Recent riots in the UK and France: Causes and Commonalities (original) (raw)
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Recent Riots in the United Kingdom and France
Contention, 2014
A number of academic studies have sought to comparatively analyse the French riots of 2005 with those that occurred in England in 2011, yet these have been limited in their scope and depth. In this article, we set out a more comprehensive analysis of the causes and underlying meaning of these episodes of collective disorder through a systematic application of the Flashpoints Model of Public Disorder to each case. The argument identifies and considers points of overlap and tension between the various causal factors underpinning the respective riots, engaging with both the background causes (long-and short-term) and the 'triggering' event that prompted a latent potential for violence to become manifest as rioting. In addition to providing an analytical framework for the comparative study of these important episodes of rioting, the article constitutes a response to recent criticisms regarding the explanatory scope of the flashpoints model and demonstrates the continued relevance of the model as a robust conceptual framework within which the anatomy of collective disorder can be dissected and understood.
Elements of a Riot: Forms of Political Violence in Contemporary France
Working Paper, 2020
Unpublished working paper June 15, 2020-feel free to cite. The nature and causes of riots are widely misunderstood in the media and everyday discussions. This paper looks at the aftermath of riots in a suburban area of Paris to make a larger argument about what produces riots, the role of police violence, the activation of social boundaries, and the implied set of demands during and after riots. This profile uses the methods of visual sociology to show how youth often target symbols of the state to respond to state violence in an asymmetrical confrontation. It also presents original survey data about what non-riot participants think are the causes behind riots carried out by ethnic minorities and poor urban residents. It shows images from campaigns to ban the use of chokeholds in France, which recent protests have achieved.
Public Readings of Urban Riots - ECPR 2016
Urban riots are political events. They question the very foundations of the institutional order and render visible the underlying conflicts of ritualized social life. Why then do urban riots continue to spark fierce public debate about whether they are meaningful protests or meaningless violence? This article essays some preliminary answers to these questions by comparing the English riots of August 2011 with the Greek December of 2008. The two cases are selected as most different cases because public readings of the riots differed so widely. The English riots were rejected as ‘meaningless violence’, whereas in the Greek case public surveys documented widespread acknowl- edgement of the riots as ‘social revolt’. The article tries to pin down the origins of these antithetical interpretations by delving into: 1) the behavioral and spatial pattern of rioting (especially the prevalence of ‘individualistic’ or ‘collectivist’ elements in the episodes of rioting) and 2) the rioters’ social and political identity.
An Analysis of a Riot, 2020
The purpose of this report is to investigate the primary factors that led to the occurrence and scale of the anti-Muslim riots that took place in May 2019, as well as examine the ongoing compensatory process by the government . While these attacks are also verbal, economical and psychological, for the purpose of this study we focused on the physical attacks, on a large scale, that occurred in certain geographical locations, extending from the size of a city to a district. From an academic perspective riots of this nature are almost always the visible outcome of a number of nonviolent incidents and tensions between communities . For the purposes of this study, we chose five primary factors, based on academic theory and studies based on incidences with similar or related contextualities as well as our own desk research conducted in the aftermath of the riots, to investigate the incidence of the anti-Muslim riots of May 2019. They are: 1. Interethnic economic rivalry 2. Polarised party politics 3. Law & Order 4. Segregated Communities 5. Media
Re-reading the 2011 riots: ESRC beyond contagion interim report
2019
Background to the 2011 riots • While an extraordinary amount has been written and said about the 2011 English riots, very little has been based on systematic evidence. The present interim report summarizes findings so far from a research programme based on a comprehensive data-set, which seeks to develop a new way of talking and thinking about the process by which riots spread from location to location. • Some of the dominant accounts of the riots - as mindless destruction or ‘criminality pure and simple’1 - obscure understanding and feed into flawed policy responses. • This study drew upon multiple archive sources, interviews with rioters (gathered as part of the Guardian/LSE Reading the Riots project), contextual information about riot locations, and police crime data. We used these data to construct histories of some of the most significant riots in August 2011, to test predictive models, and to analyse participants’ experiences. Myths of the riots • The idea that those who parti...
Policing as a causal factor – a fresh view on riots and social unrest
Safer Communities, 2012
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to comment on the outbreak of disturbances in England and other parts of the world. It seeks to argue that in many cases rioting and the breakdown of public order is a direct response to policing practice. While many policy makers argue that a likely rise in public unrest during the economic downturn is an argument for raising funding for law enforcement, an examination of disturbances in England, France, the USA and Tunisia suggests that it is not the absence but the heavy and unrestrained presence of police that sparks disorder. This in turn relates to the functions policy makers have loaded onto the police, which have little to do with public safety but strain relations between law enforcement and the community. Design/methodology/approach-This paper is a policy assessment. Findings-Rioting in England began not because of the absence of police but because of poor police practice. The outbreak of riots at a time of austerity suggests that resources should be focused on core police functions, not the maintenance of public health or public morals. Originality/value-The paper provides a new look at the breakdown in public order.
Crisis in Policing: The French Rioting of 2005
Policing, 2009
The governance of the major riot that rocked France in 2005 is presented: how actors interacted, negotiated and got into conflict (governmental and non-governmental). By examining the responses elaborated and implemented during the riots, we try to evaluate the capacity to command, plan and communicate by the French national police and the government. On different aspects (availability of a Richter-like scale related to anticipating rioting, preparations for coordination, fair communication with the media, the population and the victims), the French police scored low. Structural reasons related to excessive centralization of the police system together with a focus of government on forthcoming elections might explain these findings. However, the police managed to avoid causing fatalities after the initial breakout despite a national scale phenomenon and a duration of three weeks.
Contention
After a brief account of what happened, the question is posed of whether the idea of moral panic is the most revealing approach with which to understand the riots. Before answering, the question of how novel were the riots is addressed in relation to policing, social media, riot areas, the rioters, rioting behaviour, the State's response and the reaction of communities. The elements of a dynamic, grounded explanation are then tentatively offered, followed by an attempt to situate this explanation within the context of the contemporary lives of disadvantaged youth lacking both political support and an economic future. The conclusion returns to the question of moral panic. It suggests that since most of what happened had clear precedents in the series of urban riots since the 1980s, there is plenty of evidence to support the idea that the constructions of the 2011 riots are best understood as a moral panic. However, the small indications of new developments, namely, the sheer vindictiveness of the state's post-riot response-hunting down the rioters, harsh sentencing, naming juveniles-as well as the spread of rioting to new areas and the practice of communities 'fighting back', are important to explore for what they reveal about the present neo-liberal conjuncture. They seem to be morbid symptoms of an apparently intractable series of crises characterised by, among other things, an unprecedentedly grim situation for poor, unemployed, disaffected youth living in deprived areas.