Policing Protest: The Control of Mass Demonstrations in Western Democracies (Social Movements, Protest and Contention)

The first international examination of how police respond to political protests.

The way in which police handle political demonstrations is always potentially controversial. In contemporary democracies, police departments have two different, often conflicting aims: keeping the peace and defending citizens’ right to protest. This collection, the only resource to examine police interventions cross-nationally, analyzes a wide array of policing styles. The contributors look at cultures and political power to examine the methods, the trends and cycles, and the consequences of policing protest.

Focusing on Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Spain, the United States, and South Africa, the contributors explore the various police strategies of coercion, negotiation, and information surveillance. They discuss protest policing in relation to specific countries’ governments and consider public opinion, media, and the police’s perception of reality to illustrate the reciprocal ways in which police and protest are defined. Moreover, this volume considers the profound changes from the forceful 1960s to a “softer” 1990s, including the consequences of this move.

Comparative and innovative, Policing Protest highlights the crucial influences of demonstration interventions and lends greater understanding to the study of social movements and their relationship to the state.

Contributors: Rocco De Biasi, U of Genoa; Olivier Fillieule, Institute of Political Science, Paris; Oscar Jaime-Jiménez, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid; Fabien Jobard, U of Rouen, France; Hanspeter Kriesi, U of Geneva; Gary T. Marx, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and U of Colorado, Boulder; John McCarthy, Catholic U of America; Clark McPhail, U of Illinois; Fernando Reinares, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid; Robert Reiner, London School of Economics; David Schweingruber; P. A. J. Waddington, U of Reading, UK; Martin Winter, U of Halle, Germany; Dominique Wisler, U of Geneva.