A few words on hierarchy

“…the origins of hierarchy should not be too clear. If origins were not shrouded in mystery, they might be questioned as mere fabulation”

- Martin Parker 2009, p. 1285.

In Foucault’s genealogy, ‘discipline proceeds from the distribution of individuals in space’ (Foucault 1977, p. 141) in that techniques of discipline are ‘assuring the ordering of human multiplicities… discipline is to fix’ (ibid., p. 218). One such disciplinary technique is to separate people and movement into vertical hierarchies so as to ‘neutralize the effects of counter-power that spring from them and which form a resistance to the power that wishes to dominate it; it must neutralize the effects of counter-power that wishes to dominate it: agitations, revolts,

spontaneous organizations, coalitions – anything that may establish horizontal conjunctions.’

Hierarchical power relations are brought to bear ‘as discretely as possible… to substitute for a power that is manifested through the brilliance of those who exercise it, a power that insidiously objectifies those on whom it is applied’.

Through the subtle workings of power, such as disciplinary knowledge production about those who are subjected to the power, classification and hierarchical surveillance, wild multiplicities are tamed into controllable units. In evaluating subjects according to sub-dichotomies of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, governing power is projected, disseminated and amplified as people internalize the parameters it constantly produces.

Parker (2009) traces the tripartite division of pyramidal hierarchy to the writings under the pseudonym ‘Pseudo-Dionysius’ in the 5^th Century with the divine throne, the authorities and the angels at the bottom. According to Pseudo-Dionysius, ‘Each rank functions as a messenger for the one above it, and each subordinate is uplifted and held in place by the message that they receive’ (Ibid., p. 1278).

This representation was reflected in the ordering of Christian and Catholic Church, the sovereign monarchies of medieval Europe, and was later applied to the organizing of military and ‘as machinery for adding up and capitalizing time’ to increase obedience and productivity through effective means of centralization and supervision (Ibid.).

During the era of the police state, hierarchization and other means of discipline were widely applied as ’a question of organizing the multiple’ and a ‘carefully measured combination of forces’ which ‘requires a precise system of command

(…) Discipline sometimes requires enclosure, the specification of a place heterogeneous to all others and enclosed in upon itself. It is the protected place of disciplinary monotony’ (Foucault 1977, p. 141). With the development of the capitalist economy, labor forces were subjected to a form of hierarchization similar to that of the disciplining of the military and centralization of state power.

As noted in chapter 2, the civic reforms of the police force in Denmark paved the way for the implementation of managerial technologies borrowed from industry, including an intensified hierarchical organization.

The invention of ranks, which are symbolized through emblems and privileges marking hierarchical positions in the military, the police and elsewhere, serves a double disciplinary purpose. It is a system of rewards and punishments in that promotion is a technique of making examples of good behavior, while demotion is a means of publically displaying unwanted behavior (Ibid).

Thus, in a Foucauldian sense, hierarchy is a disciplinary technique which produces power relations while protecting and projecting power interests.

In the Danish police, the triple layers of hierarchy are reproduced in different constellations and complicated by a powerful dichotomy between a centralized directorate (styrelse) – the National Police – and a decentralized structure of 12 police districts. Staffing of departments and units is typically organized according to the top, middle, and bottom segmentation.

Top management refers to several centers of governance. The highest authority is the Ministry of Justice, as represented by the Minister. Within the police, central governance is executed by the police commissioner and an appointed Board of Directors while decentralized top management is represented in each of the 12 districts by a Police Director, an Assistant Commissioner (chefpolitiinspektør), a

head of administration, and the head of Prosecution. The head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (politiets efterretningstjeneste) reports to the Police Commissioner and, in some cases, directly to the Minister of Justice.

However, who is considered on a day-to-day basis to be ‘at the top of the food chain’ (øverst i fødekæden), as police say, depends on how far up the line of command you can actually reach. For example, rank and file officers in the districts rarely, if ever, encounter the police commissioner, and mostly receive local interpretations of his managerial initiatives from their superiors.

To many members of the rank and file and middle managers, the formal top management of the police force is a mere abstraction, and the vast distance between ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ is at times a subject of great irony.

For example, many rank and file police officers refer to the national police commissioner as ‘Rigs Peter’ (which would translate into something like

‘Commissioner Joe’ or ‘Com. Joe’). This ironic eponym illustrates that rank and file police really don’t care who the top boss is, and vice versa. “At the floor we are merely small and easily replaceable screws in the big machine”, as one police officer said.

When I speak about ‘top management’ in this chapter I am referring to formally and strategically responsible central and decentralized groupings of upper-level managers located in the National Police and in the police districts.

What follows is partly a Foucauldian power analysis of the everyday workings of the pyramidal hierarchy in the police and the ways that it subjects individuals to its disciplinary grid. However, the issue of hierarchy is inseparable from the effects of bureaucracy and other techniques of ‘policing the police’ that have been developed over the course of time.

As I engaged in conversations and worked together with police officials across hierarchical strata, it became evident that individual concerns, practices and power privileges associated with innovation and creativity within the police are, in fact, disciplined by the impact of hierarchy. It became clear that this was the most critical theme to engage with here.