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Police forces and political crises: revolutions, policing alternatives and institutional resilience in Paris, 1848–1871

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2015

QUENTIN DELUERMOZ
QUENTIN DELUERMOZ*
Affiliation:
Université Paris 13 – Sorbonne Paris Cité, Pléiade, Villetaneuse, France
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Abstract:

This article examines the relationship between police forces and Parisian society during the two final revolutions of nineteenth-century France in 1848 and 1871. The comparison between these two events reveals the existence of an alternative revolutionary project of ‘urban police’. It also shows, however, the relatively weak impact of these moments on long-term transformations of police organizations. This is all the more notable if we consider the Second Empire's municipal reform of 1854 that had a deep impact on the landscape of the Parisian police. Observing this general sequence helps thus to explore the modifications of police powers during revolutionary moments, and the dynamics of the non-linear transformation of police orders and urban societies in the nineteenth century.

Type
Special section on policing and urban crisis
Information
Urban History , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 232 - 248
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

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20 Dossier in APP, DB 32.

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27 The project is explained by Senator Count Henri Siméon in ‘Commission des embellissements de Paris’, Rapport à l’empereur Napoléon III, Dec. 1853 (reproduced in Cahiers de la rotonde, 23 (2001)).

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30 The first analysis of disciplinarity as developed in Surveiller et punir (Paris, 1975) has been supplemented with new perspectives about ‘pastoral power. See ‘Omnes et singulatim: vers une critique de la raison politique’, in Dits et écrits, vol. IV (Paris, 2001), 134–61; and Sécurité, territoire, population: cours au Collège de France (1977–1978), edition prepared by Michel Sennellart under the direction of François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana (Paris, 2004).

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42 Study based on the Répertoire du commissariat de police, 1871–73 (APP).

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