Controlling Protest: Repertoire, Strategies, and Lessons from Policing the 2013-2014 Protests Cycle

Abstract

Between 2013 and 2014, peaking in June 2013, Porto Alegre was the stage for a set of protests characterized by heterogeneous claims, groups, and tactical interactions between police and protesters. Based on this case, this paper aims to analyze the way repertoire and strategies for policing demonstrations are maintained or transformed during a cycle of protests. Through an analysis of protest events on newspapers and interviews with police officers, we used the the relational perspective of contentious politics theory to identify four mechanisms that shaped the learning process of police forces during the cycle: the problematization of policing repertoire; the identification of alternatives; tactical experimentation; the incorporation of changes. These transformations resulted in the expansion of the use of police monitoring tactics, allied to the strategy of anticipating protesters’ actions.

contentious politics; policing; protest cycle; police learning