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This paper compares police reforms during democratization in Poland, Hungary, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It analyses the changes to the structure of the democratic control of the police in each reform, paying special attention to the decentralization versus centralization aspect of it. The research question of this paper is: Why are some states decentralizing the democratic control of the police, while others are centralizing it, both with the aim of democratization? The theoretical background of this study are theories about policy diffusion and policy transfer. Therefore this study can be categorized as part of two different research areas. On the one hand, it is a paper from the discipline of International Relations. On the other hand, it is a paper from the discipline of Comparative Politics. The combined attention to international and national factors influencing police reform is reflected by the structure of this paper. Chapter 3 examines police structures and police reforms in established democracies as possible role models for new democracies. Chapter 4 looks at international and transnational actors that actively try to influence police reform. After having examined these external factors, three cases of police reform in new democracies are examined in chapter 5.
International public administrations are increasingly perceived as autonomous actors prompting states to adopt policies without resorting to coercion or legal obligations. Starting from these observations, I determine abilities and characteristics of international public administrations that contribute to their autonomy as agents of non-hierarchical policy transfers. To this end, I draw on theoretical considerations and empirical results from policy transfer research. I find that the various abilities that contribute to this autonomy of international public administrations are essentially rooted in two structural characteristics: in as many states as possible their staff should (a) be present and (b) analyze the state, development and reform need of national policies on a regular basis.