Paper short abstract:

This paper will focus on how gendarmes in Niger enforce the law. What do they applied it to? Against and for whom do they enforce it? I will thus reflect on what the rule of law means to gendarmes, what it means to enforce it, what it means not to do so, and what it means to enforce the law softly.

Paper long abstract:

Police work is often described as oscillating between law enforcement and peace keeping, work by the book or inspired by practical norms, depending on the police officers' discretionary use of the law. Already Egon Bittner (1974: 23), one of the first and still most relevant social science police scholars, argued that police officers actually do enforce criminal law 'with the frequency located somewhere between virtually never and very rarely.' But what happens when they do?

Gendarmes in Niger work in areas where they are often the only representatives of the state, and most often the only law enforcers. I will focus on how they actually do enforce it. When gendarmes enforce the law, the three most relevant questions for them are: First, what will the law be applied to? They perceive and define an 'act' that must then be classified with reference to the penal code. Second, against whom will the law be enforced? The person who has infringed the law is taken into consideration, that is, for example, whether or not he did so knowingly, and whether or not he nonetheless respects the law. Third, for whom will the law be enforced? Or, as gendarmes would put it, who needs help to recover his rights - perhaps the state?

These questions will lead to reflections on what law and the rule of law means to the gendarmes, what it means to enforce it, what it means not to do so, and what it means to enforce the law softly.

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