth”. Thus, there are multiple “true” and “correct” interpretations based on the discovery of “truth”. Incidentally, by reflecting on one’s own knowledge one can appreciate how no society, cultural regime or individual is likely to consider its knowledge to be untrue (Haugaard, 1997). In consequence, it is difficult for people not to privilege their version of “truth”, including ideals about how things “ought to” be, over others. By way of further explanation, Foucault’s “archaeology of knowledge” shows how cultural settings are actually historically constituted meaning systems – a meaning system being a historical a priori system of order that makes it possible for individuals to make sense of their world (Foucault, 1970). Language plays an important role in the transfer of meaning, but Foucault argues that language alone does not constitute meaning. In a way that is not dissimilar to Weber’s (1968) explanation of “structures of dominancy”, Foucault shows that, by comparing what was constituted as “truth” within different historical periods and different cultural settings, there is a deeper more unobtrusive level of a social system with rules and codes of order that govern the construction of meaning. He attributes the unobtrusive nature of these codes of order to their acceptance by people as being part of everyday life. For example, in regard to social action, actors when in the presence of leaders behave with deference: this is the expected form of behaviour because leaders, over time, have come to be considered “superior” to their followers. A more analytic example in regard to language is that statements gain their meaning from their relationship with other statements but these meanings are not timeless. Over time, actions and statements are used in different contexts and within knowledge bases that change. For example, many people are familiar with the sentence “dreams fulfil desires”. Foucault notes that this statement “may have been repeated throughout centuries; but it is not the same statement in Plato and in Freud” (Foucault, 1989b: 103). Haugaard (1997) offered a further interpretation of the “codes of order” that govern the construction of meaning. He stated s that these codes are not spoken, nor deliberately created but exist because of the experience of an unobtrusive order that makes it possible for actors to understand their 87

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world. One can appreciate that for people to have their viewpoints considered as making sense by other members of the cultural system in which they exist, knowledge of the system’s formally sanctioned rules may not be enough; they will also need to know the unobtrusive codes of order that are part of the system’s historically constituted knowledge. If they do not know these codes they may find it difficult to make sense of what is going on around them and, if what they say and do does not resonate with these codes, they may be seen as making non-sense and effectively dis-empower themselves. Foucault’s archaeology makes the approach to power adopted within the Idealist Stream of the power in organizations literature, to employ one of his own phrases, “groan with protest” (Foucault, 1980: 54). By using history to understand how the present has come to be, he destabilise the principles that have underpinned not only this Idealist Stream of literature, but also the modern era in general. In particular, he challenges the idea that the human body and human mind form the locus of control and the source of knowledge and truth, which is evident in the assumption that power is something that is held by people. This is because Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge questions the concepts of “identity” and “self”; it decentres the “self” by suggesting that there is no core self; rather, one’s perception of self has been socially constructed through language and experience. Foucault viewed the centrality of the self as a fixation of modern times, and argued that the modern period is as certain of collapse as were the Renaissance and classical periods: “one can certainly wager that man [as the fixation of the modern period] would be erased, like a face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea” (Foucault, 1970: 387). Foucault means that people should not privilege the individual as the only source of knowledge or truth. The constitution of knowledge and meaning systems in which people exist are also a reciprocal source that both constrains and enables how truth is produced and what is subsequently constituted as knowledge. By way of highlighting the importance of what Foucault is saying, contributors to the Idealist Stream regard individuals as either having or not having power. The study of power for contributors to the Idealist Stream requires one to study how individuals who possess it use it in decisions. Such a study however, provides an unbalanced view of power because it does not take into account that power is embedded in the meaning systems that people reflect on to make sense of their world. To explain how power is embedded in peoples’ meaning systems, one might imagine standing at an open doorway peering into a university classroom empty of people and ask themselves “what do I see”? Some people 

The following classroom analogies used to explain how Foucault links power to knowledge are done so with the more traditional teacher/student relationship and teaching methods in mind.

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might say “nothing”; others might say “empty chairs” or “rows of tables and chairs” or “chairs, tables and a whiteboard”. Yet, some people will recognize the nature of the room’s structure with the rows of tables and chairs conveying a sense of order. Others will go further and say that the structure of the room, the relative position of the rows of tables and chairs to the whiteboard, convey the identities and relationships of the people who would normally use the room. It is this latter observation that has significance here, because it describes power relations within the classroom setting, which are the differential power relations between teachers and students. However, as there are no people present in the room this interpretation challenges the idea that power resides within people, with some having more or less than others and, that it must be manifest in episodic decision-making scenarios. Imagine: “what if you had never seen a classroom and had no idea what was supposed to happen in a university class room. Would you still see the same nature of power relationships in the structure of the room?” If one has no knowledge of what occurs in such rooms how could one see these relationships? While people who have no knowledge of what occurs within a classroom setting might have some interpretation of what goes on in the room, it would be based on knowledge that was different from those who had previous knowledge of classroom activities. Irrespective of whether people have experienced a classroom setting before, their interpretation will be based on their past experiences and subsequently their constitution of knowledge. Thus, power is not necessarily some thing that some body either has or does not have; it is historically constituted in peoples’ knowledge and therefore both surrounds and pervades them. Foucault extended this principle by linking the constitution of knowledge with disciplined practices. Clegg (1989: 153) explains: In Foucault’s (1977) Discipline and Punishment power is conceived of as a technique which achieves its strategic effects through a disciplinary character. Foucault (1977) sees the methods of surveillance and assessment of individuals, which were first developed in state institutions such as prisons, as effective tools developed for the orderly regimentation of others as docile bodies … These disciplinary practices become widely disseminated through schools, the army, the asylum, and eventually into the capitalist factory. They become strategic to the extent that they are effective constitutions of power. As a form of knowledge they work through their own ontogenesis. Because they are knowledge constituted, not just in texts but in definitive institutional and organizational practices, they are “discursive practices”: knowledge reproduced through practices made possible by the framing assumptions of that knowledge. Moreover it is a very practical knowledge: it disciplines the body, regulates the mind and orders the emotions in such a way that the ranking, hierarchy and stratification which ensues it is not just blind reproduction of a transcendent traditional order, as in feudalism.

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Returning to the classroom analogy provides an opportunity to gain apprecia­ tion for the unobtrusive yet pervasive nature of disciplined practices. Ask yourself, “Why, in a classroom, do students sit where they do? Why do they not stand or sit elsewhere in the room? Why do they not sit or stand next to the teacher at the front of the room and face the rest of the students?” One might answer, “… because, that is where the chairs are and this makes practical sense”. However, this functionalist oriented answer can be subject to the following critique: place a student in a chair out in front of the room so he or she is facing the other students and ask the student, “how do you feel?” Foucault might suggest, while the student is fulfilling his or her functional needs (sitting in the chair, being able to hear the lecture and take notes easily), the student is likely to feel distinctly uncomfortable. This is because he or she is doing something outside the “codes of order” that guide appropriate behaviour for particular identities in the classroom. Thus, students sit in the chairs facing the teacher because through the continuous practice of attending lectures they learn what is expected of them to the point where they simply take the practice for granted. If either the student or the teacher does something that is outside the codes of order that outline appropriate behaviour in the classroom, they risk losing their “voice”; that is, the other members of the classroom will see them as behaving inappropriately and consider what they say and do to be of questionable value. Furthermore, students do not consider that by continuing to sit where they are expected to that they reinforce the historically constituted power differential between themselves and the teacher. The codes of order for this setting, and any other social setting, unobtrusively discipline the behaviour of the people who occupy it, causing certain practices to recur until they become disciplined practices. Foucault (1979) discussed “disciplined practices” at institutional levels (prisons and mental asylums) and broader discourse levels (medical discourse) to indicate that people take for granted how they are disciplined by the natural order of things in social systems. Furthermore, people take for granted that the nature of this discipline constitutes power relationships by privileging some while marginalizing others. The work that constitutes Foucault’s archaeology phase provided an alternative view of power, but, as he later acknowledged himself, it was fundamentally problematic. The idea of a meaning system determining what is considered as truth and thus, valid knowledge, does not explain how things change. In short, if the past determined the present, then things would not change and knowledge could not be extended within such a system. Further, if nothing changed, one’s our concept of time and space would cease too. Addressing this problem led Foucault (1980) into his genealogical phase. 

It is acknowledged that this analogy is quite general in nature and that students, even when sitting where they are expected to, a quite capable of undermining the teacher’s position of power.

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Genealogy is the study of the strategies and conflict that comprise the creation of a meaning system. For Foucault, learning and the dynamic of knowledge, which he refers to as “truth production”, are situated in a theory of power. He argued “‘truth’ is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to the effects of power that induce and extend it” (Foucault, 1980: 133). In accordance with Foucault, it is the exercise of power constrained by a social system’s archaeology of order, which shapes the production of new “truths” and subsequently extends knowledge within this system. It follows that the production of “truth” (the creation of knowledge) in any social system, is the consequence of a struggle for power. Haugaard (1997: 68) interpreted the notion of this struggle as suggesting that there will be a disqualification of some representations of knowledge (as idiocy), and a qualification or acceptance of others, all in the name of “truth”. Foucault (1979) added that when the struggle for power gives rise to a representation being seen as “truth” and therefore established as valid knowledge, there has been a positive outcome of power. This is what Foucault means by power in a positive form. He does not see this as positive in the sense that it is something people should welcome. Rather he sees it as merely being positive because it introduces change into a system by virtue of creating new realities, truths and knowledge (Haugaard, 1997). It is positive in the sense of making something happen and inducing change. In contrast to much of what is promulgated within the Idealist Stream of the power in organizations literature, particularly by the contributors to the Management Sub-stream, Foucault’s work suggests that power can no longer be seen as a convenient, pliable and deterministic resource. It is more than just something that “A” does to “B” to make “B” do something that “B” would not otherwise do or “A” making “B” do something against “B’s” interests. Foucault’s work, while indirectly sympathetic to the critical approach adopted by Lukes (1974), has no space for the concepts of “real interests” and “false consciousness”. Instead, Foucault’s (1990) theory of truth production renders the very notion of ideology problematic and the idea of false consciousness implausible; ideology and false consciousness are deemed untenable because they are ultimately grounded in an essentialist conception of society and social agency (Clegg, 1989). The former conceptualises society as an “intelligible totality”, similar to the classical Marxist base/superstructure model, where the ideological totality is assumed to be “the” underlying principle of intelligibility through which social order is constituted in society. Laclau points out however: any structural system is limited, that it is always surrounded by an “excess of meaning” which it is unable to master and that, consequently, “society” as a unitary and intelligible object … is an impossibility (Laclau, 1983a: 22).

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Similarly, the conception of false consciousness is only tenable if actors have a fixed and true identity which they are capable of recognizing, generally, as a consequence of their “true” or “real interests”. For Laclau, such a form of social agency is also impossible: Any social subject is essentially decentred, that is his/her identity is nothing but the unstable articulation of constantly changing positionalities … But if any social agent is a decentred subject … in what sense can we say that subjects misrecognize themselves? The theoretical ground that made sense of the concept of “false consciousness” has evidently dissolved (Laclau, 1983a: 22).

Such a view of social agency breaks with essentialism and means that ideology can only be retained if it inverts its traditional content (Clegg, 1989: 179): “The ideological would consist of those discursive forms through which a society tries to institute itself as such on the basis of closure, of fixation of meaning, of the non-recognition of the infinite play of differences” (Laclau, 1983a: 24). In this sense, politics is about the articulation of meanings in forms which, because meaning is relational, can only be partially fixed. While meaning cannot ultimately be fixed, it must be subject to partial fixations; otherwise, the very flow of differences would be impossible. In order to differ, to subvert meaning, there has to be meaning (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985: 112). Hall (1983) criticised Laclau and Mouffe’s view because it represented a revisionist approach that has, in effect, led to the abandonment of any concern for ideology as a process of political struggle. One only needs to reflect on the events in one’s immediate social environment to recognize the problem with revisionist viewpoints. For example, considering the central role that ideology played in interpreting the events that occurred on 11th September 2001 gives one an appreciation of the political significance of ideology. Hall emphasized a linguistic dimension to the debate. The problem with the proposition that ideologies represent a fixed meaning, is that such fixity is impossible to achieve and can be avoided by realising that language acts as the medium for both ideological generation and transformation: In language the same social relation can be differently represented and construed. And this is so … because language by its nature is not fixed in a one to one relation to its referent but is “multi-referential”: it can construct different meanings around what is apparently the same social relation or phenomenon (Hall, 1983: 71).

With this emphasis on language, the issue is more process oriented. In short, the focus is not whether something is “true” or “false” but on the process by which things become seen as being “true” or “false”. This would mean, 92

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in regard to the critique of the Marxian view of “false consciousness”, that the issue is not the relation between “true” and “false” consciousness but the process by which certain agents are positioned so that they are identified as having a particular type of consciousness. As Clegg (1989: 181) points out: the nature of identity is thus, to put it crisply, contingent upon discursive practices. Persons, as agents engaged in a struggle, will strain over that which is constituted as arguable, according to the conditions of particular discursive processes, and will formulate their interests accordingly. It cannot be maintained that these interests are formulated outside of the conditions of particular discursive practices and struggles, which a Marxian structuralist definition would seem to imply.

Thus, an individual does not necessarily act with respect to fixed interests. The situations in which the individual functions may give rise to reasons for action on a discursive basis that are contextually significant. For instance, people may hold a particular ideological view but due to the circumstances in which they find themselves act in a way that is contrary to their ideology. If reasons for action are discursively legitimised by situationally contingent variables, a discussion on interests might be more informative if the focus was on discursive frameworks (Clegg, 1989: 181). Such a discussion would resonate with the strategic significance of Foucault’s codes of order and disciplined practices; theses codes of order and disciplined practices constitute the meaning systems actors reflect on to make sense of the discursive processes they experience. The strategies people employ to realise their perceived interests in a given situation, are central to Foucault’s genealogy. He points out that these strategies are both constrained and enabled by a social system’s constitution of knowledge. People reflect upon their knowledge to make sense of what is happening in their world and to decide how they will position themselves strategically with respect to these happenings. In other words, people position themselves to acquire legitimacy for their viewpoint or preferred course of action. For Foucault, “… it is not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge, it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power” (Foucault, 1980: 52). This power/knowledge nexus places people within a web of power relations from which there is no escape (Hardy and Clegg, 1996). Thus, what is ordinarily taken to be knowledge in a social system is the outcome of a struggle for power that is grounded in context. The constitution of knowledge is not only culturally significant but also contextually significant. Knowledge can only be partially fixed as it is both discursive and plural. A corollorary to this is that if the ideals people aspire to reflect

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their constitution of knowledge, ideals must also be both discursive and plural (Gouldner, 1976). The discursive and plural nature of ideals is the reason why Foucault distrusts ideology (Haugaard, 1997). Just as both Machiavelli and Nietzsche did before him, he maintains that commitment to ideology bounds one to mythical ideas of how things “ought” to be, rather than how they “actually” are. Foucault’s use of the term “distrusts” rather than “dispels”, indicates that he is neither a nihilist nor relativist. Not trusting one’s ideology does not leave one valueless or norm-less. The statement “not trusting his ideology” means that while he does have ideals and values, he does not see them as representing essential or fixed truths. Instead Foucault acknowledges that through the experience of social life his ideals and values are open to change; in short, he places an emphasis on learning rather than worship. He argues against allowing ones attitude to social phenomena and events to be based on an idiosyncratic morality or personal preference. In doing so, he places importance on the socially and historically conditioned context and not a rational and universal grounding perceived and promoted by some philosophical idealist – grounding, which to this day is yet to be achieved (Flyvbjerg, 2001). Furthermore, Foucault’s genealogical analysis indicates that while all interpretations are open for relative testing, not all interpretations are equal. In social systems, the acceptance of an interpretation must be built upon a claim of validity, part of which is acquiring legitimacy over alternative interpretations. Thus, while interpretations may well be influenced by a priori knowledge (people’s ideology and values would reflect this knowledge) the process by which one interpretation gains legitimacy over others indicates that the representation of interpretations is subject to the influence of contextual variables. This process of acquiring legitimacy illustrates that the means by which an interpretation acquires validity is not simply ideologically grounded (i.e. based on some preconceived idea of how things “ought” to be), but has a discursive dimension that is distinctly political, strategic, empirical and thus, context dependent. Foucault’s work essentially turns the literature that constitutes the Idealist Stream of the power in organizations literature on its head. Many theorists have built upon and critiqued his work – some of the more notable in social science generally applicable to organizational studies include Giddens (1979; 1984), Laclau and Mouffe (1985), Barnes (1988), Clegg (1989), Hindess (1996), Haugaard (1997) and Flyvbjerg (1998; 2001). In the next section of this chapter, the work of Clegg (1989), Haugaard (1997) and Flyvbjerg (1998) will be focused on due to their more direct contribution to the power in organizations literature.

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4.2.1 Post-Foucauldian contributions to the power in organizations literature Clegg (1989), through a comprehensive review of the power literature, systematically explicates the theory of power and identifies a number of problems with it. He reflects on his own work on “deep structured power” (Clegg, 1975) and draws upon Weber, Foucault and others to develop the “circuits of power” model. For Clegg (1989) power can be considered as flowing through circuits that represent three terrains of social experience. The first terrain is the episodic agency level, which reflects a causal model of power and therefore corresponds to the literature that makes up the threedimensional model of power. It is within this terrain that the Idealist Stream of research into power in organizations resides. Clegg argues that writings limited to this terrain of circuitry lack depth, because they ignore Weber’s “structures of dominancy” and Foucault’s “disciplinary practices”. The second and third circuits of Clegg’s model attempt to capture the nature of constraint that these deeper level structures and discourse formations impose on what occurs at the episodic level. The second circuit is that of social integration, which refers to dispositional power and focuses on what Clegg terms the “rules of the game”. This might be seen as corresponding to Foucault’s “codes of order”. The third circuit is that of system integration which reflects Weber’s idea of “structures of dominancy” and what Foucault sees as the discourse formations that result from “disciplinary practices”. The concern is with how the circuits mutually condition each other; how the structures and forms of the second and third circuits constrain the episodic interaction occurring at the first circuit terrain in such a way that it reinforces (or undermines) existing power relations and historically constituted structures of dominancy. Clegg’s “circuits of power” provides a model of power in organizations that incorporates deep level considerations related to the historical constitution of power within a social system. Rather than start with a given equilibrium point or take sides, he provides a rich interpretation of the interplay of power, resistance and legitimacy in a social system. His use of the “circuits” metaphor provides a backdrop from which one can gain an understanding of the nature of the outcomes of episodic interactions; outcomes, that just as electrical current flows through an electronic circuit, have travelled a longer and more complex journey than that which is apparent to the eye. Thus, the outcome of any episodic interaction represents an exercise of power that reflects, like the output of an electronic circuit, the path of least resistance through a social system’s circuits of power. The “circuits of power” model provides researchers with a systematic means of analysing how small episodes of power reflect embedded forms and levels of domination. The model helps the analyst:

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identify … which national, state, legal, and organizational characteristics and practices will produce systematic variations in stratifying outcomes that are constructed in terms of … key markers of identity, … studying the organizational cultures in which they find particular types of expression (Clegg, 1989: 198).

Thus, the model’s key contribution is that it provides access to deeper, more unobtrusive forms of power, within a social system. It is a complex model that permits the analyst to observe strategies of legitimacy and resistance within “representations of power” (Clegg, 1989: 232) that are not readily observable, particularly in the Idealist Stream of the power in organizations literature. Similarly to Clegg, Haugaard (1997) explored the relationship between power, resistance and strategies of legitimacy. He reflected upon the work of Lukes, Giddens, Barnes and Foucault in order to develop a theory of power that encompassed the concepts of institutions, conflict, resources and truth. Drawing on Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge, he argued that an organization (and any other social system) has a constitution of power that constrains the way power is exercised within this organization. He further argued that the nature of this constraint is subject to forms of practical consciousness (Giddens, 1984) or knowledge of everyday social practices that people take for granted. Haugaard acknowledged that practical consciousness is imbued with structures of dominancy and, in this sense he reflects Giddens (1984) writings on structuration and Foucault’s writings on disciplinary practices. For example, one might appreciate that the practical consciousness of a police station would be very different to that of a doctor’s operating theatre. Each has its own structures of dominancy (including formal hierarchy, modes of deference and demeanour), underlying knowledge and codes of order. Also, the practical consciousness of a marketing department would be different to that of a finance or operations department. Such departments are renowned for finding it difficult to see sense in each other’s viewpoints. Haugaard’s (1997) work makes a significant contribution to the literature in a number of ways, especially the insight it provides into the link between Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical phases. What becomes apparent in Haugaard’s writings is that in order to legitimise one’s exercise of power in an organization, one will need to use this organization’s constitution of power strategically. In contrast to Lukes and his followers, Haugaard (1997) focussed on structural and institutional forms of domination rather than “real” (but unknown) interests. In this sense, he reinforced a need for reflexive practices in organizations: reflecting upon one’s practical consciousness is an act of discretion that requires a degree of relative autonomy. Thus power does not consist so much in the suppression of “real interests” but in

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the denial of the relative autonomy required for reflection (Haugaard, 1997: 141). Haugaard’s focus is not whether interests are “true” or “false”, but how the maintenance of this constitution of power (body of knowledge as forms of practical consciousness) is bound up in the reproduction of relations of domination (Haugaard, 1997: 141). In organization (or any other social system), the effects of power depend upon the relationship between the practical consciousness of people and the discursive consciousness that various discourses proffer (Clegg, 2000). If the ability for some discourses to dominate the nature of discursive practice within an organization is legitimised by the structures of dominancy constituted in the practical consciousness of the organization’s members, then these discourses will more likely shape the outcome of the struggle for power. Flyvbjerg (1998) offers an interpretation slightly different to Clegg (1989) and Haugaard (1997). While Clegg and Haugaard focussed on the link between strategies of legitimacy, resistance and the constitution of power in organizations, Flyvbjerg provides an empirical study that focuses on the problematic nature of discursive practices. Flyvbjerg shows how the politics among interest groups within a Danish city – council departments, business associations and environmental groups – cause a plan to economize the transport infrastructure of the city to degenerate into a string of petty incidents with unintended, unanticipated and undemocratic consequences (Flyvbjerg, 1998: 225). Using what he terms Foucault’s power-as-strategy approach to power, Flyvbjerg discovers that the main question is not who governs “but what government rationalities are at work when those that govern, govern?” (Flyvbjerg, 1998: 6). His focus is on how people use representations to rationalise rationality. Like Foucault, Flyvbjerg argues that power shapes what is seen to be rational. Flyvbjerg’s work is particularly valuable because it provides a richly documented narrative which shows, using empirical data, how the struggle for power shapes rationality. Thus, like Foucault and, before him, Weber, Flyvbjerg gives rationality contextual, value laden, and political features. For Flyvbjerg, the Francis Bacon dictum, “knowledge is power”, while important, does not go far enough in analysing the construct of power. Like Foucault, he draws upon the work of both Machiavelli and Nietzsche to show that “power is also knowledge” and that the outcome of the struggle for power shapes what is considered “rational” or “true” and thus, “valid knowledge”. In doing so, his thrust is also strategic and empirical. Through this approach he is able to show that while the modern ideals such as “truth”, “justice”, “democracy” and “rationality”, might be virtuous and worth fighting for, they are not, as normative theory (the “idealist stream”) would suggest, context independent. On the contrary, the context of these 97

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ideals is power. Flyvbjerg shows that rationalization presented as rationality is the principal strategy in the exercise of power. In other words, he shows that through their tacit understanding of the relationship between power and knowledge, in a given context, people shape representations so that their interests and intentions are seen as rational. In summary, compared with the Idealist Stream of the power in organizations literature the Pragmatist Stream takes a very different approach to power. The Pragmatist Stream is not concerned with telling people how power “should” be within organizations but exploring how power actually is in organizations. Machaivelli and Nietzsche are the founding voices of the Stream and, in more recent times, Foucault is its main contributor. Foucault’s “archaeology of order”, “disciplinary practices” and “discourse formations” resonates with Weber’s “rule systems” and “structures of dominancy”. However, unlike rule systems, disciplinary practices and discourse formations are not thought of in terms of causal concepts of power – that is, where someone gets somebody to do something that they would not otherwise do. These practices and discourse formations are also not readily observable in episodic decision situations as they go unnoticed due to the taken for granted nature. Instead, these practices reflect the historical constitution of power within a given social system. In other words, these practices represent ways in which both individuals and groups become socially inscribed and normalized through the routine aspects of organizational life. In this way, power is embedded in people’s knowledge of power relations and how they need to act within these relations in order to legitimise their “voice”: power both surrounds and pervades them; it “is embedded in the fibre and fabric of everyday life” (Hardy and Clegg, 1996: 631). The Pragmatist Stream of the power in organizations literature exposes dimensions of power that are absent from the Idealist Stream. Most notably, the Pragmatist Stream directly challenges the sovereign model of power, which is central to the Idealist Stream and for that matter the design of the New South Wales Police Service’s reform program. The Pragmatist Stream illustrates that power cannot simply be referred to in terms of a convenient, pliable, deterministic base or resource (Clegg, 1989). Power is historically constituted in peoples’ knowledge; knowledge that shapes the sense they make of, and in, their world; knowledge that is imbued with structures of dominancy that have been constituted by the outcomes of a prevailing web of power relations; the prospects of escape from which, for both the dominant and the dominated, is limited.

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4.3 Conlusion In the Idealist Stream of the power in organizations literature, power is seen as something that somebody has or does not have; the Critical and Man­ agement Sub-streams take opposing sides in regard to who “should” have more or less of the power. For the Management Stream, it is managers who should have power: resistance to their power is considered dysfunctional, illegitimate and irrational. For the Critical theorists, resistance is a good thing: it results in creative agency, the exercise of discretion for workers and, above all, it is more democratic. Most importantly, in their promotion of a particular idea of how things “ought” to be, each Sub-stream pursues a particular ideology. The Pragmatist Stream of the power in organizations literature is very different. Foucault’s work, in particular, challenges the very notion of ideals, suggesting that they are a result of power, are culturally significant and context dependent. Ideals such as “truth”, “rationality” and “democracy” therefore are not singular but instead have a plurality. For Foucault and his followers power does not involve “taking sides, identifying who has more or less of it, as much as seeking to describe its strategic role – how it is used to translate people into characters or articulate an organizational morality play” (Hardy and Clegg, 1996: 631). Rather than idealistic, the Pragmatist Stream is strategic. When compared to the Pragmatist Stream of the power in organizations literature, the Idealist Stream, in particular its Management Sub-stream lacks depth in its coverage of power. This is because the contributors to the Idealist Stream adopt equilibrium starting points that de-contextualize their research frameworks so that they can study power at an episodic and causal level. The consequences of this approach, as will be seen, are clearly reflected in the critical review of the mainstream management literature pertaining to leadership presented in the following chapter. The Pragmatist Stream, in particular the work of Foucault and his followers, by incorporating deeper, more unobtrusive dimensions to power, provide a more in-depth account of the balance of power in organizations. The Pragmatist Stream of research into power argues that organizations are complex arenas of negotiation, contestation and struggle, rendering them “subject to multivalent powers rather than monadic sites of total control … It is in these struggles that power and resistance are played out in dramatic scenes that those approaches influenced by Foucault seem best able to appreciate because they are not predisposed to know in advance who the victorious and vanquished dramatis personae ‘should’ be” (Hardy and Clegg, 1996: 63). For this reason, management writings might benefit from research frameworks consistent with the Pragmatist Stream, particularly the work of Foucault and his followers. Such a framework is developed in Chapter 6 of this book. 99

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In the meantime, because the 1996 Wood Royal Commission into Cor­ ruption in the New South Wales Police Service and Commissioner Ryan’s reform plan places an emphasis on the concept of leadership, the next chapter provides a review of the mainstream management literature pertaining to leadership. Of interest in regard to this review is the extent to which the relationship between leadership and power is addressed and whether the nature of this coverage gives rise to problematic issues that could be investigated empirically.

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Chapter 5

Leadership Through the Power Lens The 1996 Wood Royal Commission into Corruption within the New South Wales Police Service argued that, among other things, poor leadership led to the Service’s corruption problems. As outlined in Chapter 3, in response to the Royal Commission’s findings, Police Commissioner Ryan introduced a number of reform initiatives; one of which, in line with the introduction of a flatter structure, reflects a dispersed leadership strategy. Whilst dispersed leadership will be explained in more detail later one may for now note that a dispersed leadership strategy is one that promotes empowerment and selfleadership, essentially dispersing leadership power, control and decision making amongst many individuals. The aims here are first to review the mainstream management literature pertaining to leadership, including those approaches to leadership that are categorized as dispersed leadership strategies. This is crucial as mainstream management literature was central to the design of Commissioner Ryan’s reform plan. The second aim is to illustrate how this literature is problematic as it marginalizes important issues and variables related to power. Indeed, Commissioner Ryan’s reform plan fails to consider these issues and variables. Rather than offer a simple review of the literature (see Yukl, 1989; Bass & Stodgill, 1990), what management writers have had to say about leadership will be reviewed through a power lens, more specifically a lens that reflects a deconstruction approach. Deconstruction has been described as analysis of the relationship between dualities in texts (Boje, 1995). For Calas and Smircich (1991), deconstruction emphasizes how words within texts have multiple meanings, and how the favoured theme which binds the contextual meaning of these words can mask an alternate theme from the reader. In other words, whilst texts may portray the words, deeds or actions of a subject in a positive fashion, they may simultaneously mask how these words, deeds and actions marginalize other subjects and alternative viewpoints (for further examples of deconstruction see Calas and Smircich, 1988; Culler, 1982; Derrida, 1974; Kilduff, 1993; Martin, 1990). Employing a deconstructive lens will provide access to normally taken for granted and thus hidden characteristics of power relationships; characteris101

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tics that pragmatist stream of power advocates would consider important. Using this lens to see how management writers have addressed leadership will involve looking for evidence of dualities in the main approaches to leadership expressed in the literature, as well as an assessment of the extent to which concepts such as privilege, domination and discipline are masked, but nevertheless remain embedded, within these approaches. The chapter begins by offering a critical summary of the more traditional approaches to leadership, namely the trait, style, contingency and new leadership approaches. The chapter then offers a more detailed analysis of the contemporary “dispersed leadership” literature and illustrates through this analysis that leadership theory in general, and dispersed leadership theory in particular prove problematic in organizations that are adopting new organizational forms, structures and strategies. The chapter will conclude by identifying tensions and paradoxes between the theory that underpins traditional approaches to leadership and those that underpin the theory of dispersed leadership; tensions and paradoxes that appear to have been neglected or glossed over by management writers. Key concepts that are representative of the theory of traditional and dispersed leadership are formulated. Tensions and paradoxes between theories will be explored to uncover problems in practice: concepts that represent these tensions and paradoxes make excellent guides or triggers for empirical investigation of such practices.

5.1 Traditional Approaches to Leadership The mainstream management literature pertaining to leadership may be divided into five broad approaches: trait, style, contingency, new leadership and dispersed leadership. The trait, style, contingency and new leadership approaches may be categorized as traditional and dispersed leadership as non-traditional. At this point, a brief review of the traditional approaches will be offered. The trait theories focused on determining what attributes and qualities differentiated leaders from followers. Theorists such as Bingham (1927), Bowden (1927) and Schenk (1928) explained leadership in terms of the personal attributes and characteristics of those individuals who were considered “good” leaders. In these theories, leaders were continually referred to as extraordinary individuals who held privileged social positions. Importantly, in organizations these individuals usually held a senior management position and were seen as having charismatic qualities that lower level workers responded to positively. In short, they were looked up to and revered. For instance, Barnard (1938) suggested that any person extraordinarily efficient at stimulating others, and therefore effective in conditioning collective responses, could be called a leader. 102

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The style theorists turned their attention away from the traits of leaders to how they behaved. Theorists such as Fleishman et al. (1955), Bass (1960), Lickert (1961), McGregor (1960, 1966), Blake and Mouton (1964), and Sims (1977), all explained leadership in terms of the behaviour and style of prominent social and organisational leaders. Rather than traits and charismatic qualities, the behaviour and style of successful senior executives were researched. For example, McGregor (1960) suggested that the behaviour of leaders could be grouped into two distinct styles: Theory X, a directive style and Theory Y a supportive style. Both styles achieved success yet were very different. The search was for those behaviours that made these extraordinary individuals “good” leaders. The contingency theorists argued that there was no “one best style” or set of behaviours attributable to “good” leadership. Rather they advocated that leadership is related to situational demands (Bass and Stogdill, 1990), or, in other words, situational factors determined who emerged as a leader. Theorists such as Homans (1959), Fiedler (1967), Hersey and Blanchard (1969; 1977), Evans (1970), Vroom and Yetton (1973), and Yukl (1971; 1989) all explained leadership in terms of how successful senior executives in organizations adapted to the needs of a situation, while another focus was on how to place a particular type of leader into a situation for which he or she was best suited. Organizational leaders, however, were still recognized as extraordinary individuals who occupied a senior management role. The new leadership paradigm, so called because the writers who contributed to it claimed to be adopting a new and alternative approach to the study of leadership in organizations, sees leaders as managers of meaning rather than influence mandators (Bryman, 1996: 280). The paradigm incorporated three main categories of theory: transactional leadership (Dansereau et al., 1975; Graen & Cashman, 1975; Greene, 1975; Hollander, 1979), transformational leadership (Burns, 1978; Eden, 1984; Bass, 1985; Field, 1989), and culture-based leadership (Ouchi & Jaeger, 1978; Pascale & Athos, 1981; Schein, 1985). The transactional leadership theorists, including those who explored the concept of leadership through the eyes of followers, explained leadership as being contingent on transactions or exchanges between leaders and followers (Hollander, 1979). Alternatively, transformational leadership theorists argued that “good” leadership is achieved through more than just tangible inducements. It suggested that leadership might be conceptually organized along a number of charismatic and situationally correlated dimensions: charismatic leadership, inspirational leadership, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration (Bass & Stogdill, 1990). Finally, the culture-based theorists viewed leadership as being culturally specific, where “good” leadership primarily depended on, among other things, whether or not a leader’s style was in synch with his or her organization’s culture (Bryman, 1996). As per the three previous approaches however, advocates 103

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to the new-leadership paradigm continued to recognise organizational leaders as extraordinary individuals occupying a senior position within an organization hierarchy. Theory

Trait

The Great Man Theory (Bowden, 1927) Trait Theory (Bingham, 1927) Leader Dominance Theory (Schenk, 1928)

Style

Ohio State Studies (Fleishman et al., 1955) Reinforced Change Theory (Bass, 1960) Michigan State Studies (Lickert, 1961) Theory X & Theory Y (McGregor, 1960; 1966) Managerial Grid Model (Blake & Mouton, 1964) Operand Theory of Leadership (Sims, 1977)

Contingency

Leader Role Theory (Homans, 1959) Contingency Theory (Fielder, 1964) Situational Theory (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969; 1977) Path Goal Theory (Evans, 1970; House, 1971) Multiple Linkage Theory (Yukle, 1971; 1989) Normative Theory (Vroom & Yetton, 1973; Vroom & Jago, 1988) Transactional Vertical Dyad Linkage/Leader Member exchange Theory (Dansereau et al., 1975) Role Making Model (Graen & Cashman, 1975) Reciprocal Influence Theory (Greene, 1975) Social Exchange Theory (Hollander, 1979)

New Leader-ship

Transformational Charismatic Theory (House, 1977) Transformation Theory (Burns,1978) Self Fulfilling Prophecy (Eden, 1984; Field, 1989) Transformational Leadership (Bass, 1985) Culture Theory Z (Ouchi & Jaeger, 1978) McKinsey 7-S Framework (Pascale & Athos, 1981) Management of Meaning (Schein, 1985)

                                                 

Approach

Common links: Reflect traditional functionalist organizational structures Leader/follower dualism central to leadership Leader/follower relationship differentiated dualism Leaders attributed with ‘natural’ superiority Power treated unproblematically Underlying concepts: Differentiation (clear boundaries of identity – leader/follower) Domination (“natral” superiority of the leader)

Figure 5.1: Traditional approaches to organizational leadership, common links and under­lying concepts. (Please note: this table has been adopted in part from Van Seters, D.A. & Field, R.H. (1990). The evolution of leadership theory. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 3: 29–45.)

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In summary, each of the aforementioned approaches (trait, style, contingency, and newleadership) might be thought of as rival camps in the traditional accounts of leadership. They are defined as traditional accounts because common to each is an adherence to the more orthodox structures and control models of organization. Each approach may be seen through a deconstructive lens as presenting the relationship between leaders and followers as a dualism, the nature of which is of central importance to their conceptualisation of leadership; leaders attain a position of privilege because they are considered to be superior to their followers – either through natural ability or the possession of appropriate attributes – the argument being that if leaders were not superior, people would not follow them. The literature that turns its focus to followers is underpinned by the assumption that leaders are extraordinary individuals who are superior to “their” followers. It is because of these common elements that these accounts are defined in this chapter as being traditional in orientation. These mainstream approaches to organizational leadership have taken the superior power of leaders as an assumed equilibrium starting point, thereby viewing this superiority as a “natural” thing and thus unproblematic” (Hardy and Clegg, 1996). Such a view has given rise to a theme that appears to pervade the literature: and be the focal point of research endeavours: a theme where the leader is given a “voice”, while followers are silenced (for examples see Enz, 1988; Gandz & Murray, 1980; Mintzberg, 1983). It should be noted however, that this marginalisation of followers appears to have occurred almost unwittingly. Over time the superiority of leaders has become assumed as being part of the natural order of things. In consequence, management theorists appear to have viewed the critical analysis of the relationship between leadership and power as unnecessary: more to the point, perhaps they have overlooked it.

5.2 Dispersed Approaches to Leadership Dispersed leadership, however, appears to espouse something a little different. It was central to the NSW Police Service’s and, in particular, the Cornell Local Area Command’s, reform initiatives. As categorized by Bryman (1996), this approach includes theories such as Superleadership (Manz & Sims, 1991; 1996; Sims & Lorenzi, 1992), RealTeams (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993), Self-Leadership (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Kouzes & Posner, 1993; Uhl-Bien & Graen, 1998; Williams, 1997), Leadership as a Process (Hosking, 1991; Knights & Willmott, 1992) and Distributed Leadership (Senge, 1999). In a generic sense, these theories represent the decentralization of leadership skills and responsibilities in an organization. 105

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An assessment of the titles of these theories gives an indication of the practical forms they might take (see Figure 5.1). Primarily, these forms include self-leadership and team-based leadership. Self-leadership is where employees are taught to lead themselves, taking responsibility for their own direction and control. The nature of team leadership discussed in these theories is not the same as that written about by earlier theorists on teams (Stogdill, 1959). Rather, it focuses on the nature of team leadership where an organization is restructured into autonomous work teams, recently termed self-led work teams, each of which is controlled by its own leader (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993; Barker, 1993). These theories are defined as non-traditional in their orientation because, unlike the dualistic nature of the power relationship between leaders and followers found in traditional leadership approaches, these theories espouse a sharing of power between leaders and followers. The significance of this point is that the sharing of power between leaders and followers blurs the normally clear differentiated boundaries between “the leader” and “the follower”, and renders problematic the focus on “the leader” in the more traditional theories. When leadership skills and responsibilities are dispersed or shared throughout an organization, an emphasis is placed upon the process of leadership and not upon the attributes or style of “the leader”. In short, dispersed leadership theories, in some cases may unintentionally, imply that leadership is not necessarily something that an extraordinary individual does but something that many people can do. Furthermore, viewing leadership as a process suggests that the leader/follower relationship is no longer of central importance to the study of leadership. On the contrary, such a view suggests that the boundaries, which once differentiated “the leader” from “the follower”, are now very grey.

Dispersed

Theory Leadership as Processes and skills (Hosking, 1991) Superleadership (Manz & Sims, 1991; 1996) Superleadership (Sims & Lorenzi, 1992) Real Teams (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993) Leadership Transfer (Kouzes and Posner, 1993) Self-leadership (Williams, 1997; UhlBien & Graen, 1998; Kirkman & Rosen, 1999) Leadership as process (Hosking, 1991; Knights & Willmott, 1992) Distributed Leadership (Senge, 1999)

                 

Approach

Common links: Reflect organic organizational structures Leader/follower dualism challenged Leader/follower relationship de­differentiated Leader & follower share power Power treated unproblematically Underlying concepts: De-differentiation (blurring leader/ follower identities) Democracy (sharing of power between leader & follower)

Figure 5.2: Dispersed approaches to organizational leadership, common links and under­ lying concepts.

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With the espoused sharing of power in mind, it seems reasonable to expect the construct of power to have occupied a central position in the development of dispersed leadership theory. However, a closer look at the literature shows that this is not the case. Indeed, the dispersed leadership theories tend to ignore power. By way of example, Katzenbach and Smith (1993), in their work on real teams, seem to assume that the devolution of leadership power and control to team leaders will occur smoothly. This assumption implies that the organizational elite will willingly transfer the power of leadership to team leaders and, when doing so, will have no overriding influence on the nature of this transference or its ongoing management (Barker, 1993). Yet, even if the intention of the organizational elite is to share power, the nature of their influence over followers may prevent them from achieving this, as their followers may consider such an attempt inappropriate (Haugaard, 1997). Manz and Sims (1991: 22) explain their theory of superleadership by arguing that a superleader empowers his or her followers by teaching them to lead themselves. The only explicit mention of power the authors make is in a table in which they compare the characteristics of superleadership with those of more traditional leadership approaches. Here, Manz and Sims assert that power is shared in the practice of superleadership, but fail to critically analyse the nature of power in superleadership settings. As a result, while their work makes a valuable contribution to the field, much of it remains problematic. For example, central to their model of superleadership is the process of “guided participation”, which involves leaders shaping the behaviour of their workers into a set of “desired” self-leadership behaviours. However, in this model, Manz and Sims appear to overlook the somewhat paradoxical problem associated with considering whose self-leadership behaviour is “desired”, and offer no critical evaluation of the effect of the historically constituted power differential between traditional leaders (organizational elite) and their newly appointed dispersed leaders (team leaders). Manz and Sims also do not recognize that the guided participation process may be flawed by the nature of constraint that an organization’s historical antecedents to power may have on its workers. This constraint may result in employees electing to make decisions in alignment with the expectations of their superiors, as it is their superiors who are running the guided participation process. If so, these workers are not exercising their own discretion and, rather than being shared, power remains centralized. Sims and Lorenzi (1992: 297) extend Manz and Sims’s work on superleadership. They use the same table but leave blank the cell that represents the relationship between superleadership and power (see Table 5.1). Interestingly, this is the only blank cell in the table. Sims and Lorenzi do not explain this omission, leaving one to question their intention. Nevertheless, the authors do appear to indirectly recognize the problematic nature of power. 107

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Rather than specifically discussing power, they focus on how superleaders need to be concerned with ethics when exercising influence. This discussion is then used to justify Manz and Sims’s (1991) theory of superleadership: when leaders guide others to lead themselves, they empower these people and thereby ‘cut the perceived manipulation strings’ associated with the exercise of influence (1992: 281). In a somewhat contradictory fashion, Sims and Lorenzi (1992: 281) suggest that in order to empower their followers, leaders ‘must be trained to model the desired self-leadership behaviour on the part of their subordinates’. Such a suggestion appears to promote a more surreptitious form of power since it too, does not ask the question “whose desired self-management behaviour?” It assumes that traditional leaders are more capable of knowing their followers’ best interests than the followers themselves. Table 5.1: Reproduction of the table that Sims and Lorenzi (1992: 297) use that leaves the cell for power in the Superleader scenario blank. Strong man

Transactor

Visionary hero

Superleader

Focus

Commands

Rewards

Visions

Self-leaders

Type of power

Position/ authority/ coercive Leader

Reward

Relational/ inspirational shared Leader

Direction

Goal setting

Communication of leader’s vision

Command

Contingent personal reward

Change in the status quo

Intimidation

Contingent material reward

Exhortation

Non-contingent reprimand

Contingent reprimand

Inspirational Persuasion

Fear-based compliance

Calculative compliance

Emotional commitment based on vision

Source of wisdom and direction Typical leader behaviors

Sub­ ordinate response

Leader

Mostly followers, then the leader Seven steps to superleadership

Commitment cased on ownership

Source: C.C. Manz and H.P. Sims. Jr., SuperLeadership: Leading Others to Lead Themselves (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1989).

One must question whether such a modelling process would result in empowered self-leaders. Sims and Lorenzi (1992) explain their suggestion that superleaders need to shape the self-leadership behaviour of their followers by 108

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arguing that the use of open behavioural management techniques will overcome the ethical dilemmas associated with the modelling process. Some theorists and practitioners may argue total empowerment is not the ­objective. Yet, even if the objective is only to empower lower-level leaders within specific boundaries, the sense that people make of their world is constrained by their organization’s historical antecedents. Since most recent organizational histories reflect the principles and practices of traditional organization, as outlined in the management sub-stream of the power in organizations literature, these antecedents are likely to reflect traditional power relationships. Hence, there is a strong likelihood that despite acquiring a new title or role that symbolizes their empowerment, people will continue to infer a need to comply with the wishes of previously dominant power entities. Such a level of constraint is likely to result in the continued centralization of leadership’s power and control, which contradicts the theoretical underpinnings of dispersed leadership. One is thus left questioning the extent to which the dispersed leadership literature advances the theory and practice of leadership: if power does remain centralized, then this literature is simply positing more of the same but in a mask of false empowerment; or, as Hunt and Dodge (2000) would suggest, perhaps it is simply leadership déjà vu all over again. To further understand how the idealist approach to power renders the mainstream management literature on leadership problematic, Table 5.2 compares the ways in which traditional and dispersed leadership literature addresses the constructs of structure, identity and power. While both the traditional and dispersed approaches to leadership address the constructs of structure and identity very differently, they address the construct of power in the same way, that is, they view power as being an unproblematic construct that does not warrant critical investigation. In the traditional approaches, the identity of, and relationship between, the leader and the follower reflects a social dualism in which the leader is differentiated from the follower on the basis of superior power: leaders are “naturally” superior to followers, therefore followers “should”, and will, be, willing to obey them. The assumed superiority of leaders has become part of the natural order of things in both practice and theory, and is therefore likely to be embedded in the historical antecedents of most organizations. Dispersed leadership, which has emerged in response to the nature of change in organizations, promotes the sharing of power between leaders and followers. In short, it gives followers a voice in organizational leadership. However, when viewed with respect to the constructs of structure, power and identity, traditional and dispersed leadership theories appear to be diametrically opposed to each other. Underlying traditional leadership theories (see Figure 5.1) are the concepts of differentiation (clear boundaries of identity between leaders and followers) and domination (the “natural” superiority of the leader and the giving over of will by followers). Underlying dispersed leadership theories 109

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(see Figure 5.2) are the concepts of de-differentiation (blurred boundaries of identity between leaders and followers) and democracy (sharing of power between leaders and followers). Dispersed leadership gives insufficient coverage to power (see Table 5.1). The nature of the opposition between traditional and dispersed leadership requires further empirical investigation because, if the treatment of power is the point of difference, the differentiation does not stand up to detailed inspection. When viewed through a power lens what is supposed to happen in theory – the dispersion or sharing of leadership’s power and control – may not be happening in practice. While a proliferation of new structures and titles may indicate that leadership is being dispersed at a surface level, at a deeper or unobtrusive level, leadership outcomes may remain centralized in the hands of a dominant group or individual. Therefore, under the guise of sharing leadership’s power and control, dominant power holders, perhaps unwittingly, will exercise their power through a network of compliant, so called, self-leaders. The result is more of the same, but through a more surreptitious, maybe unintentional form of dominance, rather than a democratic work environment that facilitates the checking of corrupt behaviour, flexibility and innovative responses to change. Table 5.2: How the main categories in the leadership literature address the constructs of structure, power and identity. The double line represents a key shift in the literature. Shaded cells represent areas where a contribution to research can be made. Approach

Categories

Org.structure

Power

Leader/follower identities

Traditional

Trait

Traditional

Un­ problematic

Differentiated dualism

Leader/ ­follower relations Leader ­dominant

Style

Traditional

Un­ problematic

Differentiated dualism

Leader ­dominant

Contingency

Traditional

Un­ problematic

Differentiated dualism

Leader ­dominant

NewLeadership

Predominantly Traditional

Differentiated dualism

Leader ­dominant but inter­ action recognised

Dispersed

New Organisational forms (Organic)

Power ­addressed at a surface level (resource and decision based) Un­ problematic Insufficient coverage of power

Appears to be blurring?

Appears (on the surface) to be dedifferent­iat­ ing due to the sharing of power?

Non-traditional

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Barker (1993) provides an excellent empirical example of similar findings in regard to what is supposed to happen in theory and what is actually happening in practice. He conducted an ethnographic study of what happens when an organization moves from a hierarchical based structure to a structure that utilizes autonomous or self-managed-work teams. These teams were empowered to the point where they essentially operated as separate business units, controlling customer relations, budgeting, inventory, hiring, firing, processes and such like. The organization’s objective for implementing such a change was to improve its customer relations, operational flexibility and responsiveness to market changes. Whilst the structural change represented a radical shift intended to induce equity and a more egalitarian work environment which freed workers from Weber’s “iron cage” of bureaucratic constraint (rules, regulations and norms of order), Baker finds that the structural change actually tightens the cage. He empirically verifies that on the surface the organization implemented a new form of organizing, but at a deeper level the knowledge of how to organize that each of the organization’s members reflected on to make sense of their work environments still drew on the organization’s historical antecedents that were grounded in bureaucratic principles. In consequence, when the organization introduced fully autonomous work teams, the members of these teams, reflecting on their knowledge of how to organize, simply reconstructed the original bureaucracy, only on a smaller scale: they reformulated the hierarchy by appointing leaders and supervisors as well as constituting stringent rules and disciplinarian practices. Rather than freeing itself from its historically constituted bureaucratic constraints, the organization became a collection of mini-bureaucracies in which the level of constraint was heightened. Baker (1993) shows that the level of constraint is heightened because of an escalation of commitment to the new (despite being smaller) hierarchy and rules of governance: the members of each autonomous team (mini-bureaucracy) essentially owned the change they instigated and thus committed themselves to it. So, while things may appear to change on the surface, this does not mean that things actually change. In the Baker (1993) case, not only did the organization’s structure have to change but so did the knowledge that the organization’s members reflected on when they were attempting to make sense of their work environments.

5.3 Dispersed Leadership: Problematic Considerations in Regard to Power Some management theorists that are less mainstream have attempted to critically address the link between leadership and power. For instance, in the field of education, Dunlop and Goldman (1991), as well as Kreisberg 111

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(1992), have developed the theme of “power through” and “power with” instead of “power over”. The terms “power through” and “power with” are recognized as emancipative approaches to leadership that advocate the empowerment of followers. However, while these approaches make a ­valuable contribution to the literature by responding to the shifting limits of power in organizations (use of flatter structures), they neglect the “paradox of emancipation” discussed earlier. Also neglected are the more unobtrusive dynamics of power so prevalent in the pragmatist stream of the power in organizations literature; as well as how power becomes historically constituted in an organization’s meaning systems. Without further investigation into the effect of the more unobtrusive dynamics of power in organizational settings, one cannot be sure that “power through” and “power with” are not simply an alternative form of “power over”. These approaches may simply mask the continuing effects of deep-seated power antecedents that reinforce the “power over” approach. Similar to the Baker (1993) example discussed earlier, these writers need to consider that what appears to be happening on the surface may not be the complete picture. Haugaard (1997) argues that the effects of deep-seated antecedents related to power are unobtrusive, that is, they go largely unnoticed, because, over time, the continual reinforcement of differential power relationships result in the roles that constitute these relationships, particularly leadership roles, acquiring a form of social capital that becomes a taken for granted reality forming a privilege and political leverage over others that these others do not question. In other words, the need for these roles and their associated superior power becomes a reified “truth”. Haugaard adds that, “once a set of practices are reified, they are no longer open to dispute”, thus they become part of the natural order of things (Haugaard, 1997: 213). The importance of this point is that the constant reinforcement throughout the pre-modern and modern eras, at both a theoretical and practical level, of the leader/follower dualism, has resulted in the “natural” superiority of the leader, not to mention the very need for leadership, becoming an indisputable “reality” (Sievers, 1994). If leaders do not act with respect to their organizations’ historical antecedents, codes of order and disciplined practices, they risk losing the support of their followers. Given the reification of leadership, these phenomena may have problematic implications for dispersed leadership. For instance, if, in an attempt to disperse leadership, traditional leaders de-differentiate their relationship with their followers, these followers may well see them as behaving inappropriately. In such a case, followers may react by seeking to replace the leader with a more traditionally oriented leader. Thus, if leaders wish to lead they will need to maintain their “differential status”. To do this they will need to be perceived by their followers as behaving as a

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leader “should”, namely behave with respect to the disciplined practice that reflects “good” leadership for their organization (Haugaard, 1997). In addition, Weber’s structures of dominancy and Foucault’s disciplinary practices illustrate that organizations are not equitable social systems. People in positions of dominance with a strong voice are more likely to shape the nature of change in social settings. Organizational leaders in particular, as reflected in the leader/follower dualism, traditionally hold positions of dominance. As Haugaard (1997) notes, people who hold positions of dominance, by virtue of the acceptance of their superiority by others, become legitimate “carriers of meaning” and “producers of truth”. Not surprisingly then, people have come to rely on leaders to make decisions, or as Foucault would say, “construct new truths”. The ability to do this is a phenomenon that is central to the transformational leadership research. In consequence, however, the privileged position held by traditional leaders has allowed them to control agendas and thus “…produce a corpus of statements which not only create new ‘truths’, but also recreate the justification for their own existence” (Haugaard, 1997: 208). In short, this privileged position has allowed traditional leaders to consolidate their need to exist and embed their right to power within the historical antecedents and meaning systems of organizations. An embedded right to power would render the notion of dispersed leadership problematic. When introducing dispersed leadership one is left pondering questions such as what happens to the reality of leadership when power is shared between the leader and the follower. If the identity of leaders and followers is no longer differentiated who leads and who follows? Is the sharing of power between leaders and followers not unlike the shifting limits to power in organizations, rendering leadership an untruth? Reflecting on Foucault’s power/knowledge nexus, for leadership to become an untruth, our understanding of leadership, which has been constituted over centuries, would need to be changed or more accurately, reconstituted. At this time, it seems safe to assert that in western societies, as well as most other societies, the understanding of leadership has not been reconstituted. Thus, even if an organization introduces dispersed leadership it is highly likely that the antecedents and the meaning systems its members reflect upon to make sense of things will reflect the principles, practices and social expectations of traditional leadership. In such a situation there is likely to be a tension, if not a paradox, between the organization’s surface structures (structural changes reflecting the dispersion of leadership) and its historical antecedents (deeper more unobtrusive structures reflecting the history of leadership). Such tensions and paradoxes need to be more thoroughly scrutinized empirically. The present study attempts to make a contribution in this area. The deconstruction of the mainstream management literature on lead113

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ership shows that, in general, theorists in the field have tended to treat the relationship between leadership and power as being unproblematic. Contributors to this literature treat the superiority of leaders as an unremarkable phenomenon and therefore offer little, if any, critical evaluation of the implications associated with this superiority. Even the dispersed leadership theorists, perhaps somewhat perfunctorily, argue for the sharing of power between leaders and followers, yet continue with the apolitical approach adopted by the vast majority of traditional leadership theorists. From a more abstract level, if the leader/follower relationship is de-differentiated, with power shared between the leader and follower, the question that must be asked is, “who leads and who follows”? Does not such a question imply “the leader” is dead? Further, if dispersed leadership is killing “the leader”, is this pre-empting the end of “leadership”? This is only the case if leadership continues to be seen as something that an extraordinary individual (“the leader”) does, rather than a process, which can be shared among many people. Irrespective of whether people are capable of viewing leadership as a process or not, it seems safe to argue that because of personal power, not to mention the reification of leadership, people will continue to rely on those they consider to be “special” for leadership. The problem is, what will be the consequence of this reliance in organizations (such as the NSW Police Service), seeking to implement empowerment strategies to create a more egalitarian work environment? The answer to this question requires a more thorough empirical investigation of the relationship between leadership and power than currently exists in the management literature.

5.4 Conclusion This chapter began by highlighting that while leadership reform was of central importance to both the 1996 Wood Royal Commission into corruption in the New South Wales Police Service, and Commissioner Ryan’s reform plan, both had largely neglected the construct of power. The chapter argued that Commissioner Ryan’s neglect of power was indicative of the managerial and functionalist based literature that appears to underpin the design of his reform plan. In addition, the chapter illustrated how power was central to the context of change in today’s organizations, more specifically, how it is fundamentally characterized by a shift in the traditional limits to power within these organizations. For this reason, rather than simply offer a review of the mainstream management literature pertaining to leadership, the chapter focused on how this literature addressed power. The deconstructive critique of the mainstream management literature pertaining to leadership revealed that it addresses power unproblematically; the 114

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consequence of which is that the literature is limited to reflections of surface level issues and occurrences, or as Clegg (1989) might suggest, it reflects only the first level of his circuits of power model, and is thus limited to descriptions of what occurs and lacks rich insight into how and why things occur as they do. When viewed through a power lens that embodies a Foucauldian approach to power, mainstream management’s approach to leadership is shown to be problematic because it neglects how history shapes the present; it neglects how power is embedded in an organization’s historically constituted meaning systems; how power is constituted in the codes of order and disciplined practices that organizational members reflect upon to make sense of their work settings. In particular, the literature on dispersed leadership appears unaware that much of what it promulgates is likely to be in tension with the constitution of power for the organizations of most industrialized nations. As this chapter has illustrated, when viewed through a power lens the traditional leader/follower dualism is underpinned by the concepts of differentiation and domination. In contrast, dispersed leadership theory is underpinned by the concepts of de-differentiation and democracy. One can clearly see that these two sets of concepts are in tension with each other. As a result of this tension the attempt to implement empowerment strategies in general, and dispersed leadership in particular, in organizations with a history of practices that are more traditional or orthodox, is likely to be problematic. Such a proposition suggests that in organizations such as the New South Wales Police Service, one cannot be sure that the surface level structural changes that aim to transfer leadership power and control to the front line and, through this, create more democratic work environments, actually have the anticipated effects. Despite the Commissioner’s claims to the contrary (Ryan, 1998; 2001), power may still remain centralized in the hands of a dominant few. The following chapter develops a research and methodological framework to conduct an investigation into the New South Wales Police Service to see whether there was a tension between structural change and historical antecedents. As shall be seen, the framework, amongst other things, employs the concepts discussed above.

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PART III

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Chapter 6

The Research and Methodological Framework The review of the “power in organizations” literature showed that management writers have largely limited their analysis to first dimensional, episodic, decision-based and resource dependency models of power. The Foucauldian power/knowledge nexus and associated unobtrusive dynamics of power remain under-explored. Therefore, one of the key objectives of the present research is to incorporate Foucauldian analytics, particularly those related to genealogy. In order to consider the broader methodological context of the research, the initial discussion in this chapter will focus on contextual issues ­related to the shift in the “limits to power” associated the “new organizational forms”, which in recent times have been adopted by organizations across the globe. The discussion includes a review of the debates between leading organizational studies theorists who view the shifting “limits to power” or boundaries of power in organizations as central to the arguments. The relevance of these debates to the present study is also discussed as are a number of secondary methodological issues. These issues include: how to deal with the qualitative/quantitative dichotomy; controlling for the researcher’s “inter­pretative leap”; and, the rationale behind employing theoretical sampling procedures. The chapter then explores the methodological framework by providing an analysis of why genealogy as a methodology is suited to this research project. With the idea of providing a tight link between theory and method in mind this analysis provides the theoretical base for the study’s research questions, its methods and protocols as well as its data collection and analysis procedure; all of which are present in the following chapter. The chapter will conclude with a summary of the relevant issues, a brief discussion of the framework’s contributions and limitations, and an outline of how the framework will be used to achieve its aims.

6.1 Contextual Issues for Organizational Research This section considers a number of contextual issues in the field of organization studies. These issues include trends in organizational change as well as 119

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contemporary debates, arguments and challenges related to theory building. The consideration of these issues is aimed at linking the research to contemporary literature and thereby enhancing the study’s relevance and contribution to knowledge (Frost and Stablein, 1992).

6.1.1 The widespread adoption of new organizational forms The effect of the shifting “limits to power” in organizations, brought about by advances in technology and the subsequent widespread adoption of new organizational forms (Clegg and Hardy, 1996), is of central importance to this study. The mainstream management literature on new organizational forms (Bolman and Deal, 2003) tends to concentrate on the needs, characteristics and benefits of these forms. This literature implies that there are “either” traditional organizational forms “or” new organizational forms and discusses the difficulties associated with making the shift from the traditional to the new. One may argue that while the literature is predominantly facilitative, above all, it lacks depth (Palmer and Dunford, 1997). Reflection on a number of earlier theoretical approaches, including Fou­ cault’s (1970) archaeology of order, Gidden’s (1984) theory of structuration, and Gersick’s (1991) theory of punctuated equilibrium, provides insight into the potential problematic issues associated with such a shift from the “old” to the “new”. For instance, the theory of punctuated equilibrium applied to organizations suggests that stability is the common state of orga­nizations. The foundation of this stability is the institutionalization of an organization’s meaning systems (Gersick, 1991). In view of the process of institutionalization, it seems reasonable to assert that an organization with an extended history of using traditional organizational structures and practices has antecedents reflecting these structures and practices embedded in its meaning systems. If this were the case, the adoption of new organizational forms by such organizations would potentially be problematic because existing meaning systems are likely to be out of synch with the new organizational forms. Palmer and Dunford (1997) provide empirical data that suggests that this mismatch between meaning systems and surface structures is far more pronounced than one might think. They surveyed more than three hundred organizations in Australia to verify the extent to which these organizations were actually using new organizational forms. Interestingly, they found that eighty seven percent of organizations were using new organizational forms in one way or another but, more importantly, eighty three percent still used the traditional functionalist form as their organizational structure. In short, Palmer and Dunford’s (1997) findings suggest that the large majority of organizations appear to be simultaneously using both traditional and new ­organizational forms. This would be less of a problem if the difference between the new organizational forms and traditional organizational forms were purely func120

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tional but this is not the case. When viewed through a power lens, Palmer and Dunford’s (1997) findings reveal an operational paradox, which needs ­further exploration. To explain this paradox it is helpful to reflect on Weber’s interpretation of “structures of dominancy” mentioned in Chapter Four. In considering the taken for granted nature of structures of dominancy, one may argue that, in its most fundamental form, this paradox is represented by an attempt to share power within historically constituted structures of dominancy. In ­other words, the paradox is represented by an attempt to practice democracy within a regime of domination whereby those who are not sanctioned with authority have a duty to obey those that are (Clegg, 1975; 1990; Gordon & Grant, 2005). One can gain an appreciation of the significance of this paradox by considering the question – what happens to a person’s duty to obey when they are empowered? Empowerment strategies are recognized as being essential to the introduction of new organizational forms: people who are empowered have a “voice”, and are more likely to seek collaboration rather than merely obey. Accordingly, an assessment of this paradox causes one to question the extent to which the meaning systems of an organization with a history of using traditional organizational structures and practices, such as the NSW Police Service, continues to constrain the voices of its workers after an empowerment strategy has been introduced? In summary, there is a high likelihood that the historical antecedents, codes of order and disciplined practices that comprise the NSW Police Service’s constitution of power will reflect the principles of traditional organizational forms. Consequently, the Service’s constitution of power is likely to be in conflict with the theoretical principles underpinning its current reform agenda. The research framework employed here gives these tensions and paradoxes a central role in the research process.

6.1.2 Contemporary debates, arguments and challenges in organizational studies In consideration of contextual breadth and depth, this section shifts the discussion away from new organizational forms in practice to key contextual debates related to theory. The discussion includes reference to the recent theoretical insights of leading organizational writers (Clegg and Hardy, 1996; Weick, 1999; Flyvbjerg, 2001) into the shifting “limits to power” in social systems and the related blurring of differential boundaries, especially paradigmatic boundaries. Paradigm wars have raged in the field of organizational studies since the publication of Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) classic text Sociological Paradigms and Organization Analysis. Since this publication, numerous organizational theorists (Jackson & Willmott, 1987; Reed, 1988; Flyvbjerg, 121

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2001; Gordon, 2002) have debated the concept of “paradigm incommensurability” (see also Hinings, Clegg, Child, Aldrich, Karpik & Donaldson, 1988). However, because the shift in the “limits to power” in organizations causes differential boundaries, including those that delineate paradigms, to blur, there is now a call for these paradigmatic wars to come to an end. For example, Flyvbjerg (2001) argues that it is time to move beyond the natural verses social sciences debate; Langley (1999) and Pentland (1999) assert it is time to move beyond the positivist versus anti-positivist, as well as the inductive versus deductive debates; Calas and Smircich (1999) suggest that it is time move beyond the modern versus postmodern debate; while Weick (1999) argues that in a discontinuous post-modern world, rather than continuing to fight, we need to acknowledge multiple viewpoints and make sense of things the best way that we can. The shifting “limits to power” in organizations have particular relevance for Weick’s comment about making sense the best way one can. When people acquire power, they also acquire a “voice” and any successful dispersion of power throughout an organization means that there will be more voices contesting an organization’s political terrain. In short, conflict is heightened resulting in discursive practices that challenge traditional boundaries of constraint. In light of this change some theorists such as Weick (1995), Clegg (2001) and, more generally “ethnographers” and “action researchers”, have gone further, calling for both paradigmatic boundaries to be dismantled and for the gap between theory and practice to be bridged. In this sense, these theorists question the value, or perhaps the sustained value, of building abstract theoretical representations that are fixed in discontinuously changing environments. That is, if, due to radically shifting business environments, the theoretical boundaries within which a theory was generated are not being replicated exactly as before, the value or relevance of the theory becomes questionable. In view of the fast changing nature of business environments (Clegg, 1990; Bolman & Deal, 1997; Weick, 1999), it appears appropriate to place an emphasis on how contexts shift. Indeed, by doing so, one may argue that the study of how people theorize in practice would be more beneficial. Through reflection on Weick’s (1995) work on sensemaking, one could contend that sensemaking is a form of practical theorizing; that is when people attempt to make sense of things they are in fact theorizing. This was the central insight that Clegg took from ethnomethodology in his 1975 book Power, Rule and Domination, when he referred to “theorizing power” as something done not just by professional theorists but also lay people. Irrespective of whether one values abstract theory or views sensemaking as practical theorizing, it seems safe to say that in the turbulent business environments of today, management researchers could learn from placing a greater emphasis on how 122

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contexts shift. However, this means that they would need to adopt more reflexive approaches to their research work (Clegg & Hardy, 1996). The previous chapter argued that the mainstream management literature is far from reflexive as it espouses versions of how things “should” be. Clegg and Hardy (1996) point out that no viewpoint deserves privilege over another: as outlined in Chapter Four, to make such a claim would require one to adopt a sovereign position of power and to assume intellectual superiority, which in a cultural sense would also be ethnocentric (Haugaard, 1997). Ethnocentricity is increasingly recognized as somewhat dysfunctional in today’s global business world. Clegg and Hardy add that, in a world made up of diverse religious, cultural and political viewpoints, researchers need to become more reflexive, dismantle their paradigmatic boundaries, and converse with other viewpoints. Similarly, Flyvbjerg (2001) highlights that dispelling other paradigmatic viewpoints simply “amputates the other side of understanding”. He reinforces Clegg and Hardy’s emphasis on reflexivity by adding that researchers need to move away from the “either/or” viewpoint that has constituted the science and other paradigmatic wars, to a “both/and” viewpoint that recognizes “the other” and enriches overall understanding. Any attempt, from a methodological standpoint, to do this, would be likely to make a valuable contribution to knowledge. It is in regard to this last point that the difference between the “idealist” and “pragmatist” streams of research on power in organizations acquires significance for this study. Contributors to the “pragmatist stream” are concerned with interpreting how power actually is in organizations: they do not take sides in the power game, just study it, and offer a more balanced account of power in organizations. As shown in chapter four, however, contributors to the “idealist stream”, with their commitment to a particular form of ideology, reinforce paradigmatic boundaries by dismissing other viewpoints as being “wrong”. In effect, they adopt an “either/or” approach to their research. The result is theory that has no room for alternative points of view because it reflects a version of an “ideal end” or how things “ought” to be. Such an approach contradicts many contemporary debates and arguments on theory building in organizational studies. In summary, contemporary debates and arguments on theory building in organizational studies appear to be calling for writers to adopt research frameworks that incorporate multiple viewpoints and reflexive practices; research frameworks that adopt a “both/and” approach to provide a richer, more balanced account of research settings; research frameworks that do not privilege a view of how things “ought” to be, but focus on how things “actually” are. Accordingly, the research framework developed for this study attempts to adopt a “both/end” approach by drawing on qualitative and quantitative, as well as inductive and deductive methods, and taking steps towards bridging the gap between theory and practice. 123

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6.2 Broad Methodological Considerations The distinction between qualitative and quantitative methodologies is, according to Deetz (1996), more than a simple difference in modes of data collection. The essential difference lies in what the research is trying to do rather than in just representing different points of view on the same thing: “they are producing and elaborating in the act of researching different phenomena for different reasons” (Deetz, 1996: 194). Stablein (1996: 515), however, makes the point that the dichotomy represents a “binary opposition that hides more complex, non-dichotomous, and non-hierarchical distinctions”. It has the effect of reducing all data to a numerical/non-numerical distinction where the non-numerical represents the subordinate side of the dichotomy. He maintains that this is a far too basic view of the various methodologies that fall within each of these domains. Yet, it is a dichotomy that continues to favour quantitative research, which, while providing methodological rigor and generalizable theory, is often unrepresentative of the reality of social settings. Thus, it “systematically overlooks critical features that often render the results epistemologically valueless” (Evered and Louis, 1991: 17). As a result of considering both Deetz’s and Stablein’s observations, this study does not view the relationship between quantitative and qualitative research as a dichotomy, but instead draws upon Weick’s (1979) discussion on the trade-off between accuracy, simplicity and generality to offer an insight into how both quantitative and qualitative methods might complement each other. The extent to which research is “accurate” can be defined as a more micro-dimensional approach that focuses on capturing the detail of happenings, action and phenomena in a research setting, while “simplistic” research can be defined as easily understood and less complex. Typically, “generalist” research can be defined as a more macro approach, concentrating on producing theory that is generalizable across research settings. In regard to this trade-off, Thorngate (1976: 134–135) points out that “we shall never see a general, simple and accurate theory of social behaviour. In order to increase both generality and accuracy, the complexity of our theories must necessarily be increased.” Weick (1999: 801) suggests that “Carried to the extreme, accurate-simple explanations say everything about nothing, general-simple explanations say nothing about everything, and general-accurate explanations say everything about everything but are unintelligible.” Langley (1999: 706) maintains that her work shows that “accuracy tends to conflict with both simplicity and generality” and that “generality and simplicity tend to be more compatible.” Weick (1999: 802) goes further and at the same time throws a “spanner in the works” by pointing out that: If as Thorngate asserts, it is true that it is impossible for an explanation of social behaviour to be simultaneously general, accurate, and simple, then the

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assertion is false. It is false because the assertion IS general (it applies to all explanations), IS simple (it is summarized in one accessible sentence), and IS accurate (it is a valid prediction).

One can recognize however, that that this “spanner in the works” argument is based on the assumption there is only one body of knowledge from which versions of what is general, accurate and simple can be drawn. Foucault’s power/knowledge nexus shows that knowledge has a plurality and thus so does perceptions of generality, accuracy and simplicity. In other words, in one body of knowledge a theory may be seen as “general” and/or “simple”, while in another it may be seen as “accurate”: the mix of these three constructs would depend on the corpus of knowledge used by those interpreting the theory. An examination of Weick’s “spanner in the works” argument however, reveals an important suggestion that resonates with the above counter-claim. He writes that, “theorists may be better off trying to author relatively ‘pure’ exhibits of general or accurate or simple explanations and leave the readers to embellish the text in ways that add in the two missing dimensions.” This is a significant proposition as it echoes of Foucauldian analytics and also responds to theorists such as Heller (1956), and, more recently, Clegg and Hardy (1996), Garrick and Rhodes (2000) and Boje (2001), as well as some ethnographers, action researchers, and narratologists, who call for the gap between researchers, their subjects and their readers to be bridged. These theorists suggest that academic writers cannot continue to promulgate their viewpoint of how things “should” be from an assumed position of intellectual superiority. In short, academics are not the holders of all-powerful knowledge. Employing genealogy as its methodology, this study must be concerned with local settings and the detailed analysis of the practices that occur in these settings. For this reason, the study pays heed to Weick’s suggestion, focuses on achieving “accuracy”, and will allow the reader to embellish the text and add their own interpretation of the other two theoretical dimensions of simplicity and generality. It is through its focus on “accuracy” that this study combines qualitative and quantitative methods in such a way that they complement each other. As will be seen, in line with genealogical studies, the data collected for analysis is “non-numerical” (Stablein, 1996: 515). This study however, uses quantitative methods in its sampling and data collection procedures. As Weick (1999) points out, whatever method is used, quantitative or qualitative, there will always be an interpretative step or leap that relies on the imagination of the researcher. Langley (1999: 707) maintains that no researcher is absolved from “the need to test his or her interpretations systematically” (see also Esenhardt, 1989; Pentlend, 1999). Here, quantitative methods are 125

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used in the sampling, data collection and data analysis procedures in a way that systematize the researcher’s interpretative leap. In accordance with genealogical analysis, the study employs theoretical sampling procedures. Theoretical sampling is sampling on the basis of concepts that have proven theoretically relevant to the evolving theory. The term “proven theoretically relevant” means that certain concepts become significant in the data because they are repeatedly present or notably absent when comparing incident after incident. Through coding and analysis procedures, they become more relevant than other concepts (Strauss and Corbin, 1990: 177). In effect, theoretically relevant concepts are those that have a high frequency of occurrence in the data; in short, they hold a dominate position in the data (Eisenhardt, 1989). The aim in theoretical sampling is to sample those incidents and events that are indicative of these dominant concepts. This aim necessarily implies that data collection and analysis is an iterative process. Accordingly, the theoretical sampling method employed here involves conducting a series of quantitative frequency measures of concepts that represent the underlying themes of text within the data. These concepts are implanted in the data via computer software. With each data collection and analysis phase, those concepts that dominate the data are kept, while all others are discarded. In short, the data runs through a series of dis-aggregation and re-aggregation processes, based on quantitatively (frequency count) identified dominant concepts and relationship patterns between these concepts. The data sets that remain are analysed qualitatively. The method of qualitative analysis employed might be recognized as a form of textual deconstruction, that draws on genealogical principles (Foucault, 1991), forms of deconstruction (Boje, 2001; Martin, 1990) and discourse analysis (Clegg, 1975; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985; Fairclough, 1989; 1995; van Dijk, 1997). The method focuses on bringing dualisms that is: relationships in which one party is privileged with an assumed right to power over another in representations of differential relationships that have a historical significance and are thus taken for granted, to the surface (Clegg, 2001: 139). In the broader sense, textual deconstruction will be used to expose the organization’s historical constitution of power. The method also draws upon the principles of story telling and narratology (Clegg, 1975; Boje, 1995; 2001; Flyvbjerg, 1998; 2001). Wittgenstein (1968: 61) maintained that to acquire a rich understanding of social settings, actual practices needed studying before the rules that are “supposed” to govern them. He added that one is not satisfied with learning only about those parts of practices that are open to public scrutiny; the unobtrusive also needs to be investigated. For instance, to know a city, one does not just read a map but needs to experience life in the side streets and alleys of the city (Flyvbjerg, 2001: 85–86). The aim therefore, is to present the data in such a 126

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way that, similar to a narrative, the story that represents what occurred in the research setting gradually unfolds from the diverse, complex, and sometimes conflicting data. Further, in response to Weick’s (1999) suggestion, the interpretation and analysis is presented not as an omniscient account but as a series of reflections of the data that leave scope for readers to make their own interpretations and conclusions.

6.3 The Research Framework The research framework has three main objectives. First, it will take account of the tensions and paradoxes between the NSW Police Service’s surface structures and its constitution of power. The Service’s surface structures are recognized as those structures that were recently implemented and reflect both the principles of “new organizational forms” and, more importantly, a shift in the Service’s traditional “limits to power”. Secondly, the research framework will respond to current debates and arguments on theory building in the field of organizational studies by taking steps toward bridging the gap between research paradigms, as well as theory and practice. Thirdly, it will utilize textual deconstruction incorporating Foucauldian analytics, grounded theory and ethnographic principles to capture the unobtrusive dynamics of power. To achieve these objectives, the framework incorporates three main stages, each of which is outlined below (see Figure 6.1).

Figure 6.1: The research framework.

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6.3.1 Generating a priori concepts to focus the research Eisenhardt (1989) points out that process-oriented research generates vast amounts of data. She suggests using a priori concepts to guide data collection and analyse activities to help focus the research and prevent researchers from becoming lost in their data. Drawing on Eisenhardt’s ideas on grounded theory and case study research, Stage One of the research framework involves the deconstruction of the theoretical approaches pertinent to the research. In this study’s case, as discussed in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, the existing theoretical approaches can be found in the mainstream management literature pertaining to leadership and power. In light of this literature, Commissioner Ryan’s reform plan is distinctly functionalist and ignorant of important issues and variables related to power. The objective of the deconstruction process, as explained in Chapter 5, is to generate concepts that represent the underlying assumptions and principles in relation to how each theoretical approach to leadership addresses power. Stage Two involves comparing the concepts from each theoretical approach to identify which are in tension and which are not. The concepts that are in alignment are discarded, while those that are in tension are maintained and become the a priori research triggers and guides. Such an approach not only prevents the researcher from drowning in a sea of data but also focuses the research on empirics that reflect the effects of the theoretical tensions and paradoxes. Effectively, the tensions and paradoxes between different theoretical viewpoints pertinent to the research setting are recognized as areas where theory is likely to be weak in practice (Poole and Van de Ven, 1989). By using a priori concepts generated from existing literature to guide an inductive study, the research framework draws on both deductive (testing theory in practice) and inductive (theory emerging from practice) theory building approaches (Langley, 1999). In this way, the framework takes steps towards bridging the gap between theory and practice, with tensions in existing theory guiding the analysis of the adopted theory in practice. The emergent theory will be grounded in the tensions and paradoxes between theory and practice, in this case, the theory and practice of dispersed leadership and power (see Figure 5.1).

6.3.2 The inductive study Stage Three involves an ongoing inductive study in which the previously generated a priori concepts are used as triggers and guides for data collection and analysis. It is in this stage that Foucauldian analytics will be incorporated. Briefly, this Third Stage involves: an archaeological study from which a framework on the Police Service’s constitution of power will be developed, and an analysis of the ongoing discursive action of police officers 128

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to observe how this action is both constrained and enabled by the organization’s constitution of power. It is acknowledged that genealogists might consider the use of a priori concepts as failing to strictly follow the principles of genealogy because it confines the way data will be collected from the research setting. One might argue however, that while an advocate of genealogy, Foucault’s later work challenged the notion of adherence to strict principles. In his later “care of the self” phase, Foucault challenges researchers to overcome the constraint of their own constitution of knowledge. To do this, he maintains that people need to position themselves in alien cultural settings where their existing constitution of knowledge cannot help them make sense of what is happening around them. In such settings people need to focus on the “other”, rather than the “self”, be reflexive, and seek to learn how to learn. If one is continuously learning to learn, one’s boundaries of knowledge and identity are never fixed, meaning that one can never be trapped by a particular body of knowledge and viewpoint of the world (Foucault, 1980; Haugaard, 1997; Hardy and Clegg, 1996). The contemporary debates outlined above, which urge researchers to dismantle and move beyond their paradigmatic boundaries, resonate with this challenge, as does using a priori concepts to focus on tensions between theoretical viewpoints. That is, rather than privilege any one theoretical body of knowledge, here, a priori concepts are used to enter the space between bodies on knowledge. While genealogy as a methodology will be discussed in more detail later, by way of brief explanation one may note that employing such a methodology focuses the researcher on achieving “accuracy” in regard to the theory building process. To enhance the achievement of accuracy, the framework uses both qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as theoretical sampling procedures. Furthermore, by conducting frequency measures to guide a series of dis-aggregation and re-aggregation processes on the data, those concepts that dominate or saturate the data are identified and come into explicit focus. This process adds rigour to the qualitative analysis by systematizing the researcher’s “interpretative leap”. The final stage of the empirical study involves conducting textual deconstruction on the data set containing the dominant concepts to identify those discourse patterns that reflect the organization’s historical constitution of power. Quantitative counts of the relative frequency of thematic codes occurring in the data provide a picture of broad trends in the interpretation that officers have of power in their organization. As mentioned earlier, the discourse patterns within the data will be analysed and presented in a narrative form that tells a story about how the police organization’s constitution of power constrains and enables the practices of its officers; a story that leaves scope for readers to make their own interpretations and conclusions. It is noted that leaving scope for the reader’s interpretations does not mean 129

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that the researcher will not present summaries and propositions from the data: these summaries and propositions will also be subject to the reader’s value deliberation.

6.4 The Methodology Genealogy has its roots in Nietzsche and is a method for studying social patterns, their evolution, and change within an historical context. Drawing on the work of Nietzsche, Foucault (1994: 76–77) asserts that genealogy: … requires patience and a knowledge of details, and it depends on a vast accumulation of source materials. Its “cyclopean monuments” are constructed from “discrete and apparently insignificant truths and according to a rigorous method” … it rejects the meta-historical deployment of ideal significations and indefinite teleologies. It opposes itself to the search for “origins”.

One may argue that Foucault is intimating that genealogy is unlike the more traditional scientific methods since it is not grounded in a teleological viewpoint or “grand narrative” (Ritzer, 1996: 609–610). Teleologies and grand narratives may be recognized as large bodies of knowledge that aspire to a particular version of how things “should” be. Genealogy therefore, fits well with the “pragmatist stream” of research into organizations but not with the “idealist stream.” Rather than reinforcing a grand-narrative or overarching body of knowledge, genealogy acknowledges and attempts to interpret a plurality of local knowledge/s, and the interaction between these knowledge/s. A “local knowledge” may be recognized as a form of knowledge that is culturally, practically and contextually significant, existing independent, and at the extremity, of, a broader social system. Haugaard’s (1997) interpretation of “practical consciousness” resonates with what Foucault means by local knowledge. It is acknowledged that pinpointing where a local knowledge starts and ends renders the concept somewhat problematic. Local knowledge/s are only local in regard to something more global: it could be argued that in relation to something more local than they are, that local knowledge/s will themselves be totalitarian. To view the concept of local knowledge/s in this way is to miss the point of genealogy. Genealogy, unlike the more traditional scientific methods, does not rely on a relatively fixed reference point and does not set out to “pinpoint” the beginning and end of local knowledge/s. Rather, genealogy is grey (Foucault, 1971: 76) in that it embraces the discursive nature of empirical environments, shifting and changing as they do. The data material – usually interviews, documents, and observations – will in130

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corporate many different histories, people, viewpoints, events and contexts. It is the patterns that emerge from the mixture of all these elements that is of interest for genealogy. Genealogy places an emphasis on “pluralism” and “process” (Kendall and Wickham, 1999), with both terms implicit in the study of interaction between multiple forms of local knowledge or practical consciousness. In doing so, the methodology of genealogy assists researchers to break free from the constraint that their own ideals may place on them. By making its starting point the small and local happenings of social systems, genealogy focuses on recording the actualities of social interaction and thus, to some extent, avoids the deception couched within the promotion of a “should” at the expense of an “actual” implicit to an ideological viewpoint. In essence, genealogy concerns the reconstruction of stories, from beginning to end, that suggest how the past shapes the present. Such reconstruction requires the dis-aggregation and re-aggregation of stories into their common patterns, thereby producing a systematized and more balanced account of how present events actually come to take place. Thus, a plurality of local knowledge/s or versions of stories can be organized to form sets of broader patterns that highlight historical antecedents, codes of order and structures of dominancy. The objective is to focus on small everyday occurrences to reveal the nature of power relationships, to dig deep behind the scenes to acquire a rich interpretation of the difference and contradictions between local knowledge/s, in a way that exposes how particular forms of power and knowledge dominate others. Foucault (1976: 83) states: What it (genealogy) really does is to entertain the claims to attention of local, discontinuous, disqualified, illegitimate knowledges against the claims of a unitary body of theory which would filter, hierarchize and order them in the name of some true knowledge and arbitrary idea.

While this statement is evidently sympathetic to the approach adopted by critical theorists, Foucault makes it clear that there are no taking sides in genealogy. Instead, the objective is simply to expose the “normally” unseen consequences of power and knowledge for deliberation. He maintains that society cannot be reduced to any one history and thus, body of knowledge (Foucault, 1972). He sees society as a gathering and mixture of histories and knowledge/s, which interact, play and struggle with each other in many different ways and contexts. In such a world, totalitarian viewpoints, similar to those found in the idealist stream and in particular the management sub-stream of the power in organizations literature, do not help much. Such viewpoints attempt to impose a single order on highly differentiated and fragmented groups of people: an order that represents the “idea” that beneath the complexities and ambiguities associated with such differentiation

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and fragmentation, a single purpose can be found (Foucault, 1972: 138– 139). As mentioned earlier in this chapter, genealogy has two main steps: the first is to develop an archaeology for the social system under question, while the second is to conduct a study into how this archaeology both constrains and enables the exercise of power within the social system. The aim is to expose the hidden or unobtrusive features of the power/knowledge nexus for deliberation. Some writers argue that archaeological analysis is something different to genealogical analysis. For instance, Burrell (1998: 229) presents archaeology as a search for “the same”, and genealogy as a search for “the different”. Other writers downplay the role of archaeology in genealogical analysis by placing an emphasis on “what” strategies people use in episodic contexts (Gordon, 2001). For these writers, the way in which historically constituted codes of order, which are central to a social system’s archaeology, shape the strategies used to exercise power in a social system appear to be of only secondary importance. Yet, the role of archaeology in genealogical analysis has important implications in regard to whether acts of power are considered legitimate or illegitimate (Haugaard, 1997). In this sense, (moving away fro Weber’s more orthodox account of legitimacy) the concept of legitimacy might be seen as the link between Foucault’s archaeology and genealogy: for an exercise of power to be seen as being legitimate it must be seen as making sense; to make sense one must obey the codes of order that govern sensemaking; and these codes are what constitute a social system’s archaeology. In short, if a person wishes his or her exercise of power to be seen as legitimate, he or she will need to exercise power with respect to the codes of order that constitute sense in the social system in which he or she is attempting to act. In other words, people need to make strategic use of archaeology if they wish their statements and actions to be seen as legitimate. The strategic use of power is the interest of genealogical analysis. Downplaying the role of the archaeology runs the risk of limiting the depth of genealogical analysis and reverting the focus of analysis to “what” happens, rather than “how” and “why” things come to happen. A focus on addressing “how” questions as opposed to “what” questions, as acknowledged by Flyvbjerg (2001), is one of the hallmarks of genealogy. It is, perhaps, more appropriate to say that archaeology is subordinate to genealogy as it is used in its early phases. Foucault (1976: 85) maintains: If we were to characterise it in two terms, then “archaeology” would be the appropriate methodology of this analysis of local discursivities, and genealogy would be the tactics whereby, on the basis of this description of local discursivities, the subjected knowledges, which were thus released, would be brought into play.

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He adds that archaeology might be defined as a non-interpretative discipline and a systematic rewriting of history (Foucault, 1972: 138–140). It is the “disinterested” registration of events which constitutes the first step of the genealogy. The second part focuses on the tactics whereby the subjected knowledge/s are brought into play, which is “interested” registration because it organizes the material and illuminates the problem (Flyvbjerg, 2001: 98–99). As already mentioned, Foucault (1971: 76) maintains that, “genealogy is grey, meticulous and patiently documentary. It operates on a field of entangled and confused parchments, on documents that have been scratched over and recopied many times.” Genealogy therefore requires the accumulation of source material, which can take a variety of forms, such as documents, observations and interview transcripts. To deal with the problem associated with the researcher’s interpretation of the data, inherent not just in genealogy but any research method, the source material needs to be systematically ordered in time and space: sorted in regard to chronology, context and actors. Foucault (1971: 71) maintains that the process of “extracting discrete and apparently insignificant truths” requires employing “a rigorous method”. The need for this rigour in method is also central to genealogy’s concern with actualities as opposed to idealist promulgations about the way things “ought” to be: if a researcher is focusing on how things actually are he/she must control for his/her own ideals and values in regard to how things “ought” to be. The methods outlined in the following chapter aim to achieve such control. It is also important to note at this point that Foucault’s genealogy, in a methodological sense, is a study of discourse (Foucault, 1981; Dean, 1994). Foucault viewed social systems as, among other things, discourse formations (Foucault, 1970; Haugaard, 1997; Kendall and Wickham, 1999). From a genealogical perspective, discourse formations are constantly shifting and changing over the longer term but, at the same time, are made up of a corpus of statements that are systematic and regular, and a set of codes that delimit what, when, where, and how things can be said (Kendall and Wickham, 1999). The constraints of these codes on what people say and do results in the historical constitution of legitimacy for certain practices and illegitimacy for others; the recurring exercise of these legitimate practices is what constitutes a discourse. Thus, the historically constituted practices of a social system act as a window through which a researcher can see and chart the discourse of this social system. It is acknowledged that since the post-structuralists brought attention to the connotative as well as denotative dimensions of language, a myriad of discourse theories and methods have emerged (see for example Clegg, 1975; Bakhtin, 1986; Fairclough, 1989; 1995; van-Dijk, 1997; Grant, Keenoy and Oswick, 1998). In this study, discourse is defined as a way of doing things, 133

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characterised by a particular set of historical antecedents and codes of order. Of particular interest to this study is the role that a social system’s archaeology of order plays in the development of its discourse. This is because, as outlined in Chapter 2, the historical antecedents of the NSW Police Service have been conditioned, for more than a century, by the use of a military model of organization. Such conditioning is characterised by, among other things, clearly differentiated hierarchical structures and an understanding that those with authority have a right to govern and those without authority have the duty to obey, with disobedience dealt with through various forms of disciplinary action and punishment. The consequence of these characteristics is that, over time, disciplined practices reflecting orthodox structures of dominancy have become part of an organization’s natural order of things (Clegg, 1975; 1990; Barker, 1993). The Service’s traditional discourse and, because of their privileged position and role in societies, police discourse in general, is likely to reflect the concepts of differentiation, domination, discipline and punishment (Haugaard, 1998). One may recognize that these concepts are unpalatable for those asserting the reform agenda for the Service, which is attempting to make an innovative shift towards a more equitable work environment. Apart from the aforementioned benefits of using a priori concepts, they also help bring to the surface “disreputable origins and unpalatable functions” (Rose, 1984; Kendall and Wickham, 1999). The importance of this is that when ways of doing things become taken for granted they go unchallenged and eventually become “just the way things are”. What a person who is not constrained by discourse formation may see as a disreputable or unpalatable about “the way things are”; that is, an alternative viewpoint is masked and consequently not recognized or considered. In short, people are not only enabled by their knowledge of the way things are, they are also constrained by this knowledge. Genealogy seeks to bring these hidden problems of constraint to the surface for deliberation. In the present research, access to these hidden problems is achieved by focusing on the tensions between opposing viewpoints about how power “ought” to be distributed in a ­police organization. One of these viewpoints is embedded in the organization’s historical antecedents and is thus not readily seen, while the other underpins the organization’s recently adopted structures, or new organizational forms, which are readily observable.

6.5 Conclusion In conclusion, the present study is specifically interested in the extent to which there are hidden tensions between the organization’s historical antecedents (related to the constitution of power) and its recently implemented 134

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reforms, inducing practices that either reinforce or undermine the organization’s reform agenda. The focus of the study is not just on “what” happens when power is exercised but on “how” power comes to be exercised in the way that it is. Thus, the unobtrusive dynamics of power that normally go unnoticed because they constitute people’s perception of the natural order of things are of interest. Genealogy embodies a methodology that can gain access to and expose the unobtrusive dynamics of power in social settings: it can expose the hidden tensions and paradoxes affecting power relationships in the police organization under question.

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Chapter 7

Methods, Instruments, Contexts and Trends

The methods employed in this study need to support the genealogical ap­ proach outlined in the previous chapter. These methods will include research questions, instruments and protocols, as well as database construction and saturation procedures. As will be seen, emerging from the database con­ struction and saturation are a number of quantitative trends that provide interpretative insights to the nature of the data. These quantitative trends help to guide the qualitative analysis that follows in the next three chapters. This chapter begins by presenting the research questions and outlining the reasons for selecting the Cornell Local Area Command (LAC) as the re­ search arena. An explanation then ensues as to how the instruments, proto­ cols, and data collection strategies were respectively crafted and formulated. This explanation includes the reporting of some data that provides a win­ dow into the context of the research setting. This context provides insight into ethical considerations for the researcher, issues related to how the re­ searcher would entered the field, and how the researcher gained acceptance within what turned out to be a politically volatile work environment.

7.1 The Research Questions In a context of turbulent times and explicitly managed change: • How does a police organization’s constitution of power constrain and enable the practices of its officers? • Do these practices reflect a shift in the organization’s traditional limits to power in accord with the organization’s reform agenda? That is, do these practices reflect a transfer of power to “lower level” workers, which in this case are front line police officers? • Has the introduction of new forms of organization, in line with the con­ temporary management literature (e.g. flatter structure and dispersed leader­ship), resulted in a more politically egalitarian work environ­ ment?

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7.2 Selecting the Research Subject Both Langley (1999) and Weick (1999) maintain that researchers need to select research settings based on the likelihood that the setting will be an ap­ propriate venue for the replication of their proposed theory. It was on this basis that the NSW Police Service was selected as the subject for the current study. The setting was the Cornell LAC, an LAC being a police organiza­ tion made up of several police stations responsible for the policing of their immediate geographical region. Such a geographical region could represent several neighbouring suburbs in a city or towns in the NSW rural and min­ ing regions. The NSW Police Service is made up of approximately eighty of these local area commands. The Cornell LAC was selected because, when compared to other LACs in NSW, it had travelled furthest down the path of reform achieving ex­ traordinary results with regard to policing and crime reduction (Palladino, 1998). While, within the Service’s overall reform agenda, LACs had become autonomous policing organizations, and were therefore responsible for im­ plementing reform programs, many had not yet begun reform. Instead, they appeared to be cautiously waiting to see how the Cornell LAC fared before committing to similar reform strategies. The nature of structural reform implemented by the Cornell LAC repre­ sented a clear shift in the organization’s traditional “limits to power”, with some individuals, groups and whole divisions finding that the new design of the organization had removed the power that they had grown accustomed to (see Figure 7.1). The most profound example of this reduction in power was the line reporting by detectives to a general duties team leader. In the past, detectives enjoyed higher status than general duties officers with a sub­ sequent autonomy that appeared to be taken for granted; a status that the history of the New South Wales Polices Service shows has more to do with the specialist position of detectives rather than formal rank and line author­ ity structures. The structural realignment of the detectives’ power base was one of the key reasons why the Cornell LAC was chosen as the research sub­ ject. In such a scenario there is a strong chance that historical antecedents related to power relationships, and thus the constitution of power, will be in conflict with recently implemented changes which, one hypothesizes, will be more a surface, than deep, structural change. These surface structures re­ flect the promotion of empowerment strategies in mainstream management literature.

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Figure 7.1: Cornell Local Area Command Structure. Note: Detective and Highway Patrol Officers are now members of an operations team and report to a team leader.

7.3 Crafting Instruments and Protocols Genealogy, which both Nietzsche and Foucault saw as fundamental to any historiography in which the phenomena being researched are seen as de­ scendants of phenomena that occurred earlier (Flyvbjerg, 2001: 114), is the guiding methodology of this study. Genealogy takes as its object the unob­ trusive nature of institutions and practices, the hidden nature, which escapes our view. To recap, a genealogical approach has two key parts: the develop­ ment of archaeology, and the analysis of how this archaeology both con­ strains and enables particular types of practices (the exercise of power). Of concern for this study is whether the outcome of the constraint reinforces or undermines the organization’s reform agenda. A genealogical approach is painstakingly documentary and, as Flyvbjerg points out, requires the researcher to operate on the basis of: 1. Being both involved in, and partially produced by, the same cultural practices, which they study; hence, researchers cannot stand completely outside of that which they study. In short, in a similar fashion to ethno­ graphy, researchers must become a part of their research setting, they must “live” and experience the research setting first hand. 2. A focus on practices, that is, the things people do. The analysis needs to be concerned with power at its extremities, in its ultimate destinations, 138

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where it occurs in local environments. By sticking to practices in their concrete forms, the researcher avoids attributing the reason for their occurrence to some essentialist centre that is presumed to control them; researchers avoid grounding their occurrence in some specific grand nar­ rative view of how things “ought” to be. 3. The meaning of discourses can only be understood as part of any social system’s ongoing history. That is, genealogy is a form of ascending analy­ sis, starting from a detailed study of concrete practices. These practices are sorted into respective contexts and then analysed for common histori­ cal patterns. The broader discourses thus gradually emerging from these patterns (Flyvbjerg, 2001: 114). With the above considerations in mind, and drawing upon insights gained from the work of Foucault (1989a), Clegg (1989; 1990), Weick (1995), Haugaard (1997), Flyvbjerg, (1998; 2001) and Kendall and Wickham (1999), an operational framework for charting the constitution of power for a social system will now be outlined. To gain an appreciation for what an organization’s constitution of power might be, it is important to note that, like Haugaard (1997), this study views an organization’s archaeology of ­order as the foundation of its constitution of power. The framework has seven key elements, being the analysis of: 1. taken for granted realities; 2. historical patterns of legitimacy in decision making; 3. how relationships have been historically delineated; 4. historical patterns in sensemaking; 5. the boundaries that constrain discursive practices; 6. how statements become ordered and the effects of this ordering; and 7. the link between words and deeds. The operational characteristics of each of these elements will now be out­ lined in more detail.

7.3.1 Taken for granted realities What is of interest here is how patterns in the way officers talk about and do their work reflect the presence of “universalisms” and “essentialisms”. A universalism is a grand principle, law or totalising truth (Lyotard, 1984) underpinning what people say or do; a historical account that privileges one relatively narrow point of view (Boje, 1995); or, a grand narrative that out­ lines how people think things “should” be. The problem with universalisms is that people take them for granted as simply being the way things are, an assumption that masks the micro complexities of local contexts and glosses over disparities and contradictions that provide a richer understanding of what actually occurs in everyday life. Essentialisms are similar, but are pres­ 139

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ent at a more micro level, being theories that appeal to a definitive or total­ ising “truth” (Boje, 2001). Essentialisms are the sense of reality or the ratio­ nalization that lies behind the explanations people attribute to phenomena and the appearances they talk about (Lyotard, 1984). Boje (1995) provides an excellent example of the way in which univer­ salisms and essentialisms constrain people’s interpretation of phenom­ ena and appearances with his analysis of the Walt Disney and the Disney Corporation. He shows how company narratives presented Walt Disney as a saintly, easy going, grandfatherly character, and as a creative genius. However, accounts of Walt Disney by his colleagues, which are not revealed in the official narrative of Walt Disney and the corporation, stress that he was intense, moody, vengeful and used scare tactics to manage. Beneath the gloss, the corporation was a cartoon factory dominated by Walt Disney, with jobs organized according to a strict division of labour, and underpaid workers closely scrutinized by authoritarian supervisors, gang bosses, speed bosses, and inspectors, all contributing to an environment which, rather than promoting creativity, suppressed craft autonomy (Boje, 2001: 38–39).

7.3.2 Historical patterns of decision legitimacy The aim of this analysis is to identify historical patterns in regard to “who” can make decisions and in “what” contexts. Do these historical patterns contribute to the formation of unobtrusive structures of dominancy (Weber, 1948; Clegg, 1975; 1989) concerning how decisions are made in an organi­ zation? Has the legitimacy of certain individuals and groups to make deci­ sions in particular settings become taken for granted over time, resulting in these individuals and groups being privileged with a position of dominancy when it comes to decision-making? The existence of structures of dominancy would result in the decisionmaking process within the organization being constrained. Members of the organization would be subject to codes of order (Foucault, 1972; Haugaard, 1997) with respect to their role in the decision-making process. For in­ stance, within a schooling domain, it is the educational psychologist who can ­legitimately decide the “proper” categorization and development strate­ gies for children as special types of educational subjects (pupils, slow learn­ ers, ­ geniuses), not the parents or teachers of the children. Yet, it is most likely that the latter have important insights to offer to such a decision. As will be seen, in the policing domain, it is detectives, because of their special­ ist status, who take charge of decision-making at crime scenes, despite the rank, experience and know-how of general duties officers.

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7.3.3 Historical delineation of relationship In regard to how relationships have been historically delineated in the or­ ganization, the concern is with how officers differentiate themselves from others in their organization: how statements made within the organization produce subject positions – ways of being and acting that people can take up (Kendall and Wickham, 1999). Central to this analysis is an understanding of the way in which the na­ ture of differentiation, that is the nature of differential relationships between people, is imbued with power (Clegg, 1990). The text of officers’ conversa­ tions, describing how their position, role and way of doing things differs from others in the organization, will be analysed to locate the basis on which differential power relationships (Martin, 1990; Boje, 1995) are constructed and thereby identify who is privileged and who is marginalized.

7.3.4 Historical patterns in sensemaking The focus here is how certain statements can be seen as making sense and others as not making sense: how some statements can be repeated while ­others are dispelled as foolish at best and idiotic at worst (Haugaard, 1997). To chart the codes of order that delineate sense from nonsense, data ­examples of the sensemaking process need to be examined for evidence of why they are viewed as making more or less sense. The process often in­ volves reflecting on each of the other elements that make up the “consti­ tution of power” framework. For instance, a statement or action may be considered as nonsense because it challenges an essentialist viewpoint or an officer might have delivered it outside of his/her discursive boundaries or it may not resonate with the organization’s ordering of statements. Of key importance is how the way people make sense of things and how the codes of order that govern the sensemaking process are imbued with power; the way they privilege certain officers and marginalize others; how they reinforce the existing constitution of power; and, in the present re­ search, whether they work for or against the organization’s reform agenda. Interestingly, when viewed through a power lens the data reveals an intrigu­ ing interplay between the concepts of sense, plausibility and legitimacy.

7.3.5 The boundaries of discursive practice The objective here is to see how actors are constrained by discursive bound­ aries that unobtrusively outline the territories or domains in which they may or may not act (Kendall and Wickham, 1999). Charting these boundaries will require the analysis of data that provides examples of situations in which officers feel uncomfortable with exercising their “voice” and when they feel comfortable with exercising their voice. The organization’s structure, poli­ cies and procedures, architectural features, and social arrangements, will also provide insight into the nature of these boundaries (Haugaard, 1997). 141

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7.3.6 The ordering of statements Researching the ordering of statements involves studying the extent to which common discourse patterns in regard to the exercise of power exist across functional and hierarchical boundaries (Kendall and Wickham, 1999). For example, if instructional and/or disciplinary statements are mirrored at each level of the organization’s hierarchy, a pervading management discourse may exist. Of significance, is how this discourse reflects a particular flow or circuit of power (Clegg, 1989) through the social system and whether the discourse privileges certain actors and practices at the expense of others. In the present research, the focus will be on whether the nature of the discourse works for or against the organization’s reform agenda.

7.3.7 Words versus deeds This section empirically examines what Foucault saw as the mutually condi­ tioning relationship between words and things in local settings (Kendall and Wickham, 1999). Charting the relationship between words and deeds – the relationship between what is said and what is done – requires analysis of the relationship between statements and physical arrangements comprising the police organization in question. In turn, this will involve comparing the physical features and arrangements of the organization with the nature of the instructions, general statements about policing and, particularly in this case, statements about the reform initiatives taking place. The relationship between what is said and what is done will be explored as to whether it is mutually conditioning or otherwise. Of particular impor­ tance to this study is whether the nature of any mutual conditioning rein­ forces the underlying objectives of the organization’s reform agenda. As will be seen in the following chapters, the data exposes an interesting paradox associated with the nature of this link, one which draws attention to Clegg’s (1989) circuits of power model and its reference to the nature of power as it flows through different circuits of social interaction. The paradox is re­ vealed by a disparity between what people say (their words) and do (their deeds). Moreover, people are not aware of this paradox because the taken for granted realities of their social system masks these disparities.

7.4 The Constraint and Strategic Use of the Archaeology The second stage of this genealogical analysis focuses on how the police organization’s constitution of power constrains and enables the exercise of power. Police officers within the Cornell LAC will be observed in their every­day working environment, at formal and informal meetings, and in

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interviews, to see how their statements and practices are imbued with, and constrained by, the organization’s constitution of power. Bringing these unobtrusive forms of constraint to the surface will not be easy. Normally they go unnoticed because they are heavily disguised as part of the natural order of things. It is in regard to this difficulty, that the proposed use of a priori concepts makes a further contribution to the re­ search process. As mentioned earlier, these concepts represent the tensions and paradoxes that are indicative of the tenuous relationship between the theory underpinning the NSW Police Service’s adoption of new organiza­ tional forms (e.g. a dispersed leadership strategy) and the Service’s historical constitution of power. The outcomes of everyday situations in which these tensions become apparent need to be captured and assessed with respect to their effect on the reform objectives of the Cornell LAC. For example, the extent to which newly empowered officers, such as team leaders, exercise their discretion in the presence of other officers who, in the past, may have been considered superior to them, would give some indication as to whether or not power has actually shifted in line with the organization’s new formal design (new surface structure). The a priori concepts, because they represent deeper level tensions be­ tween theory and context, provide an excellent starting point from which a focus on unobtrusive forms of constraint can be achieved. The data col­ lection and analysis procedures, which are outlined below, provide further insight into how these forms of constraint will be brought to the surface.

7.5 Data Collection Strategies Genealogical analysis requires the researcher to “live the experience” of the research setting. Accordingly, over two year period, the researcher has lived and worked with police officers in their stations and on beats. The strategies used for data collection and analysis over this period drew on Eisenhardt’s (1989) and Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) case study analysis and grounded theory, as well as Clegg’s (1975) and Van Maanen’s (1988) ethno­graphic and narrative frameworks, Gephardt’s (1993) ideas on database construc­ tion and analysis, Haugaard’s (1997) constitution of power framework, and Flyvbjerg’s (1998) use of narratology. For this study, data collection and analysis was an iterative process (Eisen­ hardt, 1989; Strauss and Corbin, 1990), meaning that data was collected and analysed in stages, with the results emerging from each stage influenc­ ing what, when, where and from whom, data was collected in the next stage. These stages will now be broadly outlined.

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7.5.1 The generation of a priori concepts As discussed earlier, the process used for generating a priori concepts draws upon Eisenhardt’s (1989) grounded theory approach to case study analysis and Poole and Van de Ven’s (1989) use of paradox to generate theory. The process begins with a critical review of literature pertinent to the study and the subsequent identification of tensions in the literature. The a priori con­ cepts adopted are indicative of these tensions. In the present study, the a priori concepts generated reflect the underlying theoretical tensions between mainstream management’s approach to tradi­ tional leadership and dispersed leadership: strategies indicative of dispersed leadership featured prominently in the 1996 Wood Royal Commission rec­ ommendations. The earlier chapters on the history of policing New South Wales showed that the past practice of leadership within the Service epito­ mized more traditional approaches to leadership. The Cornell LAC’s recent adoption of cross-functional teams, each with their own leader, can be seen as indicative of the adoption of the explicit theory underpinning the dis­ persed leadership approach. While the deconstruction of the leadership literature within chapter five identified a number of concepts that could be used as a priori triggers and guides, here they are kept to a minimum to avoid the dataset becoming too large and unmanageable (Eisenhardt, 1989). In a similar process to that of statistical factoring, sets of related concepts can be manually collapsed into a more overarching construct or category (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Reflection on the deconstruction of the traditional approaches to leader­ ship highlights that these approaches are all fundamentally based on the leader/follower dualism, in which the identity of the leader is clearly differ­ entiated from that of the follower on the basis of the leader’s superior power. In contrast, the deconstruction of the dispersed leadership approaches show that they are fundamentally based on the sharing of power between leaders and followers, which has the effect, among other things, of de-differentiat­ ing or blurring the boundaries of identity between leaders and followers. Through an assessment of how each approach addresses the leader/follower dualism one can identify four key concepts (see Table 7.1), differentiation, domination, de-differentiation, and democracy.

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Table 7.1: Concepts represent underlying theory of traditional and dispersed leadership approaches, which will be used as a priori triggers and guides for the data collection and analysis stages of research process. Leadership Category

Concept

Rationale

Traditional Approaches

Differentiation

Based on clear differentiation of the leader and follower identities in the leader/follower dualism.

Domination

Based on “natural” superiority of the leader over the follower and the subsequent takenfor-granted right to power on the behalf of leaders.

De-differentiation

Based in the sharing of power between ­leaders and followers, which effectively de-differentiates (blurs) the boundaries of ­identity that constitute the leader/follower dualism.

Democracy

Based on the sharing of power between ­leaders and followers. If power is shared, domination is replaced by collaboration.

Dispersed Approaches

Entering the field and contextual considerations: Successfully gaining access to, and entering, a police organization is diffi­ cult at the best of times, as they are renowned for their “closed shop” cul­ tures and sense of brotherhood (Van Maanan, 1988; Manning, 1988; Chan, 1997). However, at the time of the study the NSW Police Service had just been “turned on its head” by a Royal Commission, the fallout of which was characterized by the indictment and consequent purge of many officers. The data from this study shows the fallout reinforced the “us and them” divide in regard to the nature of the relationship between the New South Wales Police Service and the general public (Finanne, 1996; Chan, 1997). Incidentally, to overcome the effects of this divide, the 1996 Wood Royal Commission recommended that the Service acquire insights from people outside its ranks, including management academics (Wood, 1997), which helped legitimise the researcher’s access. Initially, the researcher spent time with a specialist group of police offi­ cers: these personnel had been given responsibility for reform objectives re­ lated to the behavioural change of officers within the Service. At this stage, the objective of the researcher was to become familiar with the workings of the Service, its reform agenda, and to identify a LAC that could be used as the subject for a genealogical study. Gaining acceptance from the specialist group came relatively easy. At a presentation of the proposed study the com­ manding officer of this group acknowledged that they believed the Service had a problem with its reform process, when he stated: 145

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Why is it that after a Royal Commission, major structural change, three years of ongoing change management initiatives and one hundred and fourty mil­ lion dollars, nothing has changed?

In other words, while the Service was reforming its structures, systems and policies, the social environment and subsequent behaviour of its officers had not changed. That is, this group believed that despite the reform that had occurred, the behaviour of officers was still indicative of past behaviours which had lead to the Service’s problems with corruption. More important­ ly, while some change was happening, something unidentifiable was causing other things to remain the same. These officers saw value in the study’s proposition that, despite the sur­ face level structural changes that had occurred in the Service, its historical constitution of power remained unchanged and was having an unobtrusive influence on the Service’s reform initiatives. Subsequently they arranged formal approval for the research to be conducted. The approval involved a further presentation to the then Assistant Commissioner and the sub­ sequent formulation of a legal agreement between the NSW Police Service and the re­searcers university, in regard to the research timeframe, publishing rights, ethical research processes, and supervision, with the then Assistant Commissioner of Police becoming the supervising officer for the research field work.

7.5.2 Entering the field and gaining acceptance: After the target LAC – Cornell – was identified, the next step was to gain ac­ ceptance from the front line police officers within the LAC. This was not an easy task, as the Service’s immediate history had led officers to be wary of outsiders. They had a heightened sense of being watched, perhaps as a result of the Royal Commission’s undercover methods. Interestingly, on numer­ ous occasions throughout the study, the researcher was asked quite bluntly, “you’re not a spy are you?” After having the study formally introduced to the officers by the Head of the Cornell LAC, the Local Area Commander, the researcher attempted to overcome the apprehension of officers regarding an outsider’s presence in their work environment. The researcher firstly talked informally with them, answered questions and let a relationship develop without getting in their way. Second, the researcher utilised any opportunity to explain and distribute copies of the ethics guidelines on how the research was to be con­ ducted, to highlight to the officers that the study was independent of the Police Service, conducted by a non police officer, anonymity was key, and that nobody other than the researcher would see the raw data. Further, the researcher deliberately decided that no interviews were to be held for at least three to four months, with research activities restricted to the observation of 146

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practices that occurred in everyday life and in formal meetings throughout the LAC’s stations. The first few months of sitting, observing and talking with officers ­allowed the researcher to gain an understanding of the LAC’s history, its workings, who the main players were in regard to power relationships, and the politics surrounding the reform process. The key players identified were primarily those officers involved in the LAC’s leadership – the Local Area Commander (there were four different people in the position over the ­period of the study), the Business Manager (non-commissioned officer), the Crime Manager, Duty Officers (LAC’s Management Team), Team Leaders, the Roster Controller and the Detectives. The nature of these positions is explained in more detail later. After it appeared that the officers in the LAC had accepted the researcher, these key players, as well as a number of general duties officers (beat ­police), were interviewed. It is important to note that due to the nature of the study the researcher found it, at times, necessary to move away from the norms of qualitative research and adopt an interventionist position during the inter­ view process. That is, the study is interested in gaining access to, and bring­ ing to the surface, those aspects of power relationships that go unnoticed because they are taken for granted. During the interviews, while reflecting on each of the elements that make up the constitution of power framework outlined earlier, the researcher would intervene to elicit information perti­ nent to these elements. In other words, to gain insight into the nature of power relations within the Service an intervening interview process was needed that included questions through which the “practical consciousness” knowledge of interviewees could be made discursive (Haugaard, 2002). The process presents interviewees with specific interpretations of power rela­ tions, which are tested for validity against their taken for granted knowl­ edge. As will be seen, the procedure is validated by the number of times the subjects reply with “exactly”, “yes” or similar affirmatives. While officers from the Cornell Local Area Command are the main inter­ view subjects, a number of members from central headquarters were also interviewed. Significant events related to the reform agenda, involving these members from central headquarters, were also extensively covered in the media; the reporting of these events became an important backdrop that had a major influence on everyday life within the LAC during the study, this reporting is also covered. To summarise this impact the events began when on 21st of October 2000 it was revealed that Detective Superintendent Ken Seddon, the man hand picked from Britain by New South Wales Police Commissioner Ryan to spearhead the Service’s toughest reform campaign, was at the centre of an investigation into travel rorts. The next day, James Ritchie, one of Seddon’s officers in the Crime Management Support Unit (CMSU), broke police rules 147

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and called an unauthorized press conference. There he claimed that the Seddon inquiry was a “joke … it was merely a device, a trumped up politi­ cal investigation, to blacken the CMSU’s reputation and lead to its axing”. He claimed some senior officers were “hell-bent” on “killing” the unit’s work because it threatened their power bases, and he released emails and internal papers that seemed to vindicate his position. Despite the documen­ tary evidence presented, Richie’s then Commander, Assistant Commissioner Clive Small, said publicly, “Ritchie was a liar who had brought shame on all the police with his declaration.” Commissioner Ryan, however, took a more diplomatic stance and firmly spoke out for a public Police Integrity Commission (PIC) hearing (Goodsir, 2001). A week or so later, Police Commissioner Ryan, while being quizzed on this and other matters, made an angry outburst on an influential Sydney commercial radio program, indicating that he was sick of being given more advice on how to reshape policing by people in the relative position of “learning to drive or play golf – he detested it and wanted to get rid of some of his prophets”. He boldly declared that his watchdogs “couldn’t run a chook raffle … they don’t know what policing is all about”, and that he himself wanted to assume a powerful watchdog role over key government agencies to ensure that they were committed to his ideas on crime preven­ tion (Goodsir, 2000). Later on the 23rd of November 2000, Sydney newspapers broke front page stories publishing extracts from a leaked New South Wales Police Service document in which Police Commissioner Ryan demanded the Government “terminate” the independent groups overseeing his administration, thereby shutting down a key recommendation of the Wood Royal Commission. One newspaper reported: In blunt language, Mr. Ryan calls in the draft report for the power [of these watchdogs] to be “terminated forthwith”, saying that it was distracting his agenda. He also declared that the Ombudsman should be withdrawn from any watchdog role over police complaints (Goodsir, 2000).

From Athens later that day, where he was acting as a security expert for a meeting of the International Olympic Committee’s Coordination Com­ mission, Police Commissioner Ryan condemned the newspaper article, de­ nying its contents and stating: I’m really furious about this because the document has obviously been stolen from the Police Service and misused by the author of this report (Goodsir, 2000).

On the 25th of November 2000, while still in Athens, it was reported that Police Commissioner Ryan had been forced, after being shown copies of the

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leaked documents handed to the press, to confirm that in the initial blueprint of his “Future Directions Report”, he had proposed to “kill off” the PIC, the body appointed by Justice Wood to oversee the Royal Commission’s rec­ ommendations in regard to police reform, as well as the Ombudsman’s role in police complaints. However, he insisted that his final report would not target these agencies – any thoughts he had of terminating the independent audit process had “not been included in subsequent versions of the paper” (Goodsir, 2000; 2001). As reported, on his return from Athens, the Police Commissioner made the shock announcement that he was to reshuffle 16 of his most senior com­ manders, with some officers being told of their fate only moments before a hurriedly arranged media conference. Police Commissioner Ryan said that Assistant Commissioner Mal Brammer and, one of his most celebrated de­ tectives, Assistant Commissioner Clive Small would leave their specialist posts on the 1st January 2001 and that the moves were designed “to estab­ lish an effective plan of succession … and to nurture management and lead­ ership” (Goodsir & Kennedy, 2000). Looming in the background, however, were not only the startling revela­ tions made by the members of the CMSU but also the pending public re­ lease of the Quality and Strategic Audit of the Reform Process (QSARP) report, the contents of which the Police Commissioner had been privy to for some time. Interestingly, the QSARP report presents the findings of the PIC, the very group Police Commissioner Ryan was forced to admit that he had earlier wanted to “terminate forthwith”. The media reported at the time, “According to sources the QSARP report shows reform under Ryan’s lead­ ership is faltering on several fronts” (Goodsir, 2000) and that the reshuffle was an example of the things that Ryan would be doing in the next few months to meet the challenge that the QSARP report, and other potential embarrassments, would provide. In this sense, one might consider such a reshuffle to be less about nurturing leadership and careers than it was about the defence, on behalf of Ryan, of his realm (Goodsir, 2000). On the 21st of December 2000, the media reported that after five weeks of secret hearings with the State’s most senior officers, the PIC was expected to open its inquiry into the CMSU allegations made on 21st of October to the public. The CMSU’s Mr. James Ritchie said that the Unit, fearing it was be­ ing white-anted, had compiled for two years a document trail that revealed “a world of total incompetence; of drunken, threatening, and bullying be­ haviour by members of Police Commissioner Ryan’s executive team, and of last minute scrambling to make the Commissioner look good” (Goodsir, 2000: 21/12). Numerous media sources reported that the head of the PIC, Judge Urquhart, was convinced that Police Commissioner Ryan’s reform agenda was worthy of public investigation. The next day, in a startling move, Police Commissioner Ryan sacked the 149

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entire CMSU. As soon as they arrived for work, they were told to collect their belongings and hand over any police documents, and were then escort­ ed from police headquarters in College Street Sydney. Police Commissioner Ryan then organized a court injunction to prevent the CMSU members, from speaking out. He said the action was “necessary to maintain the ­integrity” of the Service, which “simply would not function” if police broke the rule of silence “over an issue with which they were not satisfied”. A statement from his office said the injunction “follows the unauthorized release and publication of Police Service documents” (Cornford, et al., 2000). In short, the members were sacked because they broke ranks and took their con­cerns to the PIC and the public. On 28th December 2000, however, Police Commissioner Ryan lost his battle to stop the reform team he sacked from handing confidential docu­ ments to the PIC. The members of the CMSU won an appeal against the injunction when, in the Supreme Court, Justice Robert Hulme said that he saw no reason why the PIC could not see the documents. Outside the court, the solicitor representing the members of the CMSU, Mr Eric Oates, said, “We find it difficult to understand why the Commissioner of Police has ef­ fectively used a sledgehammer to crack a walnut” (Cornford, Goodsir & Gibbs, 2000). What followed in the weeks leading up to the PIC’s public inquiry into the allegations made by members of the CMSU was extensive media coverage of the situation. For instance, an ex-police officer wrote: Ken Seddon, Jim Ritchie and Paul Herring were the messengers and in “shooting” them Peter Ryan has pre-empted the public inquiry and arro­ gantly challenged the relevance of Judge Urquhart and the Police Integrity Commission. The $120 million Wood Royal Commission described the NSW Police Service as poorly managed, obsessed with command and control, suspicious of change and resistant to new ideas. It was, in Ryan’s own words, “a fright­ ened and dispirited workforce”. What better way to heighten the fear than by ambushing, sacking and gagging people two days before Christmas. Ryan demands absolute obedience. Abhors any questioning of his actions and is intolerant of whistleblowers. I clearly recall him saying, “I’d like them nailed to trees in Hyde Park” (Casey, 2001).

Another newspaper reported comments from the wives of the sacked CMSU’s members had to say: Jackie Herring wife of Paul Herring [one of the CMSU members], says her first reaction to her husband’s suspension was to laugh. “I said ‘well darlin’, its been comin” says Mrs Herring in her Irish accent. “My words to him were, ‘You have danced with the devil’.” And whom does she see as the devil? “The culture, the New South Wales police culture.” She said the reform

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unit’s work inevitably threatened the old police culture, and she criticized Mr. Ryan’s approach to reform. The message he was sending was “if you speak up in the police force you’ll get axed”. Mrs Seddon [the wife of the head of the CMSU Ken Seddon] said: “Mr Ryan is locked into a mind-set about what constitutes reform, and no-one is allowed a contrary view. Ken is determined that people of NSW get to know exactly what is going on in their police service and the damage that seems to have been done by placing all their trust and faith in someone who only looks good in front of a camera” (Brockie, 2000).

The extensive media coverage of these events, characterized by stories such as the above, had an impact on the context of the research setting. As the researcher’s independence from the Service had already been accepted, these events had no adverse effect on the relationship that the researcher had de­ veloped with the Cornell police officers. Quite the contrary, as shall be seen in the analysis of the data further on, officers from the Cornell LAC openly discussed their interpretation of these events with the researcher. However, their words and deeds showed that the events shaped their perceptions on what was expected of them in regard to the reform process and, through this, had a significant impact on the LAC’s reform.

7.6 Data Analysis Process In this section, an outline of the data analysis process, including the data coding schemes, the database construction and assessment procedures are presented; quantitative trends in the data that are based on frequency count measures are also presented. When the data collection ended the accumulation of more than 250 re­ search hours of data needed to be coded, including 34 interviews which, along with field notes and other data sources resulted in 68 text documents containing 14,840 paragraphs. In regard to our interviews, participant ­officers came from a variety of teams, positions, ethnicities and gender. The interviews were informal and in many instances represent conversations that the researcher had while working on beat, travelling in patrol cars and in the office. The length of time for each interview ranged from as short as 10 minutes to as long as 3 hours. In regard to the more formal interviews that were conducted, they began with open-ended questions and an invi­ tation to participants to tell their story in regard to the reform program. As the interviews progressed key topics related to the reform program and power emerged; in response to these themes respondents were probed for key ­examples. Field notes and tape recordings of the interviews were transcribed and loaded into the qualitative software package Nvivo. This software provides a range of tools for handling data records, information about these records, 151

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browsing and annotating text, coding text visually, and gaining access to data records quickly and accurately. Nvivo also has tools that allow the researcher to record and link ideas about the data, and for searching and exploring patterns in the data. It is designed to remove the rigid divisions between data and interpretation, thereby providing many ways of connect­ ing parts of a research project (Richards, 2000).

7.6.1 Modelling the databases Nvivo allows the researcher to create databases in a Project, Record and Nodal tree structure. All the interview and field note transcripts become the files that make up a “project”; each transcript is recognized as a “record”; and each record is made up of a number of “nodes” and “sub-nodes”. By way of further clarification, as outlined in Figure 7.2, each interview and field note transcript has its own record name and set of distinguishing attri­ butes – date, type of interaction (interview, meeting, observation etc.), and position title (the position of the participating officer/s). The raw data was open coded (Struass & Corbin, 1990), which means each paragraph of a transcribed text is allocated or referenced with codes which are categorized with respect to a node that becomes a part of the research project’s overarching database node-tree-structure. Each record in the database has a set of attributes, nodes and sub-nodes; the data in each is unique to the respective record. Nvivo has tools that enable the researcher to run searches across data records to identify relationship patterns between these records, their nodes and their sub-nodes. The data pertaining to these patterns can then be grouped into a separate node or, what Nvivo terms “Sets”, sets of related data. This process helps to systematize the data analy­ sis process and, through this, add rigour to the interpretation of the data.

Figure 7.2: Outline of relationship between Project, Records and Nodes for the data­ base.

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The reference codes selected to become the nodes and sub-nodes of each record need to resonate with the rationale of the research and methodologi­ cal framework. For this study, these reference codes have to help capture in­ sights into: how the historical constitution of power (archaeology of order) of the New South Wales Police Service constrains the current practices of its officers, and how this constraint, reflected in the officer’s strategic use of the constitution of power, affects the Cornell LAC’s reform process. To focus the research, these codes will incorporate the a priori concepts that repre­ sent the tensions between the Service’s traditional organizational forms (his­ torical antecedents) and its new organizational forms (introduced through the reform initiatives). Accordingly, the four codes selected as the root nodes for the project’s database tree structure are Power Themes, Structures and Forms, Practices and Effects. As can be seen in Figure 7.3, the root node “power themes” has two levels of sub-nodes linked to it: the first level contains two sub-nodes – traditional and dispersed, and the second level contains four sub-nodes – differentiation, de-differentiation, domination and democracy. It is noted, that these four-second level sub-nodes are named after the earlier generated a priori concepts. Thus, each paragraph of text in a record is analysed to see if it conveys a theme that reflects one of the a priori concepts. If so, the paragraph is allocated the respective concept as its reference code and sub­ sequently linked to a “power themes” root node. This “power themes” root node will become the central node from which search and reporting opera­ tions will be run on the data. The “structures and forms” root node contains two sub-nodes named, Structure and Forms. Paragraphs of text in a record referring to structures that are readily seen, that is, surfaces structures, will be allocated with subcodes that are linked to the “structures” sub-node. Paragraphs that refer to forms of constraint that are not readily seen, that is, structures that are hid­ den or have an unobtrusive nature will be allocated with sub-codes that are linked to the “forms” sub-node. Accordingly, the “structures and forms” root node is likely to contain text data that provides insights to the po­ lice organization’s current structures (new organizational forms) and those unobtrusive structures that reflect the organization’s historical antecedents (codes of order and disciplined practices). As will be seen later, the data from the “structures” and “forms” sub-nodes is further analysed for pat­ terns that will be grouped into sets, with each set representing an element of the organization’s constitution of power framework.

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º ® ® ® ® ® ® ® » ® ® ® ® ® ® ® ¼ Figure 7.3: Outline of research project’s database – root node, node and sub node tree structure.

The “practices” root node contains a series of sub-nodes (see Figure 7.4). Once again, each paragraph of text in a record will be analysed to see if the text describes particular types of practices (action), with concepts that rep­ resent these practices allocated to the text as reference codes. In accordance

Figure 7.4: Database model – shows node and sub-node relationships.

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with the requirements of genealogy, the focus on practices or bland descrip­ tion of actual events, and the interpretation that officers make of their and other people’s practices, is designed systematically to check the researcher’s interpretation of the data. It serves to retard the influence that the research­ er’s ideological views, or ideas about how things “should” be, has on the interpretation of the research setting. The set of codes or sub-nodes that emerged from the coding process for the “practices” nodes can be seen in Figure 7.4. With the “effects” root node, each paragraph of a record is analysed to see if it describes particular types of effects. If so, it is allocated a code that represents this effect. For example, the paragraphs of text that describe an effect that has a positive orientation in regard to the police organizations reform agenda will be allocated the code “reinforces reform”. Alternatively, the paragraphs that describe an effect that has a negative orientation will be allocated with the code “undermines reform”. The set of codes or sub-nodes that emerged from the coding process for the “effects” node can be seen in Figure 7.4.

7.6.2 The data saturation process The data saturation process is outlined in detail in Figure 7.5. There are four broad steps to this process: 1. Develop two saturated datasets from the data, one that contains text examples that are representative of traditional approaches to power in organizations – Traditional Power dataset, and another that contains text examples that are representative of dispersed or more democratic approaches to power in organizations – Dispersed Power dataset. Here, what is meant by the term “saturated database” is a database that contains only the text examples that correspond to the most frequently referenced nodes and sub-nodes. Discarding the data that is referenced less frequently prior to the quantitative and qualitative analysis focuses the researchers attention on the most theoretically relevant data, thereby enhancing the theoretical sampling procedure (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). 2. Saturate the “traditional power” and “dispersed power” datasets. Draw­ ing on Gephardt’s (1993) analysis of disaster situations, comparative frequency counts will be used to identify the extent to which certain structures, forms, practices and effects are related to particular themes of power within the data. For instance, within the traditional power data­ set, the power themes of differentiation might be found, through their relative frequency counts, to have a strong relationship with the “punish­ ment” sub-code in the practices database, and the “negative” sub-code in the effect database. The text examples that make up the links with a high 155

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Figure 7.5: Data saturation process using Nvivo software operations.

frequency of occurrence are maintained and those with a low frequency of occurrence are discarded. 3. Develop a saturated database that is indicative of the Cornell LAC’s con­ stitution of power. As outlined in previous chapters, the constitution of power for any social system has a historical significance, and, in line with Foucault’s genealogical analytics, is reflected in the way practices within the social system are both constrained and enabled by historically con­ stituted structures and forms. For this reason, a saturated database that is indicative of the Cornell LAC’s constitution of power would need to 156

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focus on the “traditional power” dataset (it has an historical significance) and would comprise the text examples that make up the sub-nodes of the “structures and forms” nodes; those that are referenced most frequently are maintained and those that are not are discarded. In short, such a database would be made up of a combination of the dominant sub-nodes from the “structures and forms” nodes within the “traditional power” dataset. The Nvivo qualitative software package provides “Intersection” and “Union” operations that enable a researcher to construct datasets such as these. In addition, when these operations are carried out, Nvivo allows the text examples that make up the newly formed dataset to carry their previous coding references with them. This means that when the dominant coding references from the “structures and forms” nodes are combined to form the new dataset, these text references also carry with them their “practices” and “effects” coding references. The result is a saturated dataset that is indicative of the Cornell LAC’s constitution of power; that is, a dataset made up of the dominant “structures” and “forms” coding references and their relative “practices” and “effects” coding references. 4. Generate separate datasets for each element of the constitution of power framework. This means that the Constitution of Power (COP) dataset would need to undergo a further open coding process, with each para­ graph of text being coded (allocated) with concepts that represent each element of the constitution of power framework and each element becom­ ing a separate node in the overarching database tree structure. Then, the dataset needs to be dis-aggregated and re-aggregated with respect to each of the nodes (elements of the constitution of power framework) to form a separate dataset for each node and thus, element that makes up the constitution of power framework. Each of these datasets will be further interpreted qualitatively.

7.6.3 Quantitative trends As mentioned previously, the data saturation process involves carrying out a series of dis-aggregation and re-aggregation procedures. Each dis-aggrega­ tion and re-aggregation procedure involves those nodes and sub-nodes with a high frequency count being maintained for further analysis, and those with a low frequency count being discarded. Hence, the saturation process sees the dataset becoming progressively smaller until only the data that is perti­ nent to the study’s theoretical interest remains: this means that the data has been theoretically sampled. The tables that follow present for comparison the frequency counts at which each sub-node was referenced in the “traditional power” and “dis­ persed power” datasets. 157

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Table 7.2: Structures Node – Trends and Comparisons. Node

Sub-node

Traditional Power Coding References

Dispersed Power Coding References

Structures

Functional division

33

1

Hierarchy

97

2

Rank

71

2

Geography

 0

0

Policies and rules

26

3

Table 7.2 shows the dominant sub-nodes (highlighted) for the “structures” node within the “traditional power” and “dispersed power” datasets. As mentioned earlier, structures are recognized as mechanisms of constraint that are readily observable such as, in this case, departmental or functional divisions and rank. Within the “traditional power” dataset, “hierarchy” and “rank” are the more frequently referenced sub-nodes. Reflection on the New South Wales Police Service’s history helps one gain an appreciation of why these nodes dominate the dataset. Hierarchy and rank are central to the military model of organization, which the Service had employed since its foundation more than one hun­ dred years ago; a deduction that is somewhat obvious, but which, however, does not go far enough. What needs to be further investigated is the rela­ tionship between these dominant nodes and the organization’s constitution of power. Issues that might be explored further are whether hierarchy and rank have become taken for granted as part of the natural order of things, resulting in historically constituted structures of dominancy, codes of order and disciplined practices, and whether these structures, codes and practices reinforce or undermine the Cornell LAC’s reform agenda. The qualitative analysis presented in the following three chapters explores these issues. The “functional division” sub node, while less dominant, also has a rel­ atively high frequency of occurrence, the Service’s history also providing insight into why this might be the case. The functionalist approach to or­ ganization promoted the concept of specialization, as well as concepts of rationality, unity of command, division of labour and efficiency. The New South Wales Police Service, like most other organizations in the modern era, embraced specialization via science and technology. This was clearly evident in the earlier history of policing chapters which detailed the rise to power of the Detective division, the legitimacy of which was linked to its practice of scientific principles and methods, as well as in the impact of specialist squads and the introduction of radio communications and motor vehicles. There are no significant references or trends related to structures evident in the “dispersed power” dataset. This lack of reference to the organiza­ 158

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tion’s traditional structures might well be indicative of the tension between the theory that underpins such structures and the process of sharing pow­ er – the sharing of power being attributed to the blurring of hierarchically based structural boundaries. The qualitative analysis in the following chap­ ters sheds light on this issue. Table 7.3 shows the dominant sub-node coding references (highlighted) in the “forms” node for the “traditional power” and “dispersed power” datasets. Forms are mechanisms of constraint that are less readily observ­ able, such as, in this case, seniority, routines and managerial dominance (the taken for granted superiority of management). Within the “traditional power” dataset, the dominant sub-nodes are “managerial dominance” and “routine”. What this means is that when officers refer to their practices be­ ing constrained they do so with respect to dominance on behalf of manage­ ment and to the routines by which they see themselves being expected to do things. While “managerial dominance” and “routine” clearly dominate the dataset, other sub-nodes that have a relatively high frequency count include “seniority”, “experience”, “networks”, and “team membership”. Table 7.3: Forms Node – Trends and Comparisons. Node

Forms

Sub-node

Traditional Power

Dispersed Power

Coding References

Coding References

Technological

   8

 0

Relationships

  12

 3

Seniority

  22

 2

Routine

  97

 3

Experience

  27

 0

Network

  28

 1

Code of Silence

   4

 0

Career

  23

 1

Managerial Dominance

101

 3

Work schedule

   9

 0

Team Membership

  35

15

Once again, reflection on the organization’s history provides some insight into why these sub-nodes might dominate the dataset. The New South Wales Police Service’s adoption of the military model of organization, along with its sheer size, lead to the employment of bureaucratic control mecha­ nisms and, through this, management was privileged with a right to power. Bureaucracy can lead to the entrenchment of routine ways of seeing and do­ ing things (Weber, 1948). Similar to that mentioned for the “structures” node, what needs to be investigated further is whether the high frequency of references related to 159

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“managerial dominance” and “routines” provide insight into how the or­ ganization’s constitution of power affects its reform initiatives. In addition, the link between the concepts of “seniority”, “experience”, “networks” and “team membership”, and the organization’s constitution of power, needs to be explored further. The qualitative analysis in the following chapters inves­ tigates these issues in more detail. The dominant sub-node in the “dispersed power” dataset for the “forms” node is clearly “team membership”. What this means is that when officers refer to how their practices are constrained in the “dispersed power” data­ set, they do so with respect to their team membership. As mentioned earlier, this resonates with the work of writers such as Bercheid, Snyder and Omoto (1989), Clegg (1990), Barker (1993) and Weick (1995), who recognize the relationship between team members as a potential mechanism of behav­ ioural control. In short, rather than experiencing dominant individuals’ and or rules causing constraints on the way people think and act, team members are seen as being constrained in a democratic sense by the mutually condi­ tioning relationship they have with each other. In egalitarian-based social systems, the discursive nature of social relationships would be the central means of control over people’s behaviour (Clegg, 1990; Haugaard, 1997; Flyvbjerg, 1998). Table 7.4 shows the dominant sub-node coding references (highlighted) for the “practices” node within the “traditional power” and “dispersed power” datasets. Practices are acts that were either observed by the researcher or discussed by officers at the Cornell LAC. Within the “traditional power” dataset, the most dominant sub-nodes are “obedience and compliance”, “protection” and “seeking legitimacy”. Once again, the high frequency of these three coding references resonates with the Service’s historical employ­ ment of the military model of command and control; they also resonate with the findings of the 1996 Wood Royal Commission, which refers to a “siege mentality” pervading the Service. However, one would expect, in light of the Cornell LAC’s introduction of reform initiatives aimed at empowering lower level officers, that such concepts would not still dominate the prac­ tices of the LAC’s officers. Why and how such practices continue to have a high frequency of occurrence within structures that are designed to promote a more egalitarian set of practices is a research question explored in more detail later.

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Table 7.4: Practices Node – Trends and Comparisons. Node

Sub-node Surrender Discipline Blowing the whistle

Traditional Power Coding References 26 42  1

Dispersed Power Coding References  2  0  0

Practices

Exercising voice Resistance Surveillance Obedience/compliance Payback Reward Collaboration Authority

11 31 68 94  8  1  1 33

 7  3  3  2  0  0 15  1

Punishment Protection Deception Seeking legitimacy

60 83 20 74

 1  1  0  5

While less dominant, the sub-nodes of “surveillance”, “discipline”, “pun­ ishment”, “resistance” and “authority” also have a high frequency count. These sub-nodes similarly reflect the historical practices of the police, and it is important to note that, as reported by the 1996 Wood Royal Commission, police carried out these practices both on each other and the public. When comparing the “traditional power” and “dispersed power” datasets for the “practices” node, the sub-nodes for the latter dataset have relatively low frequency counts. Despite this, the dominant sub-node in the “dispersed power” dataset is “collaboration”. The practice of collaboration is expected in dispersed power environments because members of such environments are, at least in theory, supposed to be subject to mutually conditioning rela­ tionships. Table 7.5 shows the dominant sub-node coding references (highlighted) for the “effects” node within the “traditional power” and “dispersed pow­ er” datasets. Effects are the consequences of acts that were either observed by the researcher or discussed by officers at the Cornell LAC. Within the “traditional power” dataset the most dominant sub-nodes are “undermines reform” and “constraint”; “undermines reform” means that the effect was one that was contrary to the reforms objectives and intentions, while “con­ straint” refers to effects that have a constraining nature on the practices of officers at the Cornell LAC. The high frequency of these coding references also reflects the Service’s history, a history that did not promote the disper­ sion or sharing of power. While not as dominant, “reactive policing”, “fear”, “frustration” and “de-motivation” are sub-nodes that also have high frequency counts for the 161

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“effects” node. Reactive policing refers to non-strategic policing, which is where police simply react to crime rather than attempt to prevent it. Part of the Cornell LAC’s reform agenda was to introduce, what it termed, “proac­ tive policing” which in essence is strategic policing with a focus on crime prevention rather than detection. The high frequency count for the “reactive policing” node as an effect indicates that officers find it difficult to break with this mode, which, in turn, undermines the reform agenda. Table 7.5: Effects Node – Trends and Comparisons. Node

Sub-node

Traditional Power Coding References

Dispersed Power Coding References

Effects

Undermines reform

157

 4

Reinforces reform

  17

17

Constraint

  90

 1

Conflict

   6

 1

Reactive policing

  76

 0

Proactive policing

   5

11

Fear

  56

 0

Frustration

  38

 1

Motivation

   1

 1

De-motivation

  38

 0

The high frequency count for “fear”, “frustration” and “de-motivation” sub-nodes indicates that, irrespective of the new structures and policies that have been implemented, something else is occurring other than the disper­ sion of power through empowerment and team based management strate­ gies. One finds it difficult to understand how officers display or talk about being afraid of their peers when at the same time they are being told that they now have a voice and are expected use it. If they were being told this, but realize that what they are being told is mere rhetoric, then one can see a possible link between the high frequency counts for these sub-nodes. This link is explored in more detail in the following chapters. When comparing the data contents for the “practices” node in the “tra­ ditional power” and “dispersed power” datasets, the “practices” sub-nodes for the latter dataset have relatively low frequency counts. However, it ap­ pears that when officers display or talk about effects that resonate with the dispersion of power, they do so with respect to proactive policing and re­ inforcing the reform agenda: these two sub-nodes dominate the dispersed power dataset. This dominance indicates that there is some measure of success with respect to the objectives of the reform process. However, the relative frequency counts between the “traditional power” and “dispersed 162

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power” datasets renders this measure of success problematic; this issue is also explored in more detail in the following three chapters.

7.7 Conclusion In this chapter, a rigorous set of methods has been developed. The research questions were presented as well as the selection of the research setting. The basis of this selection was the strong likelihood that tensions would exist between the New South Wales Police Service’s historical antecedents and the structural changes recently introduced by the Service’s Cornell LAC. The instruments employed, which include field note observation, docu­ mentation and interview analysis techniques, were also discussed. A frame­ work for charting the constitution of power for an organization was devel­ oped, as were the operational characteristics of this framework. The data collection strategies, as well as the contextual difficulties, which had an im­ pact on the data collection, were also outlined. These difficulties were pri­ marily brought about by the politically volatile nature of the environment in which the study was being conducted, most significantly, the sacking of one of the Service’s key reform group’s after one of its members provided evidence of corrupt behaviour by senior police. This affected the working life of every officer at the Cornell LAC as well as the means by which data could be collected by the researcher. The database construction and saturation procedures, achieved through the employment of a qualitative analysis software package called Nvivo, were outlined, including an explanation of the database project, record, and tree node structure, along with the search operations utilised to saturate the data. Emerging out of the saturation process was a number of quantitative trends based on the relative frequency with which nodes were referenced within the data. These trends provide insights that help to focus and system­ atize the researcher’s interpretative leap prior to qualitative analysis of the data, by providing quantitative measures that identify dominant themes and problematic issues that require further investigation. The following three chapters investigate these dominant themes and problematic issues in more detail by employing a qualitative method, a method termed here as textual deconstruction.

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PART IV

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Chapter 8

Data Analysis: Watching the Detectives Wittgenstein (1968) argued that one cannot get to know a city just from reading a map or visiting its more important sites and streets; rather one must travel in all sorts of directions, through its side streets, walking its ­alley ways, seeing the less important sights, and experiencing and engaging in the city’s everyday life. In this and the following two chapters, the reader embarks on a journey through the “side streets” and “alleyways” of the everyday life of police officers at the Cornell Local Area Command (LAC). The practices and interpretations that officers make of power in their work­ ing life will be investigated. As outlined in the research and methodological framework chapter (Chapter 6), to help further systematize the researcher’s interpretative leap, a combination of text analysis methods, drawn from the­ orists such as Clegg (1975), Martin (1990), Currie (1998), Flyvbjerg (1998) and Boje (2001) are employed. This method represents a form of textual deconstruction; the process of which explores how the practices and representations of research par­ ticipants are both underpinned and shaped by the organization’s historical ­antecedents of power. Such a process involves deconstructing texts to ­expose the problematic nature of what will subsequently be referred to as dualisms, hierarchies, storylines, plots, and dominant and resistant voices, as well as identifying power themes and the constraining nature of structures and forms. The result is an emerging narrative that provides insight into how the Cornell LAC’s constitution of power both constrains and enables the things that officers say and do. This approach does not mean that summaries and generalizations from the setting cannot and should not be attempted (Flyvbjerg, 1998: 7). How­ ever, generalizations will not be made in this chapter. Subsequent analysis in the form of summaries and propositions about how the social setting’s constitution of power might affect the interpretation and practices of the LAC’s members will be presented in Chapter 9. Similar to the position that Flyvbjerg (1998) adopted in his Alborg study of a Danish city council, the researcher does not seek to be an omniscient narrator. Instead, a represen­ tation of the organization’s constitution of power is gradually allowed to unfold as readers progress through the analysis. Thus, in line with the re­ search framework’s focus on entering the space between theory and prac­ 167

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tice, in addition to the voice of the research participants and the researcher, there is space for the voice of the reader in deciding how the constitution of power in a social system might affect the interpretation and practices of the system’s participants. In the research and methodological framework chapter, Foucault’s “ar­ chaeology of knowledge” and Haugaard’s “constitution of power” were drawn on to conceptualise a methodological framework for collecting and analysing data. The following seven social contextual characteristics emerged as base elements for this framework: the first of these being the basis for this chapter: 1. Taken for granted realities; 2. Historical patterns in decision legitimacy; 3. Historical delineation of relationships; 4. Historical patterns in sensemaking; 5. Boundaries of discursive practice; 6. The ordering of statements; and 7. Words versus deeds. Every researcher must make an interpretative leap when analysing data. This framework controls the leap made in this book and is applied to the saturated data set labelled COP, standing for constitution of power. The COP data set was coded with respect to each of the seven elements listed above. The result of this coding was a separate data set for each element of the seven that make up the constitution of power framework. The textual deconstructive analysis concentrates on these data sets. As mentioned above, the analysis reflects what participants had to say about their everyday working lives and the researcher’s interpretation of what he observed in the participants’ work environment. With this in mind, the researcher reiterates that no attempt is being made to suggest that this analysis represents “truth”. It is a representation of the interpretation and perception of the study’s participants deemed significant because of their ­effect on the work performance of these participants. A methodologically rigorous representation of the organization’s constitu­ tion of power is not achievable by analysis of any one of the COP element data sets alone. To achieve clarity the analysis of each of these sets needs to be assessed in their entirety. Over this and the next two chapters a repre­ sentation of the organization’s constitution of power will emerge from the mutually conditioning relationships that the analysis of each of the elements has with the others. This chapter focuses on one of the COP elements, namely taken for grant­ 

Please refer to the methods chapter and the quantitative trends section of this chapter to see how this data set was saturated.

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ed realities. With respect to the study’s genealogical methodology, taken for granted realities represent ways of seeing and doing things that have become embedded as universal and essential “truths” (Lyotard, 1984). For Foucault the “taken for granted realities” of a social system would be historically constituted archetypes that constrain the way people think and act within this social system; archetypes that both constrain and enable the struggle for power and hence, the nature of change within the social system (Foucault, 1980). The concern here is how “taken for granted realities” act as equilibrium starting points from which members of a social system assess the serious­ ness, sense and legitimacy of the things that people say and do. Furthermore, this study attempts to textually deconstruct taken for granted realities to gain insight into the nature of power relations within a social system of the Cornell LAC. Specifically, questions of how these taken for granted realities reflect constituted structures of dominancy; how they privilege certain ways of thinking and doing things and, at the same time, marginalize, if not ob­ scure, other ways of seeing and doing things, are examined.

8.1 Taken for Granted Realities The research data reveals a universal acceptance that police organizations need to be governed by militarist, rationalist, and managerialist principles which are grounded in scientific epistemologies and bodies of knowledge. It is universally accepted that these bodies of knowledge should promote rational authority, specialization and discipline. More specifically, the following versions of perceived essential “truth” pervade the data: 1. Senior ranking officers (management) have a right to power, which lower ranking officers have a duty to obey. 2. In an operational sense, Detectives are superior to other police officers because they have specialist knowledge and skills. 3. Control is maintained through strong discipline and punishment. Examples of these essential “truths”, the taken for granted realities and practices associated with them, and their effects, will now be presented and analysed.

8.1.1 A right to power and a duty to obey A right to power and a duty to obey is indicative of the agreement that underpins Weber’s ideal type of rational legal power, which is authority. Authoritative rule, however, is only possible as long as those people not sanctioned with authority agree to obey those people who are. Of interest 169

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here is the extent to which the long term practice of such a rule has resulted in certain groups and individuals acquiring a privileged position in regard to the exercise of power and, the extent to which their right to the privi­ leged position has become a taken for granted reality. Following Haugaard (1997), this study argues that if a right to power has become a taken for granted reality, its legitimacy is no longer contingent upon the agreement of those expected to obey those privileged by this right: in this sense authority manifests into domination. A Team Leader in the Cornell LAC explains how he views the nature of power in his relationships with senior officers: They [senior officers] don’t seem to have any kind of leeway or they don’t seem to have any experience in having that leeway, they can’t open up and say, well okay, lets do it this way. They say, “if the Local Area Commander wants to do it this way, lets do it this way.” We still abide by what the Local Area Commander wants (Dbgt23, Section 0, Paragraph 14).

In this transcript, the Team Leader constructs a dualism to describe the re­ lationship between himself and his higher ranking supervisors: a dualism being a socially constructed binary opposite (Derrida, 1999). The hierarchy in this binary opposite (Boje, 2001) is that senior officers are privileged with a superior position. Further, the statement, “They [senior officers] … don’t seem to have any experience in having leeway”, suggests that senior officers have acquired an unquestionable right to dominate decision-making (Mills & Simmons, 1994). The statement also has a historical significance, which indicates that lower ranking officers have come to accept the superiority of senior officers as part of the natural order of things; abiding by what the Local Area Commander wants is what they have always done and still do. A different Team Leader explains: See, if you look at any big organization, okay … if you went to the builders’ labourers and said, today, fellows you are going to be doing this. What would they say? Well, hang on, you haven’t spoken to us first ... We are not going anywhere until you speak to us … And this is what doesn’t happen in the police force … they [senior officers] make a decision off … their own think tanks. And away they go … they are quite happy to run with that (Document ‘BR, ATLI, I1, Section 0, Paragraphs 55–69).

This Team Leader reinforces his colleague’s comments, seeing the relation­ ship between senior and lower level officers as differentiated in respect to power, with senior officers being privileged with an assumed taken for granted superiority. Lash (1988) and Clegg (1990) both refer to “differen­ tiation” as a central organizing principle of modernity. Differentiation in organizations is a principle stemming from Weber’s explanation of how an organization’s structure imposes forms of identity on its members. In other 170

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words, an organization’s structure gives its members an understanding of who they are, what they are and how they are supposed to relate to each other. Modern organizations do this principally through the division of ­labour (Clegg, 1990). The transcript above also has a historical significance and while the Team Leader’s tone suggests that things should not be this way, he offers no indication of a willingness to do something about it ac­ cepting the situation as “just the way things are”. A General Duties Senior Constable adds: Their [Officers in supervising positions] usual reaction is just [a reflection of] all the people in that sort of era. They would say, “who is the boss there”? They would then, to justify their position, say “I don’t necessarily agree with this” but the boss said so and we’ve got to do it. So straight away they … appeal to the higher power but, at the same time, they brought themselves down to a level where they were saying “I am not part of management, I am not part of this decision.” I knew full well that in those types of forums these people could have a voice and could have a say, but they chose not to because they felt they had to obey the boss (Dd, t040400r, Section 0, Paragraphs 77–81).

The officer is reflecting on the behaviour of his past supervising officers in regard to questionable decisions made by their superiors. Once again, a dualistic relationship is constructed in which senior officers, referred to as management, are privileged with a position of superiority over lower level officers. The statement has a historical significance, in that, supervisors have learnt to obey their superiors and not “rock the boat”. In another workplace conversation, a Duty Officer reflects on his rela­ tion­ship with his supervising officer, a recently appointed Local Area Com­ mander: I think she would, she is ruthless. She is not to be challenged, she won’t be challenged, and poor old XXXX, XXXX [Duty Officer] is just so passionate, he has let it all out, she knows exactly where she stands with him. [In the past when she was on the same level as us], at the management meetings XXXX, has openly challenged her, and as a result he’s [now] been isolated and he is coming under close scrutiny … she has interfered with his planning … chang­ ing his deadlines … it may have been to undermine him (Mdrf, Section 0, Paragraphs 181–184).

The Duty Officer describes the assumed right to power and legitimacy of the newly appointed Local Area Commander. This manifests in her attempting to dominate the officer and to seek retribution against him. Another way of analysing the Commander’s actions is that because of previous conflicts 

As will be seen further on, the historical significance of this dualism has another important dimension.

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she views the officer as a threat to her status and authority. To protect her position she must keep the officer under close surveillance and constrain his discretionary action, even going as far as discrediting him. Throughout the study, numerous officers mentioned how the behaviour of both superior officers and colleagues towards other police reflected the training and every­ day practices employed to outwit and overpower criminals. This punitive approach to subordinates is also evident in the statement made by Mr Seddon, the head of the Crime Management Support Unit (CMSU). The Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Stateline television program on the 4th May 2001 reported that Seddon, while under oath dur­ ing a Police Integrity Commission (PIC) inquiry into the process of reform in the NSW Police Service, revealed insights into how Police Commissioner Ryan himself views the nature of power in his relationship with subordinate officers: Seddon said he was aware of antipathy towards the Unit from the highest levels of the Service including the Commissioner. Ryan, he said, was scath­ ing about the departed reformer Sergeant Terry O’Connell. He ordered then the Assistant Commissioner Christine Nixon to get rid of him. She refused. Seddon said, Ryan told him he’d said to Nixon “if you don’t, I’ll get rid of you. She didn’t so, I [Commissioner Ryan] got rid of her” – Nixon was demoted and transferred to a regional command position (Dsabc, Section 0, paragraphs 25–41).

The Commissioner’s actions reflect a willingness on his behalf to exercise power in a dominant fashion. The act does little to encourage a more open and democratic Police Service, as was recommended in the 1996 Wood Royal Commission. Incidentally, only a matter of months after her demotion in the NSW Police Service, Christine Nixon was sworn in by the Victorian State Government as the first woman Commissioner of Police in Australia’s history. Similarly, a General Duties Officer related what happened when she ques­ tioned her superiors: RES: Did you have a voice in the process? Did you have any say in it … the change? GDO: I did, not very much though, and sort of got into … not arguments but con­ frontations with the Commander in regards to the way they were doing it and treating … RES: So, you challenged them? GDO: Yeah … And got in a fair bit of trouble for it … put on report actually (Dtgt30, Section 0, Paragraphs 33–43).



CMSU – senior management group in charge of behavioural reform in the Service.

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A manger at the Cornell LAC added: Being in a semi-militarist hierarchy, with command and control, if the Region Commander directs that, that’s what he wants, then we don’t have any option, we just do it (Dwst05, Section 0, Paragraphs 49–51).

The Senior Manager is making a reference to the organization’s historical use of the command and control model of organization in which obeying superiors is the natural order of things (Dandeker, 1990). In summary, the above sample of transcripts illustrate a pervading ­social dualism in which senior officers (management) are differentiated from ­lower level officers on the basis of superior power. The hierarchal nature of this re­ lationship can be expected since it reflects the NSW Police Service’s histori­ cal practice of the military model of organization. Reflection on the broader police literature (Cicourel, 1976; Manning & Van Maanen, 1978; Punch, 1979; Van Maanen, 1988; Finnane, 1987; 1996; Chan, 1997) and the litera­ ture on military organization (Dandeker, 1990) suggests that this is the case for most police organizations throughout the world. The historical practice of the right to power by senior officers appears to manifest itself as a right to dominate. In consequence, lower level officers in the Cornell LAC do not exercise their “voice” but simply continue to obey their superiors. This practice is in direct contrast to the recommendations made by the Wood Royal Commission and the objectives of Commissioner Ryan’s (1996) reform agenda, as well as the reform program of the Cornell LAC. If officers do not have a “voice”, corrupt practices are less likely to be repressed. The transcripts indicate that lower level officers are aware that things do not have to be as they have always been. Some transcripts represent a “rebel voice” (Boje, 2001) implying that lower level officers have a sense of resis­ tance, do have important things to say. However, at the same time, they do not give “voice” to their contrary views, let alone pose resistance. One may interpret each of the transcripts as suggesting that even if the attempts at reform are genuine, the historical exercise of the right to power by senior officers has resulted in their superiority becoming a taken for granted real­ ity; a reality that constrains the behaviour of officers. The nature of this constraint continues to reinforce traditional power relationships that were central to the acceptance and concealing of corrupt behaviour in the Service (Wood, 1997).

8.1.2 Detectives are superior to other police In the following transcripts, a cross-section of officers discuss their relation­ ship with detectives in the organization and the role detectives play in the organization’s reform process. As previously outlined, detectives were cen­ tral too much of the corruption uncovered by the Wood Royal Commission. 173

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Consequently, the nature of this reform is aimed at facilitating a radical shift in the nature of power in the relationship between detectives and other members of the Service. However, as the following transcripts illustrate, at a deeper, more unobtrusive level of social interaction, the historically con­ stituted codes of order that provide officers with an understanding of how they are supposed to behave in their work relationship continue to privilege detectives with a position of superiority. During a conversation with the researcher, a Team Leader commented on the detectives in his team: RES: What do you think about detectives being part of the team? Is there tension there? TL:

I really don’t understand why, you know [why they are even in the team and reporting to me]. Because what happens is, you’ve got your Detectives’ Office, and you’ve got your General Duties, and there is no information fed between the two.

RES: Distinct boundary between them? TL:

Yeah, like a bloody great fence. My personal opinion is that a lot of the Detectives, I mean … I’ve worked Detectives, and you get treated differently by the public, to what you do when you are in your uniform.

RES: They have a certain power? TL:

Power is the right word for it. And I think that power goes further to the point of … well, “we are an elite lot of people”. It is not that we’ve done a course and we are Detectives, it’s “we are the elite up here” and why should we be associating with uniform [police]. And I mean, you listen to detec­ tives talk, a lot of the time, okay … [Detectives say] send a uniformed bloke around to do that, or … you know, I’ll do this … everything is talking down [to the uniform police], just because they are wearing a suit.

RES: So that … the idea of them reporting to a … General Duties Officer [Team Leader] really gets up their… TL:

Laughs…

RES: How do you find it? Telling them what to do when they are on your team? TL:

I see … I haven’t had a problem with them, because really, on our shift, I don’t see any of them walk in. Our two blokes, D1, I think he’s been doing a bit of work over at the other Command, but yeah … they walk in the door and … but, they walk in the door, they listen to what is going on, they go back to their office and that’s the end of that.

RES: You mean, at the change over? TL:

Yeah.

RES: So, the whole thing [Detectives belonging to the team and reporting to the Team Leader] sounds like a façade or something? TL:

Well, it sounds good on paper doesn’t it? (Dbatlii1, Section 0, Paragraphs 242–268).

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Later in the conversation the Team Leader added: TL:

You know, with the Royal Commission, how many of them [corrupt officers] were uniformed police? 95% detectives! I mean, there was uniformed police but what they are getting up to, and because, the supervision of them … uni­ formed police [the use of corrupt practices] was a lot better [less] than what it was for Detectives. They [Detectives] can get in their car [and say], “what are you doing, well, we are going out to do a job”. No one kept an eye on them. No, they could do what they want, you know. But, on the other side of the coin, if they lose that “elitism” about them, what is the public going to think? Suddenly, their model of the big detective … if you throw them back into uniform, the public thinks … oh … they are just police. You look at the media, the way they treat detectives … “Detectives are interviewing this, and the police are assisting”. It is like … they are not, police anymore.

RES: The big guns are coming in … yeah. TL:

So, I mean…

RES: So, this perception of the detective’s superior status goes out into the pub­ lic. TL:

It does. Doesn’t it? Everything you see on the TV or cop shows … the big detectives, not a uniformed bloke, and 99% isn’t, really?

RES: That’s interesting. TL:

As I say, I think you have to have them there, to a certain degree, just for the public.

RES: Maybe, if they were not there, people would look at things differently. TL:

Really, I don’t see any need for detectives to be in plain clothes.

RES: No? TL:

Well, they are not doing anything covert that they need to be at. So, why not have them in uniform. Why have them in plain clothes. There is a certain perception, and the public’s perception. Take the plain clothes away from them, and they will all be back in GDs in six months, because they’ve got the same job over there [Detective division] as what they had here [General Duties division]. But, over there, they are someone (Dbatlii2, Section 0, Paragraphs 276–302).

In both these transcripts, the Team Leader makes note of the differential in power between the detectives and the general duties officers. It is important to note that these differences are reinforced spatially: the detectives’ office is located in an entirely different building on the Cornell LAC site. The Team Leader indicates that this differential privileges detectives with superiority over general duties officers. This distinction is not reinforced by the organi­ zation’s formal rank system in which a general duties officer with a higher rank to that of a detective has formal authority over this detective. The Team Leader refers to other historical practices that have contrib­ 175

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uted to detectives acquiring an elite status. He refers to their use of “plain clothes” as a symbolic way of differentiating themselves from general police. In addition, the use of plain clothes has enhanced their discretionary power, allowing them to escape the gaze of their Commanders and the public. This was an observation that Justice Wood also voiced concern about, in regard to resulting corrupt practices, in the Wood Royal Commission. The Team Leader added that the detectives’ specialist status gave them a dominant role at crime scenes which, through the historical practice of this dominant role, has resulted in an assumed right to power. The superiority assumed by detectives has become a taken for granted reality both within the eyes of other police and the general public. He also referred to forms of popular culture, such as films, television series’ and news broadcasts, as media that romanticize detectives’ role in policing and thus further enhance their differential power. Despite the Cornell LAC’s reform agenda, detectives who have been formally advised to report to a team leader continue to “do as they like”. Interestingly, the Team Leader, despite his formal leadership status, appears to allow this to occur, indicating that either his ability or willingness to ­exercise power over detectives is severely constrained by their historically constituted power. During an interview with the researcher, another Team Leader who was acting in the role of a Duty Officer added: RES: In other words, it’s almost like an unspoken rule that Ds [Detectives] get respect by other people within the group. That’s when I am sitting and watching what is going on. TL:

Yes, and I think, well, why is that? Why does that elitist attitude continue? They’ve done a two-week course or whatever; they choose to do a specialist type of work and for some reason that makes them a better cop than the next person. I don’t think so! … I think it is entrenched, and I think the community still see … okay, well, Detectives, that’s some sort of promotion. To become a Detective, that is some sort of promotion (Djttii08, Section 0, Paragraphs 113–119).

The officer makes reference to the clear boundaries differentiating the detec­ tive from the general duties division, as well as recognizing that detectives are privileged with a superior position over other officers due to their spe­ cialist status. He questions why this situation continues, arguing that there is no reason why it should. To this end, he alludes to the existence of an en­ trenched way of thinking about police privileges detectives with an unques­ tionable superiority. The insinuation indicates that the officer is aware of something happening at a deeper level of social interaction: something that Weber (1948) might call a “structure of dominancy”, or which Foucault

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(1970) may recognize as a code of order. In short, the something is a form of social constraint that detectives benefit from politically. The next transcript presents comments made while travelling in a patrol car by one of the Command’s Senior Managers: RES: To me it shows, there are some competitive discourses going on here … the division you allude to. Detectives have now been able to push themselves back to where they were before. So, obviously they’ve got a power, they’ve actually maintained that power, those boundaries as well. SO:

Yes, they’ve got a power base within, not just in this Command but also throughout the organization. They appear to have the strongest power base within the organization as far as the sectionalised squads go and it has been like that infinitum … that’s just the culture of the organization. The problem we have though, with the detectives, pulling themselves away, is not just a lack of resources, but it is the inequities of it. The General Duties aren’t going to do any pro-active work while they see the CI [Criminal Investigations Division – Detectives] not being on the team. They are left with the shit work and they are not going to do that little bit extra, when they say well, hang on, you are not including the CI (Dwst05, Section 0, Paragraphs 32–35).

The Manager suggests that the detectives have the strongest power base of all the sectional squads. He specifically refers to the superiority of detec­ tives as embedded in the culture of the organization, suggesting that it is something that has been historically constituted. In summary, the above transcripts provide interesting insights into the taken for granted superiority of detectives. Each of the transcripts provide evidence of dualities in which detectives are differentiated from other offi­ cers on the basis of superior power. Reflecting on the broader literature on policing and the history of policing in the NSW Police Service (see chapter 2), it appears as though detectives have acquired much of their superior sta­ tus from being trained as specialist investigators. Specialization, throughout the modern era, was assumed to result in enhanced performance and has been widely recognized as a base of power (French and Raven, 1968). The Team Leaders’ transcripts, in particular, represent “resistant” voices and call for a reinterpretation of the hierarchy reflected in the uniformed branches historical relationship with detectives. The Team Leaders appear to see the reform agenda as a new voice that is supposed to emancipate them. They recognize that while the reform process has formally empow­ ered them, something else is happening at a deeper more unobtrusive level of social interaction to undermine the process of empowerment.



Sectional squads are functional divisions such as Highway Patrol, General Duties, Domestic Violence and Detectives.

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Each of the transcripts make reference to the acquisition and ongoing practice of superiority by detectives, their right to power being a taken for granted and essential part of the organization’s contemporary terrain. The taken for granted superiority of detectives acts as an unobtrusive structure of dominancy. Both detectives and other officers are constrained by codes of behavioural order that underpin this structure of dominancy. Thus, contrary to what “should” happen because of the surface level structural changes made in the reform process, at a deeper level the Cornell LAC’s social mean­ ing systems privilege detectives with positions of dominance in the organiza­ tion’s everyday operation.

8.1.3 Control through discipline and punishment In this section, transcripts that reference acts of discipline and punishment are analysed. As a result of this analysis it becomes clear that discipline and punishment is considered as being “part and parcel” of what police do. Their role as the gate keepers of social normalcy, which ordinarily has been used to maintain order by capturing and punishing criminals, has become the benchmark for maintaining behavioural order inside their organization. Punishment has become the preferred, or perhaps it is more appropriate to say, historically constituted form of behavioural control within the organi­ zation. For instance, during a work place discussion a Team Leader said: When I first started in the job, when the Senior Sergeant called out, you said, “shit, what have I been called for, Christ I am in trouble here”. When an Inspector called you would tremble in your boots. When a Superintendent called you, you would get your badge, because, you know, I am going to get my badge taken (Dbgt23, Section 0, Paragraph 34).

This Team Leader’s account of his relationship with his superiors suggests the relationship is largely based on fear. He implies that, historically, the only time a superior would call on a person would be to enact punishment. The Team Leader presented this account as though it was taken for granted as a natural occurrence for him and his fellow officers. It is noted that he houses the exercise of punishment within a hierarchical framework, evident in reference to the increasing severity of the punishment that officers would expect from higher levels of the hierarchy. Such a framework suggests a mu­ tually conditioning relationship between the exercise of punishment and, as mentioned earlier, “structures of dominancy” and “codes of behavioural ­order” that privilege more senior officers with a right to power. Another Team Leader stated: RES: Yeah, sure. And I suppose lots of stress too. TL:

Well, they don’t … they don’t see that sort of thing. So, they don’t say, oh,

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that bloke is gone off sick. How do we solve this? [Rather, they would say] Oh, we’ll go out and see him and make sure he’s sick, you know. RES: So, it’s about catching people out. TL:

That’s the way they solve their problems. They are not looking at the bigger picture of … okay … two thousand police officers went off sick today. Why? Because they are turning up for the same shit everyday… (Dbatlii2, Section 0, Paragraphs 152–158).

This Team Leader makes reference to senior officers travelling to lower level officer’s homes to make sure that they are genuinely sick and not just having a day off. It is important to note that other officers mentioned this practice throughout the study. The implication of this is that management, or senior officers, assume they have the right to control the lives of their workers out­ side of the work environment. This assumption reflects a sense of ownership over the private lives of workers and resonates with the dehumanising prin­ ciples of scientific management (Taylor, 1903) that view workers as units of production and also reflects some of the “total institution” qualities of the Police Service (Goffman, 1961). The practice also suggests that senior officers feel as though lower level officers cannot be trusted; it appears that lower level officers are viewed as a resource that need to be closely moni­ tored, checked and disciplined in order to extract acceptable levels of per­ formance. Further, at a more surreptitious level and in line with Foucault’s (1977) discussion on the central role of “the body” throughout the mod­ ern era, a taken for granted assumption exists that problems emanate from people (police officers) who must be made to fit the natural order of things (the system); the natural order of things (an organization’s social system) is assumed not to be at fault. The same Team Leader makes further reference to the nature of the orga­ nization’s pervasive and taken for granted use of discipline and punishment in the following transcript: RES: What I did see is … is that there seems to be fear of going against superi­ ors? TL:

Oh, it is fear. All right!

RES: Yeah, but now this is a new mechanism of fear … if you do anything wrong you go on to the EMS [Employee Management System]. TL:

I … I’ll tell you … I had fear, that much of a Sergeant, I transferred sta­ tions.

RES: Because he could hurt you that much? TL:

Yeah, basically yes.

RES: And they did? TL:

Yeah, if they wanted to. I mean, it was a long story. He was doing the wrong thing [and was caught], and … yeah, basically he took it out on me. I never

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sank him, and I never went out to sink him, I never did anything to him. But suddenly, I’ve got to work with this bloke, who doesn’t want to work with me. And he is a Sergeant. It’s a long day. Well, it was then, and it still is now (Dbatlii2, Section 0, Paragraphs 502–516).

Here, the Team Leader refers to a sense of fear strong enough to warrant him seeking a transfer to another Command. He also indicates that his superior, a Sergeant, was “doing the wrong thing” and sought retribution ­after inaccurately assuming that the Team Leader “blew the whistle” on him. Interestingly, the Sergeant’s actions suggest that he believed that “blow­ ing the whistle” was more “unjust” than his corrupt practices; that doing wrong was of secondary importance and that protecting himself and pun­ ishing the lower level officer for breaking ranks was more than warranted. The Sergeant’s action flags an important observation that will become more apparent in the data as the analysis progresses. The action of the Sergeant provokes the observation that people in positions of power often find them­ selves rationalizing their own versions of rationality (see Flyvbjerg’s (1998) study of a Danish Local Government Council). On another note, a Duty Officer acknowledged: We are trying to move away from a punitive approach to discipline but I am fighting the more senior officers now, who want to charge [criminal charges] an officer for leaving his/her firearm unattended [for a short time] on a [his/her] desk … Punishment still pervades the org (Dddoopf, Section 0, Paragraphs 1–6).

This transcript is important in that the Duty Officer acknowledges that the Service is aware of the effect that the “punitive approach to discipline” has had; effects well documented in the 1996 Wood Royal Commission. Despite this awareness, and an attempt to move away from it, the Officer still has to fight Senior Officers who feel compelled to exercise forms of punishment. The difficulty that the Service has in moving away from the punitive ap­ proach to discipline reveals its embedded and essentialist nature. In addi­ tion, it reinforces the assumption that the problem lies with people and not the system. A Team Manager made the following comment during a tearoom conver­ sation with colleagues: Gus sought legal advice in regard to charging those juveniles, who did that arson attack you know. They told him to run one of these new perpetrator/ victim conferences [Which he did]. XXXX [the Chief of Detectives] objected. The media got hold of it and blew it up. The Commissioner put pressure on YYYY [Regional Commander], who then put pressure on ZZZZ [Local Area Commander] who pressured Gus to change his decision – Gus stuck to his

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digs [wouldn’t change his decision] and because he did ZZZZ sacked him, relieved of his higher duties (Dgsthdf, 1 passages).

Here the Team Manager describes what happened when a colleague refused to give into pressure from his superiors. As the transcript outlines, the ar­ resting officer was pressured to change his decision in regard to the charges and hence the means of punishment for two juvenile offenders. As a re­ sult of negative media attention, this pressure flowed down the hierarchical chain of command; when the officer would not change his decision, he was relieved of his higher duties by the Local Area Commander. Interestingly, the Commander was a Duty Officer acting in the Com­ mander’s position. At this time, the Local Area Commander position was vacant and a number of the Command’s Duty Officers, including this one, had applied to be appointed to the position on a permanent basis. One is left wondering what would have happened to the acting Local Area Commander’s chances of promotion if the punishment had not been exer­ cised, and what message the severity of this punishment sent to the acting Local Area Commander’s superiors and other officers in the Command. The researcher found the nonchalant reaction of the participants in the tearoom discussion alarming. Their reaction seemed to suggest that such punishment could only be expected; indicating that was how things were usually done. It was considered only “natural” to be punished for going against one’s superiors. Up to this point, the exercise of discipline and punishment has been pre­ sented in a hierarchical framework. The following transcript broadens the perception of how and who exercises discipline and punishment in the or­ ganization. A General Duties Officer suggested that it was not just manage­ ment: OFF 1: They are not scared of them [management] the way they are scared of other people in the workplace. RES: What is the basis of this fear? OFF 1: Generations of bastardisation, generations of insults, generations of … “you’re in uniform – we’ll take it from here”, “thanks – you do all the leg work and I will sign it off and get the glory” [refers to detectives]. I mean, bastardisation is part of the police culture. RES: What about the fear of retribution? Could they ruin your career? OFF 1: And enjoy doing it (laughs) (wst05, Section 0, Paragraphs 336–348).

The General Duties Officer makes reference to how detectives exercise dis­ cipline and punishment, although their legitimacy to do so does not neces­ sarily come from rank but from a historically, yet informally, constituted position of superiority. The detectives’ methods are also more surreptitious in nature (see Chapter 2 and the 1996 Wood Royal Commission). 181

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In the following data-extract a Duty Officer discusses a similar occurrence and voices his disapproval of the way officers in dominant positions set out to punish their underlings: Yes, well I investigated one [a complaint] and it was just a sham, it was a dead set … I’ll never … I’ve been asked in the workplace, and the guy I investigated asked me, he said, “do you think that this was a witch hunt”? And I said, “I don’t know, I can’t comment”, but it dead set was, but I’ll never tell him that because I know that I’ll end up … and … yes, I would, but I am not going through all that, but yes, it was a dead set witch hunt. It never, ever, ever should have been generated as a complaint [formal procedure] because it was dealt with by XXXX [the duty officer at the time], and appropriately by XXXX. And then, the Region got hold of it and generated a formal investiga­ tion … criminal charges pending, and I’ve … as soon as I saw it, I thought, this is just crap. And I really put a lot of work into that and I crossed every “t” and dotted every “i”, it was completely punishment oriented and it was a real shame (Mdrf, Section 0, Paragraphs 202–212).

The Duty Officer refers to what he believes to be a complaint that was set in motion to discredit an officer. He also provides evidence that suggests he was concerned for his own well being. This is evident in his reluctance to openly admit that he believed the complaint was set up and used by an elite group as a means of punishment and a way of sending a message to other officers. The pervasive nature of punishment in the Service, as reported by the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Stateline program on the 30th of March 2001, is reinforced by the actions of Commissioner Ryan: During the Police Integrity Commission’s inquiry into allegations [by a senior CMSU officer in December 2000] that senior police executives were deliber­ ately attempting to undermine the reform of the Service, the following details were presented. A report dated December 13 by Brammer [Deputy Commissioner] did not find much on Seddon [the head of the CMSU – reform unit] and at that time when Ryan [Commissioner] conceded as much ... Brammer said “further investigation might be seen as witch hunt …” Ryan said “he needed to give the gm [government minister] reason for dismissal” [of Seddon and his team].

Brammer added when further questioned by Mr Rushton (Council for Seddon): Rushton: Did you regard it as proper that further investigations should be carried out for that purpose? Brammer: No I didn’t consider it proper.

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Rushton: In fact it was highly improper wasn’t it? Brammer: Yes, because of the decision made on December 22 to sack him [Meaning that the decision had already been made to sack Sedden before any fur­ ther investigations were carried out] (Dmbabc, Section 0, Paragraphs 52–72).

Here, one of the Commissioner’s Executive Team revealed under oath that the Commissioner improperly sought to legitimise his desire to punish, by way of sacking, the head of a Senior Reform Management group for allow­ ing one of the group’s members to go public with the allegations. In regard to the Commissioner’s actions, Haugaard (1997) points out that organizational leaders are the carriers of meaning in organizations. By this, he means that they occupy positions of dominance and through these posi­ tions, their words and actions shape the organizations meaning systems. The Commissioner, through these actions, reinforces the idea that lower level of­ ficers need to fear officers in positions of dominance and if they do not “toe the line”, they will be punished. In doing so, the Commissioner mobilizes a socially constructed form of bias operating through a rule of anticipated reaction (Friedrich, 1937); officers do not raise issues where they antici­ pate that they will not succeed.. For example, a Duty Officer at the Cornell LAC provides evidence of just how the Commissioner’s actions reinforce the ­taken for granted nature of discipline and punishment in the organization: Ryan [Commissioner] had to belt them [referring to the Crime Management Support Unit – reform group] because others had set them up in regards to the rules of the game (Dctabsf, Paragraph 3).

This Duty Officer refers to the Commissioner’s sacking of the Senior Reform Group and implies that the Commissioner had no choice but to “belt” (pun­ ish) them, because they broke the “rules of the game”. Clegg (1989) uses the term “rules of the game” to describe the role that unobtrusive codes of order play in his circuits of power model. The Duty Officer uses the term in a similar fashion implying that a set of informal rules exists; if these rules are broken then one can expects to be punished. The expectation is clearly reinforced by the demotion of Assistant Commissioner Christine Nixon for her failure to sack Sergeant Terry O’Connell after Commissioner Ryan’s di­ rective to do so or “he would get rid of her”. In summary, recurring incidents and talk of expectations such as these provide evidence to suggest that the exercise of punishment appears to have become, in the Foucauldian sense, a disciplined practice – something that has developed into a taken for granted reality in a particular social system. Throughout the last century, the exercise of punishment by people in posi­ tions of dominance in the NSW Police Service has resulted in the formation of a “code of order” or set of “rules of the game” which spell out that, “irre­ 183

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spective of the reasons why, challenging a superior is a punishable ­offence”. The Commissioner’s actions clearly reinforced this code of order. On a different point, a Senior General Duties Officer who was a member of the reform management team at the Cornell LAC refers to how general duties (uniform) officers, despite being empowered by the reform process, continue to defer to detectives: GDO: Yes. Do you know that the biggest … and I said this to XXXX [the Local Area Commander who initiated the reform program at the Cornell Command] on many occasions, and XXXX [another member of the reform management team], in our conversations, the biggest impediment to being multifunctional teams … the biggest impediment possibly, would be the gen­ eral duty police, who in some ways had the most to gain … because, for so long, [the] special role of the detectives had taken in the organisation [sic]. That role was reinforced by beating up the uniform police as in culturally, and that would be reinforced by the process that was involved, the produc­ tion line approach, where we would go to a job, it was … like, uniformed police would go to a job, … We’ve got other jobs to attend to as well so you couldn’t stay with it. Who do we call? Detectives come in to do the job. It might be that everything has been done, it just needs a protracted interview, but these guys will come in … that’s the way the uniform guys see it … and they take the glory, they take the brief, and in doing so, really, snob and push the uniformed police away. RES: Marginalise the uniform guys? GDO: That’s right. They really … that’s was a cultural thing and I believe that one of the biggest impediments to team aligning the CI [Detectives] was the fear factor in the general duties, of the detectives. They are absolutely scared of them, scared of being bastardised, scared of being harassed, intimidated … all those sort of things.

This Senior Officer argues that the general duties officers, despite having the most to gain, are the biggest impediment to the reform process. He argues that this is the case because they are trapped, historically, by the way that the power relationship between detectives and themselves has been constituted. Over time, detectives have acquired a privileged position and a dominant role through their specialist status, which has allowed them to differentiate themselves from general duties officers. The Senior Officer refers to gen­ eral duties officers fearing detectives based on past practices of “bastardisa­ tion”. The transcript supports an interpretation of the relationship between general duties officers and detectives as one that is dualistic. The structural reform that has taken place requires detectives to report to a General Duties Team Leader. In effect this procedural change reflects an attempted de-dif­ 

Bastardisation is a form of social abuse and demoralization, was a practice also observed by the 1996 Wood Royal Commission.

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ferentiation of the dualism. The Senior Officer argues, however, that de­ spite general duties officers having their “voice” formally legitimised by the structural reform, the ability to do so is constrained by, and reinforces, the essential understanding that “Detectives are naturally superior to General Duties Officers”. In the following transcript a New Recruit (NR) and a General Duties Officer (GD) offer insight into the practices of their senior officers. These practices conflict with Commissioner Ryan’s (2001) claims in regard to the progress of reform, in particular that the Employee Management System (EMS) has changed the culture of the organization: RES: Tell me about the reform process here. NR:

I don’t notice anything about the change because it’s the norm for me.

GD:

Everybody is out for themselves … like this EMS system [sic]. We know they put us on it so they can write down that they have counselled us. It’s about promotion. It’s not about doing good policing. There is no trust in [working] relationships.

RES: [Asked new recruit] Would you question a superior? NR:

NO!

RES: Why? NR:

I don’t know.

RES: Where did you learn not to question – at the academy? NR:

NO. It’s like this. I was reprimanded for a report that I put in about break and enter by the crime manager and I said to her I was given different infor­ mation, I spoke back to her. Since then she’s been all over me for the minute things – I know her eyes are on me.

GD:

Yeah, it’s about getting somebody, if you speak out you can expect to be got.

RES: You mean, punished”? GD:

EXACTLY!

NR:

Like, I asked XXXX [GD] how to do something and he told me, I did it that way and the Duty Officer got stuck into me, telling me I did it wrong. I went back to XXXX [GD] and the other guys and they said well, you’ve done it right, they didn’t know what the Duty Officer was on about. I was sort of stuck in between – I did it the way the Duty Officer said.

RES: Why? NR:

He is more higher.

RES: Did you question him? NR:

No way! I have learnt very quickly not to do that.

GD:

The reason he wanted changed was so his stats looked good. But that’s not the job, them looking good is more important than doing the job.

RES: Why don’t you question them?

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GD:

Because we end up on the EMS system [sic].

RES: Can’t you put them on the EMS system [sic]? GD:

Technically, yes. Yes, [laughed] … But I can tell you that if I put a D.O. [Duty Officer] on the EMS he’d get me, my life would be hell. It is just something you don’t do.

RES: It sounds like you fear them? GD:

EXACTLY! I DO! (Dgoemsf, Section 0, Paragraphs 3–65).

This transcript reaffirms the differential boundaries between senior and lower ranking officers and who has the right to exercise discipline. In addi­ tion, the General Duties Officer makes reference to the senior officer using the EMS as a disciplinary tool as well as a way of strategically positioning themselves for promotion. The EMS was introduced in response to recommendations put forward by the Wood Royal Commission. It was designed to help change the culture of the Service by, amongst other things, providing a means by which all ­officers can exercise their “voice”. In theory, any officer can go to the EMS and report anything to do with internal operations that they do not believe is rational, right or just, including the practices of superior officers. In many ways the EMS betrays the auspices of the assumptions within which it is anchored. The designers of the EMS appeared to assume that it would be used just as intended. However, similar to the Idealist Stream of the power in organizations literature, the effect of the contextual com­ plexities of the specific social environments in which the system is used was omitted. The design appears ignorant of the more unobtrusive cultural and political dynamics at play. While, technically, lower level officers can report on their superiors, they know that to do so would not be in their best inter­ ests. These officers are well aware that to do so would be, in the terms of this study, to abuse the historically constituted codes of order that constrain what people can and cannot do in their organization. In this sense, it appears that the introduction of the EMS achieved the opposite to what was intended; officers in positions of dominance used it as a means to discipline and punish other officers and thereby strategically position themselves for career advancement. The result is that the EMS rein­ forces the practice of domination and constrained lower level officers from using their “voice”. A Team Leader’s comments add weight to this claim: TL:

Do you want to know something that is really interesting at the moment? Very interesting, and it happens here, I’ve noticed. All of our complaints, or not all of them, but 90% of them, are coming from internal. It’s no longer the public ring up and say, I want to whinge about Constable so and so. It’s, oh, you haven’t got your nametag on, that’s the third time in a row. I am going to put you on the EMS system [sic].

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RES: I’ve heard about the EMS system [sic]. So, there is a new way of getting someone? TL:

See, the people that are doing this … they are out to further their own career. So, they do this so that they can put it into a module that they can use for a job application … That’s terrible! I find that this … and I think you’ll find … that’s why the blokes are going off sick all the time with this shit. Even puts me in there [meaning the Duty Officer]. Unless there is something I really deserve, but nine times out of 10 these are little shit things that can be solved with a straight conversation … Look, you’ve done this mate, what is going on, what’s the story, what your side of things? Oh, look, I am sorry, it won’t happen again… blah, blah, blah … all right then, well, then consider­ ing yourself counselled and that’s the end of the session, isn’t it?

RES: Yeah? TL:

What they put on the system, what you’re saying to them is, that’s going to be used against you when you apply for a job. [The selection panel will say] “Hang on, you are on the bloody EMS system [sic] three times and you are saying you are the best Supervisor in the world”? And they can use it, because they know it exists.

RES: Yeah? TL:

So, suddenly my career path goes further down that way [pointing his finger to the ground], while his goes further that way [point his finger to the ceil­ ing] (Dbatlii2, Section 0, Paragraphs 477–500).

A different Team Leader also commented on the EMS: RES: Well, there is something that I noticed too, is that people are very concerned about positioning themselves strategically, almost at the … GT:

Expense of others?

RES: … Expense of others or the expense of what is concerned to be rational? GT:

Yeah, very much and that’s probably the promotional system at its best. You know, you’ve got a whole change, and then you had all these vacancies, like here at Sergeant level, you have … I am only recently appointed, one … two … two Sergeants actively involved, and so, all the rest are acting or reliev­ ing. So, everyone is going for jobs, and then it becomes a … I don’t know, a siege mentality that I believe you’ve got to look for faults in people to make myself [yourself] look better.

RES: And you actually bring those faults out in the open for … so, deliberately attacking someone? … GT:

Someone else … to the detriment of someone else for your own gain. It is atrocious!

RES: And that’s … that’s … actually, some people spoke to me about this new EMS system [sic], is it used that way? GT:

Here it is, it is a prime example.

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RES: It is almost as though people are compelled to get someone else to get onto the system. GT:

If I get them on the system, there is a chance I can get promoted, look good and the bosses’ will like me. Like, if you went through the EMS system [sic] here, and I don’t know how you can do that but, there would be very few people put on there for a good report. Which was what it was meant to be, to recognise good work and poor performance and try and fix that but they don’t do it (Dtgt30, Section 0, Paragraphs 45–71).

These practices suggest that, historically, the exercise of discipline and pun­ ishment has led to members of the Service developing a well-understood form of practical consciousness (Haugaard, 1997). All officers, irrespective of their level in the hierarchy, appear at all times, consciously aware of a need to protect themselves; officers seem wary of their counterparts and, to a large extent, afraid of their superiors. The following transcripts provide further insight into this observation: RES: I get the impression that he [Regional Commander] has set out to kill the reform program, because of some of the things going on [the Commissioner had recently sacked the key reform unit CMSU whose members were largely responsible for design of the reform program at Cornell], you know, [he may have interpreted that the Commissioner did not approve of the reform that had occurred] it was a message that this has got to stop. And so he … to me he has no particular allegiance to anything other than what is the best political move to make. DM: We [Duty Officers] have discussed that too and it is … something that’s … one thing that happened, and sort of brought it home to me was … well, I guess, really, if you come back to … you know, how you said. Here is what is occurring at Cornell, linked to what is occurring at the PIC [Police Integrity Commission – inquiry into reform] at the moment and the Crime Management Unit [CMU-key reform unit was sacked by Commissioner Ryan]. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that might be, but I can’t prove it. The … because when … Mr XXXX [Regional Commander] thought he was going to get a subpoena to appear before PIC, because Cornell had been mentioned at the current sittings. And what’s occurred at Cornell, how the tactics in Cornell are the same as the tactics which have been used against the behavioural change program members [CMU’s previous title] at a senior, senior management level, exactly the same tactics … all of a sudden we had an influx of region generated internal affairs complaints for Cornell’s person­ nel being investigated over trivial things and … I just saw that as the Region Commander panicking, trying to show that he is actually doing something by investigating his troops. I mean, the internal affairs complaints were the lowest for the region, and directly attributable to the changes that were implemented … (Dmd_if, Section 0, Paragraphs 202–212).

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This Duty Officer discusses his doubts about the motives of his Regional Commander. It is suggested that because the Commissioner appeared to be displeased with the work of the Crime Management Support Unit, whose members were responsible for much of the reform that had occurred at the Cornell LAC, the Regional Commander immediately went into protection mode and generated numerous internal inquiries for minor issue so as to give the impression to his superiors that he was on “top of things”; initially, the effect that this had on the officers at Cornell seemed of little impor­ tance. During the same conversation the officer discussed his own protection strategies: RES: And I guess a comment on this too, which was actually made quite clear in the Royal Commission, that it [the Police Service] was a mate’s club. And, that you looked after your mates, yet I don’t see that. I see it more related to fear, it is not necessarily to do with mates at all, it’s got more to do with purely being able to position yourself strategically in order to survive or to go ahead. DM: Definitely! Anyone that is chasing promotion is going to strategically posi­ tion themselves … I know that and I’ve got to be honest, I strategically posi­ tioned myself with XXXX [previous Commander] when he came to Cornell, because I could see that, well, I liked his product, I liked what he had. And YYYY [a CMSU officer], I strategically positioned myself with him because I liked his product … but, as I said, about ZZZZ [another Duty Officer] being a political animal, I think he is astute enough that he’s got to strategi­ cally position himself with LLLL [new Local Area Commander] and to be seen to be supporting her, even though he doesn’t support what she is doing. Otherwise, Mr TTTT [Regional Commander] will see that if he goes against her, he will get no relieving at Local Area Command level. And essentially, if he wants to get promoted, he would need to leave this region (Dmd_if, Section 0, Paragraphs 295–297).

Reading between the lines (Boje, 2001) of the above transcript and taking into account the earlier comments of a Team Leader – “it’s like a siege men­ tality”, one notices a “behind the scenes” discourse, or a form of practical consciousness (Giddens, 1984; Haugaard, 1997) that reflects the need for officers to continually protect themselves and to keep themselves out of the “firing line” of those in positions of dominance. Interestingly, the nature of this practical consciousness provides an al­ ternative view of the now well documented “Brotherhood” and “Code of Silence” (see Wood, 1997) that police organizations are infamous for. For most people, the concept of “brotherhood” refers to a group of people who look after, stand by and never betray each other. The data here however, and in particular that which refers to this conscious need to protect oneself, sug­ gests that the reason police do not break ranks is not because of a collective 189

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sense of loyalty to each other but because of fear and a need to protect one­ self. If an officer breaks ranks, does anything other than what is expected or breaks the rules of the game, they “… can expect to be got”. If an officer rocks the boat for those in positions of dominance, irrespective of the base of their power, then the officer is in a vulnerable position and must live with the expectation of being punished. The data shows that this need for protection is housed in a hierarchical framework: whatever position an officer holds, his or her protection strat­ egies are aimed at appeasing those who are superior. Those who are not superior are only of secondary importance. As will be seen further on, there are other examples and effects related to this hidden but pervasive form of practical consciousness. However for now one may note that: the Service’s acclaimed culture of loyalty is more a protection racket than anything else. In any social system in which there is a duty to obey, for example the NSW Police Service, there “should” be no conflict. In short, if one has a ­duty to obey, one “should” never challenge superiors (Hardy & Clegg, 1996). If challenging one’s superiors results in an expectation of punish­ ment it is all the more likely that one maintains compliance: anticipated reactions are inculcated in the dominant mobilization of bias in the culture (Schattschneider, 1960; Friedrich, 1937; Clegg, 1989). In any such social system conflict is viewed as a bad thing. The following transcripts suggest that this is the case at the Cornell LAC. A Team Leader reflects on her experience when, at one time, she “spoke her mind”: TL:

I have probably been a bit too vocal. So, … don’t know…

RES: What do you mean, a little bit too vocal? How can you … if you are meant to have a voice, how can you be too vocal? TL:

Well, it can become detrimental at times.

RES: How? TL:

Well, I have been on the EMS system [sic] because I didn’t agree, because … and … I probably never did it the right way at times, you know. Like, I’d be caught here, like, I’d just go “ah, the management team’s here. It is like spastics running [sarcastic tone] it”. Like, you know, I don’t mean that detrimentally to anyone but you know what I mean? You just get to a point where you get so frustrated, … and a Duty Officer will hear, and the next thing you know, you’ve got the boss saying, “oh, I didn’t call you any names”.

RES: What, a Duty Officer working with you put you in? TL:

Yes, put me in … I was taken to the Local Area Commander’s office, sat down, told I was going on the EMS system [sic] because I was disrespectful of rank. And it was a frustrating comment that [comment made in frustra­ tion] … I didn’t say it to the Duty Officer, I said it to a Sergeant, who I had on my team at that time.

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RES: So, it is interesting that you brought up too, the term discipline … and that being disrespectful to rank is a punishable offence? TL:

I’ll give you another example … I didn’t think it was being disrespectful to anybody, I was just making a general comment. But, I went to a Christmas party. It took a fair bit out of me [the previous incident], and I was sitting there, talking to two people from XXXX [a neighbouring Command] say­ ing oh, you know, “how is it going … are you alright?” And I said oh, yes, I said … “just feels like they want to get rid of me.” I watched the Local Area Commander at that time move to a position where he could hear, and like, I hadn’t drunk much at all. I had only got there an hour before and sort of just sitting there, and you know, when someone is listening, you might as well say well, “ISN’T THAT RIGHT XXXX” [First name of Local Area Commander]? And I got put on the EMS system [sic] again because [as the Commander said] “that was disrespectful to me”, … bringing him into the conversation and yet, he wanted to be in it. He moved from a position, to be in it, and then he had the audacity to blow up at me because I called him XXXX [by his first name and not Sir] or whatever reason. So, that was on the EMS system [sic] as well. At a Christmas party … a work Christmas party (Dtgt30, Section 0, Paragraphs 309–357).

The very existence of an insubordination charge for lower level officers, let alone its implementation, does little in the way of encouraging them to use their voice. It does, however, discourage conflict and reinforce the boundar­ ies that constitute a structure of dominancy. A Duty Officer at the Cornell LAC stated to the researcher in a patrol car while on route to a job: And the Region Commander saw the conflict at Cornell LAC as being direct­ ly attributable to the change [reform program], which is correct but saw it as a bad thing, not a good thing. And I think he has appointed XXXX [the new Local Area Commander] to … I don’t know … don’t know so much to rail­ road the process but … to get rid of the conflict, and to get rid of the conflict she … it appears as if she is getting rid of all the change that we put in place, she is winding back the clock (Dmd_if, Section 0, Paragraph 17).

A General Duties Officer refers to how, historically, lower level officers have been discouraged from entering into conflict with their superiors: GD:

We [the old guard] want the status quo that was good for all of us. We [the old guard] wanted the status quo to remain. We don’t want to see them change, and why should WWWW [Local Area Commander who started the reform process] listen to XXXX, YYYY, ZZZZ [General Duties Officers implementing change] … they are only Senior Constables. They were threat­ ened by the way that the Command was being opened up – open forums, like training days that we held to actually discuss Command issues.

RES: It was never done before?

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GD:

Never, never, never in my service while being in a Command, were we able to openly discuss things, never, ever. We have been in forums where what the boss says went, and that’s basically the way any forum I have been in prior [was run], and that’s why you get labelled as a recalcitrant … If you don’t like what the boss is saying, and you question it, you never get invited back again (Dodsmii08, 2 passages, Section 0, Paragraphs 44–56).

The above transcript implies that because of the reform process lower level officers, particularly those who were responsible for the implementation and on-going management of the reform process, had been given a “voice” at the Cornell LAC. However, the following statement made by a Duty Officer at the Command reveals what happened to these “voices” one year later: They have … they’ve been gagged, and XXXX [senior change manager] has been gagged. He has had his power base removed and it is the old story, iso­ late and discredit in the organisation if you want to stop people from having an influence. One of the duty officers … he’s gagged. YYYY, he has only just come back and what is going to happen now, I don’t know, but ZZZZ … I know the new Commander didn’t want him as a duty officer, so his been transferred to the bush (Dmd_if, Section 0, Paragraphs 23–25).

8.2 Conclusion In summary, the data analysed with respect to this first element in the or­ ganizational constitution of power reveals an omnipotent assumption in regard to how power “ought” to be in a police organization. In line with modern bureaucratic principles that emphasize rational, functionalist and scientifically based models of organization, it is assumed that organizations utilising the military command and control model will offer the most appro­ priate management strategies for police organizations. Many writers have agreed that this is the case (Hunt, 1995; Tempy, 1995; Macdonald, 1995), basing much of their argument on the rational premise that those people in positions of authority are rational and will therefore always behave as they “should”. However, such expectations are not met in the NSW Police Service as the 1997 Wood Royal Commission proved (or any other organi­ zation for that matter: rationality is only an idea). The Service is character­ ized by a well-grounded fear of retribution associated with the routine use of hierarchy in ways that are, in the traditional sense of organization, ille­ gitimate. Under the guise of supervision and control, the Command is ­often compromised; rationality is grounded in individual struggles for survival and career, which, somewhat paradoxically, leads to the rational entrench­ ment of irrationality as the norm. Officers in historically constituted positions of dominance, in particular 192

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those related to rank and the superior status of the detectives, have a right to power that other officers are expected to obey; officers who challenge this right must be punished. The acceptance of, and adherence to, these es­ sentialisms has resulted in “codes of order” or “rules of the game”, that continue to render acts of domination legitimate. These “codes of order” unobtrusively constrain the way officers think and behave when interacting with each other. This constraint, over time, has resulted in the formation of disciplinary practices, or recurring patterns of behaviour, that continue to privilege those in positions of dominance and marginalize those who are not. If an officer behaves in a way that is alien to these codes of order and disciplined practices he or she can expect to be punished. Rather than enter into conflict, officers feel compelled to protect themselves by forming social support networks, that while offering a haven of safety and comfort, con­ strain their behaviour and reinforce the existing constitution of power: a constitution of power in which corruption had previously flouvished.

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Chapter 9

Data Analysis: History and Sensemaking

This chapter addresses three elements of the constitution of power framework: historical patterns of decision legitimacy; historical patterns in relationship delineation, and historical patterns in sensemaking. As outlined in chapter 4, Bachrach and Baratz (1962) introduced the second dimension of power, as the power of non-decision making, and Lukes (1974) introduced the third dimension of power, as the power to manage meaning or the ability to shape the desires and wants of people who where unaware of their “real interests.” Each of these writers made reference to the concepts “mobilization of bias” (Schattschneider, 1960) and “rule of anticipated reaction” (Friedrich, 1937) in their approaches to power. These two concepts are clearly represented in the data generated by this study. The “rule of anticipated reaction” refers to a situation where participants in a decision scenario do not raise certain issues because they anticipate untenable consequences associated with raising these issues; Clegg (1989: 79) states, “Potential protagonists remain mute, from the expectation that they would invoke strenuous opposition” Schattschneider refers to the “Mobilization of bias” in the following manner: All forms of political organization have a bias in favour of the exploitation of some kinds of conflict and the suppression of others because organization is the mobilization of bias. Some issues are organized into politics while others are organized out (Schattschneider, 1960: 71).

This “organizing in and out” of issues is an example of what Bachrach and Baratz (1962: 950) refer to as a non-decision making process, where ­“latent” power conflicts remain hidden from the public face of power. This is confined to “the dominant values and the political myths, rituals, and institutions which tend to favour the vested interests of one or more groups”: crucial issues thus never emerge for debate (see also Saunders, 1979 and Clegg, 1989). Lukes (1974) cites the “the mobilization of bias” and Gramsci’s (1971) concept of hegemony to buttress the construction of his third dimension of 194

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power. The third dimension operates when the hegemonic effect of the “mobilization of bias” prevents a group of people “for reasons of submission and intellectual subordination” (Lukes, 1974: 47) from articulating their own “real interests”. However, as mentioned in Chapter 4, Lukes’ (1974) theory assumes knowledge of the “real interests” of people and thus makes a conceptual over-extension. In so doing, the sovereign model of power is reinforced. The following data analysis shows that the police at the Cornell Local Area Command (LAC), through “the rule of anticipated reaction”, are subject to a “mobilization of bias”. Contrary to Lukes’ assumptions about their real interest, the police are well aware of this “mobilization of bias” and understand it is in their best interests to act within its boundaries.

9.1 Historical Patterns of Decision Legitimacy An examination of how decisions have historically been made in the Cornell LAC requires a search of the data for examples where police officers make statements about decision-making. A textual deconstruction of these statements indicates that they are imbued with taken for granted assumptions about power. In this section of the analysis, the assumptions are concerned with the nature of differentiation between decision identities: which identities “should” control decision situations and whether officers refer to hierarchical structures in which decision processes are framed. As will be seen, these taken for granted assumptions provide insight into historical patterns of legitimacy in decision-making that reflect a “mobilization of bias”. A Team Manager made some historical reflections in regard to decisionmaking in the Cornell LAC: TM: Basically, the Duty Officer, he is what I call, the old model … the old model Officer. He ensures the Local Area Command is running efficiently with the resources they’ve got. Because, if there is a problem with the resources they’ve got, he detects that problem and he fix it. RES: But, don’t you do that as a Team Manager too? TM: Yes, I do that as a manager, but if I’ve got a problem and I haven’t got the resources who do I talk to? RES: So, you haven’t got the power to actually, request those resources? TM: I can’t, actually, recall some resources in (bgt23, Section 0, Paragraphs 121–142).

This Team Manager places decision legitimacy within a hierarchical framework; a framework in which policies and procedures formally define lines of accountability and responsibility for decisions related to the use of resources. The Team Manager also refers to the position of Duty Officer as 195

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reflecting the role of an “old model officer”, by which he means, the past Station Manager position. The position of Station Manager was held by a senior sergeant who came through the ranks and had served his/her time in the field. By using the term “Old Model Officer”, the Team Manager situates the post-reform rank structure within a historically hierarchical dimension that constituted the nature of accountability and responsibility for decision-making. A different Team Leader makes reference to a more unobtrusive form of constraint in the way decisions had been made, a form that resonates with the effects of the essentialisms outlined in the previous chapter: Well, … I think … quite a few problems got ironed out in the Royal Commission. What was happening was, you had certain people as they were being promoted or whatever … gaining a lot of power, and those people had the ability to control other people. I am talking, like, junior staff and whatever else. And what was happening was, you’re getting police coming from the Academy … and if their particular Supervisor as it was then, or as it stood then, was corrupt, then basically they had to toe the line or they were ostracized or kicked out, or whatever … (Dbatlii1, Section 0, Paragraph 21).

The Team Leader refers to new recruits having their decision-making constrained by codes of order that let officers know that they needed to “toe the line”. If the new recruit’s supervisors were corrupt, the “code of order” immediately placed them in situations where they also became corrupt or sacrificed any career prospects. This type of constraint, as outlined in the history of policing chapter (see Chapter 2), is well documented in the findings of the Wood Royal Commission. The same Team Leader provided additional insight into decision legitimacy: We used to have … when I first joined the job, we just had your Sergeant, and your Station Constable and your car crews, okay? And then, we had a Night Officer. Now, he was an Inspector, he would go around, check what all the stations were saying, any problems, no. And he’s gone. And that was the end of it. That’s all we saw of him. Now, we’ve got this bloke [a Duty Officer] sitting over here full time to do what? Handle a complaint when it comes in. It’s got to be the best job … best kept secret in the police service (Dbatlii2, Section 0, Paragraphs 322–357).

The Team Leader refers to the old police model in which there were station sergeants and constables, and, in addition, a night officer who was an inspector (senior officer) acting as a coordinator between stations and overseeing decision-making. In comparing the old and new structures, the Team Leader indicates that he views the new system negatively, stating the Duty Officer’s position as “the best kept secret in the Service”. This comment re196

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flects his dislike of being under the almost constant surveillance of the Duty Officer or as Foucault (1977) would say, being subject to a panoptical gaze. The Wood Royal Commission into Corruption in the NSW Police Service suggested that poor leadership and subsequent inadequate levels of supervision led to corruption becoming endemic within the Service. This is one reason why duty officers oversee all watches. However, as will become ­apparent from this study, the Service’s historical constitution of power limits the understanding or knowledge that officers have of how supervision can be achieved. In short, domination is mistaken for supervision. Domination however, was at the heart of the Service’s problem with corruption: people who are dominated do not have a “voice” and without a “voice”, they cannot “check” corrupt or other inappropriate practices. The Team Leader added: TL:

Once you have two people acting as Sergeant, as far as I am concerned, the most senior bloke calls the shots and that’s the way it has always been.

RES: And the most senior bloke is … if they are both Sergeants … TL:

Realistically, their Team Manager.

RES: Okay. Why? TL:

Why?

RES: Yeah, why the Team Manager and not the Team Leader? TL:

I don’t know. I’ve never seen a Team Manager before I came here.

RES: But, it usually has been the one that is in the station, is that right? (Dbatlii2, Section 0, Paragraphs 381–395).

This transcript highlights that the Team Leader’s understanding of historical decision legitimacy undermines the reform agenda of the Command LAC. In accordance with the Wood Royal Commission and the Commissioner’s reform package (Ryan, 1996), the Cornell LAC’s reform agenda aimed to transfer decision responsibility to front line police operations, with the Team Leader the key decision-making operative. Irrespective of the way things “should” be, the Team Leader’s historic understanding of how decisions are “supposed” to be made takes precedence. Decision legitimacy in the Service privileges those officers recognized as the Station Manager, even when, as now, it is meant to be the Team Leader. The Team Leader introduces an additional historic dimension of differentiation and privilege through reference to the concept of seniority. Traditionally, police officers have been promoted on the basis of their seniority, as opposed to merit. For example, if two officers with the same rank were going for a promotion the officer with the longest tenure would be given the job. Thus, the concept of seniority resulted in senior officers being given a “right to power” and consequently, legitimacy, when it came to decision-making. The seniority system has been phased out for more than a 197

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decade now; however a large proportion of the officers currently in Service operated under this system and, as is shown in this transcript, are still constrained by the codes of order that underpin it. A General Duties Officer offered further insight into similar historical views of decision legitimacy: GD: We’ve got a lot of police that have been in this area for a long time, a lot of comfort zones and they feel they’ve got the right to call the shots, I suppose, that they’ve got the right to say exactly … RES: Where do you think they get that feeling from, is it historical? GD: I think it is historical. I think there is a … they probably copped it for so long, when they were there themselves, that they begun to pass it on. I feel like it is ingrained in them but the people who were here prior to them were here for so long (Dd,t040400r, Section 0, Paragraphs 66–74).

The same officer discussed how officers who have historically been recognized as legitimate decision-makers influenced their colleagues’ perception of the legitimacy of the reform agenda: No. I mean it is ridiculous just to say, “do it because the boss said”. That was always, I think, a problem of implementing anything, because anyone that has got a brain, would say, well, what is wrong with this, not … “we’ve got to do it just because the boss said”. These people [the old guard], the amount of influence and pull that they have in the workplace is incredible. And people would often, I see, would run off their [the old guard’s] doubt in doing something. They had great doubts in the path that we might have been going down [the reform agenda]. So, it [the old guard’s doubt] legitimised other people, junior people, having doubts in that path as well. So, it was a crucial thing that caused us [reformers] barriers, continues to cause us barriers, because the hangovers [in regard to decision legitimacy] are still there from those people as that generational thing … they have been there for so long. These other people have been in the area for a shorter time, but they have picked up on that chain of the way things should be. That has caused us a lot of problems over the time. So, it is the power that those people … would be influencing over a long period of time it is still there, it is still there (Dd,t040400r, Section 0, Paragraphs 300–304).

The General Duties Officer introduces the dualism of the old versus the new guard. The old guard comprised older senior middle management officers who, over time, had acquired a degree of power and, subsequently, comfort, in the system. Those officers who are driving the reform process make up the new guard. The General Duties Officer indicates that the old guard influences other officers as a result of a legacy of legitimacy as decisionmakers. The influence of the old guard largely manifests itself in forms of resistance against the reform process. 198

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The same officer referred to how decision-making in groups, coalitions, and networks revolved around a dominant few: RES: Would they [members of the networks or group] ever go against the group? GD: No. RES: In other words, they might have a great idea … GD: They wouldn’t take any action, which disagreed with the way that person [the dominant individual in the group] thought … Not if it would upset the way things are done. RES: So, the relationships become very, very … GD: Everything they do would be referred back to them [the dominant individual] and they would run off that person … And that’s probably where I had problems, where I haven’t been willing to accept that. I have gone my own way and gravitated towards people that I have seen that have their own way of doing things, as opposed to fitting into line (Dd,t040400r, Section 0, Paragraphs 318–336).

The significance of the above transcript is that it suggests that a select few dominate decision scenarios. This was an observation reinforced by the Wood Royal Commission findings. The problem with a select few dominating decision scenarios is that over time others recognize that it is in their best interests to align themselves with the viewpoints and preferred courses of action of these select few. This is an empirical example of how the rule of anticipated reaction works (Friedrich, 1937; Bachrach & Baratz, 1962; Newton, 1975; Clegg, 1989): the dominant do not need to exercise power as their assumed dominance ensures others will only too willingly agree with their opinion. In light of this bias, the viewpoints and preferred courses of action of those in positions of dominance more easily acquire legitimacy. Flyvbjerg (1998) argues that because actors in positions of power go largely unchallenged, they are free to “rationalize their own version of rationality”. In other words, those in positions of dominance construct the version of rationality that is considered legitimate through which subordinates constitute what they take to be rational. Arguably, this might not be a problem if those in positions of dominance existed independent of context and time. However, this is impossible and dominant actors are always subject to their own self-interests and other contextual pressures. Nietzsche’s famous quote, “power makes stupid” refers to how in positions of power rationalize their own versions of rationality. Such an observation, while not explored by the Wood Royal Commission and totally ignored by Commissioner Ryan’s reform plan, goes a long way towards explaining how new recruits, when subjected to dominant individuals and groups that have rationalized corrupt practices as “rational”, “right” and “just”, find it difficult to speak against such practices. 199

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In the following transcript, a Detective offered some insight into reporting to a Team Leader who is a General Duties Officer. In addition, he subtly comments on his relative position to Team Leaders, reflecting the superior status that detectives have traditionally enjoyed: DI:

Yeah, mate, I don’t have a problem with that … reporting to a Team Leader.

RES: Why do you think it’s okay? What is the benefit of it? DI:

I’ll give you the down side first and share the experience of certain Team Leaders. I think that there are some that are too inexperienced and you have problems communicating with them because … I suppose it’s because of their inexperience. They … get a bit of a … what would you say … a bit of a big head over being a Team Leader. So, that’s a down side of it, I think.

RES: How do you deal with something like that? DI:

Oh yeah! It’s probably my nature, but I ignore it half of the time. I suppose it’s a personality thing too. You have a lot of blokes, whinging that we don’t report to them … Mate, I personally don’t have a problem reporting to a supervisor and all that business (Ddiddt30, Section 0, Paragraphs 18–27).

The Detective sets up a dualistic relationship whereby he subtly privileges himself over the Team Leader. He begins by saying that he has no problem with reporting to a team leader and then when asked why, somewhat paradoxically says, “I’ll give you the downside first” and proceeds to suggest that team leaders get “a bit of a big head”. One may argue that the Detective actually means that team leaders who do not acknowledge his status appear to have a “big head”. In order to make this critical judgment, the Detective must take a self-claimed position of superiority. The Detective also drew differentials in regard to legitimacy and illegitimacy in decision-making: DI:

Yes. And then, you’ve got to … with management … well, me personally, I look at the blokes that are saying, you’re against team alignment. And it’s probably a matter of a personality thing, but certain individuals that approach us in that regards, me personally, I don’t think they should even be commenting on operational issues, this type of thing …

RES: Without naming names, what type of positions would they have? DI:

Public Service …

RES: Okay. DI:

But then, that’s probably me being … I think that someone in the Public Service should do a public servants’ job, and not have input on operational issues, myself. And that comes back to the element you get, where they say, detectives are against team alignment and … I mean, we are not … we are just trying to survive as an office type thing (Ddiddt30, Section 0, Paragraphs 181–216).

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The Detective introduces another dualism, namely commissioned versus non-commissioned officers. Prior to, and as a result of, the Wood Royal Commission’s recommendations, university graduates were employed by the Service in a move to rebuild a corruption free environment. This transcript shows that the Detective does not see graduates as having legitimacy in decision-making. Further, his comment that, “they [detectives] are not against team alignment … they’re just about survival”, is largely contradictory: detectives do survive in teams, but their differentiated status and high discretionary power is significantly reduced. The following two transcripts reinforce the observation that: officers with little or no operational experience are distinctly marginalized in the Service because they do not fit the historical patterns of decision legitimacy. A Team Leader commented while on street patrol: TL:

And that’s right! There is nothing worse and that’s where they had problems with the difference in Commanders, again. You have XXXX [Local Area Commander who initiated the reform program] who did only a small amount of general duties’ work, and then went to personnel, and then comes back on a promotion system to a Local Area Commander. He has very limited experience in regards to doing general duties, highway or detectives, and then wants to tell them how to do the job. The second person …

RES: … did they buck up against that? TL:

Yes, and forever, it is the meal room gossip, you know. Everyone sits there and goes … “can’t stand it, I am not doing what he says” … you know, and that’s what it comes to. If you don’t have respect, if you don’t have a working background, like, you can have the best managers in the world but if they are not leaders (Dtgt30, Section 0, Paragraphs 191–223).

A Duty Officer commented: DO: Yes and she [the recently appointed Local Area Commander] … just had no idea of operational issues. RES: I can’t see how the Regional Commander can make that appointment. It is almost as though … DO: Once again, absolute power. He’s … RES: I have been talking to some people on the phone who suggest that a lot of her voice is not hers, is actually his. DO: Yes, it has been said that there is a speed dial on her phone directly to him. They have a lot of meetings. I have never seen him at Cornell once, but since, she’s been in that position he is out there quite often, in meetings with her in her office. I think that the Regional Commander is running Cornell through YYYY [recently appointed Local Area Commander]. She’s the puppet; he’s got his hand up her back (Dmd_if, Section 0, Paragraphs 190–200).

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To further illustrate the significance of historically constituted decision legitimacy, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, during its Stateline program on 1st June 2001, reported comments made by Assistant Commissioner Small while under oath during the Police Integrity Commission inquiry into the sacking of the senior reform unit in the Service. These comments provide insight into his view on decision legitimacy in the service: Small believed the behavioural change program [reform program developed by the Crime Management Support Unit] was unsustainable because it pitted front line police against their senior officers, he stated: “It [the behavioural change program (BCP)] was extremely divisive … and never going to work … [the BCP suggested that] you people at the front line are right and you people in management are wrong” (Dsabc, Section 0, Paragraphs 28–37).

As outlined in Chapter 2, the Behavioural Change Program (BCP) was designed in response to the recommendations made in the Wood Royal Com­ mission to introduce more contemporary organizational theory and practice into the Service. It focused on empowering lower level officers by transferring power to front line operational police through, amongst other things, the use of dispersed leadership strategies and team based policing; an approach that Commissioner Ryan’s (1996) reform program advocated. One of the primary objectives of the program was to create an atmosphere in which lower level officers felt comfortable with participating in decisionmaking. The aim was to foster a more democratic environment in which the power of dominant individuals and groups would be “checked”, thereby reducing the risk of corrupt and other inappropriate practices flourishing. In the above transcript, Assistant Commissioner Small takes the view that the program simply pits Management [senior police] against lower level police officers and, consequently the program would never work. His representation of the BCP, which promoted the use of contemporary democratic organizational control mechanisms, is an example of reductionism. It suggests that he is either unaware of how contemporary organizational theory and practice deal with issues of control, or using rhetoric to vulgarise the program. His representation of how control “should” be is simplistic, reducing control in police organizations to a dualism comprising differential boundaries between management and front line officers and underpinned by the assumption that management must be in charge in order to maintain control. Yet, the findings of the Wood Royal Commission into corruption in the NSW Police Service identified that such a view was questionable. The following transcript shows how Assistant Commissioner’s Small’s view reflects historical patterns in decision legitimacy. A senior investigations officer of the Cornell LAC discusses a situation where the Command was forced by the Regional Commander to drop their reform program initiatives and react to demands to increase drug arrest statistics by a member 202

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of the Commissioner’s Executive Team. The transcript provides insights that link historical patterns in decision legitimacy with the universal “truths” and taken for granted realities revealed in the previous chapter: IO:

Well, they [Regional and the Commissioner’s Team Executive officers based at police headquarters] don’t … they certainly don’t like it because they, one, I don’t believe that they trust or have enough faith of trust in Commanders to do the right thing. So, …

RES: Where do you think that has come from? IO:

Yes, well it’s part and parcel of the old tradition of way of doing things …

RES: Command model, military model? IO:

Yes, military model. Whereas, if the problem of drug, street level drug detections, if that was raised as a concern, and simply, the question asked – “what have you as a Commander done about it?” [The Commander would have said] “Well, nothing because my focus is on property offences”; or [the Commander may have been asked] “what is your priority within your Command?” [He may have responded] “Well, property breaks is my priority because property breaking is linked to drugs.” Now, that’s more [targeting] the drug supply networks not just the street level use or possession of a little bit of drugs …

RES: So, your strategy, your strategic focus has taken that [drug arrest rates] into account but it is not coming up in …? IO:

Statistical data by saying, well, I’ve got “x” amount of street level drug detections to prove and again, where we are talking measures of performance, are we saying, oh you’ve got 100 street level drug detections, so that’s … oh, you’re performing well or is it … I’ve got 500 house break-in offenders arrested and clear-ups, which are all linked to drugs.

RES: So, why … what is interesting is why then, is the Regional Commander … putting that pressure upon you for this … if you can really see that what you are doing is addressing the problem anyway? Your introducing proactive policing yet you’re made to come or fall back into a reactive mode. Why? IO:

Well, I think it is compliance. Well, it wasn’t [just] the Region Commander see, it was the Deputy Commissioner of Field Operations, it is the highest part of … you know, the limb of the tree … you’re getting …

RES: But can’t that Regional Commander communicate with him? What I am saying is … it appears to me to be a real … IO:

“YOU WILL DO IT!”

RES: So, even if he did that [question the Commissioner’s executive officer] … what’s happened is … “NO, YOU WILL DO IT OUR WAY?” IO:

YOU WILL, because it’s a directive and whilst ever we are employed under a structure of ranking order you know, your Senior Officer will tell you what you will and will not do (Djtii, Section 0, Paragraphs 366–397).

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In summary, the above transcripts provide evidence of historical patterns of legitimacy in decision-making that privilege rank, specialist officers, (mainly detectives), as well as seniority and operational experience. These patterns reinforce the traditional dualistic nature of power relationships and resonate with the essential “truths” and taken for granted realities discussed in the previous chapter. Of particular interest is the emerging tension between the hierarchical patterns of legitimacy in decision-making and the reform agenda. This is evident in senior officers voicing their disapproval for, or, it might be more appropriate to say, misunderstanding of, the reform agenda’s focus on democratic forms of control and promotion of dispersed leadership, teamwork and other form of empowerment strategies. This tension and its effects become clearer as the data analysis progresses.

9.2 Historical Delineation of Relationships The transcripts presented in this section both reinforce the previous findings and provide empirical examples of how relationships have been historically delineated in the Service. In addition, practices and effects resulting from the delineation of relationships are discussed. In the following transcript, a Senior Detective (Investigations Manager) at the Cornell Command talks about the formation of what he refers to as the “inner sanctum”. This inner sanctum, which was headed by the Local Area Commander, a number of duty officers, team leaders and general ­ duties ­officers, was responsible for driving the Command’s reform initiatives: IM:

The XXXX [the surname of the Local Area Commander that instigated the reform initiatives] regime. The people who were here, there are still a few of them, well, probably a third of them still here, who are in the inner sanctum. Nobody else had any input, other than the inner sanctum. They made decisions for everybody. They are still here and I know they are giving lectures on and you know who they are. They are given lectures on team-based policing. They are going to Sydney. One of the roster blokes, who is now a Chief Inspector with this “Organised Behavioural Change Program” in Sydney, and that’s Jim Richie …

RES: Ok that’s just been in the newspaper, I know. IM:

Yes, well, they all got the sack!

RES: So, it was XXXX, YYYY, ZZZZ [naming those on the inner sanctum] …. IM:

So, that was his inner sanctum, and they were making decisions on the whole kit and caboodle. And our Chief [Chief of Detectives] at the time BBBB

RES: BBBB the fellow who has just left the end of last year? IM:

Yes.

RES: I spoke to BBBB. IM:

Real arrogant sort of personality … and his arrogance … He wasn’t helping

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us out as … we saw him as our figurehead to take the problems that we were having in the office, to the boss, and he wasn’t doing it (Ddwi18, Section 0, Paragraphs 128–178).

Here, the Detective constructs a clear differential boundary between the detectives and the reform management team. He also draws a boundary between the operational detectives and the Chief of Detectives. He discusses this latter differential as something out of the ordinary, indicating that it was not in line with the way relationships within the detectives had historically been delineated. The Detective also suggests that the “inner sanctum” imposed decisions on the rest of the Command. Evidence revealed later in the study suggest that management, somewhat paradoxically, adopted behavioural patterns that result in the domination of the empowerment process. However, it was also witnessed first hand by the researcher, that the detectives were given the opportunity to participate in decisions related to the reform initiatives. There was a representative of the detectives at most management meetings and often other detectives attended these meetings and voiced their concerns and preferred course of action. Importantly, it was also observed that the detectives’ preferred course of action was usually in conflict with the reform initiatives. Such an observation is understandable when one considers that the reform agenda resulted in the implementation of a new structure, which was aimed at de-differentiating the boundary between functional divisions. In short, the detective’s branch was being dissolved into a team structure made up of members from each functional division. Employing one of Boje’s (2001) methods and reversing the plot of this Detective’s story provides one with an alternative interpretation. The alienation of the Chief of Detectives by this Detective suggests that he is more concerned with the change to the way that he and other detectives were differentiated from other officers. One may contend that the Detective does not like losing the differential boundaries that have historically constituted his and detectives in general, superior status. The following transcript refers to informal groups, coalitions or networks, as another way by which relationships in the NSW Police Service have been historically delineated: RES: Where do you think they [the old guard] get their legitimacy from? GD: Rank and time in the area, and things he would have done for people in the past, help people out, you know. RES: Repayment of favours … one of the boys … mates. Does that happen often in the force? Dean: Yeah, yeah. I think the circles and networks … I look at it, we’ve combined, a number of smaller Commands, and there are very few networks left from these, most of the people were transferred. But you can see in what is left,

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strong networks … You can see it, you know when you are talking to a person where their allegiances lie, and the reasons for those allegiances is safety and security. They know if they get in good with that person, that person is in a position where they could look after them, and so it is easy to approach those circles for support (Dd, t040400r, Section 0, Paragraphs 310–316).

The General Duties Officer suggests that the boundaries delineating informal networks from one another have come about through a need of security. This suggestion adds weight to the existence of a practical consciousness reflecting a need for officers to protect themselves. In other words, in an organizational climate characterized by discipline and punishment, officers form coalitions of support that provide informal boundaries of protection. In the following transcript, a Team Leader referred to the power of such networks and, in particular, why detectives have been able to maintain their power and successfully resist the reform initiatives: TL:

Why can’t we do that [detective work] within the teams? What are the Ds doing? What is their place? Why can’t they pull up the crooks?

RES: Why do you think? Why? TL:

Because … they’ve got people in high positions backing them and that was one of the … almost a pre-requisite of a senior management portfolio in this service was detectives (Djttii08, Section 0, Paragraphs 97–103).

According to the Team Leader, a criterion for gaining a position in the higher ranks of the Service was operational experience in the Detective Branch; a note supported by the finding of the Wood Royal Commission. He alludes that most senior executives have an allegiance with the Detective Branch and, from a background position, have supported their resistance to the reform process. This claim was central to the Police Integrity Commission hearing whereby senior officers from the Crime Management Support Unit accused other senior members of the Service of undermining their reform initiatives. These reform initiatives challenged the boundaries that had historically delineated relationships between detectives and other officers within the Service. For instance, the Australian Broadcasting Commission reported on Stateline on the 8th of June 2001: Ritchie repeated to the PIC what he has been saying publicly for months, he named “six black knights” who he said were out to undermine reform. He named: Assistant Commissioner Chris Evans; Assistant Commissioner Graham Morgan; Superintendent John Sweeney;



This hearing was conducted throughout 2001.

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Adrian McKenna (Deputy Commissioner Moroney’s former Chief of Staff); Superintendent Greg Moore from the Police Academy; and Super­ intendent Reg Mahoney.

In the witness box he justified his actions by saying the public’s right to know overrode the Police’s right to secrecy. He added, “I believe there had been a prolonged and concerted attempt by elements of the New South Wales Police Force to undermine the work that we had been doing … I had seen prevarication on the part of the Deputy Commissioners. I held the view genuine reform could not be reached” (Drabc08, Section 0, Paragraphs 1–73). Further to the negative reaction to the reform process by senior officers in the Service, the Australian Broadcasting Commission also reported in Stateline on the 6th of April 2001: Suspended reformer Paul Herring … told the PIC hearing of an incident at a Police Academy conference of crime managers last June [2000] where he alleged Deputy Commissioner Ken Moroney, in the presence of members of the Reform Unit, told the audience not to listen to them [the CMSU]. Herring said, “he was extremely surprised by Moroney’s remarks and believed they would undermine the reform unit’s work”. He said, “Moroney referred to an, English Invasion”… Herring quoted Moroney as saying, “the sooner they are on a plane back to the UK the better”. Herring told that Mr Moroney made references to “the Pom Connection and not to pay too much attention to the CMSU … crime was going down before Seddon and Napper [Seddon was in charge of the CMSU] arrived and it will continue to go down after they have gone” (Dphabc, Section 0, Paragraphs 1–22, 1086 characters).

In the following transcript, a Duty Officer makes reference to the differential relationship between commissioned and non-commissioned officers and how the historically constituted nature of this relationship marginalizes non-commissioned officers: DO: Domination and fear. I spoke to XXXX [Public Servant – Administration Officer], the blonde haired girl, and she said that they went to a management meeting and YYYY [Command’s Business Manager – Public Servant and Business Graduate] and ZZZZ [Public Servant – Administration Officer], and quite a lot of the other support staff who aren’t police but are public service … they’ve put a lot of work into the corruption prevention plan [reform agenda]. And it was tabled at a management meeting, and they were present and LLLL [newly appointed Local Area Commander] handed them a copy and said, you guys can read that, if you like, while we [Commissioned Police Officers] discuss it. And discussed it amongst the police that were there, and totally cut their group [public Service – non-commissioned officers] out of the meeting and YYYY is one of those people. And then she basically said, “well, YYYY, your days of influence within this Command are over”.

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RES: Seems like she was actually putting a bridge between the public servants and the actual … DO: Yeah, “you are just a public servant, you don’t count”. And she had a track record for clashing with public servants. And the fear in the workplace … rather than having an open workplace where we encourage … ok, well, you’ve made a mistake, it is an honest mistake, let’s look at why it happened. And before looking at people [to punish], let’s look at processes, and look at why it happened. That’s where we were heading, but we’ve gone away from that now. RES: Back to punishing the person, that’s the way it always has been. DO: And now, it’s oh no, we’ve made a mistake. And the Team Leaders cover it up at all costs. RES: Because they think that they are going to get it. DO: Yes, I’ll get it, you’ll get it. RES: Rather than focusing on the problem … let’s get [punish] somebody. DO: And that’s exactly what happened with the investigation that I had that as far as I was concerned, was a witch-hunt (Dmd_if, Section 0, Paragraphs 384–402).

This senior officer’s account is of the interplay between what the research sees as the essentialisms that pervade the organization, the organization’s historical patterns of decision-making and the way relationships have been historically delineated. The newly appointed Local Area Commander’s behaviour reflects her assumed right to power and, perhaps through simply falling into patterns of historically constituted disciplined practice, reinforces the existing differential relationship between commissioned and noncommissioned officers. This reinforcement is in direct contrast to many of the recommendations made by the Wood Royal Commission. Specifically, it contradicts the call for the Service to introduce management and organisational expertise from outside and create a more egalitarian work environment. Below, a Detective highlights how the concept of specialization largely constitutes a differential identity and perceived right to power for detectives: Which I found rather stupid, you know. I said, “why would we train someone for about three years to be detectives and then siphon them through an office demeanour, and how he talks to people, and how he can work under control and under [low] supervision, and then we throw them back in the fucking truck.” You’ve got to be kidding (Dmmt11, Section 0, Paragraph 66).

This transcript conveys an elitist tone that resonates with the historical right to power that detectives have enjoyed. The underlying assumption is that working on the truck, meaning working in a team patrol with general du208

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.

ties and other specialist officers, is an inappropriate use of detective personnel. However, as is evident in a number of the transcripts presented, other police disagree with this assumption. They question the extent to which a detective’s role is functionally different and whether using them as a specialist resource, differentiated from front line operating police, is the most efficient and effective use of resources. Reflecting on the events related to the behaviour and work practices of detectives reported in the Wood Royal Commission, one is left sympathizing with the argument of these officers. If the plot in this transcript is reversed (Boje, 2001), perhaps after 3 years of training, siphoning officers through a “detective” demeanour where they learn “how to talk to people”, is precisely the time when officers should be put on the “truck”. In summary, data pertaining to this element of the constitution of ­power framework shows that the way relationships have been historically delineated resonates with the essential assumptions and historical patterns of decision legitimacy that underpin social interaction within the Service. Boundaries of identity reflecting rank, management, specialist (detectives) and operational status differentiate officers on the basis of power. In light of the mobilization of bias within the Service, this historical delineation has led to the formation of codes of behavioural order that have, in turn, created disciplined practices and consequent assumptions and expectations in regard to the way things are “supposed” to be. These assumptions and expectations obscure, or render vulnerable, the legitimacy of other viewpoints. As will be seen, the link between legitimacy, codes of order and disciplined practices, in a genealogical sense, is a key dynamic of power. It is the link providing insight into how the archaeology of order, in this case the historical constitution of power for the NSW Police Service, is used strategically by officers to gain legitimacy for their viewpoints and preferred courses of action.

9.3 Patterns in Sensemaking In this section, the codes or taken for granted rules that govern sensemaking (Weick, 1995) in the Police Service and the Cornell Local Area Command will be revealed. Examples of the way officers talk about their work environment will be analysed to ascertain answers to: why are some statements repeatable and others not (Haugaard, 1997); and what are the procedural patterns in the way officers deploy statements (Kendall and Wickham, 1999)? The analysis will attempt to gain an understanding of why some statements are seen as sensible or, in the Foucauldian sense, “true”, and thus, legitimate, while others are seen as “untrue” and illegitimate. Much of the previous data analysis provided insight into the codes of or209

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der that officers at the Cornell LAC reflect upon when making sense of, and in, their world. Accordingly, viewpoints that counter the taken for granted realities and essential truths that constitute the Command’s meaning systems are likely to be seen as nonsensical. Similarly, viewpoints, statements and actions that abuse the differential boundaries of decision-making and discursive action are likely to challenge officers’ historical understanding of who they are, what they are, and how they are “supposed” to relate to each other; thus they are also likely to be seen as nonsensical. As will be explained in detail later, officers recognize that one meeting, known as OCR (Operations Control and Review), largely drives the Service: Well we are OCR driven … the OCRs are every four months … But even on the way home, in the car from the first … from that OCR, you are thinking about how you can make sure that in the next one you’re going to cover all your bases (Dwst05, Section 0, Paragraphs 101–119).

A particular management discourse emanates from this meeting and pervades the organization as a whole. It is a discourse that is imbued with sense codes that show how things “ought” to be done in order for them to be seen as sensible. It is evident from the data that statistics play an important role in sensemaking, particularly the sense, or non-sense, that senior executive officers make of the operational performance of local area commands. As presented earlier, a General Duties Constable commented on the actions of one of his superiors: The reason he wanted it changed was so his stats looked good (Dgoemsf, Section 0, Paragraph 44, 62 characters).

Similarly, a Duty Officer suggested, when reflecting on the demise of the reform program in the Command that officers will do what works statistically: We’ve got a lot of runs on the board, and when Commanders see their crime rates going up, and they have to go to an OCR to answer why the crime rate is going up. Then, if they are smart they are going to go, “ok, what works, what doesn’t work, let’s have a look at what’s worked in the past and let’s implement that” (Ddmdif, Section 0, Paragraph 288).

Officers also pointed out that it is hard for police lacking operational experience to be seen as making sense: TL:

You have XXXX [the Local Area Commander] who did only a small amount of general duties’ work, and then went to personnel, and then comes back on a promotion system to a Local Area Commander. He has very limited experi-

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ence in regards to doing general duties, highway or detectives, and then wants to tell them how to do the job. The second person … RES: … did they buck up against that? TL:

Yes, and forever, it is the meal room gossip, … if you don’t have respect, if you don’t have a working background, like, you can have the best managers in the world but if they are not leaders …

Further, as mentioned previously, the detectives found it difficult to make sense of team policing: Which I found rather stupid, you know … why would we train someone for about three years to be detectives … siphoned them through how they [are supposed] to talk to people … and then throw them back in the fucking truck (Dmmt11, Section 0, Paragraph 66).

This Detective does not consider it sensible for him or any other detective to be put into teams that require them to work on the patrol truck. This interpretation does not account for the fact that the patrol truck is where they will have the most contact with people and will use their specialist investigative training. Detectives also do not see the sense in having somebody else control their roster. However, as pointed out by a Senior General Duties Officer: Whoever has got control of the roster, has got control of the game … (Dodsmii08, Section 0, Paragraph 284).

The Detective’s superiority and discursive boundaries are challenged when somebody else is determining when and where he works. The roster system is a “point of obligatory passage” (Clegg, 1989) as it has direct impact on the discursive action of officers and thus, the nature and extent of their discretionary power. In this situation the “point of obligatory passage” is resulting in a decrease to the traditional discretionary power of detectives. The clearest sense codes appear to be those that reinforce the right to power that certain officers have historically enjoyed. For example, lower level officers recognize that they have no voice and that their superiors do not hear them: TL:

I still see a major problem … I think it even goes higher than just District Commands. It is like, the people from Sydney [police headquarters] … say, this is what you are going to be doing, and they still haven’t consulted the people who are on at the ground level … (Dbatlii1, Section 0, Paragraphs 100–106) .

This Team Leader also mentioned during the same conversation:

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RES: I mean, are you being empowered when you … when you … in a sense get told what to do? TL:

No, … I think it “disempowers” more than anything, you know. And still, the situation exists where you can’t turn around … no one is prepared, at a lower level, to say, oh, this is bullshit, and we are not going to do this? You know what I mean (Dbatlii2, Section 0, Paragraphs 75–81).

In effect, lower level officers in the Police Service are not recognized as “carriers of meaning” (Haugaard, 1997) and therefore are not the producers of “truth” or, in this case, grounds by which sense is determined. The taken for granted right to power of officers in positions of dominance renders these officers as the producers of such grounds; a position of dominance results in their statements being seen as the version of sensibility that is repeatable. As Weick (1995) points out, something that is recognized as sensible does not need to be accurate, it merely needs to be plausible. In other words sense does not reflect objective reality; it reflects the perception that people have of objective reality, and people’s perceptions are always context dependent. Starbuck and Milliken (1988: 41) argue that when people make sense of things they filter information with respect to their knowledge, interests, needs and social pressures, and “filtered information is less accurate but, if the filtering is effective, more understandable”. The right to power for certain officers in the Police Service has, over time, resulted in dominancy being accepted as an essential reality in the Service. As the Wood Royal Commission discovered, the ability of powerful individuals and groups to dominate others led to the practice of unacceptable forms of behaviour. Yet the practice of domination remains accepted as part of the natural order of things: this continued acceptance being evident in the way the challenge of dominant individuals and groups is seen as being nonsensical. This observation is demonstrated by a number of the previously presented transcripts. For example: Ryan [Commissioner] had to belt them [Crime Management Support Unit – reform group] because others had set them up … in regards to the rules of the game (Dctabsf, Paragraph 3).

The Team Leader implies that neither he, nor other police, would expect Commissioner Ryan to react in any other way: it is the done thing and thus, makes sense. Another officer stated: That’s right. They really … that was a cultural thing and I believe that one of the biggest impediments to team aligning the CI [having detectives report to General Duties Team Leaders] was the fear factor in the general duties, of the detectives. They are absolutely scared of them, scared of been bastardized, scared of been harassed, intimidated … all those sort of things.

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This Senior Officer suggests that general duties officers, who had the most to gain, are the biggest impediment to the reform process because they will not use their “voice”. After years of being differentiated from, and dominated by, detectives, general duties officers find it difficult to make sense of their newly dedifferentiated and empowered relationship with detectives. One may contend that general duties officers may see their empowered relationship with detectives as sensible but not plausible. The reader may recall the nonchalant reaction of Gus’s colleagues when hearing of his demise. Such a reaction demonstrates the continuing prevalent nature and acceptance of structures of dominancy. These colleagues act as though the demotion could only be expected and thus it made sense: Gus stuck to his digs [wouldn’t change his decision] and because he did ZZZZ [acting Local Area Commander] sacked him, relieved of his higher duties (Dgsthdf, 1 passages).

The following transcripts offer further examples of how codes of order which reinforce structures of dominance affect the way sense is constructed in the Service: RES: Yeah. I was at a meeting the other day, and … the group, were actually told by the Local Area Commander to sit down and work out what they’re going to do about this particular problem … [he said] “it was for them to solve”. But, when he came back, he told them, no, that’s not the way it’s going to be, you’re going to do it this way. Does this happen a lot? TL:

Yeah, well, it’s amazing you say that. We’ve got another group of people come out and say the same thing. Write down what your problems are, and so on … not enough resources … not enough money to do this … not enough money to that. And I can remember the Assistant Commissioner standing there and saying, well, you do have enough resources, you’ve got enough for that, like, it’s a big shot in the arm [meaning that the Assistant Commissioner used rhetoric to convince them otherwise] and people [officers in attendance] were going, oh, yes. Realistically, they [Assistant Commissioners] know that’s not the case, but they are good salesmen. That’s how they get to where they are (Dbatlii1, Section 0, Paragraphs 120–122).

This Team Leader describes how, despite holding a position in which he is supposed to be empowered, senior officers do not recognize his “voice”. Instead senior officers do not view Team Leaders as legitimate “carriers of meaning” and thus construct the version of sense they wish them to adopt. A General Duties Officer made similar observations while also highlighting how many officers have found it difficult to make sense of the reform process: RES: So, do you think that the middle level managers in the … let’s say the realm of change, … may well have been influenced by what they thought the Senior Commanders wanted?

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GDO: Yes, totally. Acting in ignorance, they were. They really didn’t know what was going on. They just thought they knew what was going on. They thought they knew why they were shifting deck chairs around … I’d like to give them some credit for it but I don’t think there was much influence. I think there was a direction sent from high above, “we must turn into Local Area Commands or we must do this”, and it just filtered on down and the poor people, the implementers, really didn’t have much say in how it was done, why it was done. They never had the opportunity to learn. So, I feel sorry for those Senior Sergeants, Sergeants that were pulling those strings. But, there was probably a lot of pressure on them. But I think there was a major problem when … the big about face in the service occurred … when it moved from Patrols into Local Area Commands. And from then on it would be difficult to implement other changes because of the way those changes … structural change, like, that impacted on just about every frontline police officer, as in general duties police officer, and people in support roles … they couldn’t fully understand what they were doing (Dd,t040400r, Section 0, Paragraphs 40–46, 2254 characters).

In the below transcript a Duty Officer, who was one of the change agents driving the reform process at the Cornell Local Area Command, tries to make sense of his superiors’ actions when, at the same time as the data collection phase of this study was coming to an end, he and other officers who were involved in the reform process were demoted or transferred. This officer sees himself as being given the “eighty wheeler”, which is what happens to those officers who do not “toe the line”. Incidentally, only a week or two before this, the CMSU blew the whistle on members of the Commissioner’s Executive Team for secretly trying to undermine the reform process: DO: Well, what it has done to me is … it has made me realize … I was a little bit disheartened there for a while, but you’ve got to pick yourself up and realize that the Service, and by the Service, I mean the Commissioner … is saying that, “hey, we want change, we are actively implementing change”, and I feel naïve for believing that they wanted change and that I would make a difference, and for sticking my neck out and for being branded as a change agent; and I feel a little bit naïve that I didn’t pick up and realize it was a crock! RES: Is it the game [outcome of the struggle for power], which governs the nature of change? DO: Yes, it is the game. That’s for sure. And, … it is all about political man­ oeuvring and aligning yourself so that you get the maximum advantage at the end of the day. It is all about being true to yourself [focusing on ones self interests]. Prostituting yourself … RES: Power constructs rationality? DO: And that’s the way it is, I am afraid! (Dmdif’, Section 0, Paragraphs 420– 428).

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The interview transcript provides some interesting points that can be used to summarize this section. The comments of the Duty Officer highlight a ­tenuous relationship between the concepts of sensemaking, plausibility and legitimacy; a tenuous relationship that comes about when sensemaking ­occurs within a structure of dominancy and, through this, subject to a mobilization of bias. Weick (1995: 55) pointed out that the prefix sense in the word sensemaking is mischievous because it invokes a realist and idealist ontology, suggesting that things that are out there are sensed accurately, agreed upon, and constructed realistically. However, as mentioned earlier, sensemaking is more about plausibility, coherence and reasonableness, than it is about ­accuracy. Sensemaking relies upon people’s perception yet perception is context significant and thus, not always accurate. For example, most people are adept at presenting representations that are seen by others as being plausible (Goffman, 1959; Clegg & Hardy, 1996). However, this does not mean that these representations are accurate. People arrive at social settings with different contextual constraints such as knowledge, interests, needs and political pressures. To meet these contextual constraints, people might use rhetoric strategies and techniques to embellish their representation so that their viewpoint and/or preferred course of ­action appears rational, right and just, and thus plausible and sensible to others within the social setting. Drawing on Foucault’s genealogical approach, in particular the strategic use of archaeology, Haugaard (1997) argued that for a viewpoint or practice to be seen as plausible within an organizational setting, its representation would need to account for the codes of order that people reflect on to make sense of their world: if it did not, it would be viewed as inappropriate and thus, nonsensical. Similar to the way that people associate sense with sensemaking, people associate legitimacy with being sensible. In other words, for something to be seen as legitimate it also needs to be seen as sensible. The Idealist Stream of the power in organizations literature, especially Pfeffer (1981) adopted this approach to legitimacy. However, this section of the data analysis, and in particular the last transcript, shows that such a relationship between legitimacy and sensemaking is problematic. This is especially so when sensemaking occurs within a constitution of power that is underpinned by a mobilization of bias: something that is seen as legitimate can at the same time be seen as nonsensical. In the above transcript, the Duty Officer recognized that rational thought and action does not determine the outcome of social endeavours; that is, the reform that actually occurred does not reflect the rationality that under­ pined the reform agenda. As Foucault (1977; 1980) argued and Flyvbjerg (1998) empirically verified, it is the outcome of the struggle for power that 215

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determines what reform occurs in an organization. The Police Service is no exception.

9.4 Conclusion The data analysis makes apparent that the struggle for power in the NSW Police Service is problematic because of the structures of dominancy and mobilization of bias that make up the organization’s constitution of power is housed. The organization’s constitution of power privileges certain individuals and groups with a right to dominate; a position from which they not only do, but are expected to, exercise discipline and punishment. Obedience, brought about by a fear of retribution and punishment, is thus a disciplined practice for those who do not occupy positions of dominance. Those officers who do not obey, or cross the historically constituted boundaries that differentiate the dominant from the dominated will be punished irrespective of the motive or ideal that underpins their action. This is exemplified by the Gus’s situation as well as the action against members of the CMSU. In consequence, while the viewpoints, representations and/or instructions of officers in positions of dominance may not seem sensible, it is plausible for other officers to regard them as being legitimate. The officers understand it is not in their best interests to do otherwise. One might argue that the sense police officers take is not necessarily the sense that they make (Gordon, 2001). In other words, officers in positions of dominance will have the greatest influence on what is accepted as legitimate. Thus, if the level of dominance is strong in a social system, and underpinned by fear, as it is in the Police Service, then those in positions of dominance will most likely win the struggle for power and thereby determine what version of sense will gain legitimacy. Foucault’s (1980) power/knowledge nexus shows that it is the outcome of the struggle for power in a social system that determines what is constituted as valid knowledge for this system. Since the struggle for power is context dependant, so to is the constitution of knowledge. Knowledge is culturally significant and thus, has a plurality. Ideals such as “truth”, “democracy” and “rationality” are reflections of knowledge and therefore also have a plurality. In short, for Foucault and his followers, ideals do not exist independent of context or time but: are context dependent and empirically grounded. Such a view challenges the modern era’s sovereign view of power, its commitment to the pursuit of the enlightenment and its scientific epistemological grounding by arguing that there are multiple versions of “truth” and “rationality”.

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Chapter 10

Data Analysis: Policing the Boundaries, Maintaining Order, and Words Versus Deeds

The final three elements of the constitution of power framework are addressed here: boundaries of discursive action; the ordering of statements; and words versus deeds. This chapter has a more practical focus than the previous two, emphasising how the constitution of power of the NSW Police Service affects the things that officers say and do. First, the data is analysed to show how the discursive practices of officers are constrained by historically constituted zones of power. These “power zones” reinforce the traditional structures of dominancy and mobilization of bias. Secondly, an ordering of statements is identified within the data. The ordering of statements is defined as a method of delivering statements, particularly instructional statements that pervade the organization’s hierarchical, departmental and divisional boundaries, to centralize power into the hands of a dominant few and subsequently reinforce the existing constitution of power. The final section of the chapter analyses examples of situations where there is a difference between what people say and do. This analysis thus exposes tensions and paradoxes between words and deeds providing empirical examples that highlight the problematic relationship between idealism and contextualism. The tenuous nature of this relationship has been central to this study: it is at the heart of the differences between the Idealist and Pragmatist Streams of the power in the organizations literature as well as being at the centre of the modern versus the postmodern debate. In the terms of this study, the debate is interpreted as “the how things ought to be” versus “the how things actually are” debate. As will be seen, it is the key reason why the effects of the constitution of power of the NSW Police Service remain hidden to key entities in the Service’s reform agenda. Since the 1920s, relatively speaking, few sociologists (LaPier, 1928; Blumer, 1954; 1966; Deutscher, 1970; Foucault, 1980; Hardy and Clegg, 1996; Flyvbjerg, 1998) have criticized a key methodological assumption associated with the inferential jump that researchers have made from verbal 217

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to overt behaviour; that is, congruence between what people say they do and what they actually do was simply assumed. In its most common form, especially in the psychology and organizational behaviour literature, this anomaly manifests itself as an assumption that a change in attitude will lead to a change in behaviour. However, in 1934, LaPiere empirically verified that peoples’ behaviour did not necessarily reflect their attitudes. Despite these findings, theorists and practitioners have continued to make the same inferential leap. Both the Minister for NSW Police, Mr Whelan, and the Commissioner of the NSW Police, Mr Ryan, publicly stated in 2001, when criticized for the lack of cultural reform in the service, that “the attitudes of Police must be changed before their behaviour will change”(see the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Stateline program on the 16 February 2001). Underpinning this continued inferential leap between words and deeds is realist ontology. As mentioned earlier, Weick (1995) argued that the prefix sense in sensemaking is mischievous because it implies realist ontology. The inferential leap that writers make between words and deeds occurs on similar grounds: from a realist perspective, if there is a change in attitude there “should” be a change in behaviour. As argued in Chapter 4 these inferential leaps, based on “how things should be”, emphasize an Idealist approach to power, which dominate the modern era and reflect the pursuit of rationalism and of objective “truth”. As Flyvbjerg (1998; 2001) pointed out, for something to be rational it must remain the same, independent of context or time. It is within the pursuit of rationalism that Idealists validate their inferential leap between words and deeds, that is, the theorists infer that people do as they say without reference to issues related to context and time. However, other approaches argue differently: for example, Deutscher (1970) highlighted that in the early and mid twentieth century, the Symbolic Interactionists exhibited sensitivity to this problem. To make his point he argued: A question put to me by an interviewer concerning how I feel about Armenian women forces me to respond to the interviewer; standing face-to-face with a real flesh and blood Armenian woman, I find myself constrained to act towards a very different set of symbols (Deutscher, 1970: 39).

Deutscher highlighted that people are constrained by the contexts in which they act. Irrespective of ideals, attitudes, values or beliefs, people’s behaviour will still be subject to contextual constraint; in short, people do not ­exist independent of context or time. Foucault (1991) argued a similar point of view and more recently, Flyvbjerg (1998) has empirically observed that people cannot divorce themselves from context and time. Thus, while people may have a particular attitude that 218

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their behaviour is expected to reflect, due to contextual constraints, such as political pressures, their behaviour may contradict their attitudes. This means that people may not agree with their actions, but nonetheless behave in that way as it is in their best interests to do so. In this section of the data analysis the significance of the effect that contextual constraints have on the behaviour of police officers at the Cornell Local Area Command (LAC), as well as the problematic nature and ­naivety of both the NSW Police Minister’s and NSW Police Commissioner’s approach to behavioural and cultural change in the Service, will be empirically explored.

10.1 Boundaries of Discursive Practice This section focuses on examples within the data that expose the boundaries that limit the discursive practices of officers. The way officers talk about their everyday working life is analysed for historical evidence of where and in what circumstances they do and do not feel comfortable acting. As will be seen, these comfort zones also represent power zones that have been constituted over time. Reflecting on the essentialisms that underpin the organization’s meaning systems, the historical way in which decisions have been legitimised and how relationships have been historically delineated provides a picture of the organization’s discursive boundaries and their effects. It is a picture that is aptly represented by a comment made at a management meeting by the then acting Local Area Commander, who told duty officers and team leaders that it was time to engage in courageous leadership by letting people know: If you’re not going to play the game our way, then you are on your way (Dm&dmf, Section 1.1.1.1, Paragraphs 258–263).

A number of the transcripts presented thus far (batlii1; Djttii08) indicate that police officers find it hard to believe that their superiors allowed the corruption of detectives identified by the Wood Royal Commission to ­occur. However, while certain senior officers may, for example, have formal authority over the detectives operating in their Command, they do not necessarily have authority over the discursive actions of detectives. Detectives enjoy a historically constituted position of privilege that gives them high discretionary power and legitimises their discursive action outside boundaries of formal structure, rank and lines of authority. All officers with high discretionary power, not just detectives, have less constraint imposed on them. In contrast, and reflecting the practice of domination, discipline and punishment, the discursive boundaries of lower level officers are severely constrained which results in a top down effect. As 219

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shall be seen, privileged individuals and groups defend the boundaries of their discursive action, retaliating with acts of punishment towards those responsible for the breach. In view of the transcripts presented, it is clear that officers, ranging from the Commissioner, through Regional Commanders, to Local Area Commanders, Duty Officers, Detectives and General Duties Constables, defend and protect the boundaries of their discursive actions. The protection of these boundaries not only means preventing members from outside entering the discursive arena but also preventing those from within the arena. For example, a Detective Investigations Manager explained what happened when some detectives from the Cornell LAC indicated they wanted to support the move to team based policing under the reform program: IM:

Solidarity has gone [indicating that reform initiatives had breached the detective’s discursive boundaries]. I came from an era where XXXX [Chief of Detectives] said, “You want to fucking go back to uniform, and relieve, go, but don’t fucking come back.” This is a Detectives’ Office …

RES: It [the detectives office] was commited to the relationship between each other? IM:

And we were solid. And we had to be, because if there were any problems, who do they see?

RES: It seems as though you have to be [solid, devoted to each other] in light of what has happened now. If you don’t protect your boundaries, then you’ll die [cease to exist as a separate division] (Ddwi18, Section 0, Paragraphs 180–210).

Similarly, a General Duties Officer discussed retaliation he witnessed against officers who breached the discursive boundaries of their informal networks: GD: The networks in the CI [Criminal Investigations Branch – Detectives] area? RES: The external bodies to XXXX [the Command being researched]. GD: Same deal … similar deal to the Highway [Highway Patrol Officers]. I don’t know whether it is the Highway guys, they seem to get around quicker [accepted the reform]. But the CI were far more … it is like, it is snails pace, it is like a turtle running along, every time you make an attack on it [an attempt to change it] … you couldn’t pry it open … heaps more, heaps more, and … Maybe it’s the fact they are less emotive in some areas, but they use the same tactics … possibly they feel like they have more power, so they have to react … They attack the individual often. Those officers who have done the rotation, started our program [moved into team based policing] … they were attacked by their own office [previous division] as such. There is one Sergeant that has moved from the CI area, working down at general duties at the moment, the backbiting and whinging and innuendo that occurs from his own people [detectives], even though he wouldn’t know it. He still thinks he is a part of it, respect and what not. They certainly dig the knife in but, …

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it is like, they [those who have moved across] are abandoning their ship, and they [detectives] are very concerned about that. Because, every single crack that occurs … like, it is like … when we moved on to aligning CI it was like … I got a feeling like, they thought it was not going to happen. I just got this feeling, like, these guys … these guys are of the belief that this is not going to occur, but it is, you know. It was really bizarre. It came to a crescendo where we had a … called them all in for a meeting … up the back and it was amazing. I have seen some detectives there that I have never seen before, they were off on squads and things like that, but effectively, they were attached to here, like, we had never seen them in the Command. They suddenly reared their head. It is very interesting about the outcome to the meeting, to all intents and purposes, very hostile and anti to change. The outcome was that the present way of doing things, this was the net outcome, the present way of doing things needed to change. The movement was on and that was a forum where they were confronted with their … bring it up, bring it all up, they were confronted with the reality of what they were doing was not necessarily right (Dd,t040400r, Section 0, Paragraphs 205–221).

A Senior member of the Management team at Cornell LAC similarly recollected: SM: It was like, the poor Highway guys, I feel sorry for some of the specialists in our Command because the pressure that’s been put on them by their professional line colleagues and other Commands … the other High Patrol Units. These guys are being, in a way, picked on, criticized, they’ve been labelled to say that they run around in V8 general duty’s cars, and at the end of the day, our Highway guys do more highway work than any Highway Patrol section around. We’ve never pillaged our highway resources to prop up the front line [meaning General Duties patrols], even though we’ve … over time we’ve had a just case to do it, just haven’t done it. We’ve reinforced their role as traffic but it would only take them to do one general duties job and straight away the crows would be sitting on the fence in the XXXX, YYYY and ZZZZ [neighbouring commands], a Highway Unit of 20 people in a tiny geographic area, and they would say to our guys, here come the GD V8 Units you know, and they pick on their mates you know. They just keep them hammered in (Dodsmii08, Section 0, Paragraphs 80–82).

One of the senior officers within the NSW Police Service, who was a member of the Crime Management Support Unit sacked two days before Christmas by Commissioner Ryan, provided some historical insight into how these discursive boundaries came to be constituted and largely reflect the need to “fit in” and be accepted within the Service: SO:

The need to fit in, in a police service is higher than the need to fit in, in a University, and therefore, fitting in demands self-censorship from a very early age.

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RES: Why? SO:

Because … too much lateral thought leads to challenge, leads to isolation. You have to demonstrate your credibility to fit in to a network. And I think that this has got less to do with policing, incidentally, than to do with antiintellectual environments, which the police service is. It is an environment in which ideas are not honoured.

RES: Why? SO:

I think there are a number of reasons. One is historical, firstly they’ve been selected from the working class, and … the trade craft history, the whole notion of master, apprentice, a singular tasking, there are certain known and reliable investigative techniques, and if you stick to those son, you’ll be okay. Now, the problem with that, and that may have been a reasonable proposition at the turn of the last century, but it isn’t an acceptable proposition now, because the world is a much more complex and more highly educated place. And the difficulty is that the tradecraft, master apprentice model is still the primary model of policing. And now we know that policing has a lot to do with social controls, and yet police, I mean, they get lectures on social controls at the Academy, but the day-to-day operating environment of the police is not about social controls at all. It is about formal controls, it is about those things, those things which can be reduced to rules, are most palatable in a command and control system. And those things which make sense to an authoritarian personality are those things that become embraced. And really, we are asking to … we are asking fish to fly, you know … we simply … you know, systems produce what systems are designed to produce, and the system of policing is largely … trade craft, anti-intellectual … capitalist based. And because policing is thought to be an exclusive realm, they’ve got a very nice closed shop, and it is a closed shop, which politicians don’t understand, therefore politicians want reassurance, and they get reassurance from the authoritarians (Drj24, Section 0, Paragraphs 34–42).

An important insight emerges from this transcript: not only do officers act discursively within relatively clear boundaries, but the nature and relative position of these boundaries has been constituted by authoritarian action. This observation adds further weight to the problematic nature of people holding positions of dominance in the Service – that is, they are largely free to rationalize their own version of rationality. In summary, the discursive boundaries within the organization largely reflect the essential “truths” that underpin the Service’s meaning systems as well as its historical patterns in decision legitimacy and relationship delinea­ tion. The organization’s discursive boundaries have a hierarchical framework: officers in positions of dominance are authoritarians, who are rarely challenged and enjoy less constraining boundaries and high discretionary power; thus, the discursive practices of other officers are severely constrained. The boundaries of the authoritarians are also vigorously defended; those breaching them can expect retaliation and punishment. The reform 222

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agenda challenged these and other boundaries, including the high discretionary power of traditionally dominant individuals and groups (e.g. the detectives). Consequently, it is commitment to the defence and protection of these boundaries that largely constitutes resistance to the reform initiatives.

10.2 The Ordering of Statements This section explores how statements made within the organization are ordered. One way to view an ordering of statements is as a discourse, a way of saying and doing things that pervades different divisions and hierarchical levels of an organization. Patterns from the data showing how power is exercised throughout the organization, such as the way instructions are given. Unsurprisingly, when one reflects on the data analysis so far, an ordering of statements in the form of a “managerial discourse” emerges. In short, the way senior executive officers address other officers is mirrored by Regional Commanders, Local Area Commanders, Duty Officers and so on down the hierarchy. This ordering of statements, which has concretised over time, re­ pre­sents another dimension of the organization’s constitution of power. While the ordering of statements has been historically constituted, officers’ discussion of this meeting the transcripts that make up the data set. As mentioned previously, the meeting, conducted by Commissioner Ryan and his Executive Team, was known as the OCR (Operations Control and Review Meeting). The events of this meeting have notoriety throughout the Service; so much so, that through the data the meeting is seen as “the” central point from which a prevailing discourse of dominance continue to emerge. It will be argued later that while on the surface this discourse increased super­vision, it also leaves the Service vulnerable to acts of corruption. Below, a Team Leader provided insight into the OCR meeting and its infamous reputation: TL:

What … the OCR … it is Jeff Jarrett’s initiative, where you take down [to Headquarters in Sydney] … the boss [Local Area Commander], the Crime Manager, Intelligence Officer and a couple of other people … and he [the Commissioner] grills them on all the different parts of why things are happening in your LAC.

RES: I have heard people say too that they just deliberately, they go out to get them or catch them out or something. TL:

Yes, yes, they do.

RES: The Commanders have a real dread, a real fear of that meeting. TL:

Yes, they all do. All Commanders do because that’s their pact, you know … they sign a contract saying I’ll do that, do this or whatever …

RES: … They sign a contract, do they?

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TL:

… And Jeff Jarrett says, you are not performing, you are out the door. And that’s where the dread comes, up at that echelon there (Dgtl02, Section 0, Paragraphs 110–140).

In the following transcript, the Crime Investigations Officer (senior officer at the Cornell LAC) highlighted the central role that statistics play in the meeting and alluded to the reluctance of Commanders to challenge the judgment of the Commissioner and Executive Team regarding the LAC’s performance. This suggests that Commanders, even when their Command is severely under-resourced, know that it is in their best interest to at least display a repre­sentation of acceptance in regard to the judgments made by their superiors. Such knowledge and practice reflects the organization’s constitution of ­ power, comprising the right for superiors to dominate, the expectation of being punished for challenging dominant individuals and groups, along with the boundaries that differentiate these individuals and groups: CIM: Yes, that’s right. Exactly! … I mean, even when you look at the OCR review, the Operations Control Review meetings … RES: It’s funny, I’ve heard that … people seem to have real fear of this thing called an OCR. What is an OCR? CIM: Well, it’s an Operations and Crime Review where the Commander [Commander of each Local Area Command] is held accountable purely by statistical data, as to how the Command is progressing. And, they look at … a variety of crime categories or crime areas. So, they will do a variance check between your current status, where you are now, where you were last year and where you should be to match the crime figures. Now, of course, there is a lot of influences in-between them but, when you look at a Commander say, “well proactively I am doing this to reduce that, and I expend my resources to impact on that particular crime category and taking all these things into consideration” [and the Commissioner will say], “that’s fine, … but what about this area over here, which is now being neglected?” … [the Commander’s response] should be … “that’s fine … I am accountable for the management of Human Resources, crime reduction, now serving my geographic area but, the question has still got to be asked corporately of the police service – what is the police service doing to support me in my endeavours … removing or non replacement of HR issues … I can only do so much with so many. If I haven’t got those resources, I can’t be expected to do much more …” RES: It doesn’t seem to me that a Local Area Commander would actually say that about an OCR. CIM: No, you wouldn’t because if you did, you’d be challenged (Djtii, Section 0, Paragraphs 399–417).

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are out of synch with the Service’s, let alone the Command’s, reform structure and operational strategies: CM: Yes and I think, I’ve never been to one [an OCR meeting] either, because where I came from we had a … the general consensus of how people with such high rank, like you’ve got, Inspectors and Superintendents going to these OCRs and being belittled by higher rank and they come back embarrassed and belittled … you know, like … and comments that I’ve heard is that, if we as police spoke to members of the public, the same way senior officers speak to other officers, we would have a complaint brought against us (dnbtt18, Section 0, Paragraphs 65–69).

She returned to the subject of the OCR further on in this interview: CM: And, it is hard when they don’t even accept what you say. Our domestic violence figures, our arrest rate is quite low, in fact, one of the lowest in the state. Then the boss comes to me and says, well, what are all these figures? I think the arrest rate was something like … 13% or something, quite low, and they [the Commissioner and his Executive Team] said, “well, they should be higher. The arrest rate should be higher. If you go into 100 domestic violence [situations], and you are only arresting 13 of them, and the next bloke is arresting 40% of them – what are you doing? You are doing something wrong. And we’ve got to get those figures up.” But, as I’ve said to XXXX [Acting Local Area Commander at the time], … when he was relieving, you’ve still got to have … if you go out to a job and there is insufficient evidence to charge we can’t charge somebody just to satisfy the Regional Commander. He didn’t think of that. RES: It seems that the statistics are more important than the reality. CM: Well, what I tried to point out in this instance is that, okay, we’ve got 13% of arrests. Why have we only got 13%? So, we did a survey. Went over at six o’clock to the change over, spoke to the troops, the ones I couldn’t get to, I went to the Duty Officer and said, look, next change get the same information and the general consensus was, … what originally came from the arrest rates. YYYY was there, the relieving Duty Officer and ZZZZ [another duty officer]. Now, both, ZZZZ came from Kempsey, and I think, YYYY came from whoop whoop, out West somewhere … Wee Waa … somewhere out West. Anyway, they said, the domestics they went to, there, were more violent. Alcohol was a factor, you know, low social economic, little family values, no respect, you know, they were violent, they were … there was enough evidence there to throw them in the back [of the patrol truck] and charge them. Here, we go to … you get more civilized sort of people … it’s a working class area but, it is more of a shouting match, the neighbours call, the people don’t call themselves, but the neighbours might call, or if the victims call themselves, by the time the police get there, it has calmed down. One threatened the other to call the cops, and once they’ve made the call, … by the time they get there – “oh no, we don’t want you!” “What’s happened?” “Nothing.” “Can you tell me anything?” “No, I am not telling you anything.” Police can’t

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change that, there is no … there is no … if there is a … “I am not telling you anything”, but, you know, if there are tables overturned, holes in walls, and bleeding noses, and … you know, you can still do something because you’ve got circumstantial evidence. But, if you’ve got no violence, no corroborating evidence, we can’t charge … RES: It’s similar to what I noticed last year too, is that, because the Command changed to a proactive operational strategy. The nature of the arrests and the way officers were reporting their arrests was different as well, and that’s when the reform [to proactive policing] was put on hold … a drug squad had to form to get drug arrest statistics back up. The drug arrest statistics were always there, anyway [they were hidden in an alternative reporting system]. But, what this showed was that maybe the performance measurement system outside of the Cornell Command [by the Commissioner’s executive team] is not meeting or does not match what is actually happening within the Cornell Command, particularly with respect to proactive as opposed to reactive policing. For instance, if proactive policing is reducing domestic violence, then you are not going to … CM: But not only that … the data that was given wasn’t sufficient, I didn’t think, and I questioned … okay, we’ve got 13% but, out of that 13% we are losing 50% at Court, they are being dismissed. So if we had a 50% dismissal rate that was charged for breaking into your house, you know, we’d be questioned “why?”. “You obviously haven’t got the right approach or you are doing something unethical or corrupt, just putting them in the dock.” So, I said to them, I said, look, what has the next police station [Command] got? We have only got 13% arrest rate. Next one has got 34% but how many are they losing? Are they losing 50% as well? Or are they losing none, or are they losing 70%? If they have a high arrest rate, but they are losing more than us, you can’t tell me they are a better station than us. RES: Yes, what are also telling me, is that, management is actually, senior to you, are actually once again, reacting to their superiors. Now, my next question is “Why?” We have seen it several times now, it is almost as though, it’s taken for granted – you do not question … CM: Yeah. That’s right. And that is like in relation to the decision to have all charging done at NNNN [neighbouring Command]. The majority of people didn’t want that to happen, so XXXX and YYYY [Duty Officers], actually went in and spoke to the … [Local Area Commander] and he said, well, it doesn’t matter if I show something, as long as my career is not going to be stuffed as well. So, he was happy to go in and voice his opinion but, you know … and tell us all these reasons why we couldn’t and, “don’t take it all too seriously” and, “don’t spend too much time on it” … “We can’t change anything!” But that’s our side of it, he might have … I don’t know if you can get to speak to Mr Ryan at all during the study. It would be interesting to see … Yes. But it is interesting that … both XXXX and ZZZZ [Duty Officers] have been relieving here for some time, and then yesterday, XXXX brought up about these domestic violence figures again, and YYYY said, well, the last time he went to a region meeting, he threw up a couple of things. Well, BBBB

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has been down to Wollongong to see how they work down there … and she is doing this … and she is doing that, and threw up a few things, and XXXX said, well, that hasn’t seemed to work because he [the Regional Commander] was in to me the next month, and I just sat there and copped it you know. What else can you do? He is probably right. What else can you do”? If you do stand up and say something, does that interfere with your career pro­spects? And if you don’t, do you not get your point across? (dnbtt18, Section 0, Paragraphs 230–252).

This officer shows how the problems associated with the lack of synchronization between the statistics used by the Commissioner and his Executive Team and the Command’s reform structure and operational strategies are exacerbated by the Service’s constitution of power. Despite the Commissioner’s claim that power and decision-making has been transferred to front line Local Area Commands (Ryan, 1996; 2001), the leaders and managers of these Commands still fear retribution from their superiors. In consequence, this Command’s reform agenda is regularly put on hold to accommodate the senior executive’s narrow focus on statistics. The effect of this reaction to the demands of the senior executive is aptly demonstrated by the actions and words of a General Duties Constable observed by the researcher while travelling in a patrol car: I wish they would just let things settle down [with the reform – proactive police]. We just seem to be moving from one change to the next. If they let things settle down, we could see that way of doing things out and get the bad guys. We never get a chance to get a win. Then while bashing the steering wheel of the car he yelled: Take this task force thing [task force to improve the drug arrest rate statistics], all of a sudden, we have to abandon our plans and react to head office guys in Sydney (Dgd0itf21).

A Team Leader highlighted how the Service’s “ordering of statements” has been systematized through instructional communication in a police journal: RES: Something I noticed last year … team policing was in place, they are all working, and all of a sudden, some statistics go awry … some senior executive nails the Regional Commander about certain statistics. Then, and all of a sudden, the whole thing [team policing] is pushed aside. A Task Force is formed in order to react … so, it’s moving from strategic or proactive policing back to reactive policing, and it is because of the need to appease senior executives. Where, and my question is, … why did they do it … why didn’t the Regional Commander or the Local Area Commander question the statistics – that wasn’t done, it was just simply, … FIX IT! Why? TL:

I think by the time it gets to the … gets down to the Teams … the Teams would be expecting that, that’s already been questioned and then rectified. We just accept … look at the Journals that come out every week, and you get a thing saying, this is how things are to be done. There is a new circle that’s

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been bloody signed off, and said right, from now on in, this is your procedure in relation to this. Every week they just get churned out. No one rings up and says, oh, look, I don’t agree with you … it’s been set out and you accept it, … For example, the RBT [Random Breath Testing], okay, so Mr XXXX [Regional Commander] doesn’t like the RBT figures or he must have got a rocket [reprimanded] from somebody last month. Suddenly, we are all doing RBT, there is nothing to suggest that the areas got a drink driving problem, and that’s a very recent example, maybe the one you are talking about. Now, look, yeah, that’s the last month and have a look at our RBT figures. We’ve got 3,000 last month, and before that, we were getting probably 100 because we were all focused, and everybody focused on proactive crime stuff. He [the Regional Commander] says, jump, and everybody jumps (Djtt23’, Section 0, Paragraphs 157–159).

The same officer elaborated on the OCR meeting later in the interview: RES: What about … what I see regularly coming up in the data, is this thing called an OCR. I finally went and delved in and found out, … [the Local Area Commander] … goes there and gets – what I was told by different people – actually, ridiculed and hammered … They go there knowing they are going to be abused … and, what that points to is a managerial discourse, a discourse which moves down the [hierarchical] line, and I’ve had some people say to me “yes, the entire organization is OCR driven”. TL:

I agree.

RES: How can that [meeting] have had such an effect on … what I do see … what I am getting at here is … it seems as though power is centralized and emanates from the OCR meeting. Other groups cannot afford to question the senior executives running the OCR … So, it just becomes … a path for domination … a path that flows from this meeting throughout the organization. TL:

See, at a certain level, they [Senior Officers] are handpicked. I mentioned earlier about the appeals process for job selection. Now, that’s only … that is only up to the rank of Inspector. That Tribunal doesn’t exist for Superintendents and above. The people …

RES: So, they [Senior Executives] can pick whomever they want [to be their peers and immediate subordinates]? TL:

Of course they can, and they do!

RES: So, it becomes … if they were particularly Machiavellian … they would pick their friends. TL:

THEY DO WHAT THEY LIKE! I’ll give you an example … they just advertised for the Commander’s job here as a twelve month appointment … or whatever appointment … until we work out what is going on [who they appoint as a permanent Local Area Commander], … there’ll be no interviews, it is going to be done on paper.

RES: So, the … [Local Area Commanders] don’t go through this appeal thing? TL:

Not at all. It is not in place for them. So, the Local Area Commanders who

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are going to the OCR meeting could find themselves laterally transferred or sideways or bloody put back to … put back a level or something like that [if they don’t toe the line]. RES: XXXX is acting in that position [Local Area Commander] at the moment, isn’t he? TL:

Yeah, I like to think that they are a bad thing – OCRs – I think it’s good that they put up on a board how a Command is going … I don’t like the way they do it as far as catching you out …

RES: It [the OCR] may have benefit, but once again, the method of it … what I … what I got a sense of, … was fear. TL:

HELL OH GOSH YEAH! Look at the structure of it. We can probably give you some police TV video tapes of what it looks like inside the room where the OCRs take place … The place has two tables along the front, they [Commanders waiting to be questioned on their performance] are the heads on the block, you’ve got the Chiefs [Commissioner and his Executive Team] are out at the front and facing them [the Commanders with their head on the block], the rest of it is all audience and on the fringes, there are people around the edges, this guy is putting these huge big bloody graphs up on the walls saying “ah, what have you done about your robberies in this area?” And the guy just sits there, it is just a big magnifying glass.

RES: See, the thing is, though. I see that fear … this is as an outsider … then moving down the line, and actually pervading the organization. And what I said before, it reinforces the informal rule that “you must toe the line”. TL:

It is certainly the safest way. You are getting paid every second Thursday … (Djtt23’, Section 0, Paragraphs 161–211).

The first important point that emerges from the above transcript is the Team Leader’s use of metaphors (van Dijk, 1997), such as “heads on the block”, that invoke a picture of the meeting as an execution setting. The next important point is that, while there are systems in place to check the practices of officers at lower levels of the organization, there are no such systems at the Senior Executive level, especially for promotions. In this sense, the organization’s promotional system privileges senior officers with high discretionary power over the career advancement of other officers. The taken for granted assumption that senior officers have a right to power is reinforced. However, as already flagged, the historical practice of this right to power has legitimised the practice of domination. The Team Leader’s comments, “they do what they like” resonates with Flyvbjerg’s (1998) findings that people in positions of dominance rationalize their own versions of rationality. As mentioned earlier, this problematic view of people in positions of dominance was only indirectly explored by the Wood Royal Commission; it helps, however, to explain how officers came to rationalize their own and/or other people’s corrupt practices as being part of the natural order of things and it is particularly relevant to the emergence of “noble cause corruption”. 229

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Further, this problematic view of people in positions of dominance highlighted another issue with current reform initiatives within the Service: the Service’s constitution of power prevents officers from differentiating between the two very different concepts of supervision and domination. The third important point to emerge from the Team Leader’s comments in the above transcript has to do with the way the OCR meetings are conducted. The spatial arrangements of the room reinforced the position of dominance of the Commissioner and Executive Team and the understanding on behalf of the officers being questioned that they were under attack by a superior force. The Team Leader’s comment, “it is just a big magnifying glass” provides insight into why the OCR meeting is so central to the “ordering of statements” throughout the organization. The comment recognizes that the officers are subject to practices of domination in the form of ridicule and abuse. It also reflects the fact that OCR meetings are televised on police television across the state, thereby suggesting the OCR is the medium through which officers throughout the Service are made aware of being under the panoptical gaze of the Commissioner and Executive Team. Foucault’s (1977) elaboration on Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon highlights how, in practice, a panoptical gaze powerfully constrains what people say and do, resulting in the formation of disciplined practices; the ordering of statements throughout the Service being recognized as disciplined practices emanating from the panoptical gaze of the Commissioner and his Executive Team. The problem with this panoptical gaze, however, is that it reinforces the practice of domination through the OCR meeting. The problem with the practice of domination is that it renders its practitioners vulnerable to constructing their own versions of what is “rational”, “right” and “just” in versions which, in fact may be corrupt. The following transcripts add weight to this view of the OCR meeting and identify how the OCR reinforces the organization’s ordering of statements and affects the Command’s operations. A Team Leader commented while travelling in a patrol car: TL:

I haven’t been fortunate enough to go [to an OCR meeting]. I’d like to see what it is like because they all fear it. All your Commanders and that, they say, we’ve got an OCR in May, … it will be a nightmare …

RES: It seems as though it drives everything that the Command does? TL:

Yes. It is all based on that.

RES: Attempting to look good in that OCR room? TL:

And that shouldn’t be the target (Dtgt30, Section 0, Paragraphs 421–439).

The Command’s Business Manager made the following comments in a conversation held with the researcher just prior to entering one of the LAC’s briefing meetings: 230

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RES: But my question is, and maybe you can enlighten me on it if … why does the Regional Commander react that way, … I know it [demands made by the Regional Commander] came from someone higher than the Regional Commander, and the Regional Commander then reacted when it came down. It is almost like it is an ordering of statements. If a high level officer says something then this comes down here [the hierarchical line] bang, bang, bang … BM: Well, yeah, I’m going to kick your ass, and then I’m going to kick your ass [indicating a cascading effect] … RES: Well, is it about discipline and punishment? BM: Yes, yes – can’t get away from it – they can’t get away from command and control (Dwst05, Section 0, Paragraphs 53–60).

After the briefing meeting the Business Manager continued: RES: The other thing too, you mentioned the OCR – I have heard this word so many times now and to be quite honest, I see a real fear of the OCR. BM: Oh, yes. RES: What is it all about? I know it is a meeting where … BM: I’ve got no problems with the process, provided they modify it to some degree to … don’t see where … at the moment we just seem to be living from one OCR to the next. RES: Well, … that’s the impression I get. BM: We are OCR driven. RES: The OCR is the central part of the Commands and instructions and decisions, or how instructions are delivered and how, if you like, decisions are made, are based upon. These OCRs have a tremendous impact. BM: Well we are OCR driven. Because, the OCRs are every four months. But even on the way home, in the car from the first … from that OCR, you are thinking about how you can make sure that the next one you’re going to cover all your bases. And you really … you are trying to put into place short term strategies to cater for long term problems (Dwst05, Section 0, Paragraphs 101–119).

By way of providing a final insight into the Service’s ordering of statements, the next transcript involves one of the Senior Officers from the CMSU discussing the link between the organization’s ordering of statements and the role of policing in the broader social system of New South Wales: SO:

They’ll [Senior Officer who are pressured by the media] just use more punishment and more; you see it is a punishment-oriented business. And everybody punishes everybody else, okay. And it is cyclical. Now, in a sense that is true of the operating system, it always will be punishment-oriented, it is a criminal justice system. What you need are, people who are sophisticated enough to understand that … it is of itself insufficient and that’s what you get

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with a Christine Nixon [Previous Assistant Commissioner of Police, recently appointed Commissioner of the Victorian Police]. She understands that there is a punishment system, okay. And, she understands the knock on effects of the punishment system, from media to senior officers to junior officers and back to the community. RES: So it is like an ordering of statements? SO:

It is an ordering of statements, yeah, yeah, you know. The public says, we want vengeance; the senior officers says give them vengeance; we need more powers and more cops. The politician will say we’ll give you more powers and more cops, the independent crime bureau say [as in the past], … well, that didn’t work. Think of this [policing in society] as two different but adjacent worlds. One world is the punishment cycle, which is inherent in this whole modern world … punishment … it is worse than in the ancient world, but whatever. There is a clearly identifiable set of relationships and there is a system, and we can call it the punishment system. Now, paralleling that punishment system you need another system of rejuvenation or rehabilitation system. Now, senior police officers should understand both systems and should reside in both systems, but they don’t. Why? Because it rewards them, [in this sense] the politicians reward failure. The politicians reward short-term answers; the politicians reward responsiveness to vengeance in the community. Now, over here you’ve got the rehabilitation system of social workers, academics, you know, people who run domestic violence safe houses, all of them are dealing with the causal factor. So, one really is about causes and the other is about effects. Now, the police system is very, very much about effects. You can investigate effects. Causes, on the other hand, you know, it is a bit removed from policing and indeed there are many people who argue that you should keep these two worlds separate. Get the police to police! It is not their job to be social workers. Now, that may or may not be true, I think that is simplistic and quite dangerous thinking … because they should understand the relationship between the two worlds, the two of them are intermeshing cogs rather than two separate entities. You have to understand, and in the academic material on policing, this is referred to as the difference between police and policing. Police … when you think about police you think very much in terms of the criminal justice system, investigation, bringing people before the Courts. Policing or the definition of policing that I like the most is, that policing is concerned with the maintenance and the advancement of the health of society. That is, all of those activities that make for a healthy society, of which, the criminal justice system is a part. Now it is this expansive thinking that worries senior cops, because they’ve got this strange world view that if you let go of this [military model – control through rational authority, discipline and punishment] there will be chaos, it is a thin blue line … we are abandoning the known and going into the unknown (Drj24, Section 0, Paragraphs 123–132).

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In summary, the ordering of statements within the Service represents a managerial discourse; a discourse that reflects the essential underpinnings of social interaction within the Service and the differential boundaries that have historically governed legitimacy with respect to decision-making and discursive action. The OCR meeting is central to the ordering process. The meeting reinforces the organization’s constitution of power, magnifying the panoptical gaze of the Senior Executive and reconstituting the practice of domination under the guise of enhanced supervision. The problematic nature of the practice of domination is that it renders the Service vulnerable to the continuation and creation of forms of corruption.

10.3 Words Versus Deeds In this section of the analysis, a comparison is made between what is said and what is seen at the Cornell LAC. Of particular interest is where there is a tension or paradox between what is said and what is seen in social interactive scenarios: tensions and paradoxes that highlight a difference between surface level structures related to power relationships, and deeper level antecedents and codes of behavioural order related to the Command’s constitution of power. As will be seen, a number of these tensions and paradoxes would go unnoticed, unless viewed through a lens that embodies the approach to power adopted by Foucault and his followers. This lens embodies the power/knowledge nexus and thus, focuses on less obtrusive forms and dynamics of power. The analysis so far has presented many examples of a difference between the said and the seen: differences between words and deeds. For example, with respect to overt organizational structures, the relationship between detectives and other officers have been de-differentiated, but detectives still dominate operational settings. The things detectives say and do reflect a discourse of superiority, which is reinforced by other officers continuing to ­defer to them. The constitution of power for the organization is underpinned by codes of order and discipline practices that continue to differentiate detectives from other officers, which, in turn, legitimises much of their resistance to the reform agenda. The reader may recall a Team Leader saying: TL:

I haven’t had a problem with them [when giving detectives instructions], because really, on our shift, I don’t see any of them walk in. Our two blokes, XXXX and YYYY … they walk in the door and … they listen to what is going on, … then they go back to their office and that’s the end of that.

RES: So, the whole thing sounds like a façade or something is it? TL:

Well, it sounds good on paper doesn’t it? (Dbatlii1, Section 0, Paragraphs 252–268).

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And a Detective said during an interview: RES: How do you deal with something like that [being told what to do by a General Duties Officer]? DI:

Oh yeah! It’s probably my nature, but I ignore it half of the time … (Ddiddt30, Section 0, Paragraphs 18–27).

The next significant tension between the said and the seen, between words and deeds, has to do with the intended versus the actual use of the Employee Management System (EMS). The Commissioner espoused in his reform documents (Ryan, 1996; 1998; 2001) that the EMS would be “the” system to bring about cultural change in the Service. These cultural changes were supposed to be in line with those recommended by the Wood Royal Commission and result in a more egalitarian work environment in which previously dominated officers would feel comfortable with challenging inappropriate behaviour on behalf of their superiors and peers. The EMS, however, rather than being a medium for the exercise of both vertical and horizontal supervision, is simply a new mechanism through which domination in the form of punishment is practiced. The constitution of power, which continues to privilege certain individuals and groups with a right to power, prevents the EMS from being used as it is intended. The data provides numerous examples of how the EMS is used by officers, who have traditionally held positions of power, as a tool by which to dominate others. For example, as reported earlier, a Team Leader commented to the researcher: TL:

And it [the EMS] does [get used as a disciplinary tool], and if it gets to that point, you are going to be ridden by someone that is Senior to you, and you are going to finish up on the EMS system.[sic]

RES: So, the EMS system [sic] is a tool for domination? TL:

That’s right (Dbatlii2, Section 0, Paragraphs 538–544, 429).

The reader may recall a new recruit and General Duties Constable saying in a conversation with the researcher: RES: Why don’t you question them? GD: Because we end up on the EMS system.[sic] RES: Can’t you put them on the EMS system? [sic] GD: Technically, yes. Yes, [laughed] … But I can tell you that if I put a D.O. [Duty Officer] on the EMS he’d get me, my life would be hell. It is just something you don’t do. RES: It sounds like you fear them? GD: EXACTLY! I DO! (Dgoemsf, Section 0, Paragraphs 3–65).

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The next point of difference between words and deeds exposes a paradox in the theory and practice of the reform agenda: a paradox that is best described as an attempt to achieve democracy through acts of domination. For instance, a Duty Officer commented in an interview: DO: Yes. I thought that Local Area Commands were supposed to be autonomous. RES: Well, I was just reading a thing in one of the weekly journals that they are supposed to be. DO: Yes, I don’t think they are. They’ve been pandered to, or dictated to by Regional Command. RES: It is almost as though management … one thing I do see is management, while espousing empowerment they are also still dominating. DO: OH YES! RES: So, in a sense, there is a paradox there, and it sends a message to the troops, “YOU ARE EMPOWERED WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!” So, what do they do about it? How do you think that affects that lower level officer? DO: I think it makes him a little bit afraid. You are empowered but, look out, if you make a mistake then you’ll get your head chopped off (Dddo, Section 0, Paragraphs 177–193).

Underpinning the reform agenda is the concept of empowerment; in particular, the management team at the Cornell LAC espoused the need to move to team based policing in which lower level officers were empowered. However, in the process of implementing the reform, that is, moving to empower lower level officers, management continued to discipline those officers who questioned or challenged their viewpoints and preferred course of action. The discipline escalated to charging lower level officers with insubordination. One wonders where a charge for insubordination fits in an organization attempting to embrace empowerment. For example, the Investigations Manager of the Command reflected on a particular example during an interview: IM:

Yeah, and so, not only did these people [Cornell’s reform management team] come in to make organizational change, they affected people who were working here, people with good work ethics and they were quite prepared to get rid of them because, and they couldn’t. They sent reports around to every boss that she [reflecting on a particular example] ever had, and it was just glowing-reports that came back to say that she had a good work ethic. There was never any problems, she was given part-time status in the office, which was never heard of … But, so, and XXXX [Local Area Commander] couldn’t deal with that issue and ended up transferring her out of his area for someone else to deal with, and you know, that’s how he fixed the problem.

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RES: That’s kind of interesting because I have talked to some other people too … if you are not toeing the line, then you … I think the term is, where you get the eighty wheeler … it is not something that is formalised. She was transferred because she wasn’t toeing the line … IM:

YES EXACTLY, and then the easy option is just to pension her out … but she never accepted it for 18 months, you know (Ddwi18, Section 0, Paragraphs 41–49).

There are several examples throughout the data of officers referring to “getting the eighty-wheeler”, which is what usually happens to officers who won’t “toe the line” – management transfer them out of the Command. A senior officer from the management team of the Cornell LAC recalled how a Highway Patrol Sergeant, who was not seeing things the same way as the management team, came to be transferred: What we did with the Highway Patrol Sergeant [who was resisting the reform initiatives] … it came down to a decision … we just sat down and said “well, where do we go from here … We are not making any progress” … we found a position vacant for the Sergeant … we sat down and spoke to him and said “look, we are not changing, we are still going down this track … they want you up there” … he said, “I’ll take it” (dodsmii08, Section 0, Paragraphs 176–178).

Somewhat ironically, as presented earlier, a Duty Officer who was a part of the management team responsible for driving the Command’s reform program sees the team as now being given the “eighty wheeler”: RES: Do you see that, in essence, I heard you say it before, and I will use the term, because it is kind of interesting, but the term is, do you think that the core change unit group has been given the eighty wheeler? DO: Oh, it has.

One of the core members of the Behavioural Change Unit was transferred to a remote Command, the others being transferred to less remote Commands. The Business Manager remains at the Cornell LAC but, as mentioned above, been told by the new Local Area Commander that his days of influence are over. The next example of the difference between the said and the seen is in the continued use of specialist task forces. As reported above, over the data collection period of the study, whenever there was a mismatch in arrest rate statistics the Regional Commander would issue a directive for a specialist task force to be formed to address the statistical shortfall; this was the case even if the nature of the statistical shortfall was questionable. The formation of these task forces de-motivated the Command’s team leaders and members.

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This was exemplified by the frustration of the General Duties Constable who violently bashed his fist into the steering wheel of his patrol car. While the introduction of cross-functional teams was designed to de-differentiate the boundaries that constituted the traditional power relationships, the use of these specialist teams reintroduced and reinforced these same boundaries. Teams were left under-resourced and, because of this, were forced back into reactive, as opposed to proactive, police work. While the task force, which was mainly made up of detectives, were differentiated from the teams and received high discretionary power as well as the accolades that come with the completion of the assignment, the rest of the Command’s teams were placed in a marginalized position. A Team Leader commented to the researcher: TL:

As I said, we have been “dudded” from all this task forcing to create extra people doing crime prevention. We have created an operation [task force] that’s got, say four [officers] on it, which are motivated, they are getting good arrests, they are plain clothes, they are not on operation. But, why do we need to create a separate group to do that work? Why do we pull the decisionmaking from a Team Leader, and the extra hours, and the flexibility and the training potential, pull that off the roster, get it over to Crime Management Unit [Detectives] …

RES: So, they become a little specialized team? TL:

Of course they have.

RES: So, it is a form of differentiation between officers based of specialisation? There is no difference to the way things were before … yet, [with respect to the Cornell LAC’s reform agenda] it should be under the control of the Team Leader? TL:

Understaffed and we have had Crime Squads, remember? They just haven’t lasted, for all those reasons. There are big problems too; they [task force] are a law unto themselves. They’ve got their own chequebooks and all the rest of it … (Djttii08, Section 0, Paragraphs 87–95).

Career promotions are now supposed to be based on merit with formal assess­ment centre criteria and systems in place to help rationalize the selection procedure. However, at the time of the study, many officers questioned the extent to which the promotion system was a rational process; it was inferred that the system was plagued by outdated and outmoded perspectives of position profiles. For instance, a Team Leader reflected on his experience: TL:

No, the position … this position … I understand that the position here [Duty Officer position at Cornell], the “2” [level of the position he had applied for] … they only filled that position for a couple of months. Before he [the person who was awarded the position over him] actually moved in, they lost him. So, this position [the next position he applied for] was at Maitland, this Level

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1, and at that stage, he’s relieving a Commander at Muswellbrook, … he still hasn’t sat in the chair of the previous job … and all he has done is done me out of two jobs, and there is no second prize. RES: He is your best mate, isn’t he? TL:

Isn’t he? After I got rolled for this one, and that was probably about August last year, I … I appealed against a number of other people, and in this round, because … as … as security against … not getting anywhere, because I knew this guy was appealing again. So, I said okay, as a backstop I’ll appeal against some other people. Specifically, I appealed against people who still didn’t get a job, who had appealed against me for this Level 2 job and I had a written decision saying this is why … no, this guy is not as good as the person we’ve nominated, right. So, I had their previous scores, I had their old applications, I had comments from the Tribunal saying: no, this guy is not as good as I am. So, some of them got nominated again in this round, so I appealed them – didn’t beat them … not joking. I must have appealed about a dozen and then after about five … four or five or so, I gave up, I said here is a form that says I am better than him six months ago, and here is a form saying that I’ve got better scores than him.

RES: So, what governs the selection process? Purely the person who is there at the time? TL:

There is a Tribunal, it’s a government related Employees Tribunal, which is in legislation, it is … three Magistrates.

RES: It seems there is something wrong with the rationalized process. If … if … TL:

How did you work that one out?

RES: How rational is it when you’re better then, but not better now? TL:

Yes, exactly.

RES: So, what is going again … despite the fact that they’re saying there is a … they are using a due process method. Something else is going on. TL:

Something like this.

RES: It seems to me … like … TL:

BULLSHIT!

RES: Power constricts rationality. Whatever is rational depends upon whose making the decisions at the time. TL:

I am 33, I was 31 then, been in the job for 13 years or something like that. They don’t want an upstart like me coming in to roll some of these old Sergeants because I was jumping … 2 1/2 bars, which is 10 years [with respect to the previous system], after that it’s Sergeant and then after that it is Incremental Sergeant, then Senior Sergeant, then you’ve got 3A, 3, 2 and then 1 for Inspector …

RES: So, you … TL:

I got right to the end of the line and they said, “oh, we are not having this”.

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RES: So, is that the reason why? Because you are not supposed to do it that way, jump that far or is it because … TL:

Well, the thing that came back to me was … was experience that … they say, okay merit. You are selected on merit. So, I said yes, I know I was … already assessed on my merit, I did the same processes as the other jokers, I’ve bloody jumped all the hurdles, I have answered the questions, I’ve done the role plays, and then they … and then that process … that process of merit is pretty much experience based, and they want to see … they want to see glowing personal references from old crony mates that have known them for twenty years or something like that … And yet, this whole process, until that point was “we don’t care what you’ve done in the past”, let’s see what you can do now and what you are going to do in the future, and if we get a good insight as to how good this guy is going to be in the future, because I was presenting stuff that I had done here at Cornell, some [strategic crime fighting] initiatives, and I had a folder of initiatives that I have tried this, and look at this stuff that I’ve done, and got there and presented that at Tribunals against other guys that, all they had presented was references from a couple of old bosses to say oh, yes, good bloke, you know, he used to shout first at the pub. But, it was experience and they went with the conservative, I think we’ll go with this bloke. It is only one little step for him because he is an old Sergeant or whatever the case maybe, and for me … I’m sorry I was born when I was born and you blokes have been in the job longer than I have been alive. Well, …

RES: How did you feel about that? TL:

FUCKING TERIBLE. I am ready to give the job away. I am still only just hanging in. And the only reply, once I come back from this, had not put a foot wrong, had proven my ability time and time as a Duty Officer, with no worries. XXXX [acting team leader] said no, you’re going back as a Team Leader. And everyone else said I told you so, told you so … fancy coming to work with that attitude. That’s the support from the Service.

RES: It is sad … sad … really that … the message to you is, all this change is bullshit. TL:

Yes. The … the notion that I was … that I wasn’t doing a Duty Officer’s job anymore is the fact that I’d done it for two years, then okay, it’s only a policy, it is an equity thing. People need to be given the opportunity to do it, and I totally understand that. The other side of the coin is … the whole merit thing that I just fucking faced for two years, that says you need to have the best person in the position. I’ve fucking proven myself on paper, in reality, at fucking tribunals, every fucking different way from Sunday to Sunday, have I got the best merit. People who haven’t even done the assessment say no, drop down, we’ll give you a Guernsey (jersey), and I am working under there and that’s …

RES: In a sense, it reflects history; the way things have been done in the past. TL:

So, it’s equity versus merit at the moment.

RES: But … you have to … to me that is not equity. That’s him …

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TL:

It is length of time, it is …

RES: It is seniority, not equity …? TL:

Yes, they just say, you’ve done it for two years; you’ve had a good enough go, now get out of it. I said, “well, what do I need to do to get a promotion”?

RES: It would be … it would be equity from their point of view, but it’s only their version of what is equitable (Djtt23’, Section 0, Paragraphs 15–91).

While this transcript reflects the experience and perception of one officer it has been included here because it has special significance in light of events that occurred after the data collection phase of this study. As recorded in the postscript of this book, on the 19 June 2001 news broke in a leading Sydney newspaper that a number of senior police officers had been involved in corrupt practices related to the NSW Police Service’s promotion process. In short, amongst other things, answers to tests that officers must complete when going for promotion, were passed to selected applicants before they sat the test. After the Wood Royal Commission, recruitment and promotion procedures were redesigned to incorporate due process selection processes. However, this transcript and the information that came to light later through the media indicates that this due process was severely marginalized: once again, officers in positions of dominance appear quite comfortable with rationalizing their own version of rationality. A number of examples in the difference between the said and the seen have emerged from the data; each of which have significant implications for the Service’s reform agenda. These include: 1. Detectives being members of teams, yet, at the same time using strategies to differentiate themselves from the teams; 2. The Employee Management System (EMS), which Commissioner Ryan publicly acclaimed as responsible for the Service’s success in cultural change, being used as a tool of domination. The EMS, in contrast to the Commissioner’s statements, unobtrusively reinforced the Service’s traditional culture in that under the guise of enhanced supervision, domination continued to flourish; 3. Management throughout the Service seemed to be trapped by their historically constituted knowledge of how police organizations “should” be managed: a constitution of knowledge imbued with a definite version of power as coercive and hierarchical. From the Commissioner to the management of the Command, each espoused the need to disperse power but continued to execute acts of domination. They appeared unaware of the paradox that existed between what they say and do – between their words and deeds; they seemed unaware that they were attempting to create a more democratic environment through acts of domination.

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Ironically, lower level officers seemed well aware that they were are “empowered whether they like it or not”; 4. Despite the desire of the Command to move to proactive policing strategies, they react without question, to the demands of the Regional Commander, the Commissioner and his Executive Team. These demands invariably required the use of a Specialist Task force, as opposed to exist­ ing teams, to redress shortfalls in arrest statistics that were out of synch with the proactive operational strategies of the Command. The result is that the Command’s teams became under resourced and have no choice but to revert to reactive policing, which has the effect of de-motivating the remaining team members; 5. The promotion system, while reflecting due process aimed at ensuring a rational selection of successful job applicants, lacked legitimacy in the eyes of officers. Those in the position to make the selection appeared to rationalize their own version of rationality and position profiles continued to reflect seniority and mateship rather than merit.

10.4 Conclusion of Data Analysis Here, only summative concluding remarks in relation to the data analysis presented in the last three chapters will be mentioned, with the final concluding remarks made in the next chapter. To begin, the COP data set – a saturated data set containing the dominant (most frequently occurring) intersecting text passages between nodes for the traditional power theme nodes and the structure and forms nodes, was coded with respect to the seven elements in the constitution of power framework. This framework was conceptualised in the research and methodological framework chapter (see Chapter 6). The coded text for each element was aggregated to form seven separate data sets, each of which where then analysed and interpreted for meaning with respect to the organization’s constitution of power. To help further systematize the researcher’s interpretative leap, the analysis drew upon methods used by leading organizational studies writers (Clegg, 1975; Martin, 1990; Currie, 1998; Flyvbjerg, 1998; Boje, 2001) to expose the more unobtrusive dynamics of power that are embedded in the things that people say and do. Furthermore, the analysis was presented in such a way that an appreciation, understanding and picture of how the constitution of power at the Cornell LAC affects the behaviour of the Command’s officers gradually emerged for readers. The data pertaining to each element is mutually conditioned and needs to be viewed in conjunction with each of the other elements, allowing the reader to add their interpretation to that of the researchers before such an appreciation can be achieved. 241

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The first element focused on universal and essential “truths” that constituted a number of taken for granted realities related to the way officers talk about how power “is” and “ought to be” in their organization. These were that officers in positions of dominance have a right to power, and order and control is to be maintained through discipline and punishment. Furthermore, over time the acceptance of these essentialisms as part of the natural order of things led to the formation of codes of behavioural order and disciplined practices that reinforced the legitimacy of traditional or orthodox power relations characteristic of militarist managerial approaches to organizing. Transcripts were investigated for historical patterns in the way that: decisions were made; officers delineated their relationships, and the way their discursive action was constrained. These elements brought normally hidden boundaries of power relationships to the surface, enabling the reader to see how the things that officer’s say and do are imbued with unobtrusive views of power relations and taken for granted understandings in regard to who officers are, what they are and how they are supposed to relate to each ­other. An ordering of statements emerged revealing a pervading discourse of domination, that largely emanated from a formal meeting held at police headquarters – the Operations Control and Review meeting. This meeting, under the guise of supervision, acted as a medium through which the Commissioner and his Executive Team emphasized the extent of their panoptical gaze and reinforced their position of dominance. Using tactics aimed at instilling fear into Local Area Commanders participating in the meeting, the Executive Team, perhaps unwittingly, set in motion a discourse that centralized power into their hands; this way of doing things was contrary to the recommendations put forth by the Wood Royal Commission. Such centralization of power constrained not only the flexibility and innovative capacity of the entire organization but also the organization’s ability to reform its operations. At the heart of this inability to reform lies either an ignorance or misunderstanding of the difference between supervision and domination. Transcripts were also examined for examples of how officers make sense of their everyday working lives. The way each of the previous elements contributes to how officers make sense of their world was discussed. The most important point to emerge was that, when sensemaking is subject to a social structure of dominancy, the relationship between the concepts of plausibility, sense and legitimacy is rendered problematic. In short, one would normally expect a linear relationship between these three concepts, but within a structure of dominancy something may be considered both nonsense and at the same time, because it is in one’s best interests, and therefore plausible, legitimate. The consequence of such an occurrence is that those in positions of dominance within a social system decide what will be accepted or re-

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corded as sensible for this system. What is problematic about this will be discussed in more detail in the concluding chapter. Finally, the contrast between words and deeds exposed a number of tensions and paradoxes between surface level structures and deeper level antecedents related to the organization’s constitution of power. As reported in this chapter, these were that detectives are supposed to report to team leaders but continue to be seen by themselves and others as superior to other police. The Employee Management System, rather than being a way to achieve a more democratic culture, was a tool of punishment and a means by which officers in positions of dominance can reinforce their right to power and through this, realize their own self-interests. In an attempt to reform the Service, management thinks, quite paradoxically, that it can and needs to use acts of domination to achieve a more democratic work environment; while in the pursuit of more innovative and proactive forms of policing, the continued practice of domination reconstitutes a discourse of fear throughout the organization, which severely constrains the Service’s innovative capacity and locks its opera­tions into a reactive policing mode. Further, while the promotional system claimed to utilize rational and due process selection procedures, the ­final selection remained subject to historical versions of how things “ought” to be. Above all, these tensions and paradoxes highlight the problematic nature of the relationship between rationalism and contextualism. As mentioned in Chapter 4, the pursuit of rationalism is nothing more than the pursuit of an ideal – an idea about how things “ought” to be. In a pluralist world, any idea of how something “ought” to be is problematic within itself, as rationality has a plurality. However, even when ignoring this point, the tensions and paradoxes that have emerged from the data show that when pursing an ideal, people cannot think and act independent of context or time. In short, Idealists are subject to contextual variables, in particular, political pressures and their own self-interest.

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Chapter 11

Conclusion: The Historical Constitution of Power

The principal question addressed by this book is, “How has the constitution of power of the New South Wales Police Service affected the practices of the officers in the Cornell Local Area Command (LAC) and, whether the nature of this affect reinforces or undermines the reform agenda of the Service?” In this concluding chapter, this question will be elucidated through a series of propositions supported by the empirical evidence presented in the previous chapters. These propositions are derived from the Cornell LAC locale, and thus cannot be presented as general theory. However, they do serve as useful guidelines for researching and acquiring a rich understanding of power in organizations, particular in scenarios where organizations are attempting to shift their traditional limits to power. As mentioned earlier, genealogy is fundamental to historiography; it is the study of how history shapes the present. In this sense, the phenomena being researched are seen not as a development but as descendants of phenomena that occurred earlier (Flyvbjerg, 2001: 114). Accordingly, Chapter 2 of the study provided a review of the New South Wales Polices Service’s history, from its colonial beginnings to the Royal Commission into Corruption in the NSW Police Service: the Royal Commission being recognized as the catalyst for many of the events that set the scene for this study. The chapter showed that unlike the British model of policing, which is recognized as the model upon which Australian police organizations have been built, the New South Wales Police Service has roots in the military model of organization; it was the military that handled policing at the time Sydney was colonized. Soon after colonization the police gained control of their own operations; in line with the principles of organization theory and management practice at the time, this control was placed in the hands of single position, which is now known as the Commissioner of Police. The review of this early period revealed that the police, because of the nature of social life in a penal colony, were recognized as the gatekeepers of normalcy, with their discretionary power formally enhanced by the passing of government legislation. The period 1862 to 1959 marked the emergence of tensions in the rela244

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tionship between the Service and the government. Officers began to exercise their discretionary power to police the bounds of normalcy, and also determine what constituted normalcy. Interestingly, this period marked the beginning of numerous public inquiries into the behaviour of police: behaviours that reflected an organization becoming a power unto itself. Throughout the period, as in the broader society of organizations at the time, modernity and the principles of science entered structure and practices. In particular, the Service began to adopt scientific management principles: the division of labour led to the formation of the detective branch, characterized by the use of specialist scientific detection strategies, the science of fingerprinting was introduced, as were technologies such as automobiles and radios. This period also marked the point when the detectives began to emerge as a superior power within the Service. Their adoption of scientific principles, along with the broader societal acceptance of science as “the” path to truth, consolidated and legitimised their “right” to this power. During the period 1960 to 1979, the relationship between the police and the government became strained. The police, through the enhanced ­power of the Police Commissioner, exercised their voice in the political arenas of broader New South Wales society. In consequence, this period denotes the time when the police showed signs of losing track of their governmental mandate, or rather, more to the point, they began to write their own mandate. The events of this period suggested that the police had convinced themselves that they knew the best interests of the public better than the public did themselves – this being clearly evident in the concept of “noble cause corruption” that emerged at this time. The period leading up to the Royal Commission into Corruption, that is, 1980 to 1995, was one of change. Unfortunately, it was change that resulted in more of the same. At this time, the need for both structural and cultural reform was recognized from within the Service’s own ranks. Subsequently, the structure of the organization was changed in an attempt to break down and disperse dominant groups, particularly the Criminal Investigations Bureau and other detective groups. The Commissioner at the time, Mr. Avery, went as far as formally changing the organization’s name from Police Force to Police Service. The 1996 Royal Commission into Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service clearly showed that the changes that occurred through the 1980s had little effect. The nature of these changes was indicative of the management literature at the time, focussing on surface level organizational design changes, the assumption being that such change caused cultural and behavioural change. The Royal Commission highlighted that the dominance of certain individuals and groups was not broken down by these changes; 

The postscript reveals that such an approach to the public may still persists.

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on the contrary, their dominance was enhanced and corrupt practices flourished. Chapter 3 contained a review of the findings of Justice Wood in the 1996 Royal Commission into Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service. In addition, the reform plan developed by Mr Ryan, in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission, was also reviewed. The Royal Commission documents provided evidence of deep-seated corruption that required the organization to undergo not just structural, but also cultural, change. The Royal Commission laid the blame for corruption squarely on poor leadership within the Service, brought about by the entrenchment of outmoded ideas and practices of organization. The Royal Commission recommended, among other things, that the Police Service introduce leadership and management practices that were in line with the contemporary management literature and practices of other large organizations in Australia (see appendix 31 of Royal Commission documents). Justice Wood endorsed the reform agenda of Commissioner Ryan, which was characterized by a flatter structure and consequent dispersion of leader­ ship power, control and decision-making, along with a commitment and transfer of resources to front line police operations. In accordance with the recommendation of the Royal Commission, the resulting structure clearly reflected the contemporary management literature on new organizational forms. The outcome was characterized by the promotion of a flatter structure and, through this, flexibility, innovation, the use of team-based opera­tions and the empowerment of lower level workers. However, while Commissioner Ryan’s plan for reform introduced structures and forms consistent with the new organizational forms literature, his plan, like his predecessors, was distinctly structural and had little to say about how deep-seated cultural change was to be achieved. Appendix 31 of the 1996 Royal Commission documents stated that the first key reform area is that of leadership and that “it is important to gauge whether leaders (dispersed leaders that is) … are working with their teams on problems and reforms, sharing information and exercising their delegated authority rather than being constrained to meet or anticipate the demands of superiors” (Woods, 1997: A246). This recommendation clearly indicated that not only leadership, but also a more decentralized approach to power is of central importance to the successful reform of the Service. In the past, lower level officers were dominated and forced to obey rather than think creatively and strategically. In addition to structure and culture, two constructs appeared to be central to the recommendations of the Royal Commission and the reform agenda of Commissioner Ryan: leadership and power. The first of these constructs is clearly mentioned, the latter however, is implicit, embedded in the issues and topics discussed throughout the Royal Commission documents. For 246

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this reason, a review of what the mainstream management literature has to say about power occurred in Chapter 4. Through this review, a critique of how the literature addresses the two constructs of leadership and power was ­offered. The chapter divided what the mainstream organization studies literature has to say about power into two distinct streams. The first is termed the Idealist Stream, which makes up the bulk of the literature and, as its title suggests, comprises approaches that aspire to promote “ideal” forms of power. These are approaches that promulgate versions of how power “ought” to be in organizations. The other stream is termed the Pragmatist Stream, which is made up of approaches that are not concerned with espousing ideals about power, but interpreting how power “actually” is in organizations. A comparison of these two streams explicated their differences and similarities as well as their relative deficiencies, and showed that mainstream management writers, particularly in the field of leadership, have treated power in an unproblematic manner. The topic of leadership was the focus of the critique because it was identified by the Royal Commission as being central to the corruption problems of the NSW Police Service; leadership was also central to the Commissioner’s Reform Plan (Ryan, 1996) and the reform that the Cornell LAC had implemented at the time this study began. The critique however, suggests that organization theorists and practitioners may need to rethink their approach to leadership; this is one of the key contributions to knowledge that this study makes. The Idealist Stream viewed power as something that somebody has or does not have; the Critical and Management Sub-streams of the Idealist Stream take opposing sides in regard to who “should” and who “should not” have more or less power. For the Management Stream it was managers who “should” have power: resistance to their power was considered dysfunctional, illegitimate and irrational. For the Critical Theorists, resistance was a good thing: it resulted in creative agency, the exercise of discretion for workers, and above all, it was democratic. Underlying each Sub-stream’s version of how things “should” be, is an ideology; the Management Substream pursued “rationality”, the Critical Sub-stream pursued “democracy”. In contrast, the Pragmatist Stream challenges the notion of ideals as grand narratives, arguing that they are grounded in a particular constitution of knowledge and that a constitution of knowledge is culturally significant and thus, plural. In short, what is considered “true”, “rational” or “democratic” in one culture is not necessarily considered “true”, “rational” or “democratic” in another. Consequently, ideals have a plurality; the meaning attributed to “ideals” by members of a cultural regime reflects the historical constitution of knowledge that underpins this regime, and each cultural regime has a different history and thus, constitution of knowledge. 247

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Moreover, Foucault’s power/knowledge nexus showed that what is constituted, as valid knowledge in a cultural regime must emerge from the struggle for power within the regime. The struggle for power is dependent on the context in which it happens, which means the constitution of knowledge is also context dependent. Since people cannot escape their knowledge, their ideals – that is ideas about how things “should” be – are also context dependent: this challenges the existence of any singular “truth”, “grand narrative” or version of how things “ought” to be. For the contributors to the Pragmatist Stream in organizations literature, “power does not involve taking sides, identifying who has more or less of it, as much as seeking to describe its strategic role – how it is used to translate people into characters or articulate an organizational morality play” (Hardy and Clegg, 1996: 631). Thus, rather than idealistic, the Pragmatist Stream is distinctly empirical and above all focused on the strategic. In comparison to the Pragmatist Stream, the Idealist Stream lacks depth: it does not offer a balanced view of power; by adopting an equilibrium starting point that reflect ideas of how things “ought” to be, contributors to the Idealist Stream amputate informative dimensions of power. Management writers in particular, have largely limited their analysis to first dimensional, episodic, decision-based and resource dependency models of power. The Pragmatist Stream offers a more balanced view of power placing an emphasis on context and exploring the link between power and knowledge; a link that brings to the surface dynamics of power that lay outside of the mainstream management writers’ frame of reference. Chapter 5 explored the consequence of the narrow approach to power adopted by management writers by illustrating the problematic nature of the things these writers have had to say about leadership. Leadership was the focus of this illustration because of its central importance to the recommendations of the Royal Commission, Commissioner Ryan’s reform plan, and the change initiatives of the Cornell Local Area Command. Dispersed leadership theory, which has emerged in response to the widespread adoption of new organizational forms characterized by flatter structures and the use of empowerment strategies, promotes the transfer of leadership power, control and decision-making to lower level workers. The Cornell LAC implemented dispersed leadership theory by introducing cross-functional teams and empowering the leaders of these teams with operational decision-making responsibilities (for example, detectives now report to team leaders). However, the Cornell LAC, similar to the dispersed leadership theories, has insufficiently considered power. Despite the transfer of power being central to these theories, the writers and the Cornell LAC, simply ignore power; they failed to see any critical consequences associated with such a transfer. Consequently, Chapter 5 exposed some potential consequences that warrant empirical scrutiny. 248

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In light of the above, Chapter 6 developed a research and methodological framework that incorporated Foucauldian analytics, in particular, those related to genealogy. The framework, along with the exposure of deficiencies in the way management literature addresses power, is another contribution to knowledge made by this book. As the chapter outlined, genealogy focuses on the study of practices that occur at the extremities of local knowledge/s: it is interested in capturing how things “actually” are, not how things “ought” to be. Power is integral to genealogy in its concern with how the historical constitution of power in an organization both constrains and ­ enables the strategies used by organizational members to exercise power. The framework employs a priori concepts to guide and focus the data collection and analyse phases of the research. These a priori concepts represent tensions and paradoxes between the way traditional and new organizational forms address power. New organizational forms are recognized as those reflecting a shift in those “limits to power” that have traditionally characterized orthodox approaches to organization. These concepts focussed the research on parts of organizational life where there was a strong likelihood that surface structures of the NSW Police Service would be in tension with its historical antecedents; the effects of which, manifest themselves in the practices of the Service’s officers. In short, the use of a priori concepts within a genealogical framework helped the researcher to expose the unobtrusive or hidden effects of the current shift in the limits to power experienced in the New South Wales Police Service. The use of a priori concepts also helped the researcher to link the study to the broader theoretical and methodological debates occurring in the field, thereby enhancing the contribution to knowledge of the book. Once again, the core of these debates appeared to relate to concerns about the shifting limits to power. In social systems that attempt, after decades of employing hierarchical structures and authoritarian power relationships, to implement structures that represent a dispersion of power, the social constituted boundaries of identity that have previously provided people with and understanding of whom they were and how in regard to power they were supposed to relate to others, begin to blur. Emanating from these contemporary debates is a call for such boundaries to be dismantled and replaced with reflexive processes: as a prominent example, the chapter presented the call for the paradigm wars of recent times to end. Rather than dismantle the boundaries of research paradigms however, the theoretical framework developed in the book attempts to enter the space between the approaches to research that have constituted these paradigm wars. Accordingly, the framework takes steps towards: blurring the qualitative/quantitative dichotomy; bridging the gap between inductive and deductive theory building approaches; de-differentiating the relationship be-

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tween researchers, their subjects and their readers and entering the space between theory and practice. Chapter 7 presented the methods employed to support the genealogical methodology, which included research questions, instruments and protocols, as well as database construction and data saturation procedures. Emerging from the database construction and saturation were quantitative trends that provided interpretative insights to the nature of the data. These quantitative trends helped to guide the qualitative analysis in Chapters 8, 9 and 10. Chapter 7 explained how and why the Cornell LAC of the New South Wales Police Service was selected as the research subject. The basis of this choice was the strong likelihood that tensions would exist between the constitution of power of the Cornell LAC and the structural changes it had recently introduced. The instruments employed, which included field note observation, documentation and interview analysis techniques, were also discussed. A framework for charting the constitution of power for an organization was developed, as were the operational characteristics of this framework. The data collection strategies, as well as the contextual difficulties in data collection, were also outlined. The chapter emphasized that these difficulties were primarily brought about by the politically volatile nature of the environment in which the study was being conducted. Extensive media coverage on the sacking of one of the key reform group in the Service, after one of its members provided evidence of corrupt behaviour by the Service’s Senior Executive, affected the everyday working life of officers at the Cornell LAC, as well as the means by which data was collected by the researcher. The database construction and saturation procedures were achieved through the employment of Nvivo – a qualitative analysis software package. The chapter outlined the database project, record, and tree node structure, along with the search operations employed to saturate the data. The qualitative trends that emerged from the saturation process represent the relative frequency with which nodes (reflecting coding themes) were referenced within the data. These trends provided insights that helped to control the data by systematizing the interpretative leap of the researcher prior to conducting qualitative analysis of the data; they provided quantitative measures identifying dominant trends, themes and problematic issues that required further investigation. Consequently, Chapters 8, 9 and 10 explored the dominant themes and problematic issues in more detail by employing a qualitative method which this study views as a form of textual deconstruction. Chapter 8 pointed out that the qualitative analysis placed an emphasis on allowing a narrative to emerge from the data, which takes the reader on a journey through the “side streets, and back alleyways” that made up everyday life as a police officer at the Cornell LAC. In Chapters 9 and 10, the actual practices and interpretations that officers make of power in their working life were analysed. To help further system250

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atize the interpretative leap of the researcher a combination of text analysis methods drawn from theorists such as Clegg (1975), Martin (1990), Currie (1998), Flyvbjerg (1998) and Boje (2001) were employed; as already mentioned, this combination represented a form of textual deconstruction. The method helped the researcher to systematically delve deeper than the surface level representations of practices and interpretations by the research participants – although these were an important source of data for interpretation – to explore how the representations were both underpinned and shaped by the organization’s historical antecedents to power. The process involved deconstructing texts to expose the problematic nature of dualism, hierarchies, storylines and plots, dominant and resistant voices, as well as the identification of power themes and the constraining nature of structures and forms imbued with power. Emerging from the process is a narrative that provides insight into how the constitution of power of the Cornell LAC both constrained and enabled the things that its officers say and do. The analysis presented in Chapter 7 also showed that with respect to the first element of the constitution of power framework – taken for granted realities – an assumption in regard to how power “should” be in a police organization pervaded the minds of the officers of the Cornell LAC. The assumption that a police organization must be based on the military model of organization reflects the principles that underpin modern bureaucratic theory, placing an emphasis on rational, functionalist and scientifically based models of organization. In this chapter it was argued that such an assumption, along with the views of writers who have attempted to substantiate it, are based on the premise that organizational members will behave as they “should”. Such a premise adopts an equilibrium starting point, similar to that mentioned earlier in this chapter, which amputates valuable insights that provide a richer and more balanced view of the nature of power in organizations from the analysis of power. Recent histories and the data in this study suggest that the expectation that people will behave as they “should” has not been met in the New South Wales Police Service. Further, Chapter 7 highlighted that the Service was characterized by an entrenched fear of punishment and this fear was associated with the routine use of hierarchy in ways that were, in the traditional sense of organization, illegitimate. Under the guise of supervision and control, the Cornell LAC was often compromised; rationality was grounded in individual struggles for survival and career, which, somewhat paradoxically, led to the rational entrenchment of irrationality as the norm. A universal assumption such as this gives rise to a number of essentialisms, about practices that are taken for granted by officers in historically constituted positions of dominance. In particular essentialisms related to rank and the superior status of the detectives, lead to a right to power on behalf of those officers with such status that other officers are expected to 251

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obey; officers who challenge this right must be punished. As Weber argued, when authority becomes taken for granted it is no longer authority, rather it is domination. Furthermore, the acceptance of, and adherence to, these essentialisms have resulted in “codes of order” or, “rules of the game” that reinforce and subsequently continue to render acts of domination legitimate. This goes unnoticed because these “codes of order” are unobtrusive in the way they constrain how officers think and behave when interacting with each other. Such constraint, over time, has resulted in the formation of disciplinary practices, or recurring patterns of behaviour, that continue to privilege those in positions of dominance and marginalize those who are not. Officers who behave in a way that is alien to these codes of order are subjected to various forms of punishment, the more customary form being bastardisation. In consequence, rather than alienating themselves, officers seek acceptance; they feel compelled to protect themselves by forming social support networks which, while offering a haven of safety and comfort, constrain their behaviour and reinforce the existing constitution of power of the Service: one that reinforces structures of dominancy. Chapter 8 explored the link between history and sensemaking in the Service. Three elements of the constitution of power framework were addressed: historical patterns of decision legitimacy; historical patterns in relationship delineation and historical patterns in sensemaking. The data presented in this chapter provided empirical examples of what Bachrach and Baratz (1962) and Lukes (1974) refer to as the “mobilization of bias” (see Schattschneider, 1960) and “rule of anticipated reaction” (see Friedrich, 1937). Drawing on Foucauldian analytics, in particular the strategic use of the archaeology of knowledge, the chapter showed that for the viewpoints and/or practices of officers at the Cornell LAC to be accepted as plausible, they needed to be produced with respect to the codes of order that governed sensemaking within the Service: those that were not, were viewed by other officers as infelicitous and thus, nonsensical. As illustrated in more detail in the set of propositions that follow, one of the more important findings of the research is that, similar to the way that people associate sense with sensemaking (Weick, 1995), people also assume that something must make sense before it will be considered legitimate. The power in organizations literature adopted this approach to legitimacy, with Pfeffer (1981) an important exponent of such an approach. However, the data analysis in this chapter showed that such a relationship between legitimacy and sensemaking was problematic: when sensemaking occurs within a constitution of power that is underpinned by structures of dominancy that reinforce a “mobilization of bias” and “rule of anticipated reaction”, something that is seen as legitimate can at the same time be seen as nonsense. In other words, officers may think that a particular course of action does not make sense to them, but because someone in a position of dominance pre252

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fers this course of action, these officers realize that it is in their best interest to give this course of action legitimacy: the deleterious consequences of doing otherwise are too great. The analysis in Chapter 9 demonstrated that, in contrast to that assumed by the Marxian and Critical theorists, officers are not victims of a false consciousness in regard to giving legitimacy to something that is nonsense. Officers openly admitted that they were aware that it was not rationality or any other idealistic pursuit that determined their course of action; in particular, the reform that actually occurred does not reflect the ideals that under­ pin the reform agenda. These officers were able to recognize, as Foucault (1977; 1980) argued and Flyvbjerg (1998) empirically verified, that it is the outcome of the struggle for power that determines what courses of action are taken and therefore, what reform occurs. Similar to chapter 8, chapter 9 also showed that the struggle for power in the New South Wales Police Service is problematic as the constitution of power reinforced a “mobilization of bias” and certain forms of “anticipated reaction”. In consequence, the constitution of power of the organisation privileged certain individuals and groups with a right to dominate; a position from which they not only do, but are also expected to, exercise discipline and punishment. Obedience as a disciplined practice is brought about by a fear of retribution and punishment. Officers who do not obey, or cross the historically constituted boundaries that differentiate the dominant from the dominated, just as Gus or the members of the CMSU did, are punished; this will be the case, irrespective of the motive or ideal that underpins their action. The chapter goes further by suggesting that the sense police officers take is not necessarily the sense that they make. In other words, those in positions of dominance largely decide what viewpoints and courses of action acquire legitimacy. In any social system with a strong level of dominance underpinned by fear, as is the Police Service, those in positions of dominance will most likely win the struggle for power and thereby determine what version of sense will gain operational legitimacy. Chapter 10 addressed the final three elements of the constitution of ­power framework: boundaries of discursive action, the ordering statements and words versus deeds. The data analysis showed how the discursive practice of officers was constrained by historically constituted zones of power that reinforce the traditional structures of dominancy. An “ordering of statements” was identified which, despite reform initiatives aimed at promoting otherwise, continued to centralize power in the hands of a dominant few. Contradictions between the words and deeds of officers suggested that, like contributors to the Idealist Stream of power in organizations literature, officers appeared trapped by their own constitution of knowledge and discourse of policing. In more recent terms, Haugaard (1997), drawing on the 253

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work of Giddens (1984) would suggest, they appeared trapped by their own practical consciousness. In short, the officers appeared to be blinkered by a historically constituted idea of how policing “ought” to be done. The problem however, is that this knowledge, discourse and or practical consciousness is disconnected from contextual issues that are important to the reform objectives of the Service. For instance, while detectives say that they accept that they are members of teams, they continue to differentiate themselves from the teams. The Employee Management System (EMS), ­rather than facilitating cultural change as was intended, has been used by ­officers in traditional positions of dominance to punish other officers. These actions reconstitute the traditional constitution of power and culture in the Service. The chapter revealed that management in particular, seemed to be trapped by “their” rational view of what police organizations “should” be, a view, which defined power as coercive and hierarchical. Officers in management positions, from the Commissioner to front line operational managers, despite espousing the need to empower lower level officers, continue to execute acts of domination. They appear unaware of the paradox that exists between what they say and what they do, between their words and deeds; they seem unaware that they are attempting to create a more democratic environment through acts of domination. This is because the constitution of knowledge of the Service offers no conceptual differentiation between democracy and domination.

11.1 Propositions 11.1.1 Ideals are grounded in context Philosophy and science often present ideals such as “truth”, “democracy” and “rationality” in ways that suggest they exist independent of context and time. One’s ideals however reflect one’s knowledge, and Foucault’s power/ knowledge nexus shows people that knowledge is inseparable from power. As Haugaard (1997) pointed out, the constitution of knowledge is culturally significant, that is the knowledge that underpins a cultural regime reflects its own histories and experiences. Since there are many different experiences and thus cultural systems, knowledge must have a plurality that reflects the contexts in which these cultures have been constituted. As knowledge has a plurality and one’s ideals reflect one’s knowledge, ideals must also have a plurality that reflects the contexts in which they have been constituted: ­rather than existing independent of context of time, ideals are context dependent. In consequence, what is considered rational in one culture might be considered irrational in another; what might be considered rational with-

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in the New South Wales Police Service may be considered irrational outside of the Service. Rationality is the ideal that underpins the Management Sub-stream of the power in organizations literature and the organizational principles of the New South Wales Police Service. The present study shows that the version of rationality in the Service is characterized by its constitution of knowledge and thus power. This constitution of knowledge reflects a history in which, among other things, police have acquired a right to power which they have used to punish those they perceive as not acting as they “should”: this role of police in society, has been acknowledged as a very important one in this study. However, punishment has become a disciplined practice for police, not only outside, but also within their own ranks. In consequence, the need to punish is embedded within the practical consciousness of officers.

11.1.2 Domination shapes the construction of reality Building on the previous proposition, the New South Wales Police Service has constituted a number of taken for granted realities over time. These ­taken for granted realities are imbued with power; they are imbued with codes of order that give some individuals and groups privilege over others, with such differentials accepted as the natural order of things. This natural order of things provide equilibrium starting points that mask alternative ways of seeing and doing things when officers make sense of their work environments. This goes a long way towards explaining why senior officers fail to differentiate between supervision and domination. In short, the historically constituted of knowledge that officers have of the way things are done in the Service offers no conceptual difference between the two concepts. The present study shows that police simply take for granted that the military model is “the” model for a police organization and rational authority backed by discipline and punishment is “the” way to control the members of such an organization. As one officer suggested “officers who do not ‘toe the line’ ought to be belted”; and, as one manager suggested, “those who didn’t see things our [management’s] way, got the eighty wheeler”. Thus, while the reform agenda of the Service has implemented new structures that reflect new organizational forms, the dispersion of power and a move to more democratic forms of control, acts of domination, somewhat irrationally, continue to be rationalized as appropriate courses of action.

11.1.3 Power can make nonsense make sense The previous proposition suggests that central to the rationalization of the irrational in the New South Wales Police Service is its constitution of power. Embedded within the constitution of power of the Service is a “mobiliza255

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tion of bias” and a “rule of anticipated reaction”. Over time, unobtrusive structures of dominancy have constituted a right to power on behalf of certain groups and individuals within the Service. Rank and those positions classified as Management are privileged, especially those at a Regional or Executive level; while Detectives, due to their specialist status and through their experience and networks, and “old time sergeants”, are also privileged. The data shows that obedience on behalf of lower level officers is the anticipated reaction of those in positions of dominance: anything other than obedience is subject to punishment. In consequence, however, often “the sense that officers take is not the sense that they make” (Gordon, 2001). What this means, is that officers, even when faced with a command that does not make sense to them, know that it is in their best interest to simply obey their superiors; the consequence of doing otherwise is unthinkable. The assumption that something must make sense before it will be given operational legitimacy is problematic; in the Service, something may well be viewed as both nonsense and legitimate at the same time.

11.1.4 Domination makes stupid In regard to the meaning of this proposition, Flyvbjerg (1998: 229–230) argues that one of the privileges of power is the freedom to define reality. To support his argument he makes reference to Nietzsche’s (1968: 60) famous saying “Power makes stupid” – “he who possesses strength divests himself of mind” (1968: 76). In other words, those who can force others to do things they would not otherwise do, have less need to use their mind; the legitimacy of their viewpoints and preferred courses of action go unchallenged; they are free to rationalize their own version of rationality and, in doing so, fall victim to their own “will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue” (Nietzsche, 1966: 35). The data in this book provides empirical examples that offer a point of clarification to Nietzsche’s “Power makes stupid” statement. Foucault’s power/knowledge nexus shows that power is inescapable and thus everybody is subject to, and has access to, power. Those people who can “force” others to do as they would not otherwise do are in a position of dominance. Those in positions of dominance are free to rationalize their own versions of rationality and are more likely to fall victim to their own “will to ignorance”. Thus, it is not power per se that “makes stupid”, because power from a resistance and conflict point of view also “makes smart”: it is the practice of domination that makes stupid. The findings of the Wood’s Royal Commission into Police Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service provides examples of just how the practice of domination can make one (or an organization) stupid. Throughout history, as the police acquired more discretionary power they rationalized, 256

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in their own minds, viewpoints and practices that others not only considered as irrational but also stupid. Telling the government that it had no right to interfere in police business, the widespread practice of corruption by elite detectives, and the broader acceptance by officers of “noble cause corruption” are all good examples. The present study provides many examples of how the practice of domination makes officers appear stupid. In particular, Commissioner Ryan’s sacking of the CMSU for “going public” with evidence that implicated some of his executive team in the practice of corrupt behaviour, seems irrational when his own reform agenda was supposed to make the Service more open and encourage officers to speak up and break the “code of silence” that in the past had hid corruption. In light of the Service’s recent history, Commission Ryan’s desire to get rid of the Police Integrity Commission (the group appointed by Justice Wood to oversee the reform of the Service) also appeared somewhat irrational, as did his denial of wanting to do so when he was handed a version of his own report which indicated that this had been his intention.

11.1.5 “The Leader” is a problem This book has argued that the vast majority of the mainstream management literature pertaining to leadership views leadership as something that an extra­-ordinary individual does. Such an approach to leadership privileges “the leader” with a position of dominance, which is problematic in an organization that is attempting to empower its members. The previous proposition highlights that people in positions of dominance are freer to rationalize their own versions of rationality. History is filled with examples of leaders who were adept exponents of such rationalizations, with Adolf Hitler immediately coming to mind. More recently, as details emerge concerning the collapse of corporations such as Enron in the United States as well as HIH and OneTel in Australia, it becomes apparent that the leaders of these companies have rationalized their own versions of rationality. Based on the rationalizations that leaders of the Service have made in the past, the last thing that the New South Wales Police Service needs is for its current leaders to be left free to rationalize their own versions of rationality. By way of clarification however, this does not mean that empowerment cannot be achieved through leadership. On the contrary, leadership is not the problem; it is the link between leadership and domination that is the problem. The management literature unproblematically attributes superior power to “the leader” and focuses the theory of leadership on an entity – an extraordinary individual, a hero – that followers willingly defer to. This ­heroic status and willing deference on behalf of followers is what can reduce leadership to an unobtrusive form of domination. Removing the literature’s focus on the entity is a step towards achiev257

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ing leadership without domination. Many organizations have taken steps towards achieving this by using teams of leaders and/or regularly replacing those people in leadership positions (Semler, 1994). Such an approach ­reduces the likelihood of followers being seduced by the traits and charismatic qualities of a single individual – “the leader” – and it shifts the ­focus away from the entity to the process of leadership; a process that many ­individuals might perform. For the Service however, shifting the ­focus away from the entity to the process of leadership may have little effect because of the structures of dominancy embedded within its constitution of ­power. These structures of dominancy legitimize the right for certain entities to dominate irrespective of their traits and characteristics. As such, even if leaders were swapped out of their positions on a regular basis to reduce the likelihood of followers giving over their will to a charismatic leader, the practice of domination would continue to be legitimized by the social system of the Service. The data in this study shows that senior executives within the Service seem to be either unaware or ignorant of how power renders their approach to leadership problematic. These executives seem to have no concept of leadership as an unobtrusive form of domination, let alone possess knowledge of the link between domination and corruption. Historically, power within the Service has been centralized in the hands of a single individual, that is, the Commissioner of Police. This centralization of power has constituted antecedents related to leadership that reflect those mentioned above. For instance, officers from the Cornell LAC openly talked about leadership as being something that an individual does. Notably, in response to the Royal Commission, Commissioner Ryan, whilst introducing changes that were focused on empowering lower level officers, at the same time somewhat paradoxically promoted the concept of “one boss, one direction” (Ryan, 1996). Commissioner Ryan demonstrated that he was more than willing to punish any officers who did not see things his way – evident in his sacking of the CMSU. It must be noted that the New South Wales Government legitimized such acts of domination on behalf of Commissioner Ryan by pushing for legislation that gave him a right to sack anybody he had lost confidence in. Such legislation places the focus on the entity (the individual) when it comes to leadership and makes the same problematic assumption that the mainstream management literature pertaining to leadership makes, that is leaders can divorce themselves from contextual political pressures and their own self interests. More to the point, the leader’s interests and the organization’s interests are assumed to be one and the same. In addition, in the wake of the unprecedented spotlight on policing that occurred as a result of the Royal Commission, there was a strong political sense in the State Government that the interests of the leader, the organization and the political executive had to be aligned. 258

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11.2 The Historical Constitution of Power in the New South Wales Police Service Similar to the Management Sub-stream of the power in organizations literature, the New South Wales Polices Service has pursued rationality in its approach to management and organization. In doing so, “how things ought to be” for the Service has become the normative emphasis for decision-making in the organization. However, such an emphasis exacerbates the very problems the reform agenda of the Service is attempting to solve. The constitution of knowledge of the Service and thus power, renders any focus on “how things ought to be” by its officers, problematic. Officers, through reflection on their knowledge, adopt starting points that disconnect from many contextual issues that provide a more balanced view of power. In short, members of the New South Wales Police Service have put their faith in rationality without an understanding of power: more specifically, without any idea, let alone appreciation, of the problematic relationship between rationality and power. The Wood Royal Commission identified institutional reform as being ­essential for the New South Wales Police Service. However, the idea that reform alters practice is a hypothesis not an axiom (Flyvbjerg, 1998). The problem with many people who commit to a particular ideal, like rationalism, is that they reverse the axiom and the hypothesis: they take for granted that which should be put to empirical and historical testing (Flyvbjerg, 1998: 234–235). For instance, the data in the present study reveals that time and time again officers displayed contradictions between their words and deeds: these were contradictions that the Service’s constitution of knowledge failed to recognize, let alone, expose. In consequence, while genuinely attempting to implement more democratic control mechanisms, senior officers and detectives violate the principles of democracy. The pervading discourse of dominance in the Service conceals the paradox of their actions. For ­example, the Service continues to induce fear through acts of discipline and punishment against other officers under the guise of enhanced supervision. It is this inability to recognize the link between domination and corruption that most of all renders the Service’s reform agenda to date problematic. The Wood Royal Commission was aimed at exposing and bringing to an end corruption within the Service. While the Royal Commission documents only implicitly mentioned power, this study shows through a review of the Service’s history and contemporary practices that at the heart of why so many officers practiced and/or turned a blind eye to corruption, was, and still is, domination. Interestingly, these findings resonate with the work of Arendt (1969), a writer to whom citations are distinctly absent from the management literature. Arendt, like Clegg, Barnes and Foucault, saw domination as something 259

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different to power, arguing that when people use violence against others, which in essence is to dominate them, power is no longer at play. Arendt viewed power as a dialogic concept of citizenship; “power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert” (Arendt, 1959: 44). Her work, which reflects her own experiences with the rise and fall of Nazism, Stalinism and US politics from the 1940s to the 1970s, shows the hidden danger associated with the pursuit of “rationality”. She argued that the meaning people attribute to things reflects some perception of truth. If this truth is considered external to the self, as it is in the natural sciences, then all moral responsibility is lost. Arendt shows how, in the name of Darwinism and Marxism respectively, the Nazis and the Stalinists rationalized the atrocities they committed; they were simply enacting a particular view of “truth”, a truth that was rationalized on the basis of being external to the “self”. For Arendt, like the contributors to the Pragmatist Stream of power in organizations literature, truth is an emergent property that is grounded in conflict and derived through political action, via reflection upon a diversity of possible interpretations. If people are dominated they are powerless, and lose their “voice”; without “voices” politics ceases; if there is no politics there can be no struggle for power which leaves the production of knowledge, and hence “truth”, to those who dominate. The extent of corruption uncovered by the Wood Royal Commission suggests that the production of knowledge and thus truth within the New South Wales Police Service was left to dominant groups and individuals. Afterwards, Commissioner Ryan seized the opportunity to become the purveyor of knowledge and truth. For Foucault, Arendt and the contributors to the Pragmatist Stream of power in organizations literature, humans have a potential for freedom and, through this, the potential to change themselves. In consequence however, with this potential humans also attain responsibility for being as they are – a responsibility which is evaded in the naturalistic determinism of totalitarian ideals, or, put more simply, a responsibility that is evaded by a commitment to a particular version of “how things ought to be”. For members of the New South Wales Police Service, the version of “how things ought to be” is characterized by taken for granted realities and essential viewpoints that underpin the Service’s constitution of power. This study, in the intellectual tradition of Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Foucault, Clegg, Haugaard and Flyvbjerg, empirically illustrates how actors in positions of dominance are vulnerable to falling victim to their own “will to ignorance”. The viewpoints and preferred courses of action of dominant actors go unchecked because it is not in the best interests of others to challenge them. Thus, those in positions of dominance are free to rationalize their own versions of rationality. The Wood Royal Commission, in Nietzsche’s terms, indirectly revealed that because senior officers and detectives in the 260

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New South Wales Police Service held positions of dominance, they became stupid; they rationalized corrupt behaviour as not only “rational”, but also “right” and “just”. The practice of “noble cause corruption” and “greenlighting” are clear examples of such rationalizations. While there is no evidence of “noble cause corruption” or “greenlighting” in the present study, the practice of domination and the rationalization of rationality are clearly evident. This exists despite the introduction of surface level structurally oriented changes aimed at dispersing power throughout the Service. Domination remains prevalent in the Cornell LAC because the legitimacy of its practice is embedded in the organization’s constitution of power; the right for certain individuals and groups to dominate and the requirement for others to obey these officers is taken for granted as the way things are and should be. Domination is legitimised by the codes of order and disciplined practices that are part of the knowledge that officers reflect upon when making sense of their world. While Commissioner Ryan has claimed that the Service was in the completion stage of the reform program (Ryan, 2001), this study shows that such a claim is somewhat premature. Without changing the constitution of power of the Service, without eliminating the unobtrusive codes of order and disciplined practices that legitimise the practice of domination, the Service remains vulnerable to the re-emergence if not continuance of corruption. The government, the police watchdogs and, first and foremost, the police themselves need to acquire a more balanced understanding of power. Such an understanding would enlighten officers to the link between power and corruption, enabling them to distinguish between supervision and domination. More importantly, such an understanding would provide the foundation of knowledge from which officers could develop strategies for changing the constitution of power of the Service. Officers need to develop the reflexive skills required to critically deconstruct the taken for granted realities and essentialist viewpoints that constrain their thinking; the way their relationships have been historically delineated; the boundaries that constrain their discursive action; how the ordering of statements that exists in the Service constitute a pervading discourse of power; and how the sense codes that officers reflect upon when making sense of their organizational lives can render something seen as nonsense as legitimate. At a time of radical social change in which the limits of power are shifting in social systems and institutions throughout the world, the New South Wales Police Service remains trapped by the knowledge that underpins its constitution of power. Officers, particularly senior officers, do not recognize that perhaps their knowledge of how things “ought” to be is their greatest hindrance. This is evident in Commission Ryan’s statements to the Sydney press, when, despite the Service’s recent history of corruption, he claimed 261

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that due to his experience and knowledge he knew how a police organization “should” be run, and that his watchdogs not only knew nothing about policing but “couldn’t run a chook raffle” (Goodsir, 2000). The data in this study shows that even if Commissioner Ryan’s knowledge of a police organization was superior, there were important matters related to the reform of the Service that escaped his frame of reference. With Commissioner Ryan in mind, let us return one final time to Machia­ velli’s warning about the dangers of normative attitudes: “[A] man who ­neglects what is actually done for what he thinks should be done learns the way of self-destruction.” (Flyvbjerg: 1998: 236) As Nietzsche warns, men in positions of dominance have a “will to ignorance”: an ignorance that may well render their words and deeds as stupid in the eyes of significant others.

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Postscript The book has attempted to present its findings in such a way that, like a narrative, the story that represents what is occurring at an unobtrusive level in the New South Wales Police Service gradually unfolds from the diverse, complex, and at times paradoxical data. In response to Weick’s (1999) suggestion, the book has also presented its interpretation and analysis of the data, not as an omniscient account, but as a series of reflections that leave scope for readers to make their own interpretations and conclusions. With this in mind, this postscript presents a series of interpretations from different writers in the public domain, which provide insight into the events that occurred since the data collection phase of the research ceased. These interpretations are merely listed, so that drawing the link between them and the study’s findings is something left to the reader. In February 2001 the Qualitative and Strategic Audit of the Reform Process (QSARP) of the New South Wales Police Service was released. The Wood Royal Commission chartered the Police Integrity Commission (PIC), the same watchdog group that Commissioner Ryan wanted to disband because he believed they could not run a “chook raffle”, with auditing the Services reform process – the results of this audit are what make up the QSARP report. The following is a summary of the findings of the report under its four key themes: NSW Police Service Versus Royal Commission Vision of Reform We have found that the Service is pursuing a reform agenda centred on “… ethical, cost-effective, crime reduction”, which differs in focus from the key themes addressed in the Royal Commission’s recommendations. Crime reduction is a critical indicator of Service performance in keeping with community and stakeholder expectations. However, in our view, the long-term sustainability of the Service as a high performance organization requires a concurrent emphasis on the reform process to build a corruptionresistant Service. Without strengthening the Service’s foundations, short-term benefits derived from crime reduction results are likely to plateau. Good Intentions, poor implementation Throughout the reform process, the Service has shown an ability to articulate reform priorities, except the need for change and form some sound and considered ideas for initiating change in key areas. Some real progress has been achieved. The Audit has found, however, that good ideas and intentions have frequently stalled or faltered in being fully implemented and sustained, thereby limiting real progress and hindering the effect to which the Service overall can benefit from progress that has been made.

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Fragmented versus integrated approach to change We have observed the practice of the Commissioner’s Executive Team (CET) separating out projects and delegating responsibility for them, without coordination and continuous review at the highest level. We see additional risk in isolating initiatives from other related projects. We see indications in the Service that the existence of projects is taken as evidence that reform has taken place, without further evaluation of outcomes. Overstatement of Reform Progress The audit findings and conclusion, reported against the KRAs and In-Depth Analysis, do not support the Commissioner’s view that the reform process is near completion. While we have observed indications that reform is proceeding in some areas, this Report (QSARP Report) has documented many cases where the Service has yet to make significant progress. The Royal Commission foresaw a lengthy, challenging period of reform, requiring strong and sustained focus, with the involvement of all staff. Staff themselves report confusion and lack of clarity on the status of reform and the expectations of them in implementing reform locally (HayGroup, 2000: i–ii).

The report goes on to say: The Service has not nominated cultural change as a reform priority in its own right. In our opinion, by developing its own priorities, the Service has not addressed the key reform themes developed by the Royal Commission into the NSW Police (the Royal Commission). The Employee Management (EM) system is seen by the Service as an important vehicle for delivering cultural change. However, we are concerned that too much reliance is being placed on this one system to the deliver the cultural change required. In our opinion, cultural change requires a number of different approaches if it is to become embedded in the Service. One key initiative cited by the Service as an example of culture change is the establishment of the Operations Control and Review (OCR) process. Through the establishment and driving of the OCR, the Commissioner’s Executive Team (CET) has communicated clearly its view that the desired culture for a reformed NSW Police Service is a real sense of accountability. This is an important message for the reformed organization, but the experience of the OCR process by many personnel is one of “punishment” when standards are not met, rather than a demonstration of alternative ways of behaving and managing [refer In-Depth Analysis, Strategic Leadership and Culture, chapter 11 (of the QSARP report)]. The lessons learned from a process of this kind are more likely to be short-term reflecting an understanding of what should not be done, rather than a realization and internalization of what should be done (HayGroup, 2000: 286).

In August 2001 news headlines announced that that Police Integrity Com­ mission investigators had uncovered corrupt practices in the New South Wales Police Service’s promotion system: 264

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Headline: HOW MING THE MERCENARY GOT A LEG UP THE PRO­MOTION LADDER [Brown, M. (2001) Sydney Morning Herald, 21/08/01, p.1] His name is Robert Gordon Menzies, like the former prime minister. And, like his namesake, he has the appearance of a man of ambition. But telephone taps played to the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) yesterday seem to have interrupted the rising fortunes of Inspector Menzies, vice-president of the NSW Police Association. Inspector Menzies, of Gladesville, had to own up that it was his voice promising a senior constable “a few Crown Lagers” and saying that it was “money well spent” for telling him what he was likely to be asked during a promotion interview. His conversation with Detective Senior Constable Kel Graham was taped by a police/PIC investigating team on March 9 this year. Menzies and Graham, a field officer with the Police Association, have both stood aside from their union positions for the duration of the inquiry, as have two other executive members of the association. The PIC, under assistant commissioner Mr Brian Donovan, QC, is inquiring into allegations of misconduct relating to the exchange of information on promotion interviews. Mr Chris Hoy, counsel assisting, played recordings of two conversations between the two officers. Inspector Menzies, after being told what the questions were likely to be in his interview for a supervising inspector’s job, said: “Yep, got that. I’m happy with that because I, to be honest with you, I wouldn’t have looked at leadership, but I f------ will now.” During one exchange, Graham told Menzies there was a question on “corruption indicators”. Menzies: “You would have answered that one pretty good, big boy, wouldn’t you?” Graham: “F------ oath.” Mr Hoy said in his opening address that for the promotion system to be fair, confidentiality of interviews had to be assured. “Evidence may well suggest that a number of serving police officers have participated in conduct intended to thwart those basic principles of fairness by obtaining an advantage concerning questions during the interviewing process and conveying it to colleagues in order for them to better prepare for interviews”, he said. “The evidence may also indicate one individual was endeavouring to assist colleagues in their applications so he could have officers beside him to increase his influence in the NSW Police Service.”

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Menzies agreed that in June he had phone calls from two other officers, Senior Constable Todd Scott and Detective Senior Constable Simon Jones, who wanted to talk about promotion interviews. He had also faxed material relating to his coming interview to another officer, Sergeant Anthony Long, the Police Association treasurer, to confirm what was likely to be asked. Mr Hoy: “You contacted him with a view to gaining advantage by getting insider information about the question?” Menzies: “Yes.” Menzies had also provided information to Detective Senior Constable Paul Museth, an association executive member, Jones and Graham. “Pretty much anyone who asked me, I gave a copy to”, he said. But exchanging information on interviews like this was “more a typical thing among police”. If the sergeant selection process was over four weeks, “people would have been constantly talking about it”. Menzies applied on April 4 for the supervising inspector position, for which he has not yet been informed of the result. The Police Association has long complained about the promotions system. Last October, its then president, Mr Mark Burgess, called for “a promotions system that is comfortable, open and transparent”. Last week, the current president, Mr Ian Ball, was quoted as saying: “We look forward to any hearings into the matter.” The PIC inquiry resumes today.

In September 2001 media channels across Australia reported that the New South Wales Police Service had deliberately released “doctored” crime statistics to mislead the public: Headline: RYAN AND DEPUTY AT ODDS OVER CRIME RATES [Gibbs, S. and Mercer, N. (2001) Sydney Morning Herald, 12/07/01, p. 4] The Police Commissioner, Mr Peter Ryan, has admitted some crime is increasing in NSW, barely a week after his deputy announced it had dropped. Confessing he was under pressure, Mr Ryan also acknowledged yesterday that Cabramatta police station should not have been downgraded two years ago and the suburb could have been better policed in the past. Deputy Commissioner Mr Jeff Jarratt claimed last week crime had dropped, contradicting the findings of the head of the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Dr Don Weatherburn. Mr Jarratt said the State was “coming off a period where there was a slight upward shift, but in the last six months the figures for assaults, robberies, break and enters and stealing had fallen”.

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Later that day Dr Weatherburn said figures released in March showed crime had risen in all categories other than murder, armed robbery and store thefts. Mr Jarratt then claimed he had been referring to police data which had yet to be analysed by the bureau. Mr Ryan refused to criticise Mr Jarratt but said figures compiled by the police should not be quoted publicly. “Weatherburn is the expert and [his are] the only figures that should be used”, Mr Ryan said. “Crime has been increasing steadily in some areas … but Don also said crime has been held down in a number of areas. In fact, in some cases, the lowest for 10 years.” His comments came as the Herald discovered police were to review gang activity in every area within the Greater Hume region, which takes in Cabramatta. Yesterday the Herald reported that as Cabramatta was in the grip of a wave of crime in late 1999 and early 2000, Mr Ryan boasted police had reclaimed the streets. He replied: “I don’t know when and where that statement attributed to me was made, that’s the important thing. It was probably made in conjunction with something else which had nothing to do with that particular issue at Cabramatta.” Mr Ryan was quoted in February 2000 as saying: “We’ve had such success at Cabramatta, it’s no longer regarded as dangerous or as [the] difficult place it was.” Yesterday The Bulletin said a draft report by a parliamentary committee investigating policing at Cabramatta found the police hierarchy had used questionable crime-monitoring methods to falsely promote success. “The people of Cabramatta were told crime was under control and the streets were safe ... when it was obvious to anyone in the area drug and violent crime were at completely unacceptable levels”, said the report. “The bitterness this has caused has had lingering effects about the willingness of the Police Service to speak honestly to the community.”

In October 2001, news headlines announced that investigators from the Police Integrity Commission had uncovered a major corruption network in the New South Wales Police Service. Commissioner Ryan, in light of his previous plans for the PIC, somewhat paradoxically praised the group’s work and more accurately, publicly took credit for the operation that lead to the corruption being uncovered: Headline: DESPITE ALL THE TALK, THE FORCE STILL STINKS [Devine, M. (2001) Sydney Morning Herald, 11/10/01, p. 16] IF YOU ever doubted that this State Government and its Police Commissioner were master spin merchants, here’s the proof. They have managed to turn the most glaring failure in Peter Ryan’s five-year reign as commissioner, this

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week’s revelations about ongoing systemic police corruption, into a “vindication”. The Police Integrity Commission inquiry which began this week has already revealed corruption as bad as anything uncovered during the police royal commission, with officers stealing drugs and money and DVD players during raids, and giving drug dealers the “green light” in return for protection money. What we have heard so far of Operation Florida is the worst kind of corruption, with police not just taking bribes but actively organising crime, introducing one dealer to another and encouraging them to work harder. It’s clear from PIC covert surveillance videotapes, shown first on ABC-TV’s Four Corners on Monday night and later in court, that the corrupt police operated without fear of or hindrance from anti-corruption measures introduced in the past five years. So far we have heard about Manly-Davidson local police command but corruption is said to be far more widespread. So why did we pay $64 million for a royal commission? And what, exactly, have we been getting for the $425,000-a-year salary we’ve been paying to the “world’s greatest commissioner”? It’s certainly not the “corruption-resistant” police service Ryan and Premier Bob Carr have been boasting about since 1999. Carr may have overstepped the credibility mark on Tuesday, however, when he told journalists about Operation Florida at a press conference: “I believe it’s a vindication, by the way, of the commissioner. A lot of the people who were hounding and attacking and nagging the commissioner ought to think now that they were giving encouragement in many cases to corrupt cops who the commissioner was taking on.” Cynicism this deep is simply irredeemable. If the commissioner has been doing such a good job, why did the Police Service last month call for tenders from the private sector for a $5 million contract to design a reform program addressing leadership development, culture change, people management and organisational change? Why did an independent audit conducted for the PIC, and released in February, criticise the police reform process and state it did “not support the commissioner’s view that the reform process is near completion”? As a long-time observer said yesterday, corrupt police, having survived the Wood royal commission, were “emboldened” by the experience. Ryan has been in deep trouble for much of this year and what we are witnessing is a co-ordinated effort at rehabilitating him. The NSW upper house inquiry into problems with policing at Cabramatta revealed that senior police were prepared to allow drug crime to flourish on the streets in order to keep crime statistics low, because if you don’t make an arrest, there is no crime. It was only because of the integrity of one of those “naggers” and “hounders” Carr derides that the public became aware of the situation: former Cabramatta sergeant Tim Priest, who was damned by government MPs as a “disgruntled detective” and whose revelations of police inaction against drug

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crime were proven correct. Ryan never appeared before the inquiry because he says he never received his invitation. Another PIC inquiry has only begun to reveal the extent of the trouble with Ryan’s hand-picked reform unit. Ryan’s long-awaited appearance at the inquiry, expected to occur in the next few weeks, has been postponed as the PIC juggles the new demands of Operation Florida. More work for the PIC may come from allegations of corruption at the Goulburn Police Academy. Then there is the perversion of the police promotions system, which has been a festering sore which has allowed corruption to flourish. In the PIC this week, the acting duty officer for Northern Beaches command, Sergeant Mark Messenger, was shown on videotape accepting money wrapped in a newspaper from another officer. Duty officers were tasked by Ryan to be the supervisors and role models for junior police. That worked well. The campaign to rehabilitate Ryan, whose stakes were at an all-time low, has been well planned. It began with newspaper articles in recent weeks about the upcoming Operation Florida inquiry and the forecast of one commentator that it would boost Ryan’s political fortunes in much the same way the war on terrorism has helped John Howard. Vital to the rehabilitation project was the Four Corners program on Monday, the first day of the inquiry, pre-empting much of the evidence, with the unprecedented, officially sanctioned airing of surveillance tapes. The show also featured a long interview with Ryan in which he portrayed himself as a hero: “We are the thief-takers, the corruption busters, and we’re coming again.”

On the 10th April 2002 Commissioner Ryan, after a well publicized short and turbulent relationship with the new police minister Michael Costa, ­resigned from his position. As one would expect the media coverage was extensive and hinted that “it was a long time coming”. The following article offers a summary of the events that led to the Commissioner’s demise: Headline: SPIN CANNOT HIDE RYAN’S SORRY RECORD [Devine, M. (2002) Sydney Morning Herald, 11/04/02, p. 11] The truth is, Australia’s highest-paid public servant failed to tackle our crime problems. WHEN the NSW Police Commissioner, Peter Ryan, finally resigned yesterday, a year before his contract expired, there was the same audacious spin we have come to expect from the Government on police matters. “I think he’s the best police commissioner we’ve ever had”, the Premier, Bob Carr, told the 11.30am press conference at Parliament House. As for the problems of escalating crime rates and plummeting police morale that plagued Ryan’s near-six-year term, they were a Federal issue, nothing to do

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with the NSW Government: “There will always be problems in the police service while heroin and guns get into Australia through porous borders.” From Ryan, there was his familiar, unshakable self-belief: “Never mind what all these silly critics go yabbiting on about. I’ve changed this police force to be one of the world’s best.” It was breathtaking chutzpah from both men, who have been locked in a death embrace for months. Ryan probably is the “nice” man he says he is. But on any measure, as police commissioner he has been a failure. He has failed on reform, with the current Police Integrity Commission’s Operation Florida exposing corruption as bad as anything we saw in the Wood royal commission six years ago. By last year, core architects of the reform agenda were dismayed by the turmoil in the police service. Ryan’s hand-picked reform unit, with two imported British officers, imploded so acrimoniously, amid sackings and lawsuits, that it became the subject of a Police Integrity Commission inquiry at which he was grilled for days. And while the Government swore that the service was “corruption-resistant”, two independent audits, the “Qualitative and Strategic Review of the Reform Process” prescribed by Justice Wood to monitor reform, have been highly critical of Ryan’s work. The latest one, released in February, said it did “not support the commissioner’s view that the reform process is near completion”. Ryan’s response was that they were distractions from his main task of driving down crime. But crime rates were rising all the time. Take, as an example, armed robbery. An internal police graph shows the number of offences steady at about 2200 a year throughout the early 1990s, before the royal commission. But from 1995 to 1998, armed robbery rates more than doubled, from 2128 offences to 5299. And last week, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) revealed that armed robbery with a gun increased by 34 per cent in 2001. That is a 34 per cent increase on a 250 per cent increase in the six years of Ryan’s reign! Armed robbery with other weapons, such as knives or bloodfilled syringes, remained steady last year, which is hardly grounds for joy, considering the previous extraordinary increase which looks like being the new benchmark. The State’s chief crime statistician, Don Weatherburn, suggested the increase might be due to a prolonged heroin drought which had made the drug more expensive. Unfortunately at the same time as he released the figures, the statistics from pre-royal commission years disappeared from the BOCSAR Web site. It is a similar story across other crimes. Specialist police units such as the armed hold-up squad, which had been found to be hotbeds of corruption, were disbanded after the royal commission, a whole generation of experi-

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enced officers left, either retiring, pensioning themselves off medically unfit or being forced out. Meanwhile, criminals became emboldened as they realised frontline police were often inexperienced and increasingly powerless. The Auditor-General, Bob Sendt, last year reported on crime rates in NSW from 1993 to 2000 and compared them to other states. He found: “All NSW rates of crime against people in 2000 were well above the national average.” NSW had also fallen behind other states in crime solving, he found. It ranked below the national average in finalising investigations within 30 days in all categories but assault. Yesterday, on radio 2UE with his wife, Adrienne, Ryan told Mike Carlton there has been “misreporting and misconceptions about crime itself”. He said: “It does go up and down ... It’s a difficult thing to manage, the problem of crime.” But that was his job. And while he said France, Germany and Britain had similar problems, the success of zero tolerance policing in New York city is the model that proves that police do make a difference. It’s not about heroin droughts. It’s about the hard grunt work of frontline police fighting crime every day. Despite his failures, it is difficult not to feel sympathy for Ryan. Reforming the police service just proved too difficult a task for an outsider, who didn’t even know when he arrived who the State’s most notorious disgraced detective, Roger Rogerson, was. For the past week, rumours of Ryan’s imminent demise had been swirling through Sydney. He and the gung-ho new Police Minister, Michael Costa, were barely speaking. But as recently as Monday, Carr was pledging support for Ryan on air to Carlton, who is a player in the political intrigue, thanks to his friendship with Ryan and his wife, who has a regular weekly segment on his afternoon show. When pressed on Monday, Carr said Ryan would see out the end of his $425,000-a-year contract. But Ryan’s decision to continue with his trip to Athens on International Olympic Committee business while Constable Glenn McEnallay was dying from gunshot wounds last week had galvanised many critics, not least the new Opposition Leader, John Brogden. To one veteran frontline police officer of 24 years, it was the last straw. “He should have cancelled the trip. If you’re at war you expect the general to be there with you … There was no sign of respect. He himself doesn’t understand what we put up with on the street.” The officer says police have lost control of the streets. “As far as I’m concerned, crime is at its worst levels I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen so much disrespect for the law. It makes the job impossible.” As for Ryan’s successor, beyond Deputy Commissioner Ken Moroney the field is wide open. One name is Geoff Schuberg, a 55-year-old assistant com-

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missioner and head of Internal Affairs, who was effectively forced out by Ryan in 1997, along with 10 other senior officers. Schuberg has been advising Costa, along with Richard Basham, the influential University of Sydney gang crime expert who is close to 2UE broadcaster Alan Jones and former Cabramatta whistleblower Sergeant Tim Priest, the so-called “gang of three” Ryan’s allies blame for his demise. But asked if he was a contender last night, Schuberg said: “I’m a contender for better policing. I don’t want to go any further than that.” The drive to get rid of Ryan has been ugly. But perhaps it was the only way to remove the most highly paid public servant in Australia, a man who thought he could talk his way out of anything, and who played the media game as hard as anybody.

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Appendices APPENDIX A Key Limitations and Assumptions The key limitations and assumptions for this study are related to method, in particular, data collection and analysis methods. The researcher placed an emphasis on controlling his interpretative leap by using systematic database construction and saturation processes as well as theoretical sampling procedures. He also developed an interpretative framework aimed at further systematizing the textual deconstruction of text data. The researcher recognizes however, that while these attempts to systematize the data collection and analysis process do help to validate the study’s findings, he still has to make an interpretative leap. If time and resources had permitted, the researcher would have employed inter-raters (additional people to conduct data collection and analysis) in the data collection and analysis process, especially as interviewers; utilizing a variety of interpretations would further help overcome personal bias on behalf of the researcher. Not only were there time and resource constraints, the context of the research setting did not lend itself to the use of inter-raters. The study was conducted within a context of political volatility. Gaining entry to the New South Wales Police Service was difficult enough for a single researcher let alone a group of researchers; gaining acceptance from the officers in the research arena, bearing in mind that they had just been subject to the panoptical gaze of the Royal Commission and its fallout, was extremely difficult, and would have been almost impossible for a group of researchers. Alone, the research found that he could move unobtrusively amongst his research participants. Being conscious of the presence of a group of researchers, at the very least, would have affected the everyday behaviour of the research participants.

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APPENDIX B Notes on the Way the Research was Conducted Discussions with a number of senior police officials prior to the research starting revealed that in light of the Royal Commission’s findings and recommendations, the New South Wales Police Service intended to be far more open with respect to research. However, despite this admission, the events of the Royal Commission may well have created a sense of apprehension for police officers participating in the research, this sense of apprehension coming from a fear of embarrassment or potential retribution for saying the “wrong” thing. To alleviate this fear of embarrassment and potential retribution, all participants were informed either verbally or where possible in writing that the anonymity of data sources would be maintained by the use of alias names for people and locations. Prior to participants giving their consent to being a part of the research, they were informed of the purpose and value of the research and who would have access the data. Participants knew that they could withdraw from the research at any time. If they wished to be identified by their own name they could, however if participants choose not to be identified, a pseudonym was used in all instances to protect their identities. Some senior officers’ names do appear in the book but only with respect to data that was already in the public domain. In addition, prior to the research commencing, the New South Wales Police Service and the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), drafted a legal agreement in regard to how the research would be carried out and publishing rights associated with it. The majority of the time the research was unobtrusive, consisting of offsite documentation analysis and backstage observations of meetings, ceremonies and everyday work activities. The interviews that were conducted lasted from 15 minutes to 3 hours. Participants were interviewed where they felt most comfortable and where convenient, so that privacy and other comforts could be assured. The longer interviews were conducted off-site and out of work hours to minimize impact to the organization’s productivity. When observation work was carried out participants were fully informed of the nature of the researcher’s presence, and every caution was taken ensure the participants’ well-being. Any observations that the participants did not wish to be recorded were struck from the data and not used. The data consists of taped interviews, observation field note recordings, transcripts on floppy disc and in hard copy, as well as archival material. The data has been and will continue to be stored in locked cabinets within a secured room only accessibly by the researcher in the School of Management, Faculty of Business, University of Technology, Sydney.

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Topic Index a graders 46, 48 age tapes 33 alienation 70 assault 38 Australian Federal Police 32 barbeque set 9 bastardisation 184 blowing the whistle 23, 180 brotherhood 189 charismatic power 72 circuits of power 95–96 code of silence 49, 189 community power debates 68, 78 contingency theories 103 crime management support unit 147, 172, 183, 189, 202, 206, 212, 221 criminal investigations bureau 21, 46, 48, 245 cross functional teams 61, 144, 237, 248 data saturation 155 decision legitimacy 140, 195–204 deconstruction 101 de-differentiation 153 democracy 153 differentiation 153 disciplined practice 89-93 discursive consciousness 97 discursive practice 141, 219–223 dispersed leadership 101 dog 43 domination 153, 256–257 drug trafficking 41 duty to obey 169–173 Eighty Wheeler 214 enlightenment 71 essentialisms 139 ethnocentricity 123 extortion 40 false consciousness 70, 71, 74, 82 fraudulent practices 38

gaming 41 genealogical analysis 126 genealogy 130–135 grand narratives 130 gratuities 38 greenlight 26, 27, 31, 32, 34, 41, 63, 268, grounded theory 127 hegemony 70, 74 herrschaft 74 ideological hegemony 80, 82 independent commission into corruption 30 iron cage 71 leadership 101–115 limits to power 119 mobilization of bias 79 narratology 126 new leadership 103 new organizational forms 120 ordering of statement 142, 223–233 paradox of emancipation 80, 112 power 67–100 power as entity 82 power as strategy 97 power makes stupid 199 practical consciousness 96 proactive policing 162 process corruption 37 rational legal power 72 rationality 68, 73, 74, 84, 97 reactive policing 162 real interests 70 relationship delineation 141, 204–209 right to power 169–173 royal commission into corruption 16 rule of anticipated reaction 79 scrumdown 37, 49

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second dimension of power 79 seniority 197 sensemaking 122, 132, 141 story telling 126 structures of dominancy 74 style theories 103 substance abuse 38 superleadership 105–109 surveillance 172 systematic corruption 48

theoretical sampling 126 third dimension of power 79–82 total institution 179 traditional organizational forms 120 traditional power 72 trait theories 102 transactional leadership 103 transformational leadership 103 truth production 91 universalisms 139

taken for granted realities 139, 169– 191 teleologies 130 textual deconstruction 126 the laugh 41, 46

vice 41 whale in the bay 45, 49 words versus deeds 142, 233–241

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Name Index Arantz, P. 24 Arendt, H. 259 Avery, J.K. 26 Bachrach, P. 70, 78–79, 194, 199, 252 Bakhtin, M.M. 133 Banton, M. 73 Baratz, M.S. 70, 78–79, 194, 199, 252 Barbalet, J.M. 81 Barker, J.R. 106–111, 134, 160 Barnes, B. 94 Bass, B.M. 101 Bauman, Z. 84 Bennis, W.G. 77 Benton, T. 80–81 Blanchard, K.H. 103 Blumer, H. 217 Boje, D.M. 101, 125, 126, 139,140, 141, 167, 170, 173, 189, 205, 287 Bolman, L.G. 13, 16, 58, 63, 120 Brockie, J. 151 Bryman, A. 103, 105 Burns, J.M. 103 Burrell, G. 121 Calas, M.B. 101, 122 Chan, J. 145 Cicourel, A.V. 16, 173 Clegg, S.R. 14, 52, 67, 70–79, 90–96, 99, 122, 141, 160, 167, 170, 190, 194, 211, 248, 260 Crozier, M. 77 Culler, J. 101 Currie, M. 167 Dahl, R.A. 78 Dandeker, C. 173 Deal, T.E. 13, 16, 58, 63, 120 Dean, D. 133 Deetz, S. 76, 124 Derrida, J. 101, 170 Deutscher, I. 217 Eisenhardt, K. 126, 128, 143 Enz, C.A. 76 Evans, M.G. 103

Fairclough, N. 126, 133 Fiedler, F.E. 103 Finnane, M. 17–19, 28, 173 Flyvbjerg, B. 121–126, 132, 138–139, 160, 167, 180, 199, 215, 218, 229, 244, 256, 259, 262 Foucault, M. 69, 85–113, 120–130 French, J. 77, 177 Friedrich, C.J. 79, 183 Frost, P.J. 120 Gable, M. 85 Gandz, J. 105 Gaventa, J.P. 78 Gersick, C.J.G. 120 Geyer, R.F. 70 Giddens, A. 94, 96, 189 Goffman, E. 179, 215 Gordon, R.D. 121, 132, 216, 256 Gouldner, A.W. 73, 94 Grant, D. 121, 133 Hall, S. 92 Hardy, C. 13, 67–99, 190, 248 Haugaard, M. 14, 69, 94–123, 130, 143, 168, 183, 188, 212, 253 Henderson, A.M. 68, 73–76 Herring, J. 150 Herring, P. 150, 207 Hersey, P. 103 Hindess, B. 94 Hobbes, T. 70 Hosking, D.M. 105 Hunt, J.G. 109 Johnstone, E. 34 Katzenbach, J.R. 105 Kendall, G. 131, 133, 139 Knights, D. 76, 105 Kreisberg, S. 111 Laclau, E. 69, 91–94, 126 Langley, A. 122, 124–128, 137 Lash, S. 170 Lukes, S. 70, 79–83, 91 Lyotard, J.F. 139, 169

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Machiavelli, N. 14, 69, 84–85, 94, 97, 260, 262 Manning, P.K. 4, 16, 28, 145, 173 Manz, C.C. 105–108 Markell, H.F. 21 Martin, J. 101, 126, 141, 167, 241, 250 Marx, K. 67–83, 91, 93, 260 Mayes, B.T. 76 Mechanic, D. 77 Mintzberg, H. 76, 105 Moffit, A. 24–30 Morgan, G. 121 Mouffe, C. 69, 91–94, 126 Nagle, J.F. 26 Newton, K. 78, 199 Nietzsche, F. 13–15, 69, 84–85, 94, 97, 130, 138, 199, 256, 260, 262 Nixon, C. 59, 60, 172, 183, 232 Oswick, C. 133 Parsons T. 68, 73–76 Pentland, B.T. 122 Pettigrew, A.M. 77 Pfeffer, J. 75–77 Polsby, N. 78 Poole, M.S. 128, 144 Poulantzas, N. 70 Punch, M. 16, 173 Quinn, B.G. 49 Rabinow, P. 85 Ranson, S. 76, 79, 80 Raven, B, 77, 177 Richie, J. 5, 147, 204 Ritzer, G. 130 Rogerson, R. 32, 271 Ryan, P.J. 16, 53, 56–67, 101, 114, 147–151, 172, 182–185, 197, 199, 202, 218–227, 234, 240, 246–248, 257–263, 266–272

Schein, E.H. 104 Seddon, K. 147–151, 172, 182, 207 Semler, R. 258 Senge, P.M. 105, 106 Sims, H.P. 103–108 Smart, B. 85 Smircich, L. 101, 122 Smith, A.S. (Neddy) 31–32 Stablein R. 120, 124 Stogdill, R.M. 103, 106 Strauss A.L. 126, 143, 144, 155 Taylor, F.W. 22, 179 Thorngate, W. 124 Touraine, A. 71 Van De Ven, A.H. 128, 144 Van Maanen, J. 16, 17, 143 Vroom, V.H. 103 Weber, M. 67–76, 82, 87, 95, 97, 111, 113, 121, 132, 140, 159, 169, 176, 251 Weick, K.E. 16, 121, 122, 124, 125, 127, 137, 139, 160, 209, 212, 215, 218, 252, 263 Wickham, G. 131, 133, 139 Willmott, H. 76, 105, 121 Wittgenstein, L. 126, 167 Wood, J.R.T. 9, 17, 20–67, 100, 108, 144, 148, 160, 172, 176, 180, 184, 186, 189, 192, 196, 199, 201, 206, 208, 212, 219, 229, 234, 240, 246, 257–260, 263, 287 Woodwood, P.M. 26 Yukl, G.A. (1971) 103

Saunders, P. 78, 79, 80, 194 Schacht, R. 70 Schattschneider, E.E. 78, 79, 190, 194, 252

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