Serving States and Serving Citizens: Halting Steps toward Police Reform in Brazil and Implications for Donor Intervention

Donor efforts to promote reform for democratic policing are hampered by narrow visions of what constitutes reform and concerns about unintended consequences of their support. This article reflects upon efforts to promote institutional changes of the police in Brazil from 1997 to 2003. It discusses the political and administrative constraints of carrying out reform and argues that strategies for change require broader forms of intervention than are usually promoted by external donor agencies. The article describes efforts to create new paradigms of police training, foster partnerships between police and universities and civil society organizations, and encourage previously non-existent accountability mechanisms.