{"title":"Seeing Blue: A Police-Centered Explanation of Protest Policing","authors":"J. Earl, S. Soule","doi":"10.17813/MAIQ.11.2.U1WJ8W41N301627U","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Existing explanations of repression and the policing of protest focus on the interests of political elites, with research indicating that a chief predictor of state repression is the level of threat protesters pose to elite interests. However, prior research has only paid sporadic attention to how the institutional and organizational characteristics of local law enforcement agencies shape the character of protest policing. This article addresses this significant theoretical gap by developing a police-centered, or \"blue,\" approach to protest policing. Using data on the policing of public protest events in New York State between 1968 and 1973, this article finds support for the blue approach. Specifically, the situational threats posed by protesters to those agents who actually perform repression-local police-are critical predictors of police presence and action. Results also show some residual support for the role of elite threats in structuring repression.","PeriodicalId":47309,"journal":{"name":"Mobilization","volume":"11 1","pages":"145-164"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2006-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.17813/MAIQ.11.2.U1WJ8W41N301627U","citationCount":"167","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Mobilization","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.17813/MAIQ.11.2.U1WJ8W41N301627U","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"SOCIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 167
Abstract
Existing explanations of repression and the policing of protest focus on the interests of political elites, with research indicating that a chief predictor of state repression is the level of threat protesters pose to elite interests. However, prior research has only paid sporadic attention to how the institutional and organizational characteristics of local law enforcement agencies shape the character of protest policing. This article addresses this significant theoretical gap by developing a police-centered, or "blue," approach to protest policing. Using data on the policing of public protest events in New York State between 1968 and 1973, this article finds support for the blue approach. Specifically, the situational threats posed by protesters to those agents who actually perform repression-local police-are critical predictors of police presence and action. Results also show some residual support for the role of elite threats in structuring repression.
期刊介绍:
Mobilization: An International Quarterly is the premier journal of research specializing in social movements, protests, insurgencies, revolutions, and other forms of contentious politics. Mobilization was first published in 1996 to fill the need for a scholarly review of research that focused exclusively with social movements, protest and collective action. Mobilization is fully peer-reviewed and widely indexed. A 2003 study, when Mobilization was published semiannually, showed that its citation index rate was 1.286, which placed it among the top ten sociology journals. Today, Mobilization is published four times a year, in March, June, September, and December. The editorial board is composed of thirty internationally recognized scholars from political science, sociology and social psychology. The goal of Mobilization is to provide a forum for global, scholarly dialogue. It is currently distributed to the top international research libraries and read by the most engaged scholars in the field. We hope that through its wide distribution, different research strategies and theoretical/conceptual approaches will be shared among the global community of social movement scholars, encouraging a collaborative process that will further the development of a cumulative social science.