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

加州大学伯克利分校的抗议运动对市政府和警察部门构成了重大挑战，他们以各种方式应对。这项研究询问城市和警察对社会运动的反应为何、如何以及何时不同。过去对抗议警务的研究确定了决定警察如何管理抗议的三个主要因素：警察运作的治理环境，警察部门的文化和能力，以及抗议运动的特征和活动。但到目前为止，对于这些不同因素中哪一个在决定抗议警务方面最重要，以及在什么情况下最重要，还没有达成共识。很难将一个抗议运动的治安管理与另一个抗议运动的治安管理进行比较，因为它们通常具有不同的目标、策略和战术。如果抗议警察发生的背景有很大不同，这种困难就会变得更加复杂。由于有如此多的可变性，比较研究的结论往往相互矛盾，而且研究结果不能在运动和地点之间进行概括。本论文项目将使用占领运动的多个实例来完成抗议警务的比较研究。研究人员将分析200多个城市的警察与占领运动的互动。具体来说，将分析描述抗议警务策略的数据，以研究警察部门在抗议活动过程中是使用多种方法，还是只使用一到两套标志性的策略。研究人员还将研究在抗议活动过程中，治理环境、警察特征和运动特征对警察处理抗议活动的影响——这些问题无法用现有数据来测试，因为这些数据缺乏关于事件发生时间的详细信息。​我们有充分的理由相信，这些抗议运动的结果在一定程度上取决于它们的监管方式。但到目前为止，研究人员还不能令人满意地解释为什么警察对抗议运动的反应是这样的。本研究旨在解释抗议者/警察互动的动态，以告知人们及其政府可能采取的策略，以避免不必要的升级，不信任以及负面的警务和抗议运动结果。_______________________________________________________________________

SES-1303662 Kim VossNicholas AdamsUniversity 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 ImpactIn 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._______________________________________________________________________