Introduction

Since the inception of the forms of political organization, societies have endowed themselves with norms to regulate collective life and vested a specific social group with the power and authority to enforce these norms and ensure the observance of public order (cf. Emsley 2021). This function, which may be encompassed under the notion of policing, implies the set of activities aimed at governing society—in the sense of rulership—and preserving a social order in particular, both by consensus and through coercive means (Reiner 2010: 5, Marenin 1996: 7). It is no coincidence that both politics and policing have the same etymological derivation from the Ancient Greek word politeia, as a comprehensive concept to denote generically the collective body of citizens, government and administration shaping the constitution of the polis, or in other words, the political organization of society.