London Riots Research Articles

Gentrification and Social Unrest: The Blitz, Urban Change and the 2011 London Riots

Many of the world’s major cities have recently seen large episodes of social unrest. What is the relationship between the changes these cities have experienced, particularly in the form of gentrification, and urban riots? We address this question by examining how local gentrification affected participation in the 2011 London riots. We use an instrumental variable strategy that exploits exogenous variation in the amount of local destruction caused by the Blitz; this is a strong predictor of local gentrification in London in 2001–2011. We find that gentrifying neighborhoods had a lower participation rate than other areas; this was a result of changes in the type of resident (a composition effect) and in the context in which the residents made their participation decisions (a contextual effect). Our findings are consistent with qualitative evidence from the United Kingdom and the United States, and highlight the effect that urban change can have on social order.

Protest Movements, Social Media, and the Role of Law Enforcement

From the Iranian green movement (2009) through the London riots (2011) and the recent anti-hijab protests in Iran, protest movements have been accompanied by considerable social media activity globally. Social media users have been involved in the quick production and distribution of audio-visuals online with protest hashtags, rumors, and sometimes fabricated information. The impact of these movements demonstrates that social media can potentially play an important role in organizing large-scale socio-political events, posing a challenge for law enforcement agencies. This research aims to evaluate and analyze the use of social media for mass mobilization throughout significant protest movements from 2010 to 2022, as well as to investigate the use of social media as a tool by LEAs. This exploratory research examines the theoretical and empirical research on the use of social media for mass mobilization, social protests, and the involvement of law enforcement authorities. The discussion has shown that social media does not drive protest movements but offers momentum to them.

How urban riots influence political behavior: vote choices after the 2011 London riots

AbstractWhat are the electoral consequences of urban riots? We argue that riots highlight the economic and social problems suffered by those who participate, inducing potential electoral allies to mobilize. These allies can then punish local incumbents at the ballot box. We test this hypothesis with fine-grained geographic data that capture how exposure to the 2011 London riots changed vote choices in the subsequent 2012 mayoral election. We find that physical proximity to both riot locations and the homes of rioters raised turnout and reduced the vote for the incumbent Conservative mayor. These results are partly driven by a change in the turnout and vote choices of white residents. This provides support for the view that riots can help shift votes against incumbents who oppose the implied policy goals of rioters.

Mapping the Notting Hill Riots: Racism and the Streets of Post-war Britain

Abstract This article offers a new interpretation of the 1958 race riots in west London. It uses arrest data to map where the violence occurred and where the rioters lived. Few of the white people arrested lived alongside black people or competed with them for housing. The riots were not a straightforward response to privation. Rather, they were a reassertion of an implicitly but powerfully racialized conception of urban community in which street life was symbolically potent. Anti-immigration politicians would exploit the idea of familiar streets ‘lost’ to demographic change, beginning with Oswald Mosley the year after the riots.

Public disorder and transport networks in the Latin American context

We propose an extension of the Davies et al. model, used to describe the London riots of 2011. This addition allows us to consider long travel distances in a city for potential rioting population. This is achieved by introducing public transport networks, which modifies the perceived travel distance between the population and likely targets. Using this more general formulation, we applied the model to the typical Griffin and Ford pattern for population distribution to describe the general features of most large Latin American cities. The possibility of long-range traveling by part of the general population has, for an immediate consequence, the existence of isolated spots more prone to suffer from rioting activity, as they are easier to reach than the rest of the city. These areas finally made it easier to control the eventual disorder by part of police forces. The reason for this outcome is that transport networks turn riots into highly localized and intense events. They are attracting a large police contingent, which will later extinguish the remaining disorder activity on the rest of the city. Therefore, working transport networks in a city effectively reduces the number of police force contingent required to control public disorder. This result, we must remark, is valid only if the model requisites for order forces are satisfied: extra police contingent can be added swiftly as required, and these forces can move around the city with total freedom.

A Durkheimian Analysis of Racialised Crime and Punishment Police Practices and the Demand for Change

The analysis of racialised police attitudes has been frequently addressed in academic articles, but the application of a Neo-Durkheimian approach has been largely overlooked. This article will apply Durkheimian theory to illuminate the need for a shift in crime and punishment policy and practices to avoid the present societal moral stagnation. In order to do so it will address both, the recent Black Lives Matter protests in America and the 2011 Riots in London. The use of the two case studies signifies the continuity of problematic police behaviour and political address. It is evident that such an article is embedded in an extremely sensitive topic, therefore it does not presume to provide a solution to the overwhelming circumstances. Rather, in illuminating the relevance of Durkheimian theory it signifies that current global circumstances demand a moral shift in societal understandings of solidarity and “the cult of the individual”, providing pivotal foundations for police practices. However, this requires participation of criminologists alongside practitioners and activists.

#Londonsburning: Integrating Geographic, Topical and Social Information during Crisis

Social media, such as microblogging, is a potentially powerful medium through which the city and its citizens can connect, particularly during times of crisis or extreme events. Yet neither the city nor its citizens are monolithic entities. We propose methods to integrate geographic, topical, and social information and behavior to improve situational understanding throughout the city, and enable more effective public and official response. We demonstrate this approach using Twitter data from the 2011 London riots.

Public disorder and transport networks in the Latin American Context

Abstract We propose an extension of the Davies et al. model, used to describe the London riots of 2011. This addition allows us to consider long travel distances in a city for potential rioting population. This is achieved by introducing public transport networks, which modifies the perceived travel distance between the population and likely targets. Using this more general formulation, we applied the model to the typical Griffin and Ford pattern for population distribution to describe the general features of most large Latin American cities. The possibility of long-range traveling by part of the general population has, for an immediate consequence, the existence of isolated spots more prone to suffer from rioting activity, as they are easier to reach than the rest of the city. These areas finally made it easier to control the eventual disorder by part of police forces. The reason for this outcome is that transport networks turn riots into highly localized and intense events. They are attracting a large police contingent, which will later extinguish the remaining disorder activity on the rest of the city. Therefore, working transport networks in a city effectively reduces the number of police force contingent required to control public disorder. This result, we must remark, is valid only if the model requisites for order forces are satisfied: extra police contingent can be added swiftly as required, and these forces can move around the city with total freedom.

After riots: Toward a research agenda on the long-term effects of urban unrest

ABSTRACT Urban societies are experiencing intensified social frictions which have manifested in a growing occurrence of riots. Urban riots are often treated as ephemeral outbursts which create only short-term or immediate responses by the state or residents. However, this paper aims to move beyond such present-centrism by proposing a research agenda for studying their contextually longer-term legacies. Particular consideration is given to three thematic areas: (a) policy responses, (b) temporalities and urban memory, and (c) feelings and subjectivities. Drawing upon empirical illustrations concerning riots in London (2011) and Stockholm (2013), the paper uncovers variations within and across the two cities, such as differing state and private sector interventions; reshaping of civil society; and how residents variously resist, adapt to, and promote change. The paper thus reflects upon how riots’ afterlives in different urban contexts are constructed, mobilized and contested. Such variations point to the importance of the situated study of urban riots’ diverse legacies.

A social identity model of riot diffusion: From injustice to empowerment in the 2011 London riots

AbstractPrevious research has shown that riots spread across multiple locations, but has not explained underlying psychological processes. We examined rioting in three locations during the August 2011 disorders in England to test a social identity model of riot diffusion. We triangulated multiple sources to construct a narrative of events; and we analysed interviews with 68 participants to examine experiences. In line with the model, we found evidence for two pathways of influence: “cognitive” and “strategic”. For some participants, previous rioting was highly self‐relevant, and shared identity was the basis of their subsequent involvement. For others, previous rioting was empowering because it demonstrated the vulnerability of a common enemy (the police). In each location, interaction dynamics mediated the link between initial perceptions and collective action. The utility of this social identity approach is that it is able to account for both the boundaries and the sequence of urban riot diffusion.

“Cry Clubs for Prentices”: (Not) Performing Riot in Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday

ABSTRACTThis article situates Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599) in the context of the London riots of 1595. By contrast with the more overtly festive Shrove Tuesday riots of the Jacobean period, this late sixteenth-century uprising constituted an overt threat to authority. Attention to this context provides a means of understanding the complex mixture of disorder and festivity which characterises Dekker's play. The article emphasises the text's complex temporality, arguing that it presents an idealised image not of contemporary London, but rather of its historical past. Through its representation of the livery company system and its structures of hospitality, the play offers an alternative to the socio-economic conflicts which defined early modern London. But these images of London's past are consistently situated in opposition to elements of tension rooted in the contemporary present. The result is a politics of nostalgia, which deploys the spectre of riot as a means to assert the necessity of a rejuvenated livery company system.

The politics of 2011 riots in North London: How riots did not culminate into inter-ethnic conflict?

While there has been a considerable research study into the causes and consequences of the 2011 riots and rioters' composition in terms of their class, ethnic origin and gender, there is much less on the shop-keepers perspectives on the August, 2011 riots in London. One of the consequence of this under-research area is little is known about how riots affect relationships between communities in multi-ethnic London. Based on forty interviews conducted with Kurdish and Turkish (KT) shop-owners and key persons from community organizations in North London, the findings of this study state that the theory of middleman minorities does not provide conceptual insight to explain the events. Rather, utilization of theory of framing sheds light upon the perceptions and actions of migrants from Turkey and inter-ethnic relationships in North London. This article argues that KT shopkeepers, community organizations and rioters managed to generate a shared consciousness during face-to-face encounters on the streets. The conscious efforts of shopkeepers and rioters constructed an interest alignment against government policy for cutting social programmes, economic deprivation, and police misconduct. To this end, members of ethnic groups prevented inter-ethnic conflict.

Social Unrest in the uk and Turkey: Rethinking Police Violence against Dissident Communities

AbstractThe present study explores police violence during the riots in London and Gezi Park protests in Istanbul. This study puts forth that the rise of social injustice in theukand the erosion of plural democracy in Turkey clarify the paradox of state intervention because the two states prioritized rapid repression of uprising without consolidating public trust and social justice in the society. This comparative study reveals that the liberal and non-religious elements of the capitalist ruling system in theukcontain similar fractions of state repression when compared to the authoritarian and religious elements of the capitalist ruling system in Turkey. The authors conclude that police violence endures the social control of dissident communities while it maintains the sustainability of different capitalist ruling systems in the periods of social unrest.

New Asymmetries in the New Authoritarianism: Research in Egypt in the Age of Post-Revolution

Egypt was at the center of a wave of uprisings and revolutions that swept the region between 2011 and 2013, the common denominator of which was demands for a radical democratic alternative to authoritarian regimes variously formulated around social justice and political rights. While the Middle East was a major theater of these events, with Tunisia, Egypt, Lybia, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen sharing the headlines, the processes that informed these uprisings were also deeply global. The year 2011 was a revolutionary year, maybe the last in history, when actors differently positioned in the neoliberal social landscape mobilized in different ways, from the Occupy Movement to the London riots. The demise, or better, defeat, of these movements has reverberated profoundly around the globe, highlighting the postdemocratic nature of governance in contemporary states. One of the effects of the rise of new authoritarianism across Europe and the United States is a palpable transformation in the asymmetry between outside observer and the local observed. Researchers now face a reshaping, in some ways a leveling, of differences between “us” and “them” and the distinct temporality used to underpin this asymmetry. Nothing could illustrate this better than the fact that as I write, Egypt's president ʿAbd al-Fattah al-Sisi is enjoying a warm welcome in the White House. The narrative is no longer framed through the worn-out trope of an Arab leader aspiring to modernize his country through pledging allegiance to the leader of the Free World in exchange for aid and armaments; now the man in the White House implicitly pledges to learn from the Arab dictator. Egypt is the pioneer; the United States is the relative latecomer to the Age of New Authoritarianism.

Reclaiming the everyday: the situational dynamics of the 2011 London Riots

This paper examines the situational dynamics of the 2011 London Riots. The empirical contribution is to challenge the dominant explanation of the riots as an outbreak of ‘criminal opportunism’. I use the Metropolitan Police record of all riot-related crimes in London to test several hypotheses and show that this ‘criminal opportunism’ theory cannot account for the riots’ spatial patterning. This opens space for alternative explanatory mechanisms. I then use video footage and testimonies of events on the ground to examine the interactions which made up the London Riots. These suggest that the riots were, in part, a way for people to stake a claim to the public spaces in which they lived, to reclaim the everyday. Theoretically, this builds on Randall Collins’s ‘micro-situational’ approach to violence but extends it by embedding historical and structural factors into that micro-perspective. Specifically, the emotional dynamics of these riot interactions cannot be understood without acknowledging participants’ pre-existing expectations of the police and of the everyday places of the riot.

Race and Crime Conflict in News Coverage in Britain: The Voice tabloid newspaper

The Voice tabloid newspaper was founded in 1982 by Jamaican - born accountant Val McCalla. It is a diaspora media that campaigns for black immigrants in Britain especially on matters of race discrimination at the hands of the law enforcement agencies. During the 1980s, and in the wake of the Brixton riots, the tabloid secured huge circulation figures. Over its three decade reign, it has come to be known as ‘Britain’s Best Black Newspaper’ and has served the black community by giving them a voice where other mainstream media have largely failed. It has over the years been a thorn in the side of the establishment, campaigning on numerous issues and championing the plight of black people nationwide. Its main news is a mixture of features, sports and celebrity interviews. This paper looks at how the tabloid attempts to resolve the race and crime conflicts that surrounds the coverage of the black community focusing on the 2011 London riots. It discusses its role and contributions to the diaspora black community in the resolution of conflict in news as presented by the mainstream media.

Explaining and Understanding State Intervention into the Lives of ‘Troubled’ Families

This article focuses attention on explaining and understanding state intervention into the lives of families deemed ‘troublesome’ with specific attention on the Troubled Families Programme. Launched in 2011, in part as a response to the London riots, the Troubled Families Programme represented an escalation and intensification of state intervention into the lives of families. Policy analyses have provided important perspectives on how we should explain and understand this government agenda as part of a process of neoliberal state crafting. This article offers a critical yet productive examination of these perspectives, arguing that their utility lies in how they can be employed, and therefore modified and adapted, in conjunction with studies of local practice which emphasise the messy realities of policy enactment and, with that, the possibility for contestation and challenge. Such an approach, based broadly on the tenets of critical realism, is founded on an alternative conception of state power, one that sees state power as having a more complex quality that is dependent on the agency of local actors.

The law of crowds

From the Arab Spring and Occupy to the London riots and student tuition fee protests, the disordered crowd has re-emerged as a focal point of anxiety for law makers. The paper examines two recent cases where the UK courts have thought about crowds. InAustin, the House of Lords connected the crowd to an idea of human nature. This essentialist rendering placed the crowd within an old analytical register where it is understood to release a primordial violence. InBauer, the Administrative Court utilised a very different sense of the ‘crowdness’ of the crowd to uphold the conviction of UK Uncut activists for aggravated trespass. In their novelty and difference, these two mutually exclusive senses of the crowd open an essential question of the relation between law and society. This paper introduces the ‘Law of Crowds’ as a distinctive way to understand the questions of protest, revolt and democracy.

The need to create a narrative: examining the justifications police used to target drugs in the lead up to the 2011 London riots

Street-level officers in London spend a considerable amount of time stopping and searching people suspected of possessing drugs. In 2010/2011 many boroughs reported that more than half their stop and search activity was directed at finding drugs. This paper explores how officers explained their reasons to target drugs as a part of their policing practice in the twelve months leading up to the 2011 riots. Analysis shows that officers over emphasized the dangers of drugs, their prominence in the community, and the drugs-crime connection in order to justify their continued targeting of drugs. Additionally, confiscating drugs provided officers with a tangible outcome that eluded them in many other situations. As the role of a police officer has changed due to the introduction and emphasis on community policing, I argue that officers used drug busts as a way of retaining the classic façade of policing identified by Reiner and others.

Humans vs machines: the future of facial recognition

The dream of people discovering they have crime-fighting super-powers is the stuff of Hollywood movies like ‘Superman’ and the ‘X-Men’. But the startling fact about the individuals known as super recognisers is that their powers are real – they are literally living the dream. These people are supremely adept at facial recognition and their abilities have been harnessed by police to track the criminals behind the 2011 London riots and 2015 Cologne sex attacks. Yet in an era when humans are used to being bested by machines – witness the IBM super-computer that beat chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov and the Google program that recently humbled the world champion of the intuitive game ‘Go’ – the abilities of super recognisers have outshone current biometric facial recognition systems, raising questions about the technology. So what can developers of face recognition systems learn from them?