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This article formulates a theoretical framework that helps to explain the origins of prison riots. Our explanation builds on existing theories, taking the integrative theory outlined by Useem and Kimball (1989) as a starting point. It shows how a variety of causal factors interact to create an institutional environment in which routine incidents can develop into full-fledged riots. We illustrate our framework with an analysis of the Strangeways prison riot in Manchester, UK (1990).

The past century of research has identified a host of economic, political, demographic, & other factors that seem to be associated with the prevalence of riots. The study of riots has, however, probably focused too much on these "push" factors that lead to violence & not enough on understanding the response of the state to riots. Understanding the political incentives that motivate democratic & authoritarian states to sometimes allow riots to take place & at other times to take the strongest possible law-&-order measures to prevent them is key to understanding variation in violence. Scholars also need to pay more attention to the psychological factors that encourage people to riot, & to the micro-logic of target choice within these larger events. Adapted from the source document.

The past century of research has identified a host of economic, political, demographic, and other factors that seem to be associated with the prevalence of riots. The study of riots has, however, probably focused too much on these "push" factors that lead to violence and not enough on understanding the response of the state to riots. Understanding the political incentives that motivate democratic and authoritarian states to sometimes allow riots to take place and at other times to take the strongest possible law-and-order measures to prevent them is key to understanding variation in violence. Scholars also need to pay more attention to the psychological factors that encourage people to riot, and to the micro-logic of target choice within these larger events.

AbstractAbstract: This article considers the political reaction and policy response to the 2011 England riots. Drawing on the framework of John Kingdon's (1995) multiple streams approach (MSA) the analysis in this article starts with the 'policy window' caused by the focusing event of the riots, and traces the ways in which this was used to frame different kinds of policy 'problem', rather than the more typical method of using the MSA to help explain the emergence and development of a particular policy. It then examines how different policy 'solutions' became attached to these problems with varying degrees of impact. In fact, more than anything, we argue that the framing of the riots served to close down many avenues for policy development, with the outcome that those that were initiated in the aftermath of the disorder were both limited and short‐lived, with some having only the most tangential links with the riots.

This article analyses the mass media's claims about the role of social media in the 2011 UK riots and the Arab Spring, arguing that social media has become a new fetishism of technology that distracts from the contradictions of capitalism underlying contemporary societal changes and conflicts. Understanding contemporary capitalism, its contradictions and the role of the media requires a dialectical and critical analysis.

Racist violence that occurred in Liverpool in 1919 is analyzed in this article, & it is argued that three main themes can be identified in media, policing, & political debates that followed. These are fears of sexual relations between different "races," competition for employment, & questions relating to citizenship occasioned by a scheme of assisted repatriation introduced to remove black migrant workers from the "mother country." The article argues that the issue of "racial" difference between the communities involved in the disorders should not be treated as a straightforward variable in its own right. Instead recognition of the articulation between racialized discourse & other factors, such as sexual relations, is central to a full understanding of the events. Adapted from the source document.

The interview that follows revisits some of the theses developed by Alain Badiou concerning the revolts of the Arab Spring in his 2011 book Le Réveil de l'Histoire in light of subsequent events. The interview touches on a number of themes, including the relation between recent revolts and the on-going global economic crisis, and the way the reconfiguration of global value circuits impacts upon both tactical and strategic questions for rioters in Europe, North America and beyond. It also examines the way an analysis of the class composition of those involved in contemporary mass movements offers keys to understanding their failures and successes.

Although social scientists have sought to understand riots in terms of social structure, few causal explanations have withstood the tests of ongoing empirical examination. In America, presidential commissions sought to put the black urban riots of the mid‐sixties in a similar context. Despite the laudable attempts at deriving benign policy implications from such explanations, the commissions' explanations were no better than the social science of the time. Understanding the causal basis of riots has been elusive, but our understanding of riots as problems of crisis management has been far more reachable. A comparison of two Los Angeles riots, Watts 1965, and the Rodney King riots of 1992, shows that the intensity, spread and duration of the riots were a function of crisis paralysis. We might not know, in any scientific sense, what causes riots but we appear to know a great deal about the consequences of not appropriately preparing for or managing riots. These are the lessons of both Los Angeles riots.

This paper takes up Avtar Brah's (1999) invitation to write back to the issues she raises in her mapping of the production of gendered, classed and racialised subjectivities in west London. It addresses two topics that, together, illuminate racialised and gendered interpellation and psychosocial processes. The paper is divided into two main sections. The first draws on empirical research on the transition to motherhood conducted in east London to consider one mother's experience of giving birth in the local maternity hospital. The maternity ward constituted a site where racialised difference became salient, leading her to construct her maternal identity by asserting her difference from Bangladeshi mothers and so self-racialising, as well as 'othering' Bangladeshi mothers. The paper analyses the ways in which her biography may help to explain why her experience of the maternity hospital interpellates her into racialised positioning. The second section focuses on media responses to the riots in various English cities in August 2011. It examines the ways in which some media punditry racialised the riots and inclusion in the British postcolonial nation. The paper analyses three sets of commentaries and illuminates the ways in which they racialise the debate in essentialising ways, reproducing themes that were identified in the 1980s as 'new racism' and apportioning blame for the riots to 'black gangster culture'. While these media pronouncements focus on racialisation, they are intersectional in implicitly also invoking gender and social class. The paper argues that the understanding of the mother's self-racialisation is deepened by a consideration of the racialised discourses that can be evoked (and are contested) in periods of social unrest. The paper thus draws on part of the methodology of 'The Scent of Memory' in layering media readings and biographical narratives to analyse the contemporary psychosocial space of racialisation.

In August 2011, England experienced the most serious rioting since 30 years. The unrest started two days after the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham and quickly spread to other cities. This article opens with a brief sketch of the recent history of rioting in England from 1980-2010 and a comparison of previous riots with the ones in 2011. Subsequently, a more extensive overview of the current state of research focusing on triggers and structural roots of the 2011 riots and a local case study of Greater Manchester are presented. It is argued that broader social reasons (e .g . deprivation), consumerism, policing, male behavior and racialised conflicts constitute the overall causes for the latest riots. Moreover, the article looks at the riots in the context of class. Unlike the well-known 'underclass' discourse, the article applies a non-pejorative understanding of class: From this perspective, the 2011 riots are interpreted as a symptom of an ongoing fragmentation of social conflicts. Wide ranges of people are no longer represented by organizations like unions nor do they trust in welfare or state institutions or organise in conventional ways. This results in non-normative collective action beyond established institutions as well as new forms of how class struggles and social conflicts articulate themselves.