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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

The life cycles of gatherings, demonstrations, and riots begin with an assembling phase and end with a dispersal phase. The three types of events are primarily distinguished by the form and content of individual and collective behaviors that occur in the interim phase when a number of people are in the same locale at the same time. We review the past 15 years' research on behaviors in this phase. We first consider some elementary forms of collective behavior that frequently occur in all gatherings, demonstrations, and riots. We next examine more complex dimensions and forms of behavior within political, religious, and sport demonstrations. We then review research on the individual and aggregate violence against person, property, and property rights that distinguishes riots. Finally, we note some recurring patterns in the research on all three types of events, and we identify problems warranting further investigation.

Previous research on individual, interpersonal, and collective units of pedestrian behavior is briefly summarized and critically evaluated. An alternative theoretical framework and methodological procedure are presented. The imposition of cartesian coordinates on a film record, corrected for "foreshortened perspective," permits the accurate location, and systematic measurement of distances between, directions, and velocities of individual pedestrian movement. An index of coordinated movement permits the identification and comparison of the extent of collective locomotion within pedestrian streams and other aggregations of persons in public places. The framework and procedures are illustrated with the analysis of a film record of a short sequence of pedestrian behavior. Implications are discussed for several theoretical and applied problems.

Digitised version produced by the EUI Library and made available online in 2020.

Analyzes national coverage of officially approved protest demonstrations held in Washington, DC, in 1982 & 1991 (N = 1,209 & 1,856, respectively) to determine coverage criteria. News sources considered are the New York Times, the Washington Post, the 3 major TV networks, & major weekly news magazines. More than 50% of the protests had fewer than 25 participants. Most demonstrations were not covered at all. In general, demonstrations were selected for coverage if they were large, involved a popular issue, &/or were violent or potentially violent. Protests had a greater chance of being covered when they involved a theme already on the news agenda (eg, the Gulf War in 1991). The structure of media selection was relatively stable 1982-1991, although the issues considered newsworthy changed. Results are discussed in relation to the commercialization of mass media in both the US & the Federal Republic of Germany. 4 Tables, 1 Graph, 54 References. Adapted from the source document.

Authors' professional status, subfields within sociology, types of analysis, and sources of data were compared between two categories of manuscripts submitted to three editors of the American Sociological Review: those manuscripts about which authors complained and those randomly selected. Thirteen percent of the authors who complained succeeded in having the decision reversed and their manuscripts accepted for publication.

Efforts to develop a unified model of collective violence have been limited by the diverse array of events analyzed, from terrorist attacks to riots. This article seeks to develop a more inclusive theoretical and analytic framework by exploring the targets of violence, something that has received little disaggregated attention. We argue that consideration of who or what is targeted during the course of an event, together with collectivity size and the conditional role it may play, offers new theoretical insight into collective violence dynamics. Our analysis draws from newspaper records on a diverse range of collectivities, from parties to rallies to riots. We find that in many contexts, collectivity size increases the likelihood of violence against some targets, notably state actors, while reducing attacks on others. These findings provide the basis for a broader discussion of why unpacking targets is so critical to understanding the dynamics of collective violence.

The waves of public protest events that accompanied the early years of the transition from Communism in the former Soviet republic of Belarus offer the opportunity to explore the short-term interaction between state repression and the ongoing choice of protest form by challengers. Using police (militia) records of public protest events between 1990 and 1995, we examine the evolving choice of protest form by collective actors in Belarus. We develop expectations about how the strength of social actors interacts with the extent and form of state repression in shaping protest form. Analyses show that as democratic access expanded and state repression waned during a "democratic opening" weak collective actors came to dominate the protest arena, staging mostly pickets and vigils. As state repression escalated, however, strong collective actors reentered the protest arena, but, in response to the escalating state repression, employed mostly the picket/vigil protest form that, during less repressive times, had been the weapon of the weak collective actors.

The waves of public protest events that accompanied the early years of the transition from communism in the former Soviet republic of Belarus offer the opportunity to explore the short-term interaction between state repression & the ongoing choice of protest form by challengers. Using police (militia) records of public protest events, 1990-1995, we examine the evolving choice of protest form by collective actors in Belarus. We develop expectations about how the strength of social actors interacts with the extent & form of state repression in shaping protest form. Analyses show that as democratic access expanded & state repression waned during a "democratic opening" weak collective actors came to dominate the protest arena, staging mostly pickets & vigils. As state repression escalated, however, strong collective actors reentered the protest arena, but, in response to the escalating state repression, employed mostly the picket/vigil protest form that, during less repressive times, had been the weapon of weak collective actors. 6 Tables, 2 Figures, 55 References. Adapted from the source document.

Analyses of selection bias in the coverage of protest events in Minsk, Belarus between 1990 and 1995 are presented. The rapid changes characterizing Minsk during its transition from Communism made it an ideal location for investigating the stability of the patterns of selection bias. Police records of 817 protest events were used to create a protest event dataset, and Minsk's four daily newspapers were read for the entire period in order to establish estimates of event coverage. Results show that large events, events with strong sponsors and, in two of the four newspapers, events accompanied by arrests are each more likely to receive coverage. These effects remain stable through phases of the transition for the combined coverage in any of the papers. The selection factors of event size and event sponsorship also display stability across media source, although the impact of arrests is not always consequential.