Zarkin, Jessica <br/><br/>
The silent militarization: Explaining the logic of military members' appointment as police chiefs 

 - Comparative Politics 
 - 55(4), Jul, 2023: p.549-572 
<br/><br/> What explains the militarization of public safety? Despite its failures, police militarization remains a popular policy. Existing scholarship has mainly focused on the police adopting military weapons and tactics but has neglected a silent but consequential type: the appointment of military members as police chiefs. Whereas the conventional wisdom points to partisanship and violence as key drivers, I argue that the militarization of police leaders responds to political motives. Based on a novel data set on 5,580 appointments in Mexico and repeated event history analysis, I find evidence of a top-down militarization sequence. Mayors are more likely to appoint military chiefs when upper levels of government and peers embrace a militarized security strategy. I further illustrate how coercive pressures and strategic incentives drive this sequence- Reproduced <br/><br/>https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/cuny/cp/2023/00000055/00000004/art00003<br/>