Samenvatting

International police cooperation is characterised by sometimes conflicting dynamics between informal security entrepreneurship and formal institutionalisation and centralisation. In spite of claims in governance literature that states are losing their commanding heights due to internationalisation, experience shows that states are in fact able and willing to control and steer international police networks. Whether matching processes of politicisation and bureaucratisation conflict with operational effectiveness remains to be seen. Both in politics and science the institutional approach is dominant in describing, explaining and evaluating international police cooperation. This runs the risk of losing sight of the ‘logic of practicality’ that in reality is very important for innovations and developments regarding cross-border cooperation. In the logical of practicality, dimensions like intuition, creativity, trust and perseverance are more important than rules, policy preferences or organisational charts.