Interpol’s Roots in Post-Habsburg Europe

• In Event: Policing in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), today known as Interpol, was founded in 1923 in Vienna. Its founders and subsequent generations of police officials argued that it arose in response to changes in the nature of crime. Since globalization and technological change meant that criminals were no longer bound by national borders, they argued, police had internationalize, as well. More recent critical scholarship has cast doubt on this narrative, pointing to other structural causes pushing police to internationalize, but they too have generally viewed the site of Interpol’s founding as incidental to its agenda. In this paper, I will argue that the ICPC was a product of the particular conditions facing post-Habsburg Europe, and particularly Vienna, the former imperial capital. I will also consider some of the implications of this history for our understanding of international policing in interwar Europe and for the challenges facing Interpol today.

Author

• David Petruccelli, Dartmouth College