It's a long way to Auchterarder! ‘Negotiated management’ and mismanagement in the policing of G8 protests¹

Abstract

Recent analyses of protest policing in Western democracies argue that there has been a marked shift away from oppressive or coercive approaches to an emphasis on consensus based negotiation. King and Waddington (2005) amongst others, however, suggest that the policing of international summits may be an exception to this rule. This paper examines protest policing in relation to the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. We argue that 'negotiated management' cannot be imported wholesale as a policing strategy. Rather it is mediated by local history, forms of police knowledge and modes of engagement. Drawing on interviews and participant observation we show that 'negotiated management' works best when both sides are committed to negotiation and that police stereotyping or protestor intransigence can lead to the escalation of any given event. In closing we note the new challenges posed by forms of 'global' protest and consider the implications for future policing of protest.

What a Difference a Death Makes: Protest, Policing and the Press at the G20

“…This terminology is problematic on two related counts: firstly it gives police officers the discretion to determine who is and is not a 'peaceful protestor'. As we have shown elsewhere (Gorringe & Rosie 2008) the police have a preconceived idea of which kind of protestor, and which kind of causes, are legitimate. The second danger, as we have demonstrated above, is that all protestors can be (and often are) presented as potentially violent.…”

Policing protest: An authoritarian consensus

“…The official response to the crisis in legitimacy surrounding protest policing reflects what has been identified in a number of recent academic studies as a move towards a 'negotiated management' style of protest policing, favouring 'cooperation and communication between police and protestors' in order to 'reduce the likelihood of violence' (Gorringe and Rosie, 2008;Della Porta and Reiter, 1998;Waddington and King, 2005). According to this analysis, protest policing is becoming increasingly open and democratic, with the police actively seeking to de-escalate potentially confrontational situations through consensually negotiated solutions.…”

Bourdieu and Social Movements

“…At the same time, those who engaged in contentious politics, who were challenging elites and were previously in an advantageous position, became marginalized. This substantive empirical contribution, combined with Bourdieu's theoretical technologies, explains the interrelations between the three main mobilizations that occurred during the week of the summit meeting, whereas existing literature tends to focus on one specific mobilization, with maybe a brief mention of one of the other two (Barr and Drury, 2009;Gorringe and Rosie, 2008;Hubbard and Miller, 2005). To this end, I provide a narrative using empirical evidence which connects the ACM field and the wider AGM field, showing how the different politics can clash when elites enter the AGM field offering to support an adapted agenda.…”