Freedom of Assembly in Non-Democratic Regimes: Shifts in Policing Methods to Peaceful Protest as an Indication of Political Regime Change in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

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FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL

INSTITUTION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY

HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Faculty of Social Sciences

Master Thesis

Freedom of Assembly in Non-Democratic Regimes: Shifts in Policing Methods to Peaceful Protest as an Indication of Political Regime Change in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

Field of study 41.04.04 Political Science

Master's program `Political Analysis and Public Policy'

Joseph Cripps

Abstract

Non-democratic governments consistently look at waves of peaceful protest as a direct challenge against their hegemonic power and stability. Since the turn of the century, a global wave of democratic backsliding has been observed, leading to the consolidation and restriction of fundamental human rights. Thus, more than ever, it is imperative to fully understand freedom of assembly in non-democratic regimes. Through the development of the protest event analysis framework, this research has sought to use the state response to peaceful protest as a barometer to determine and identify its overall regime dynamic. Examining over 61 hours of protest events video footage within Russia, Ukraine and Belarus between the years of 2007 - 2019, this research has sought to understand if a change in policing methods towards peaceful protest can indicate a broader change in the political regime. By developing a new and novel tool in which to examine and codify the behaviours of non-democratic governments, this research advances the current understanding of the effects of regime change. Furthermore, it has provided a new framework in which future analysis may be based upon.

Keywords: Authoritarian Regimes, Hybrid Regimes, Protest, Policing, Freedom of Assembly, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus.

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my most profound appreciation to my supervisor, professor Nina, Y. Belyaeva, as without her continued support, guidance and leadership throughout the last two years, this thesis would not have been possible.

I would additionally like to extend my thanks to other members of the faculty whose rigorous teaching and lectureship have challenged and inspired me.

Finally, I would like to thank my family, whose unwavering belief in my abilities has motivated me to continue to achieve and develop.

1. Introduction and Research Design

A fully functioning democracy is believed to be reflected within the principles of freedom of expression, association and the right to peaceful assembly (OSCE, 2010). With a global shift towards more democratic regime styles (Marshall and Elzinga-Marshall, 2017), we have seen a growing acceptance of these three fundamental human rights. Yet even though freedom of expression, association and the right to peaceful assembly have been mainstreamed within emergent or consolidated democracies, the first two decades of the twenty-first century have been characterised by a wave of democratic backsliding, authoritarian regression and consolidation (Lankina and Tertytchnaya, 2020) that is characterised by the restriction of these rights.

The academic community has responded to the increased visibility of non-democratic regimes by progressively shifting its focus from the study of democratic strengths to the study of authoritarian resilience (see; Peri, 2012; Kosel and Bunce, 2013; Lorentzen, 2014; Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018). When studying authoritarian regimes, it is important to distinguish peaceful protests from any other form of assembly, protest or gathering. It is only the deprivation or restriction of peaceful protests on the part of the state that is condemned, as international guiding principles establish that freedom of peaceful assembly should be enjoyed without restriction insofar as possible (OSCE, 2010 p.15). A state's positive obligation to both facilitate and protect peaceful assembly reaffirms the importance of understanding how the shrinking of opportunities for political participation and the change in dynamics of protest response (Lankina and Tertytchnaya, 2020) is reflected in the dynamics of non-democratic regimes.

Regardless of the type of government or regime, during events of peaceful protests, police are the first and often the only organ of the state that protesters will come into contact with. Thus, identifying the polices response to peaceful protest should be seen as an essential barometer of a state's commitment to upholding the rights of freedom of assembly and more broadly, their general attitudes towards human rights. Additionally, as I shall seek to demonstrate, I believe the way in which the police respond to peaceful protest could also be reflective of the state's overall regime dynamics.

Research Problem

Throughout this paper, a clear problem has been identified; a vast array of non-democratic regime typologies For example: civilian regime (Booth, 1989), competitive regimes (Collier and Collier, 1991), competitive authoritarian regimes (Levitsky and Way, 2010), unconsolidated democracy (Higley and Gunther, 1992), electoral regimes (Petras and Levia, 1995), electoral authoritarian regimes (Schedler, 2006), hybrid regimes (Diamond, 2002), stable limited democracy (Higley and Gunther, 1992). have been classified with little consensus on how to determine or identify between them. Thus, this means that a new unit of analysis is needed to help address the lack of clarity when seeking to identify a regimes dynamics, characteristics or development.

Research Question

As previously suggested, there is a lack of consensus amongst the academy on how to recognise or distinguish between different regime typologies Ibid.. Therefore, I shall seek to understand if a change in methods of policing response to peaceful protest can be used to indicate a shift in regime dynamics within non-democratic regimes? Using the case studies of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, I shall seek to understand how different categories of regimes respond to peaceful protest. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus have been selected due to them all previously being part of the USSR, their shared ethnic and linguistic makeup and their historical close or dependent relationship.

Hypothesis

I hypothesise that within countries that have experienced a shift in regime towards an authoritarian regime style, a change in policing methods to peaceful protest can be identified. Furthermore, I hypothesise that this shift towards authoritarianism will be reflected by the use of more enforcement-based policing strategy indicated by paramilitary policing tactics and the use of disproportionate or indiscriminate violence and arrests within protests.

Scope and Limitation of the study

The time frame of this research shall be limited to 2007-2019. Current research on non-democratic regime indicates pronounced geographic variations of political openness within a country (O'Donnel, 1999; McMann and Petrov, 2000; Gel'man and Ross, 2010; Gervasoni, 2010; Giarudiy, 2012; Lankina and Getachew, 2008; 2012; Lankina, 2014; Behred and Witehead, 2006; Lankina and Libman, 2016), with current discussions centring on the presence of sub-national authoritarian regimes that are less likely to tolerate any forms of protests (Lankina and Tertytchnaya, 2020) then a regional regime, thus indicating a difference in social-spatial responses to protest.

Much of the existing literature that attempts to further conceptualise on Lankina and Tertytchnaya idea of sub-national regimes has focused on the social-spatial differences within the Russian Federation. Dmitriev and Treisman (2012) conceived of the `Two-Russia's' theory, arguing the presence on a Metropol Russia (St Petersburg and Moscow) and a non-metropole Russia, both with distinct socio-economic features and response to political activities. Zubarevich (2011) advances this understanding of the differences within Russia and conceives of a “four-Russia” typology based on the size and type of the city (big cities, medium industrial cities, rural regions and small towns, and less developed republics of the North caucuses) that each respond uniquely to political challenges. Thus, upon reflection of these recent academic advancements, this paper will limit the scope of its investigation to capital cities.

This paper has adopted the definition of political protest, as defined by Lankina and Tertytchanya (2020) as a politically motived anti-government and anti-regime protest with board agendas. Political protests may also include other issues, but an anti-government/regime sentiment should be seen to be central to the protest. Anti-government/regime protests have encompassed a wide range of issues included electoral fraud; protests calling for the resignation of elected or politically appointed officials; the release of those apprehended for political reasons; memorials commemorating deaths related to political repression, protests in support of political activism, protest against police or police abuse, protest again foreign policy or protest in support of political events happening aboard or showing solidarity with other protesters abroad (Lankina and Tertytchanya, 2020). Within authoritarian regimes, how the state response to different typologies of protest demonstrates a number of important variations, most specifically, that political protests are most likely to be suppressed by the state then protest that seek to advance social or economic demands. Therefore, due to the potential divergence in policing response to different typologies of protest, I shall be limiting the scope of the research to political protests that are confined to the capital cities of the three case study countries. By only focusing on political protest, there may be some limitations to the overall applicability of the research, but through understanding how a regime responds to demonstrations of opposing political will, we can then understand the states true commitment to upholding the right to freedom of assembly (Greene, 2013, 2014; Trejo, 2014).

Methodology

The policy cycle shall be used as the methodological basis of my research into freedom of assembly in non-democratic regimes. The policy cycle is a popular policy framework through which you can conceptualise and analyse the multiple stages of policy change within a state. Within the context of this thesis, attention will be paid to agenda-setting, policy formulation, legitimisation strategies and evaluation of a policy. This tool shall further be used to affirm if a single flashpoint within the regime can be identified that is reflective of a change in policy, change in regime dynamics and a shift in policing response.

Research Methods

I shall be examining and comparing video footage of political protests held in Moscow, Kyiv and Minsk between the years 2007-2019. Specifically, within this research, I shall be using the protest event analysis (PEA) framework to test my research thesis. PEA is an emerging form of content analysis often used within social movement research (Huttler, 2014a) that uses traditional print media to systematically identify the unique features within a protest event (Huttler, 2014b).

To assess the frequency and unique features of protests, PEA demands the codification of information into protest event data sets (Zhang, 2019). Despite its benefits as a research tool, PEAs strength is often limited due to the potential reporting bias of its primary source of data (McCarthy, McPhail and Smith,1996; Oritz et al., 2005). Due to the unique nature of research into non-democratic regimes, gathering multiple sources of accurate and independent traditional media content would be difficult, and the factual foundations of their coverage might be questioned (Zhang, 2019). Within authoritarian regimes, censorship and strict reporting controls are implemented through the state ownership of media outlets (Egorov and Sonin, 2011; Qin, Stromberg and Wu, 2018; Stockmann, 2013) or alternatively through the repression of private oppositional media outlets or journalists (McMillian and Zoido, 2004; Bourgault, 2015; Freedom House, 2017; Hem, 2014). Even within consolidated democracies, media accounts of protest omit details from their coverage, with Myers and Caniglia (2004) additionally claiming that the media omit or miss half of all `disorders' within protest events. Therefore, having identified the potential weakness of using traditional media as the primary data source, seeking to establish a new method of analysis is imperative for the success of the research.

Social movements scholars have long understood the importance of social media within protests movements (see; Diamond, 2010; Earl and Kimport, 2011; Edmon, 2013; Ferdinand, 2000). Social media provides researchers with widely accessible large-scale digitised data (Zhang, 2019) and already has been used to study substantive issues within social movements such as participant support and frames of mobilisation (Barbera, 2015; Budak and Watts, 2015; Gonzalez-Bailon et al., 2011; Steinert-Threlkeld 2017; Steinert-Threlkeld et al., 2015). Thus, following the recent advancements in social movement research and protest event analysis I shall utilise the `digital traces left by protests, bystanders and commentators' (Zhang, 2019; p.4) through publicly available YouTube videos, to conduct PEA and thus develop my protest event data set. It's believed that by not only using `new digital media' the research will be able to surpass some of the media bias and irregularities of media reporting within non-democratic regimes but also allows for a standard codification to be developed for the typology of police behaviour, that is imperative for this research. This research uses the definition of protest provided by Rucht, Koopmans and Neidhardt (1999) as the public expression of dissident or critique from citizens. Similar to previous PEA data sets, the analysis of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus will follow the event-day-location codification and thus events that occur in multiple locations, even within the same region or district will be coded as separate entities (Lankina and Tertytchnaya, 2020).

Furthermore, for the protest event to be selected for review, the event must meet a number of criteria. First, the protest must be a political protest held within the capital cities. The second criterion is that the protest must be peaceful. Third, the video footages of the protest must be substantial enough to show the majority of the protest's length and that this video source should not overwhelmingly come from a single user. If the protest does not meet these criteria, then it will not be selected for use.

The Novelty of the Research

The comparative analysis of protest policing events within ex-soviet states have yet to be widely analysed through the lenses of regime theory and thus provides a unique opportunity to contribute to a much-needed area of research. The novelty of this unique piece of research becomes clear when examining previous studies, as there is a notable lack of comparative research into policing under non-democratic regimes, especially a comparative analysis of protest policing within the same country before and after a regime change. Additionally, the use of the protest event analysis framework on police behaviour within protests highlights the novelty of this research, as the method of using PEA on video sources of police behaviour is something yet to be fully explored.

2. Literature Review

The literature review shall be organised thematically across the broad themes of political regime theory and policing studies. Each of the thematic section shall be divided into subsections where appropriate to help assist with clarity. The literature review shall seek to present both core fundamental works and theories and contemporary academics that have published within the last five years.

Literature Review on Regime Studies

Hybrid Regimes

The World Value Survey (2014) estimated that 79% of the world's population expressed a desire to live in a country that is democratically governed. This widespread acceptance of democratic norms demonstrated from the public opinion survey, has led to a divergence between the expectations of some of the populous and the reality of many regime systems across the globe. The unfilled desire for democratic governance is believed to be a contributing factor to the growing waves of global protest and demonstrations (Grьndle and Krieger, 2016). The third wave of democratisation (Huntington, 1991) that originated in Portugal and Spain in the 70s and soon spread across the developing world transformed the nature of political regimes (Monocla, Fritz and Ranker, 2008). In 1974, across 150 countries it was indicated that 41 were democracies, by 2006 some theorist identified that 123 of 192 countries within the world were considered `electoral democracies' (Diamond, 2012). Having identified the 1960/70s as a flashpoint for the third wave of democratisation, academics started to consider why a regime would decide to relinquish its consolidation of power and shift towards a more democratic regime style. The mainstream literature of the time emphasised a modernisation approach that argued democracy was more likely to emerge from within a country with higher levels of social-economic development, and although possibly fitting to explain transitions occurring in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Chile, a large number of countries experiencing regime transitions fell in the bottom third of the human development index (Monocla, Fritz and Ranker, 2008). Reflective of both the plurality of countries experiencing shifts in regime dynamics and the subsequent democratic backsliding of some of these countries a broad consensus emerged within the academia that economic development was not a necessary condition for democratic transition and that even though a transition might occur within a country, this transition towards democracy might not always be fulfilled and thus democratic consolidation might not have been achieved (see: O'Donnell and Schmitter, 1986; Przeworski and Limongi, 1997; Bogaards, 2009). It's believed that only a limited number of countries who have emerged to transition to democracy have succeeded in fully solidifying democratic governance within their country with the rest instead develop into a new regime typology; a hybrid regime.

Upon its emergence as a new theory, the literature on hybrid regimes sought to describe this new regime typology as an “in between” of authoritarian and democratic regimes (Karl, 1995), yet a consensus soon emerged that Hybrid regimes should be viewed as their own typology and not a transitional state or a subtype of authoritarianism (Diamond, 2015). Thus, hybrid regimes became commonly understood as a more ambiguous governance system that has a rhetorical acceptance of liberal democracy, limited consolidation of civil and political liberties and some established and functioning democratic institutions (Ottaway, 2003). One of the most defining characteristics of hybrid regimes is the lack of democratic consolidation, but as suggested by Dahl (1989) they are also characterised by a failure to achieve free and fair elections, a lack of universal suffrage, and the inability for the citizens of the state to influence the political agenda.

Multiple theorists have since sought to develop the description of hybrid regime characteristics as provided by Karl (1995). Levitsky and Way (2002) advanced the understanding of hybrid regimes through their conceptualisation of competitive authoritarian regimes, a typology that has since been used by many theorists to understand and analyse hybrid states. Within competitive authoritarian states, a form of the hybrid regime typology, the state maintains the presence of its electoral system but eliminates any form of legitimate political competition by manipulating the process (Levitsky and Way, 2002). Ekman (2009) further affirms the importance of a hybrid regimes electoral system by presenting it as an important mechanism in developing state legitimacy.

As demonstrated, the academic literature on hybrid regimes has steadily been increasing since the turn of the century (see: Diamond, 2002; Wigell, 2008; Boggards, 2009; Morlino, 2009; Levitsky and Way, 2010; Gilbert and Mohseni, 2011) but the issue on a hybrid regimes legitimacy is one aspect that is drastically understudied (Mazepus et al. 2016). Despite the fact that many scholars continue to disagree about the necessity of the concept of legitimacy (Hyde, 1983; Huntington, 1991; Prezeoski, 1991), Dogan (1992; 116) explains that `even the most tyrannical rules try to justify their reign', highlighting how no political regime or authority ever wishes to appear illegitimate (Mazepus et al., 2006).

In authoritarian regimes, legitimacy is tied to the survival of the current state governance system (Tyler, 2006) and is heavily dependent on the countries economic performance (Huntington, 1991) while in a democracy, it is tied to a durable election process (Easton, 1975). Alternatively, hybrid regimes aspire to achieve coexistence of `democratic rules and autocratic methods aimed at keeping incumbents in power' (Levitsky and Way, 2002) and thus attempt to achieve legitimacy through electoral consolidation, where the defining attribute of democracy (Gerschewski, 2013) is treated as a `manipulatable resource' (Suchman 1995, p. 574) to be controlled (Mazepus et al., 2016).

Authoritarian Regimes

Unlike other forms on non-democratic regimes, such as one-party totalitarian systems, authoritarian regimes do not develop through the supremacy of an ideological narrative or through the contestation of social control but instead through the amalgamation of groups who have a stake in power and influence (Marquez, 2017). Linz (1964, p.225) provides one of the foremost definition of authoritarian systems and affirms that they are: “…political systems with limited, not responsible, political pluralism, without [an] elaborate and guiding ideology, but with distinctive mentalities, without extensive nor intensive political mobilization, except at some points in their development, and in which a leader or occasionally a small group exercises power within formally ill-defined limits but actually quite predictable ones”. The political system that is fostered within authoritarian regimes is heavily perpetuated by a network of bureaucrats, experts and state security officials that consolidate power into the hands of a select few individuals and ensures a vertical flow of decision and political influence down from the top of the regime structure, further limiting widespread access to state policymaking systems (Marquez, 2017).

Across academic disciplines, there is a growing recognition that the presence of an electoral system alone does not guarantee political openness and a functioning democratic mechanism within a country (Menocla et al., 2008). This can be seen in a variety of counties such as Uruguay, Argentina and Nicaragua (Freedom House, 2017) all previously classified as contemporary authoritarian regimes but that have breach international standards of liberal-democratic elections (Schedler, 2013). It is this election process that is one of the most critical differences between authoritarian systems and traditional dictatorships (Freedom House, 2017).

Contemporary research has indicated that the ruling party within authoritarian regimes often enjoys overwhelming and hegemonic political dominance, on average commanding between 70% to 75% of the seat or vote share (Donno, 2013). The disparity between the expanse of the ruling party within authoritarian regimes, and the wavering dominance of any single party in hybrid regimes further supports the belief that a distinction can be made between regimes on the level of electoral `domination' of the ruling party (Brownlee 2009, Donno, 2013, Diamond, 2002).

Occurring almost in isolation from the traditional body of scholarship that has developed around authoritarian regimes, a recent collection of work has appeared that challenged conventional regime studies. One of the most salient critiques in recent time is from Galsius (2018) who suggests that authoritarian studies should not just focus on regime typologies and authoritarian structures but also, the identification of individual isolated acts and practices of authoritarianism. In light of this, it's stated that although the United States of America cannot be described as an authoritarian system, individuals' actions of past presidents may be judged as authoritarian (Galsius, 2018). One of the most recent challenges upon the conventional understanding of authoritarianism comes from the studies on China. Conventional wisdom would argue that under authoritarian regimes political life and a public sphere would be bleak because of the regimes perpetual restriction and undermining of such spheres (Habermas, 1996) yet recent theorist have argued that in authoritarian regimes such as China, political discussion was lively, at times contentious and engaging (Ya-Wen, 2018). The emergence of a vibrant public sphere, even against all apparent odds may be linked to the development of Chinas modernisation programs that has been inadvertently empowering anti-authoritarian tendencies and thus consequently empowering the public sphere (Ya-Wen, 2018). In my opinion, the relationship between programs of radical state modernisation and development and the authoritarian regime is one of the most salient and possibly productive areas for future studies.

Gaps in Regime Studies Literature

One of the most visible failures of the current literature on non-democratic regimes is the increased academic attention paid to the decisions and behaviour taken in autocratic regimes. This has left a notable gap in the study of other non-democratic regimes, resulting in the under-study of hybrid regimes. In addition to the imbalance of academic attention in favour of authoritarian regimes, the scope and focus of contemporary research within this area is often very narrow. Glasius (2018) believed that theorist should expand their research to include the study in how authoritarian practices within democratic regimes can be identified. Manning (2010) claimed that the irony of the study of non-democratic regimes is that non-democratic regimes can act democratically, and subsequently democratic regimes can also act in a consequential manner.

There has yet to be a generally acceptable definition across the academic disciplined on how to identify and define diverging regime typologies and thus a verity of approaches have developed that focusing characteristics such as the electoral system of the regime to assessing human rights and social inequality (see Dahl, 1971: Rawls, 1971). The considerable deviation in underlying instruments used to assess regimes is seen to contribute to the lack of clarity within the field of regime studies (Bogaards, 2009; Gilbert and Mohseni, 2011).

Literature Review on Policing Studies

Policing in Non- Democratic Regimes

Due to the continued volatility of external state factors, authoritarian regimes are being forced to develop a governance strategy that demonstrates their flexibility and adaptability (Ilchenko and Martyanova, 2015). As a consequence, these regimes are severing ties to a previously held ideological base and within both a domestic and international setting are choosing to highlight their plurality of through as a new multi-layered strategy of state success (Nisnevich and Ryabov, 2017).

This observed adaptability of some modern authoritarian regimes means that identifying and observing the policing response is progressively becoming more and more essential because the historic claims about policing in non-democratic regimes may no longer be applicable within the current context. An example of this shift in understanding policing within modern non-democratic regime can be clearly demonstrated within Russia, where the introduction of capitalism and personal capital drastically influenced the personal interests of the police and furthermore the behaviour of post-USSR policing in Russia. Taylor (2014) argued that a change in policing occurred where the police now sought to use their authority and monopoly of legitimised force to extract money from private economic actors in a variety of legal or extra-judicial ways.

Despite public order policing being seen to be one of the most heavily scrutinised aspects of police practice (Whelan and Molnar, 2019) within social movement scholarship it is the relationship between repression and protest that receives the most focus (Lee, 2013). Thus, due to the interesting intersection between the concepts of police practice and repression an increasingly large body of literature is developing to identify the behavioural features of state bodies and enforcement agencies in authoritarian regimes. Often when examining policing within authoritarian regimes a comparison is made to the behaviour and actions of policing within consolidated democracies and furthermore the concept of how police `should' act. Due to this a large collection of studies have been conducted to identify characteristics of democratic policing (see; Bayley 1985, 1994, 2001; Liang 1992; Skolnick 1994; Manning 1997, 2010; Neild 1999; Loader and Mulcahy 2003; Marenin 2004; Wiatrowski and Golstone 2010). The current literature broadly agrees that democratic policing is demonstrated when the police are accountable public servants that respond to complaints from the citizen body with respect for human rights, justice and equality and through which the democratically elected leaders are able to use to police to uphold the rule of law (Jones et al. 1996, Linz and Stepan 1996, Holston and Caldeira 1998, Bayley 2006, Manning 2010, Bonner, 2019).

Additionally, within this concept one of the core ideas that differs democratic policing to authoritarian policing is the ability for the policing system within a given country to act politically neutral and on a basis of professionalism (Cao, Huang and Sun, 2016). Therefore, in a country with democratic policing, the law enforcement agencies would not carry out politically motivated arbitrary arrests at the behest of the state against groups such as dissidents, oppositional voices or activists. Consistently Denmark, Norway and Finland are heralded as exemplary examples of democratic policing practices in which there is a constraint on government powers to direct the police, the police are bound by fair, effective and enforced legal and administrative regulation and fundamental rights are respected (World Justice Project, 2020). Whilst it' s important to understand that because the police, as a social institution is both made and imagined (Unger, 1998) and that democratic policing is not an everlasting concept and even within long-term consolidated democracies, the behaviour of the police can vary (Bayley, 1994) and can differ between different police departments or jurisdictions (Wilson, 1968). It's also important to recognise that therefore even within consolidated democratic regimes, the police may not consistently uphold the values of democratic policing.

Protest Philosophy

Historically, the study of protest policing has focused heavily on policing within liberal democracies (Sheptychki, 2005) and has continuously used the United States as a baseline for tracking global changes in protest policing and public order law (Mansley, 2014). Having identified that the American-centric focus of this area is a clear problem and is not reflective of either its effectiveness or its history of policing that upholds international standards and the rule of law, the analysis that it produced has yielded a number of important results, including the identification of a core shift within policing response. McPhail and McCarthy (2005) identify the 1960s as an era of policing most appropriately defined by its use of escalated force. Della Porta and Reiter (1998) further affirmed that the 1960s was defined by this policing characteristics and argue that this move away from the use of escalated force has only occurred since the 1970s.

Despite key figures within the study of protest policing indicating the significance of the shift that occurred within the 1960s-1970s, several theorists have more recently disputed the relevancy of this observation. Soule and Davenport (2009) argue that the shift in policing response that occurred after 1969 may have occurred not because of the shift in overall policing behaviour but instead as a response to the change in methods and tactics by protest groups. Additionally, Vitale (2007) argues that this previously identified shift in policing methods, may have only occurred within individual policing districts and thus not be a conclusive indication of the overall direction of policing. Waddington and King (2007) and de Lint and Hall (2009) both highlight how the policing response may not always be reserved to one overarching philosophy of policing, such as the accommodation or enforcement philosophy and thus may use a range of tools that fall across the spectrum of an aggressive to soft policing tactics.

Policing Philosophy

The cornerstone of this so-called policing philosophy and the modes of protest policing is public order law. In liberal democracies, public order law attempts to balance the preservation of peace with the requirements to fulfil a state's positive obligation to protect and uphold fundamental freedoms (Williams, 1967) yet within non-democratic regimes a prevailing narrative has emerged that positions peaceful protests as a threat to safety and stability. Thus, when peaceful protests are positioned as the antithesis of peace and order, public order law that balances rights and freedoms instead can shift into a body of legislation that significantly restricts and consolidates rights. It is within peaceful protests of a political demonstration that the tension within a non-democratic society between policing, state legitimacy and public order is most acute (Mansley, 2014).

Although some theorists may disagree about the conceptual change in policing philosophy, what it does demonstrate is that policing is not a static profession, and the competencies and behaviour of the police are continuously changing. The changes to public order and protest policing have impacted the training, weapons and tactics of the police, with some arguing that it has enabled them to deliver a more professional service (Joyce and Wain, 2014). Whilst these changes may indeed reflect the professionalization of the police force, it has also enabled the development of a `paramilitary style of policing' that included the emergence of new tactics such as static lines of officers behind a large shield, snatch squads who enter crowds to arrest offenders and the use of `hyper-kettling' in which protesters are contained within a cordon of gradually decreasing size (Joyce and Wain, 2014).

The tactical repertoires that the police use, such as this new emergence of paramilitary policing, is believed to be governed by the pre-determined policing philosophy (Winter 1998, cited in Smith 2012). The policing philosophy used is informed both by the political system from which the police force operates within (Della Porter and Reiter, 1998) and the functional position that the police hold within society (Noakes and Gilliam cited in Smith 2012). Traditionally, policing philosophy is understood as a dichotomous decision between over-enforcement or under-enforcement, but there is a growing body of literature that has extended the understanding of policing and highlighted the impact of other characteristics on the policing response.

Contemporary literature on protest policing indicated that the location of the protest may have a significant impact on the way in which police respond. Within a single country, there is a range of social-spatial differences and sub-national regime characteristics that can impact the response to a protest. Within urban areas and capital cities, there is a higher frequency of protests with anti-government sentiments (Almeida, 2003) or that openly express dissatisfaction within the state (Leventoglu and Metterinch, 2018), a protest typology that is more likely to experience repression than protest driven solely by environmental or economic concerns. Furthermore, the literature suggests that protests within urban areas, cities and capitals are more likely, regardless of the mobilising frames behind the protest, to be violently repressed than protests occurring in non-metropole areas (Gugler, 1981). Within protest policing the most visible form of policing response that typically transcends the boundaries of the dichotomous policing philosophy is the policing of the spatial setting. The most classic demonstration of these `hard policing tactics' is the `ring of steel' or security fencing that encapsulates a protest event (Coaffee et al. 2011, Fussey et al. 2012. Kitchen and Rygiel, 2014), the use of geographic bans and designated security zones (Whelan and Molnar, 2019). Despite hard tactics being the most visible, it is the use of physical force on part of the police that often most defines protest policing. Police abuse has been defined as the purposeful practice of unwarranted physical coercion, verbal assaults and psychological intimidation (Lyle and Esmail, 2016). Specifically, within protest policing, these tactics may be judged necessary or alternatively excessive depending on what police tactics are considered legitimate within the circumstances such as the use of physical coercion to assist arrests (Kania and Mackey, 1977).

Protest Underenforcement

As previously established, there is a dichotomous approach to protest policing in which the police prioritise the use of one of two strategies that govern the interaction between the police and the protesters. The first method is a strategy of policing underenforcement most commonly described as the accommodation strategy (Smith, 2012). This method replaces the notion of the police as having an inherently repressive function within society (Green and Alderbron, 2019) and suggests that their behaviour towards protests can facilitate or at least permit peaceful protest.

Whilst a number of theories have been proposed in an attempt to characterise policing underenforcement including the operational model by Winter (1998), the accommodation strategy has seen the most widespread support across the academic disciplines. The accommodation strategy of protest underenforcement prioritises engagement and dialogue between the police and protest groups (Smith 2012) and commits the police to a non-repressive control tactic that limits arrests throughout the whole event (Stott et al,. 2013). The limitation of arrest and the subsequent underenforcement of protests is believed to discourage protest tactics such as non-violent direct action that attempts to use the mass arrest of protesters to encourage media coverage (Mansley, 2014). The growing understanding of how protests impacts media coverage and public opinion is also seen to be an additional reason why some states may implement and underenforcement technique. As shown within the beginnings of the recent protest in Hong Kong, the state sought to sway public opinion against the protesters by allowing the disruption of their activities to accumulate and provide further justification to implement harsh counter-mobilisation efforts (Lee, Tang and Cheng, 2019).

Several features have been identified as necessary for an underenforcement approach to be successful. The first is that a successful and appropriate communication strategy is used by the police (Waddington, 1994), that ensures continued dialogue with the protest groups throughout the protest activities (Winter 1998). If there appears to be a level of mistrust between the police and the public then these lines of communication are withdrawn and a core component of the accommodation approach is lost (Jackson, 2019). Although the underenforcement strategy is often viewed as the more effective policing strategy, at least within western liberal democracies, when seeking to minimize the chance of exacerbating violence. this softer style of policing still has two caveats; its neither irreversible nor applicable to all protest groups (Della Porta and Reiter, 1998). For this type of underenforcement policing to be effective, Waddington and King (2007) explain that it's necessary for protest groups to have identifiable representatives in which the police can enter into dialogue with. This assumption is predicated on the notion that the protest groups are willing to engage with the police (Gillham and Noakes, 2006) but the current research on the underenforcement approach seemingly does not consider social movement in non-democratic regimes. The notion that underenforcement is reliant on individuals being able to be identified so a police representative can open up ongoing channels of engagement does not consider social movement in non-democratic regimes in which protest leaders or figureheads are heavily persecuted and targeted by state authorities. Additionally, where Futrell and Brents (2003) claim that the underenforcement of protest requires a normalisation of protest behaviour and tactics on either side, again characterises this approach through the lens of liberal democracy, as within many non-democratic regimes, repressive policing techniques and violence directed towards protesters may be the normalised relationship of communication or cooperation that has developed in the past. Despite this, a report produced by Amnesty International (2014) indicates that the accommodation model is being used within non-democratic regimes and affirmed the use of selective accommodation within protest in Russia. They observed that pro-government protests or government-sponsored assemblies are routinely allowed to proceed without hindrance, with the police even failing to intervene when pro-government rallies attack or intimate counter-protesters (Amnesty International, 2014). This approach to selective under-enforcement policing echo's Waddington (1994) argument that in the under-enforcement approach police should be given discretionary powers that will allow them to decide if to arrest individuals who violate the law. Typically, this method of under-enforcement policing should be used indiscriminately and not reflect political appeasement as the Amnesty International (2014) report suggests.

Gendered Aspect of Protest Underenforcement

Whilst under enforcement techniques of protest policing are typically seen to be less confrontational crowd control techniques, a new body of literature is emerging that discusses how the gendered aspect of being policed can dramatically influence the experience (Monk et al., 2019). A key example of this comes from Jackson (2020) who argues that for women, the close proximity of police officers to protesters and the use of their body to push and interact with them can be a far more confrontational experience and lead to an emerging hostile environment, something that typically is not experienced by men.

Over-enforcement

Over-enforcement is an approach that reflects that within society, the police remain the key monopolist of force, with violence being their most visible weapon, and coercive force being their most defining characteristic (Wright 2002). This policing philosophy is used when the police are willing or required to confront and suppress `disorder' with the use of force (Waddington 1998 in Della Porta). One example of a common policing tactic used within over-enforcement policing is the baton charge described as a `full force charge peering out into apparently random attacks on demonstrators and even passer-by' (Geary 1987). Policing methods common within the over-enforcement approach to policing like the baton charge have been argued to be used as a method to instil a sense of fear into a crowd (Waddington, 1998). The over enforcement approach of policing protests is not completely reflective of the tactics, targets and goals of protests but also is reflective of the perceived threat of the mobilising group (Lee, 2013). Within non-democratic regimes public mobilisation with an overt anti-regime sentiment is perceived as more of a threat to the existence of the regime than protest that does not directly take aim at the political regime (Lee, 2013) and thus is argued more frequently subject to over-enforcement policing strategies.

Additionally, these types of tactical overenforcement has been increasingly been linked to the actions of state repression. Davenport (2007, p.1-2) defined repression as “harassment, surveillance/spying, bans, arrests, torture and mass killing by government agents and/or affiliates within their territorial jurisdiction”. Lyle and Esmail (2016) further affirm that this repression should be defined as any unwanted coercion, that is most frequently physical but may also be presented in the form of verbal assault and psychological intimidation. Whereas tilly (1978) more broadly defined state repression as something that increases the `cost' of protest. Using either definition, it's easy to attribute the acts of arrests and violence to state repression. The link between overenforcement policing and state repression is further defined within Davenport (2007) whose research states that overenforcement and state repression is more likely to occur when a government is threatened by a protest movement. This pattern of threat assessment and disproportionate and selective repression is even shown within consolidated democracies such as the United States of America, where a hyper-criminalisation and the use of heavy enforcement-based policing tactics is more frequently used to police black communities then white communities (Grabiner, 2016)

One of the key theoretical contributions to the study of the over-enforcement of protest policing is the study of the growing militarization of the police and their growing capacity to suppress disorder with the use of force (Waddington 1998 in Della Porta) that uses the `application of quasi-military training, equipment, and philosophy' (Jefferson 1990 p.16). As previously discussed, increasingly academic attention has been directed towards understanding and conceptualising the shifts in policing methods and behaviour in which the United States of America are used as a baseline comparative. Thus many theorists have come to a general consensus that the militarization of the police emerged between the 1960s- 1970s (see: Kraska, 1999; Kraska, and Kappeler, 2015; Rantatalo, 2012; Jefferson, 1990). In addition to the 1970s being a turning point in the militarization of police forces, the economic crisis of 2008 and the subsequent mass mobilisation that followed is also seen to be a key date that marks a growing reliance on militaristic policing methods (Della Porta, 2013) that include excessive force and the use of less-lethal weapons Less lethal weapons include electric discharge weapons, batons and incapacitation spay. (Atak, 2017). Some other theorists have alternatively sought to point towards the racialised history of western consolidated democracies when seeking to understand the militarisation of police, pointing towards urban riots such as those that happened in Detroit and Watts in the 1960s as one of the main focusing events (Adachi, 2016). Despite a divergence in opinions on how best to pinpoint the change towards militarisation of the police, very few theorists have articulated an objection to the observation of the polices consistent path towards militarisation across the globe (Atak, 2017). Jefferson (1990) has alternatively argued that the police, since its inception, has always resembled a military form.

This path towards militarisation has manifested through many new policing tactics including the paradigmatic shifts away from police restraint to a policy of `shoot-to-eliminate' (Punch, 2011). For other theorists militarised policing has instead manifested through a blurring of the line between war and internal security (Kraska, 2007) and its subsequent restriction of civil liberties and human rights (Della Porta and Fillieule, 2004, Kappler and Kraska, 2004), or simply just through more effective control of public disorder situations (Atak, 2017). This shift in policy has additionally been accompanied by a development in techniques and thus the emergence of the new concept of strategic incapacity. Strategic incapacity is commonly understood as a softer tactic of policing (Gorringe and Rosie, 2013) that uses criminal and security intelligence aspects during the policing of protest (Monaghan and Walby, 2012) coupled with pre-emptive arrest, containment strategies (Gillham et al., 2013) and a dramatic display of policing strength such as the visible presence of long-range acoustic devices and water cannons (Mansely, 2014) to ensure control and order.

This shift towards over-enforcement and the militarisation of policing does not appear to alter public opinion. The police force in the United States of America still remains one of the most trusted public institutions, and despite the growing militarisation and emergence of a shoot to kill paradigm public opinion still remains high (Worden and McLean, 2017). Even during the immediate aftermath of a series of deadly police encounters, 52% of the American public who were interviewed affirmed that they had either a `great deal' or `a lot' of trust the U.S police force (Jones, 2015). This high level of public confidence may reflect that in consolidated democracies there is a level of tolerance towards police violence and an acceptance that excessive force may be legitimised (Sekhon, 2019).

Gaps Within Policing Studies Literature