Power Relations between Police Force and Civil Guard: An Israeli Case Study

Abstract

This article aims to examine and describe the power relations between the Israeli police force and Civil Guard (CG). The CG, established as an independent organisation adjacent to the police, was intended to fight terrorism. Within a few years of its 1974 establishment, the CG began encroaching upon police duties. This research has revealed that the CG adopted goal displacement as a strategy for survival, that is, for coping with police threats which were leading to its decline as an organisation. To face these threats, and in an attempt to fend them off, the CG adapted its goals to suit the police, but this strategy did not help it to survive. Instead, the similarities between its goal system and that of the police led to the CG becoming absorbed within the police, as an internal department, thereby losing its independence.