Protest Mobilization, Protest Repression, and Their Interaction

Abstract

Draws upon diverse theoretical & empirical research on repression & mobilization to explore what seems to be changing & what still needs to be learned. It is contended that the existing research tends to overemphasize violent activity within collective action & often misrepresents both democratic political systems & repression/mobilization as uniformly structured in a specific manner. A discussion of the interaction of the actors/actions involved in mobilization & repression highlights the complexity of interaction between challengers & the state as well as the wide variation in both protester objectives/tactics & protest policing. A review of videotaped interactions between protesters & police at several large events in London indicates that violent actions by either protesters or police are relatively rare & when they do occur they tend to be short-lived & engaged in by only a small fraction of the total group. An approach for analyzing interaction between protesters & the police that considers how actors adapt their behaviors to one another is suggested. 4 Tables, 61 References. J. Lindroth