As organizações policiais e os processos de transição entremodelos: mitos, racionalidade e o campo institucional da polícia

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss - both theoretically and empirically - the explanatory power of the sociology of organizations and their alternative proposals to the economic model of social action and organizational change, specifically in its institutional approach. From an empirical point of view, it aims to address these through discussions about the implications of organizational nature on the change process of the conventional policing model, (professional-bureaucratic) to the community policing model. In other words, argues thatthe transition from an organizational strategy to another requires significant changes in the structure and ethos of the organization, with high costs for its stability. This statement comes from theoretical considerations made on the occasion of a dissertation for a master´sdegree. At that work were discussed, in a logical and conceptual standpoint, the constitutional elements of organizations (in general), and of the military police organizations, in particular, with the intention to point evidences regarding the consequences involved in the processes of organizational design and procedure changes. This work, in turn, presents the perspective that processes of change in policeorganizations, military police organizations here, reflect more strategies to not change, as they are ways to absorb environmental uncertainty in a context of displacement between structure and organizational environment, in which environmental demands little influencethe structural format of police organizations. It is assumed thereby that the police, taken as a formal organization, is subject to analysis by the sociology of organizations, and should not be subject only to police specific theories, as has been traditionally. Thus, one of thefocuses in this work relates to theoretical discussions about structural tensions between different organizational models, seeking empirical evidence of the argument presented by means of qualitative information. The organizational approach is presented after a brief consideration of its theoretical background, a closed rational model criticized by theorganizational sociology, criticism witch allowed the construction of a theoretical and methodology tool consistent with the analysis of complex organizations, such as police organizations.