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Seeing Blue (Explaining Police Action at Protest Events (Only two…
Seeing Blue
Prior Research on the Allocation of Protest Policing
Dominant explanation for repression is the
"threat approach"
Larger threats to political elites predict greater repression in terms of both frequency and severity
Most widely accepted and empirically supported explanation of repression
Alternatively, there is a
"weakness approach"
Groups may be threatening enough to catch elites' eyes, but must be weak enough to attract overt state action against them
Vulnerable targets for opportunistic state power
Earl. et. al. (2003) focus on two types of weaknesses
Weakness from within
Suggests that protest events composed of participants that lack substantial access to government and government officials are "weaker"
The lack of access and representation are expected to lower the costs of repression
It is expected that "weak" protesters will have fewer routes for redress in the wake of repressive action
Weakness from without
Protesters are seen as relying on external monitoring of the state to limit repression, with weaker protesters hoping that influential elites will monitor repression, and contest overzealous acts of coercion on their behalf
A "Blue" Approach to Explaining Police Action
Institutional Concerns
Solidify the importance of control by postulating relationship between maintaining control and officer safety
The institutional structuring of danger affects how police understand and relate to key institutional imperatives such as maintaining public order, controlling communities, and controlling interactions with the public
Emphasis on public order in maintaining control in interactions and over communities
Ethnographic studies of protect policing have shown that police officers find the presence of
counterdemonstrators
substantially increases the potential for conflict
Presence of counterdemonstrators should:
Increase the likelihood of police presence, as police seek to ensure control
Increase the likelihood of police action, as police who are present on the scene seek to maintain control over demonstrators and counterdemonstrators
Organizational Effects
A police centered approach should address differences between law enforcement agencies
One organizational characteristic that causes concern are
staffing levels
Departments with larger staffs will be able to devote more police-hours to the control of protest without compromising other police functions
These departments will have more tactical options available for protest policing because of higher staffing levels
Varying levels of departmental professionalism
should affect protest policing
The growth of police professionalism emphasized the need to reduce uses of force in protest situations
The "blue" approach argues that while elites may be concerned about more
diffuse
threats, the police are more concerned with
situational
threats
Diffuse threats
: the articulation of revolutionary goals by a protest group or movement
Situational threats
: indicate whether the police may lose control of a community or crowd
Explaining Police Action at Protest Events
Only two political elite threat variables significantly affect police action at protest events
Increasing protest sizes
Use of confrontational tactics
Larger protest sizes bifurcate police responses into either simple presence with no action or serious action involving force
"Weakness" approach performs poorly in the police action models.
Only two weakness variables are significant
College student presence
Total front page news coverage from the prior month
Adequate levels of well-trained manpower may increase the chances that police are able to react in legal ways and without engaging in a police riot.
Explaining Police Presence
Police are more likely to attend and monitor events with larger numbers of participants, events where confrontational protest tactics are deployed, and where protesters support radical claims
Counterdemonstrator presence, protester initiated violence and/or property damage, and missile throwing
Police respond to protests that require monitoring whether-or-not that stretches their agency thin
Professionalism measures mixed; number of police studies programs in a county does not affect the likelihood of police presence