dissent reading notes

Introduction: Progress, Freedom, and Dissent

• Dissent refers to openly expressing opposition to specific practices or policies.
• Social progress frequently occurs through collective action, known as social movements.
• Progressive dissent aims to promote social change by addressing injustice, economic imbalances, and social inequalities, often challenging traditional ideas.
• Freedom of thought is essential for social freedom, involving challenging inequality and raising awareness.
• Modern democracies rely on freedoms of speech, assembly, association, and expression, with citizens playing a crucial role in maintaining them.
• Dissent is vital in a democracy, enabling citizens to question authority but often faces reprisals like discrimination and prosecution.
• Liberal-democratic states may criminalize dissent, questioning its legitimacy, while authoritarian regimes harshly punish it.
• Fundamental freedoms are necessary to prevent tyranny; despite progress, authoritarianism undermines democratic principles.
• Social movements play a key role in social progress.
• Reactionary dissent supports traditional systems, while progressive dissent aims to address injustice and inequality.

Criminalization of Dissent

• Dissent is criminalized through policing protests, detaining dissenters, surveillance, and abuse of anti-terrorism laws.
• Actions include infiltrating social movements, persecuting whistleblowers, using emergency measures, and SLAPP lawsuits.
• The state uses legal and extra-legal measures to repress civil dissent.
• Dissent is vital for democracy but often portrayed negatively.
• Protest challenges power and is often targeted for repression.
• Progress requires struggle, and power doesn't concede without demand, as noted by Frederick Douglass.
• Political dissent is treated as criminal, despite its positive role.
• Émile Durkheim’s theory suggests dissent can positively propel moral and legal evolution.
• Organized public dissent pushes boundaries and promotes legal changes, such as marijuana legalization in Canada in 2018.
• Perceptions of dissent have shifted, especially since the 1960s, with social movements bringing change.
• The resurgence of populism is driven by anger over perceived unfair treatment.
• Social progress results from collective struggles against oppressive structures.
• Historical movements promoted freedom and individual rights, with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) marking a milestone.
• Modern achievements in human rights and freedoms were possible through organized protest.
• Issues like racism, sexism, and poverty necessitate continued resistance.
• Criminalization of dissent is a concern in criminology, related to power and societal order.
• The 1960s saw significant activism in civil rights, anti-war, and feminism, met with resistance.
• Criminologists in the 1960s highlighted how power labels deviance to maintain the status quo.

Strategic Incapacitation of Indigenous Dissent

• Strategic incapacitation involves employing control techniques against protest movements.
• Modern protest policing uses preemptive control, focusing on surveillance.
• The decline of negotiated management has increased protest suppression, termed strategic incapacitation.
• The RCMP uses risk assessment tools to profile protesters, particularly Indigenous activists.
• Project SITKA (2014-2015) targeted Indigenous movements, framing them as risks.
• Risk management and surveillance neutralize and delegitimize Indigenous movements.
• The RCMP's methods undermine and criminalize these movements, despite claims to protect lawful protest.
• Surveillance assesses risks to manage potential future protests, not to prevent crime.
• This reflects broader trends in surveillance and control, targeting movements as threats.
• Actuarial models criminalize Indigenous activists, undermining their legitimacy.
• By framing protests as risks, authorities preemptively neutralize them, hindering social change.

The Crowd, Protest Policing, and Risk Management

• LeBon theorized that individuals in a crowd lose autonomy, becoming a chaotic force.
• LeBon’s theory, influenced by positivism and atavistic psychology, viewed crowds as dangerous and linked to societal regression.
• LeBon saw crowds as destructive, suggesting state institutions should use suppressive measures.
• His theory shaped protest policing by framing crowds as threats requiring strong state measures.
• Smelser proposed that structural factors lead to "crystallization of beliefs" in a crowd, fueling collective action.
• Smelser argued that once a crowd reaches a "crystallized" state, it must be repressed to prevent revolutionary outcomes.
• Critics warn that Smelser’s crowd behavior theory still underpins modern protest policing tactics.
• By the 1980s, the negotiated management model emerged, focusing on communication with protest groups.
• The negotiated management superficially changed dynamics, with surveillance remaining integral.
• Protest movements became institutionalized and subject to state surveillance.
• Police positioned themselves as "friends" of protests that followed state-approved parameters.
• The negotiated management model allowed police to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable protest behavior.
• New radical social movements (RSMOs) emerged, rejecting state-sanctioned protest forms.
• State interventions evolved to target leaders within radical movements, escalating force.
• Policing techniques have escalated, involving militarized tactics and surveillance technologies.
• Targeted violence against specific individuals has become more common.
• Strategic incapacitation focuses on managing potential threats through preemptive actions, not communication.
• Surveillance and risk profiling are crucial, sorting individuals based on perceived deviance.
• Psychological profiling in protest policing is modeled on actuarial systems, classifying individuals by risk levels.
• Policing focuses on preventing crime by managing risk, often concealing biases.
• Project SITKA involved profiling Indigenous protests, framing them as national security concerns.
• Policing Indigenous dissent aligns with state interests in maintaining order and protecting extraction.
• Protest movements are often reimagined as a battle space, dividing protesters into "good" and "bad" categories.
• State preemptive actions aim to control movements before they gain momentum.