The Management of Protest and Dissent

Drawing on insights from social movement studies, public order policing, and the specificities of protest law, this chapter argues that illiberal practices of protest management and manipulation exist in regimes of all political hues. The chapter considers the causes, forms, and effects of protest action in different contexts, highlighting the challenge of attempting to correlate protest activity, repressive tactics and institutionalized opportunities for participation. It is argued that state authorities rely variously on practices of media framing, police repression, counter-mobilization, and legislative intervention to limit or withdraw the public space subsidies upon which equal liberty depends. These distortions of the public realm – in which law is instrumental – serve to rebalance the dynamics of political power and reinforce incumbent advantage. They present an insidious threat to pluralist constitutional democracy wherever they arise.