Doctoral Dissertation Research: Protest Policing: American Cities and Police Responses to Social Movements

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

SES-1303662 Kim Voss Nicholas Adams University of California-Berkeley Protest movements pose a significant challenge to city governments and police departments, who respond in a variety of ways. This research asks why, how, and when city and police responses to social movements vary. Past research on protest policing identified three main factors that determine how police manage protest: the governing context under which police operate, police departments' cultures and their capacities, and the characteristics and activities of the protest movements. But to date, no consensus has emerged as to which of these different factors matters most in determining protest policing, nor under what circumstances. It has been very difficult to compare the policing of one protest movement to the policing of another because they usually feature different aims, strategies, and tactics. That difficulty is compounded if the contexts in which protest policing occurs differ considerably. With so much variability, the conclusions of comparative studies often contradict one another, and findings cannot be generalized across movements and locations. This dissertation project will use the multiple instances of the Occupy movement to complete a comparative study of protest policing. The researchers will analyze police interactions with the Occupy movement in over 200 cities. Specifically, data describing protest policing tactics will be analyzed to study whether police departments use a wide array of approaches over the course of a protest campaign or just one or two signature sets of tactics. The researchers will also study the effects of the governing context, police characteristics, and movement's characteristics on police handling of protests over the course of protest campaigns -- questions untestable with existing data, which lack detailed information on the timing of events. Broader Impact In the last two years, a wave of protest has swept the world: The Arab Spring, the Occupy movement, anti-austerity rioting in England, police and protester clashes in Spain and Greece, and labor unrest in China. There is good reason to believe that the outcomes of such protest movements depend, in part, on the ways in which they are policed. But researchers, to date, are unable to satisfactorily explain why police respond to protest movements as they do. This research aims to explain the dynamics of protester/police interactions to inform strategies that people and their governments may take to avoid unnecessary escalations, distrust, and negative policing and protest movement outcomes. _______________________________________________________________________