'Reflecting all shades of opinion'
Public Attitudinal Surveys and the Construction of Police Legitimacy in Northern Ireland
by Graham Ellison*
British Journal of Criminology (2000) 40.88-111. (Published by Oxford University Press)
In a series of works within the broad ambit of the sociology of deviance, Sumner adopts the term 'social censure' to explain how dominant groups (albeit within historically defined social orders) maintain hegemonic control through the censure of some behaviours rather than others (Sumner 1990, 1997). Behaviours that are censured become 'negative ideological categories' and function to 'signify, denounce and regulate' those whose actions and practices are considered to run counter to the perceived moral-political orthodoxy of the dominant regime, and where the cumulative effect is to 'mark off the deviant, the pathological, the dangerous and the criminal from the normal and the good' (1990:27). Censures may take a multitude of forms and operate at many different levels; the hegemonic, the discursive; the material, the normative, and may encompass such modes of proscription as the 'judicial homily and sentence, the editorial harangue, the police assault and other censorious procedures' (p.28).
Official discourse has traditionally been concerned with undermining and delegitimating oppositional groups through a process of censure (Burton and Carlen 1977, 1979). However, as Brogden (1997) argues, the notion of social censure needs to be augmented by one of social celebration. Censure becomes too lopsided and loses some of its exegetic potential unless it is balanced by a countervailing premise. It is no use dominant agencies or groups pathologising and demonising the behaviour of subordinate groups unless a 'better' or alternative rationalisation can be reinforced, identified or celebrated. Thus the Manichaean struggle requires the juxtaposition of the 'good' as well as the 'bad', the 'normal' as well as the 'abnormal'. As Brogden notes:
Official discourse contains not merely a denigration of its opponents but also an exultation of its own virtues. The concept of celebration complements. The idea of censure by illuminating how, that at the same time the governments and powerful agencies demonise their opponents, they also celebrate their own harmony and normality. (p.2)
In Northern Ireland, both censure and celebration have become heavily ingrained within an official discourse that has provided a highly selective and one-dimensional interpretation of the conflict. The celebratory dimension extols the virtues of the security forces in their fight to defeat 'terrorism' and restore Northern Ireland to the peace and 'normality' that it once knew (Ellison 1997; Mulcahy 1998). The extent, nature and indeed origin, of 30 years of violent conflict are depoliticised and dehistoricised through an official version of events that points to the atavistic character of the Irish, the inability of the 'two sides' to live together in peace, and the wholesale propagation of an image of a stable, normal society terrorised by 'the men and women of violence' (Smyth 1988). What official discourse obscures is the role of the state itself or those agencies acting at its behest in generating and perpetuating such division (Ellison 1997; Ellison and Smyth 1996; Hillyard 1997) (1). The interpolation of censure and celebration can be discerned from NIO and RUC official publications, whereby the 'murderous' campaign of terror wreaked on the community by the IRA is evocatively juxtaposed with the sacrifice, bravery and dedication of RUC officers who serve in the interests of the 'whole community' (Mulcahy 1998).
In the discussion that follows I want to explore the interrelationship between
'censure' and 'celebration' in terms of how they inform the official discourse
about policing issues in Northern Ireland. In particular, I will demonstrate
how public attitudinal surveys assessing the level of community support
for the RUC can be regarded as both an instrument of censure, in that they
consistently under-represent and negate those views and opinions critical
of the force, and of celebration insofar as they are used by officials to
depict the RUC as a force that operates with a high level of cross-community
support for its role, and to emphasise its 'ordinariness' in the face of
- until recently - a protracted internal war. The discussion will also propose
that censure and celebration play a crucial ideological role in the 'management'
of conflict, and can only be understood by way of reference to a more general
language of legitimation adopted by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)
and the British state in Northern Ireland. |
