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Civil disorder has always plagued humanity, with violence being triggered by real or perceived grievances, rumours and speculation, and internal or external agitators. The risk to people, communities, businesses and the rule of law is not isolated to a particular country or society. The propensity for violence and how it is incited is, however, an evolving threat with the advent of the 'modern riot'. The causes of violence centre on economic and social injustice, sports- and event-related riots, a reaction to police or security forces and political unrest. As the US nears the contentious 2024 elections, the failing trust in the three branches of government combined with external global tensions and conflict, threats from domestic extremist groups, a rising acceptance of violence as a means of settling political disagreements, hostile nation actors and international terror groups that exploit societal instability create fertile conditions for widespread violence. Exacerbating these factors are the risks from artificial intelligence (AI) deepfake, rapid mass communications, the citizen journalist, prominent influencers amplifying grievances and inflammatory media reporting. This convergence of exacerbators and accelerants for political discord offers the potential for serious security risks and significant business disruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the expanded theory of soft repression and a qualitative news frame analysis, the article traces the dynamics of the mobilisation of non-violent means to block the All-Poland Women's Strike and decrease the cost of hard repression. It unpacks two aspects of generating negative public engagement in controlling protests: the public media's use of ridicule, stigma, and silencing and calls for countermovement violence and legitimising it. The main argument is that the Polish public media used interpretative frames characteristic of soft repression to challenge the movement and determine what ordinary people could do to contain threats to the government and regime stability resulting from protests. The new empirical approach reveals the non-obvious function of soft repression acting as an incitement tool for mobilising opponents of protesters under repression to steer dissent. By going beyond traditional illegitimating and demobilising functions of soft repression, the study provides an in-depth examination of the public media's endeavours to neutralise threats to the government and stabilise the Polish political system. Integrating the theory of soft repression and negative public engagement, the study advances an explanation of a managed change in the model of protest policing, which is making vigilantes the agents of protest control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present how collective action has transformed into civil disorder against the pandemic policy in Czechia and Slovakia in 2020-2022. The research questions are as follows: 1) What factors decided the transformation of collective action into civil disorder? 2) What were the essential features of civil disorder in each state? The study draws on process tracing, qualitative analysis of sources, and qualitative comparative analysis. The research tool is fs/QCA software. The starting point is March 2020 when a state of emergency was declared in both states. The final point is March 2022 when most of the restrictions were canceled, the unofficial end of the pandemic. Cases selected include public gatherings in protest of the pandemic policy organized at that time in the cities of Prague, Brno, Ostrava (Czech Republic), and Bratislava and Košice (Slovakia). The cities have populations above 200 thousand and all of them are agglomerations that attract major socio-political events. Despite the initial success in dealing with the pandemic, the paper explains why collective actions to protect public health changed over time into civil disorder designed to undermine the pandemic policy. Therefore, the article provides evidence of the role antidemocratic played in inciting civil disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at contributing to our understanding of the role of emotions in the protest movements’ demobilization by drawing on the prochoice protest movement activity in Poland. The two most significant waves of social mobilization in the history of democratic Poland were an expression of opposition to the tightening of anti-abortion laws. Although those populist movements failed to achieve their goals, their mass activity ended. Charles Tilly’s and Sidney Tarrow’s theoretical framework of demobilization explains the dynamics of contention only to some extent. Accordingly, demobilization began when most protesters became discouraged due to repression, boredom, and the desire to return to their everyday life. However, it is a puzzle under what conditions these cognitive factors translate into demobilization in a way that shapes and finishes the trajectory of movement activity. The study contributes theoretically to social movement studies and contentious politics by developing the theory of demobilization. It also sheds light on the role of emotions in orienting and shaping mass mobilization. Furthermore, it contributes empirically to studies on pro-choice activism in Poland by explaining the dynamics of the two great waves of mass mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restrictions in the sphere of civil rights and freedoms introduced by governments led to the numerous demonstrations of citizens in the whole world. During street protests, they expressed their disapproval of the radical measures taken by authorities. The main research problem of this paper relates to the impact of repression on the course of social protest using the example of Estonia. The findings of the study will serve as the basis for formulating more general conclusions concerning protests in the pandemic era. We will describe repressive and non-repressive protest policing from the spring of 2020 to the autumn of 2021. Having in mind the above, we formulated two principal research aims. The first of them refers to the identification of the main reasons behind the organisations of protests in Estonia and what steps the demonstrators took. The other, equally important research aim is to establish what factors influenced the course of demonstrations. In particular, the response of the police to civil disorder will be analysed. The thesis posed in this paper assumes that the high level of political culture, resulting in trust in the institution of the state, contributes to the de-escalation of protests and influences the non-repressive behaviour of the police towards demonstrators. The method used in this study is the qualitative source analysis text analysis. It draws on the technique of content analysis of the specific media coverage of the activities of the police and protest participants during the indicated period. The study rests on the reports that appeared on the most important websites and Internet portals reporting on the course of the protests.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which broke out on an unprecedented scale in 2020, forced the public authorities to impose a series of restrictions and limitations on constitutional rights and freedoms, which provoked strong reactions, particularly in the democratic world, and encouraged social unrest. The speed of the measures, their scope and the degree of negligence, which undoubtedly affected the lives of millions of people, strengthened social resistance. The research problem in this paper concerns the influence of the pandemic-related restrictions introduced in Latvia on the mobilisation and demobilisation of demonstrators and the evaluation of the methods used by the Latvian police in the conditions of civil disorder caused by these restrictions. The aim of this paper is to examine the violent acts committed by the demonstrators and the forms of protest they used, as well as to analyse the actions of the officers of the services responsible for securing the demonstrations. The author sought answers to two main research questions: What actions did demonstrators take during the pandemic in Latvia? How did the security services ensure the safety of the demonstrations and what methods did they use? The study used institutional and legal analysis as well as qualitative source analysis. It also used the method of content analysis, mainly of messages and announcements related to the behaviour of protesters and law enforcement agencies during the period in question.

Since the pandemic outbreak, the Netherlands has been repeatedly gripped by protests over successive restrictions. Protesters were often characterized by aggression and violence, so they had to be demobilized to restore order to the streets. In some cases, the police were forced to use coercive measures. Nonetheless, the November 2021 protest in Rotterdam caused considerable controversy. During the demonstration, gunshots were fired at demonstrators for the first time in a dozen years. This article aims to attribute the strategy of police action during the Rotterdam protests to one of the two models determined by McPhail, Schweingruber, and McCarthy and operationalized by Rak. The study draws on qualitative source analysis and the content analysis technique. The most opinion-forming Dutch news sites, both Dutch- and English-language, were used as sources. These sources were supported by international news sites and channels on the streaming service You Tube. Additionally, the Rotterdam police's Twitter account and the official politie.nl website were analyzed. A theoretically grounded hypothesis was posited that: during the Rotterdam protests in November 2021, the police, due to the dynamic development of the rally, used a model closer to an escalated force. However, it did not occur in its pure form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By focusing on the most important agents of social control, this paper goes beyond the legal aspects of protecting freedom of assembly in pandemic-ridden Poland. It gives insight into a gap between the declared police neutrality and the balance between neutrality and partisanship in practice. Embedded in the scholarship on protest policing, the study aims to determine the extent of police partisanship over the critical public assemblies in Warsaw. By drawing upon a qualitative frame analysis, the study deals with the following research question: where does the model of police partisanship developed by the Warsaw Police during the coronavirus pandemic lie on a continuum of antinomic ideal types of neutral and partisan policing? The major argument is that protest policing lies close to partisan policing when the government's ruling position is threatened. In such situations, freedom of assembly is at stake, and protesters' behaviour takes the form of civil disorder. Neutral policing is peculiar to events that do not pose any threat to the government. Such events are peaceful, and assembly participants' freedom is respected. Proper recognition of the characteristics of police bias is particularly important to understand the essence of the practice of safeguarding freedom of assembly and the process of political contestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Objectives: Protests, riots and revolutions have long been a part of human history and are increasing globally, yet their impact on mental health remains largely unknown. We therefore systematically reviewed studies on collective actions and mental health. Method: We searched PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO and CINAHL Plus for published studies from their inception until 1 January 2018. Study quality was rated using the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. Results: We identified 52 studies (n = 57,487 participants) from 20 countries/regions. The prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder ranged from 4% to 41% in riot-affected areas. Following a major protest, the prevalence of probable major depression increased by 7%, regardless of personal involvement in the protests, suggestive of community spillover effects. Risk factors for poorer mental health included female sex, lower socioeconomic status, exposure to violence, interpersonal conflicts, frequent social media use and lower resilience and social support. Nevertheless, two studies suggested that collective actions may reduce depression and suicide, possibly due to a collective cathartic experience and greater social cohesion within subpopulations. Conclusion: We present the first systematic review of collective actions and mental health, showing compelling evidence that protests even when nonviolent can be associated with adverse mental health outcomes. Health care professionals therefore need to be vigilant to the mental and psychological sequelae of protests, riots and revolutions. Further research on this emerging sociopolitical determinant of mental health is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Cognitive Linguistic Critical Discourse Studies (CL-CDS), metaphor is identified as a key index of ideology and an important device in the legitimation of social action. From this perspective metaphor is a cognitive-semiotic operation, invoked by metaphorical expressions in discourse, in which a source frame is mobilised to provide a template for sense-making inside a target frame, leading to particular framing effects. However, the extent to which metaphors in discourse genuinely activate an alternative frame and thereby achieve framing effects has recently been subject to question. Amid calls for more empirical forms of analysis in CDS, the article reports two experiments testing the legitimating framing effects of fire metaphors in discourses of disorder. Results show that images of fire and fire metaphors in the absence of competing images facilitate support for police use of water cannon in response to social unrest. The study not only justifies attention to metaphor in CL-CDS, but similar effects observed across semiotic modalities are interpreted as evidence in support of simulation-based theories of metaphor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global financial crisis that started in 2008 was followed by recessions, austerity measures, protests, and demonstrations. Relative deprivation theory (RDT) offers an explanation as to why people engage in protests and violence, and the literature contains evidence that economic and environmental variables are often to blame. However, previous RDT scholars have not investigated how a country’s entrepreneurial attitudes can affect increases in civil disorder, which is the primary purpose of this study. The authors’ results provide not only conflicting evidence regarding RDT explanations but also strong evidence that high levels of entrepreneurial attitudes can significantly dampen increases in society’s level of civil disorder. Levels of environmental degradation were found to have no impact on changes in civil disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a well-established literature investigating race-related predictors of riot incidence, the racial aftermath of riots remains unexamined. In this study, I use the 1960s U.S. race riots to investigate trends in black residential segregation levels following large-scale riot activity in seven major U.S. cities. I use a novel approach--namely, synthetic control matching--to select a group of cities against which segregation trends can be compared. I find that levels of black segregation rose in 1970 for four of the seven cities, but these increases disappeared in 1980 and 1990 except in Detroit. These results mask differential trends at lower geographic levels: suburban neighborhoods in affected areas experienced larger and longer-term increases in segregation, particularly in traditionally hypersegregated cities in the Midwest and Northeast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conflict in Syria has created the largest humanitarian emergency of the twenty-first century. The 4-year Syrian conflict has destroyed hospitals and severely reduced the capacity of intensive care units (ICUs) and on-site intensivists. The crisis has triggered attempts from abroad to support the medical care of severely injured and acutely ill civilians inside Syria, including application of telemedicine. Within the United States, tele-ICU programs have been operating for more than a decade, albeit with high start-up costs and generally long development times. With the benefit of lessons drawn from those domestic models, the Syria Tele-ICU program was launched in December 2012 to manage the care of ICU patients in parts of Syria by using inexpensive, off-the-shelf video cameras, free social media applications, and a volunteer network of Arabic-speaking intensivists in North America and Europe. Within 1 year, 90 patients per month in three ICUs were receiving tele-ICU services. At the end of 2015, a network of approximately 20 participating intensivists was providing clinical decision support 24 hours per day to five civilian ICUs in Syria. The volunteer clinicians manage patients at a distance of more than 6,000 miles, separated by seven or eight time zones between North America and Syria. The program is implementing a cloud-based electronic medical record for physician documentation and a medication administration record for nurses. There are virtual chat rooms for patient rounds, radiology review, and trainee teaching. The early success of the program shows how a small number of committed physicians can use inexpensive equipment spawned by the Internet revolution to support from afar civilian health care delivery in a high-conflict country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The riots of 2011 arguably represent the most significant civil disorder on the British mainland in at least a generation. Over four days, there were five deaths, injuries to dozens of police officers and civilians and damage to property running into the tens of millions of pounds. Commentators writing in the aftermath of the riots have pointed both to what are taken to be unusual aspects of the 2011 disorders-- the role of gangs, the nature and extent of looting and use of social media among others-- as well as some of the parallels with previous riots. In placing the 2011 riots in their recent historical context, this article outlines a model for structuring comparative analysis of disorder and then moves on to consider some of the similarities between 2011 and riots in the post-war period, concluding by identifying four significant points of departure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]