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Successful Security Policy Transfer - How and When? A Comparative Study of EU, British and US Policy Transfer to Greece on Terrorism and Organised Crime

Final Report Summary - SEC POL TRANSFER (Successful Security Policy Transfer - How and When? A Comparative Study of EU, British and US Policy Transfer to Greece on Terrorism and Organised Crime)

This project has sought to examine the mechanisms by which the cross-national transfer of values and policies in the field of security, and particularly against organised crime and terrorism, has been made possible. More specifically, the project has examined the extent to which EU, British, and US resource capacity-building efforts, international collaboration, and different tactical approaches to the ‘export’ of values and policies, have been associable with attitudinal and practical approaches to organised crime and terrorism amongst Greek officials and law enforcement practitioners. The project began on 1 st September 2009 and ended on 31st August 2011. Seeking to capture, contextualise, and assess the international transfer of values and policies, fieldwork was carried out over the two-year period in Greece and the UK. Through this fieldwork, a wide range of material was been gathered; from official, NGO, and media-based documentation, to interviews with former ambassadors, law-enforcement trainers and specialised officers, journalists, and academics. On one hand, the project collected firsthand accounts of experiences of international police training and collaboration efforts. On the other, the study took a long historical perspective to understanding the effectiveness of policy transfer to Greece in these areas.

Over the course of the research, a range of contacts and collaborations were established with researchers and practitioners working on related subjects, and efforts were made to disseminate research findings to audiences across disciplines and beyond academia. Indicative of this active engagement, research papers were presented over the course of the project at the following forums: the Research Seminar at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Athens, Greece; the annual conferences of the Modern Greek Studies Association, the British International Studies Association, the Political Science Association, the British Society of Criminology, the European Society of Criminology, and the International Studies Association. Invited presentations were given at the annual conference of the European Society of Criminology in Vilnius, Lithuania, and at the Department of Sociology at Panteion University, Athens, Greece. Invitations to present research were also received from St. Antony’s College at the University of Oxford, UK, and from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. In addition, invited commentary was repeatedly contributed to international media coverage of Greek political developments over the course of the project via radio, television and press, by outlets including BBC News, BBC Newsnight, BBC World Service Newshour, Al Jazeera, and Politiken. Expertise gained during the project also led to invitations to act as a reviewer academic and civil society publications, including for the Working Paper Series of the Greek Politics Specialist Group of the UK Political Studies Association, and for the annual ‘Global Corruption Report’ of the non-governmental organisation Transparency International. Security practitioners from the UK and Greece in the field of policing have also requested to be notified about publications stemming from the project.