Protest under Fire? Explaining the Policing of Protest

Abstract

Hypotheses about police presence and police action at social movement protest events in New York State between 1968 and 1973 are tested with the aim of understanding the broad mechanisms of social control used by authorities during this cycle of mass protest. Contrary to the popular perception of overzealous police repression of protest in this period, results show that police did not attend the majority of protest events. Tests of dominant explanations of police presence using logistic regression analysis indicate that the best predictor of police presence at a protest event was how threatening the event was—police attended larger protest events and those that used confrontational tactics. Tests (using multinomial logistic regression) of explanations of police action, given police presence at an event, indicate that extreme forms of police action were also triggered by threatening characteristics of events. Events in which subordinate groups and social movement organizations participated were also more likely to draw police action. Novel contributions include the comparison of dominant explanations of protest policing and methods that move beyond the tradition of examining repression through police presence or absence.

Digital manipulation and mass mobilization over the long run: evidence from Latin America

“…The latter assumption is grounded in studies focusing on government coercion, often referred to as the "threat-response theory" (Earl et al, 2003). On this understanding, governments employ higher levels of repression to contain increased levels of mass mobilization.…”

“…On this understanding, governments employ higher levels of repression to contain increased levels of mass mobilization. This theory builds on the assumption that governments respond to overt collective challenges to the regime by engaging in repressive behavior to control or eliminate the challengers (e.g., Pion-Berlin, 1989;Davenport, 1995;Earl et al, 2003). The violent repression of the Nicaraguan protesters in 2018-2019 illustrates the latter goal.…”

“…They can achieve this by closely observing their citizens, recognizing the signs that indicate the formation of the most severe collective challenges. Some examples of observable indicators include those mentioned in studies like Davenport (1995) and Earl et al (2003), while unobservable or latent probabilities of challenges can be detected through research such as Herreros and Criado (2009), Nordas and Davenport (2013), and Danneman and Ritter (2014).…”

“…Another dimension to consider is the nature of the protest, i.e., the level of violence that the protesters use. If the protesters are violent, the likelihood of repression increases, and governments tend to follow a somewhat linear path, meeting protester violence with state violence (Carey, 2006;Franklin, 2009), but they may also consider other attributes of a protest, such as the number of its participants (DeNardo, 1985;Earl et al, 2003;Biggs, 2018), the nature of its demands (Regan and Henderson, 2002), and differences in protest tactics or from "normal" dissent (Davenport, 1995). However, repression is not an automatic response to protests, even violent ones, as it is risky and costly (Pierskalla, 2010).…”

Crowd reactions to the police use of force at the 2017 Phoenix Trump rally.

“…U.S. history is filled with examples of people assembling to express their views about a variety of social and political issues, including racial justice, the Vietnam War, women’s rights, globalization, the COVID-19 pandemic, and many others. Unfortunately, while protests are a recurring theme in U.S. history, so too are efforts by local, state, and federal governments to repress these social movements (Earl et al, 2003; Piven, 2006; Velut, 2014). Governments exert firm control over social movements for a variety of reasons: to preserve order, repress dissent, and maintain power (e.g., Earl, 2003; Huntington, 1968; Tilly, 2005; Tilly et al, 2001).…”