Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

History

Committee Chair

Joseph Hodge

Committee Member

Robert Blobaum

Committee Member

James Siekmeier

Committee Member

Melissa Bingmann

Committee Member

Joel Christenson

Abstract

This dissertation looks at the changes in British colonial policing between Ireland and the Palestine Mandate from 1918 and 1948. This time period covers the duration of the Anglo-Irish War, as well as Britain’s mandatory control of Palestine. It is the argument of this work that from 1918 to 1936, between Ireland and the Palestine Mandate, British colonial police forces demonstrated a pattern of evolving police training, practice, and organization, spurred on by violent action and followed by attempts at reform. This pattern continued until the Arab Revolt of 1936 when the police forces in the Palestine Mandate abandoned attempts at civil paramilitary policing in favor of a more militarized approach that ultimately failed to subdue the forces of Jewish nationalism and Jewish terror groups. Nearly all the reform efforts implemented by the British, whether civil or military in character, were reactionary. British government administrators and police officials failed to anticipate the changing nature of nationalist movements and institute proactive reform. This study is supported by primary sources including government documents, administrative reports, personal diaries, personal correspondence, oral histories, contemporary newspapers, and memoirs. Further, it consults a wide range of secondary literature.

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