“NORMAL CITIZENS” VERSUS “ROWDIES”
Police categorisations of protesters in Germany
Peter Ullrich
Center for T echnology and Society , T echnische Universität, Berlin, Germany
Abstract The paper investigates police perceptions of protesters. Based on group discussions with riot police and
interviews with high ranking officers, six domains are analysed as dimensions of a risk constellation contributing
to the emergence of an enemy image of the protester . The findings suggest that labels describing the “police
counterpart” often express distance and opposition (1) and depoliticise demonstrations (2). Furthermore, formal
(3) and informal (4) categorisations of protesters as well as the perception of indications of threat in policing
practice (5) are examined. Bipolar patterns of classification of protesters were found to be influential.
Classifications are partly based in the law and partly in particularistic and normative subcultural attributions of
legitimacy which police transfer into their organisational interpretive schemata distinguishing betw een
legality/illegality . For explanatory means the study utilises perspectives of organisational sociology as w ell as the
cultural distance between the police and the protesters (6). This is further elaborated using the social figure of the
“normal citizen”, in which specific police conceptions of normality are condensed and which serves as a
threshold for the perception of deviant protesters. Besides the implications for theory of democracy of the
analysed clichés and enemy images the findings conclusively suggest that the distanced to hostile relationship
between the police and some protesters does not merely represent a pedagogical or “practical” problem of the
police, but is the expression of a certain conflict structure. In this structure organisational and individual factors
on the side of the police as well as their actual conflict experience at demonstrations conv erge.
Keywords : social mov ements, protest policing, police knowledge, discretion.
“Cidadãos normais” versus “desordeiros”: categorizações policiais de manifestantes na Alemanha
Resumo O jornal investiga as perceções da polícia sobre os manifestantes. Com base em discussões de grupo com a
polícia de choque e entrevistas com policiais de alto escalão, seis domínios são analisados como dimensões de uma
constelação de risco que contribui para o surgimento de uma imagem do manifestante como inimigo. Os resultados
sugerem que os rótulos que descrevem a "contraparte policial" frequentemente expressam distância e oposição (1) e
despolitizam as manifestações (2). Além disso, são examinadas as categorizações formais (3) e informais (4) de
manifestantes, bem como a perceção de indícios de ameaça na prática policial (5). V erificou-se que os padrões
bipolares de classificação dos manifestantes são influentes. As classificações baseiam-se parcialmente na lei e
parcialmente em atribuições subculturais particularistas e normativ as de legitimidade que a polícia transfere para os
seus esquemas interpretativos organizacionais, distinguindo entre legalidade/ilegalidade. Enquanto meios
explicativos, o estudo utiliza perspetiv as da sociologia organizacional, bem como a distância cultural entre a polícia e
os manifestantes (6). Uma elaboração analítica adicional utiliza a figura social do “cidadão normal”, na qual as
conceções específicas de normalidade da polícia são condensadas e que serve como um limiar para a perceção de
manifestantes desviantes. P ara além das implicações para a teoria da democracia dos clichês e imagens de inimigo
analisados, os resultados sugerem de forma conclusiv a que a distância da relação hostil entre a polícia e alguns
manifestantes não representa meramente um problema pedagógico ou “prático” da polícia, mas é a expressão de uma
certa estrutura de conflito. Nessa estrutura, fatores organizacionais e individuais do lado da polícia, bem como a sua
experiência real de conflito nas manifestações, convergem.
P alavras-chaves : movimentos sociais, policiamento de protesto, conhecimento policial, discricionariedade.
“Citoyens normaux” ou “casseurs”: catégorisations policières des manifestants en Allemagne
Résumé L ’ article enquête sur la façon dont les manifestants sont perçus par la police. À partir de discussions de
groupe avec des CRS et d’ entretiens avec des hauts gradés, il analyse six domaines de risque qui concourent à faire du
manifestant un ennemi. Les résultats suggèrent que les étiquettes utilisées par les policiers expriment souvent un fossé
et une opposition (1) et dépolitisent les manifestations (2). Les catégorisations formelles (3) et informelles (4) des
manifestants sont également analysées, ainsi que la perception d’indices de menace dans la pratique policière (5). On
constate que les modèles bipolaires de classement des manifestants ont une influence. Les classements se basent en
partie sur la loi et en partie sur des attributions subculturelles particularistes et normatives de légitimité que la police
SOCIOLOGIA, PROBLEMAS E PRÁTICAS, n.º 92, 2020, pp. 9-36. DOI:10.7458/SPP20209214197

transfère dans ses schémas interprétatifs organisationnels en faisant une distinction entre légalité et illégalité. L’étude
utilise comme moyens explicatifs les perspectives de la sociologie organisationnelle, ainsi que le fossé culturel entre la
police et les manifestants (6). Une autre élaboration analytique utilise la figure sociale du “citoyen normal”, qui
condense les conceptions spécifiques de normalité de la police et qui sert de seuil à la perception des manifestants
déviants. En plus des implications que ces clichés et ces images d’ennemi peuvent avoir pour la théorie de la
démocratie, les résultats suggèrent clairement que la relation hostile entre la police et certains manifestants ne reflète
pas seulement un problème pédagogique ou “pratique” de la police, mais elle est l’expression d’une certaine structure
de conflit, où convergent des facteurs organisationnels et individuels du côté de la police, ainsi que leur expérience
réelle du conflit dans les manifestations.
Mots-clés : mouvements sociaux, encadrement policier des manifestations, connaissance policière, discrétionnarité.
“Ciudadanos normales” versus “ desgobernados”: categorías policiales de manifestantes en Alemania
Resumen El periódico investiga las percepciones de la policía sobre los manifestantes. Con base en discusiones de
grupo con la policía de choque y entrevistas con policías de alto rango, son analizados seis dominios como
dimensiones de una constelación de riesgo que contribuye para el surgimiento de una imagen del manifestante
como enemigo. Los resultados sugieren que las etiquetas que describen a la “contraparte policial” frecuentemente
expresan distancia y oposición (1) y despolitizan las manifestaciones (2). Además, son examinadas las categorías
formales (3) e informales (4) de manifestantes, así como la percepción de indicios de amenaza en la práctica policial
(5). Se constató que los patrones bipolares de clasificación de los manifestantes son influyentes. Las clasificaciones
se basan parcialmente en la ley y parcialmente en atribuciones subculturales particulares y normativ as de
legitimidad que la policía transfiere para sus esquemas interpretativos organizacionales distinguiendo entre
legalidad/ilegalidad. En relación a medios explicativos, el estudio utiliza perspectiv as de la sociología
organizacional, así como la distancia cultural entre la policía y los manifestantes (6). Una elaboración analítica
adicional utiliza la figura social del “ciudadano normal”, en la cual las concepciones específicas de normalidad de
la policía son condensadas y que sirve como un umbral para la percepción de manifestantes fuera del orden. Más
allá de las implicaciones para la teoría de la democracia de los clichés e imágenes del enemigo analizados, los
resultados sugieren de forma conclusiv a que la distancia de la relación hostil entre la policía y algunos
manifestantes no representa meramente un problema pedagógico o “práctico” de la policía, más sí la expresión de
una cierta estructura de conflicto. En esa estructura, convergen factores organizacionales e individuales del lado de
la policía, así como su experiencia real de conflicto en las manifestaciones.
P alabras-clave: movimientos sociales, vigilancia de protesta, conocimiento policial, arbitrariedad.
Introduction
Protest mov ements pursue the goal of inducing, preventing or rev ersing fundamental
social change. A certain confrontational momentum in relation to the societal status
quo and the prev ailing hegemonic v alues and practices is therefore inherent to protest
actors. The police, on the other hand, take on the task of “enforcing and maintaining
the gov ernment’ s continuously precarious monopoly of legitimate physical author -
ity”, thereby safeguarding “conflict-laden social conditions without appearing as a con -
flicting party themselv es” (Belina, 2014, own translation). 1 This illusion of neutrality
corresponds largely with the police’ s self-concept as a legalistically programmed
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1 W ith respect to the right of assembly in Germany this structurally conserv ative function of the
police finds its expression primarily in the obligation to maintain “public safety and order ”, a
completely v ague legal concept which aims directly at sustaining hegemonic concepts of nor -
mality (although they stay implicit).

organisation (Winter, 1997: 19) and with the respective views of many officers. In prac -
tice, the conflicts social movements are concerned with often shift to the constellation
of police vs. protesters. The police, in the form of riot police units, then take on the role
of a conflict party. 2 They turn into a representative or a “substitute object” (Kniesel
and Behrendes, 1996: 291; Winter, 1998b: 2) — which may even be one of their cen -
tral functions (Busch et al., 1988: 458 ff.). And as a moral enterprise (Winter, 1997:
15), police in these situations quite naturally also act on the basis of their own
norms.
Different authors hav e put forth arguments that protest policing is determined
by stereotypes and clichés about the “police counterpart” and that police decisions in
the realms of sociological discr etion or actual discretion 3 are, among others, influenced by
these perceptions. At that, minority protestors that are classified as antagonistic, radi -
cal or marginal are said to be disproportionately subjected to drastic police measures
(for an ov erview cf. Earl, Soule, and McCarthy , 2003). Likewise, certain forms of pro -
test seem to be increasingly confronted with authoritarian policing styles despite the
co-existence of long-term liberalisation trends in protest policing. 4
Based on the assumption that police knowledge carries great w eight as a reg -
ulativ e framework for shaping police practice, the paper attempts to answ er the
question of which views and categorisations hav e a formative influence on the Ger-
man riot police’ s view of protesters. 5 In so doing, special attention will be paid to
the question of whether decidedly political criteria, such as political antagonism,
play a role. The objectiv e of this analysis is to extract different dimensions of a “risk
constellation” that impacts on the emergence of a police enemy image regarding
protesters. This focus on risk constellations (Backes, Dollase, and Heitmeyer , 1998)
hence will not serv e the purpose of conceiving all possible v ariants of police per-
ceptions regarding protesters, but instead extract those aspects that contribute to
biased, imbalanced or negativ e perceptions of and respective policing styles for at
least certain groups of protesters.
The research questions will be answ ered on the basis of group discussions
and interviews with riot police as w ell as with experts and complementary field
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2 For an analysis of such a process of mutual alienation and escalation into hostility see Malthaner,
T eune, and Ullrich (2018).
3 Sociological discretion encompasses all courses of action in police work that cannot exclusiv ely
be traced back to statutory provisions; cf. among others Skolnick (1966), W ilson (1968), Feest
and Blankenburg (1972), and Brusten (1971).
4 This observation w as made primarily with regards to the global justice movement (Gillham and
Noakes, 2007; della P orta and Reiter , 2010; for differences betw een the US and Europe: Stott,
Scothern, and Gorringe, 2013; W ood, 2014) and to contemporary protests against the multiple
crisis of capitalism (Kretschmann, 2014).
5 The restriction to knowledge as an orientation for action is important. Nassauer (2015, 2016),
among others, showed that the actual choice of a policing style is determined by a set of different,
among them short-termed, interactional conditions and not dominantly by decisions made in
the planning phase. Consequently , the knowledge-focused analysis only captures a part of the
relev ant factors that have an impact on police actions in concr eto . Institutional and situational
factors can, of course, only be addressed with regards to their representations in the interview -
ees’ knowledge and interpretations here.

observations from demonstrations taken from the research project “ViDemo”
(Ullrich, 2014, 2018; Ullrich and Knopp, 2018). The current state of research and
the methodology will be presented before addressing the interviewees’ percep -
tions of themselves and of protesters. Detailed analyses consider police designa -
tions of their “counterpart”, depoliticising perceptions of demonstrators, formal
and informal categorisations of protesters and police indications of threat. For ex -
planatory purposes, the study utilises perspectives of organisational sociology as
well as the cultural distance between the police and the protesters. This distance
culminates in the figure of the “normal citizen”, in which specific police concep -
tions of normality are condensed and which serves as a threshold for the percep -
tion of more transgressive protesters. The conclusion reveals that the distanced to
hostile relationship between the police and some protesters does not solely con -
stitute a pedagogical or practical problem of police training but is in fact an ex -
pression of a conflict structure. In this structure, organisational and individual
factors on the side of the police as well as their actual conflict experience at dem -
onstrations converge and fuel each other.
Curr ent state of resear ch
Current and systematic empirical inv estigations on police categorisations of protest-
ers are not av ailable for the German context. The only substantial analyses for Ger-
many are older inv estigations by W illems et al. (1988: 153 ff., based on group
discussion from 1983) and W inter (1998b: 5 ff., interviews and document analyses
from the early nineties). Both rev eal that police officers lack knowledge of the pro-
testers’ objectives, arguments and ideological backgrounds. Activists are subdi-
vided by police into either “peaceful protesters” or “hooligans prepared to use
violence”. In so doing, the former are characterised as informed, open to discussions
and oriented tow ards the cause; their being affected immediately by this cause is as -
sumed to be their motiv ation. The “anarchists”, “rowdies” or “hooligans”, in turn,
are said not to be communicativ e, but young, malleable and interested in trouble
rather than in substantial claims. They are further said to be directed by “string pull -
ers” (W illems et al., 1988: 154) and to trav el from demonstration to demonstration.
Occasionally , a third category of protesters is coined — protesters who will use vio -
lence as an expedient, should peaceful protest not serv e its purpose. This “interme -
diate category” (W inter , 1998b: 6) challenges the dominant binary image only partly
whilst still being based on the same distinction. Stereotypical outer appearances en -
able the police to make a distinction of main groups. Means and objectiv es are con -
sidered as one by police ev aluations of legitimacy . The root of violence is constantly
located within the ranks of the protesters, who the police suspect to be similarly
organised in a tactical manner as is true for themselves (W inter , 1998b: 6-10). Accord -
ingly , police officers in a surv ey adv ocated uncompromising action against protest -
ers more than the general population (Lamnek, 1988).The relev ant international
literature comprises studies based on interviews and protest observ ations such as
P . A. J. W addington’ s (1994: 107 ff.) for Great Britain and della P orta and Reiter ’ s (1998:
24 ff.) for Italy . They draw a picture quite similar to the German studies, while
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additionally mentioning specific actors and organisational characteristics that police
attributions of legitimacy are tied to. The police perspective has established social
movements with clear structures and responsibilities as having an interest in peaceful
protest. The same is viewed as not true for loosely associated, non-institutionalised
protesters who have no interest in peaceful protest. In the distinction between “good”
and “bad” (e.g. “ordinary decent protesters” and “professional protesters”, della
Porta and Reiter, 1998: 24; della Porta, Fillieule and Reiter, 1998) the predictability of
protesters and their willingness to communicate play a significant role; the “bad’
protesters” unpredictability constitutes a problem for the police. These stereotypical
distinctions are based on both regulatory guidelines (official instructions, operation
concepts) and concrete experience. The more recent literature adds evidence for
such binary oppositions, with peaceful workers and trade unions against violent
hooligans, anti-globalists, thugs, troublemakers or anarchists (Baker, 2012: 66, 2014a;
Conway, 2003: 515; Wahlström, 2007: 391).
Further research is of a rather cursory nature or mainly expresses general expe -
rience on the part of researchers and on-site personnel. Behrendes notes that police
are often guided by w orst case scenarios. The focus on violent protesters coins the
police’ s perception of operations, even though they are aw are that the v ast majority
of protests proceed in a lawful and peaceful manner (e.g. Behrendes, 2016; cf. Kniesel
and Behrendes, 1996). The respectiv e understandings of one’ s role as w ell as stereo-
typical enemy images mutually aggrav ate the interaction betw een protesters and
police. These can lead to inappropriate “precautionary mov es”, posing a potential
threat to the freedom of assembly (Aden, 2016: 9; Ullrich and Knopp, 2018).
What precisely do w e know about the consequences of such categorization
processes? Multiple authors observ e a greater show of force and increasingly re-
pressiv e and potentially escalating tactical measures against negatively connoted
groups of protesters (Eggert et al., 2016; D. W addington, 2007: 35; W illems et al.,
1988: 162; Winter , 1998b: 19). Baker , for instance, w as able to show for Australia that
the labelling of protesters decided on whether a dialogue with them w as estab -
lished or not (Baker , 2012, 2014b: 3). Della P orta, Fillieule and Reiter view this dia -
logue as a “rew ard” giv en out by the police to groups labelled as “good” in a
comparativ e study on protest policing in France and Italy (della P orta, Fillieule and
Reiter , 1998). Antagonistic (Fernandez, 2008: 8) and transgressive (Gillham and
Noakes, 2007) protesters in particular seem to be increasingly in the sights of the
police. 6 In comparison to the majority of demonstrations, they are more often con -
fronted with weapons (pepper spray , tasers, long range acoustic devices, flash gre -
nades, rubber bullets) and barricades (fences, assigned protesting zones, kettling,
custody , cf. W ood, 2014: 26). The few systematic studies suggest that weak (low me -
dia presence or inner w eakness) and radical protesters or those with a reputation
with the police w ere affected by more police presence and tougher policing (Earl,
Soule and McCarthy , 2003; Eggert et al., 2016; Wisler and Giugni, 1999).
“NORMAL CITIZENS” VERSUS “ROWDIES” 13
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6 Research distinguishes “contained protesters” that have established relations with gov ernment
institutions from “transgressive protesters” whose repertoires of protest equally include direct
action or envisages shifting the legal/illegal boundary (W ahlström, 2011: 31).

Design and method
Empirically , the study relies on group discussions and expert interviews as well as
ethnographical field research in three federal states of Germany .
Elev en group discussions were conducted with police officers betw een 2011
and 2016, most of them in 2015. The majority of participating officers w ere em -
ploy ed in mobile squads of the riot police or Master ’ s degree police students with
prior riot police experience. A large proportion of five groups consisted of officers
genuinely responsible for video documentation or otherwise concerned with the
topic (video documentation instructors, members of technical units or “conserv a -
tion of evidence and arrest units [BFE]”). 7
Group discussions w ere chosen as a research strategy in order to mirror the
situation of police operations (which are group situations), thereby allowing for
the reconstruction of the meanings and norms of the respectiv e groups reporting
their own field practices and interpretations. Secondly , group discussions are
expected to initiate self-supporting dynamics of narration, hence breaking up
articulatory inhibitions, predominantly when it comes to uncomfortable topics
such as illegal behaviour . An additional eight individual interviews w ere con-
ducted with representativ es of the police union as well as, more notably , with se-
nior police officers inv olved in the police escorting of demonstrations in their
functions as supervisors or staff members.
A number of characteristics of the police, particularly its high degree of organisa-
tional closure, hav e influenced the collection of data. That induces certain restrictions
constitutiv e for most research on police (Fox and Lundman, 1974; Lundman and Fox,
1978; Reichertz, 2003: 414 ff.; Reiner , 2010; Rogers, 2014). The difficulties in accessing
the field caused by police gatekeeping, for instance, incurred certain trade-offs in
contrastiv e sampling (for details see Ullrich, 2019). T o counter this, supplementary
sources were used to triangulate perspectives on the police from the inside with exter -
nal views on their professional practice. These include three expert interviews as w ell
as a multitude of shorter background conv ersations with demonstration observ ants,
journalists, researchers and politicians. Further sources comprise field protocols of
ethnographical observ ations on demonstrations. All v erbal sources were transcribed,
anonymised and analysed using MAXQDA. The material w as coded with open
(abductiv e) coding procedures. The presentation in the paper is typifying and aims to
extract risk constellations as w ell as dominant tendencies among riot police.
A further restriction needs to be discussed with regards to the v alidity of the
findings. The research project “V iDemo” uses data focused to a larger extent on
questions bey ond the categorisations of protesters, which is why such matters were
pursued more systematically during data collection. How ever , the qualitativ e data
contain a number of insightful v erbalisations of police views of demonstrators,
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7 Sources are marked by consecutive numbers plus a letter code indicating the type of document
and the target group (GD = group discussion, INT = interview , FP = field protocol, P ol = police);
emphasis added by the interviewees are printed in italics , utterances that are difficult to under -
stand are in double brackets).

many of which were uttered en passant and as a matter of course. The project’s em -
phasis on video documentation may also have directed the participants’ attention
towards breaches of the law or violence to a greater extent than would have been the
case in a general interview about demonstrations. 8 However, a plethora of aspects
were taken up on in the conversations, thus ensuring that conflicts and problematic
situations did not remain the sole topics of conversation.
Results
Police labels for pr otesters
P olice labelling of protesters can be considered a v ery basic part of ev eryday “protest
diagnoses” (W inter , 1998a: 188). In the transcripts, demonstrators are very frequently
dubbed with the almost terminological jargon w ord “police counterpart” (polizeiliches
Gegenüber) . Such labels indicate that the designation of protesters often times draws on
w ords signalling a relationship of distance, opposition or even hostility (figure 1).
Quantitativ ely speaking, neutral labels and those indicating distance are predomi-
nant, how ever , terms indicating an adv ersarial or hostile relation w ere used in four
group discussions and tw o interviews and remained uncontested therein.
Ev ery now and then, clearly derogatory terms were used, too. In a group dis-
cussion, the increased social divide and polarisation along with the associated
w ork load for the police through protests and conflicts were criticised. One officer
added they had nev er met “a reasonably intelligent human being” at a demonstra-
tion. The officer is further supported by another who had the impression that this
lack of intelligence manifested itself in the protesters’ banners, about “ninety per-
cent of which may be misspelt”.
P ejorativ e and defamatory labels equally appear almost naturally in descrip -
tions that do not incorporate violent or tense conflict situations. They are men -
tioned en passant , without further explanation and denote protesters that are met
with obvious aversion. An interviewee, for example, describes the police’ s reaction
to the protesters’ inquiries on why they are being recorded on video as follows:
Look, we don’ t have to explain our measures to each and ev ery nonentity who asks us
something because that w ay , we w ouldn’ t be able to do our job. [034_GD_P ol]
Ev en if other circumstantial aspects such as stress or practical concerns hav e an impact
on the decision not to communicate, a basic attitude seems to be at work here. This atti -
tude is supported by similar depictions from other interviewees as well as through the
field observ ations of demonstrations. The latter frequently rev ealed dismissive and
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8 A variety of videos that showed, among others, police cameras, tense situations, filming protest -
ers, conflicts between police and protesters etc. serv ed as stimuli. The discussion w as then
opened by asking for comment on the stimuli as well as raising the question of whether the vid -
eos corresponded to actual professional situations as experienced by the participants.

impolite styles of communication on the part of the police (even in situations with no
signs of stress), which became evident as a distinction in the handling of perceived
participants (distanced and impolite interaction) as opposed to perceived passers-by
[friendly interaction; cf. among others 042 & 074_FP_Demo]. 9
Explicitly appreciativ e or positive labels for protesters and demonstrations
play ed a minor role if any . One interview ee occasionally asserts a “nice, diverse
spectrum on the civic side, too, where there are the totally normal citizens”
[053_Int_P ol]. Generally positiv e affirmations of the right of assembly for democ-
racy do exist; how ever , these are of a rather formulaic nature and represent the or-
ganisation’ s perspective. The few appreciativ e statements are not related to the
demands of the demonstrations; rather , they refer to a demonstration’ s peaceful
course or to the “sincerity” and “friendliness” of the participants (such as the grati-
tude expressed by them to the police).
Depoliticisation
The pejorativ e formulations testify to a perspective that depoliticises demonstra -
tions themselves as well as the objectives of the degraded groups. This mode of op -
eration allows for a delegitimisation of such gatherings without ov erstepping the
boundaries of the binding legal framew ork, which defines the right of assembly as
a legally protected good. An example is giv en by a riot police officer , who also
holds instructional functions, in a group discussion:
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Neutral labels Labels of dist ance Adversarial and hostile labels
– Particip ants
(of demonstrations / gatherings)
– Demonstrators
– Protesters
– The (police) counterp art
– The other side
– The opposing party
– The opponent/adversary
– The adversarial side (also camera etc.)
– The 'foe's side'
Pejorative labels for protesters
T roublemakers, loons, idiots, professional protesters, professional disturbers, some kind
of people/observers/figures/persons, jerks, nonentities, 'propaganda machines', 'little Adolfs', 'people with a
cock's comb', 'stupid demonstration', hooligan tourism
Figure 1 Police labels for particip ants of a demonstration (without derivations and similar forms; individual
quotes are presented in quotation marks; the most common labels are printed in bold in all figures
throughout the paper)
9 Thanks to the GODIAC project, a police investigation on protest and strategies of policing in different
European countries (Rikspolisstyrelsen, 2013), we can draw on a detailed account of how police offi -
cers treat certain groups differently based on outer appearances. A leaked draft of the project’ s final re -
port (Source: euro-police.noblogs.org/files/2013/11/GODIAC_W ien_2011.pdf; known to the author)
contains a passage that w as later removed. It indicates that certain people (e.g. tourists, individual
passers-by , cyclists) were allowed to pass a police cordon at the site of a demonstration, if they w ere
able to prove their motives to the police’ s reasonable satisfaction. Others were denied this right of w ay
with no clear reason. Some, such as members of recognisable ethnic minorities, were not even heard.

Back in the days, I still had the feeling that protesters w ere following a cause — some -
times w e even talked; but today — what’ s it called? — nothing but hooligan tourism.
Ev en little boys are only interested in throwing stones. That’ s a veritable decline in
v alues. No respect! [024_GD_P ol]
The person quoted abov e equally tells of peaceful demonstrations and posi-
tiv ely connoted (peaceful) groups of protesters on other occasions. Howev er , as
the quote indicates, the confrontation with unpleasant protesters shapes the ba-
sic image that at least parts of the police have of demonstrations — even if objec-
tiv ely speaking, the majority of protests are characterised by an absence of
violence. 10 The formulaic appreciation of demonstrations serv es the purpose of
maintaining an organisational image (Schauseite) but is shifted off to the past.
The contemporary impressions equate protests with unpolitical violence that is
lacking both substance of content and respect. 11 A similar differentiation is the
separation of serious and legitimate protesters from those considered unpoliti -
cal and illegitimate.
Examples of this depoliticisation can equally be found in systems of formal
classification (see below: Formal classifications ), as is the case in Hamburg, where
protesters pertaining to the red category of threat to public safety are character -
ised as having no interest in “sober protest claims” but w ould “prioritise violent
conflicts”. 12
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Examples of depoliticising st atements about protesters and demonstrations
– "The problem consists of those […] seeking trouble only ."
– "There are certain p arts of the protesters, I personally think, whose intentions do not revolve around
expressing their opinion."
– "I don't actually consider them demonstrations anymore. They have become more of a mass event […]
because it's more like at football matches."
– "T o me, these are events where people go to let of f steam."
– "The last Love Parade [ Zug der Liebe - a demonstration that took place in Berlin in 2015 and was
accompanied by electronic music] was no political event af ter all!"
– "They organise some kind of events about women-lesbians-lycra – I really don't have any symp athy for that."
– "a pure happening thing"
Figure 2 Depoliticization of demonstrations
10 According to police press releases, there were 15 or 14 demonstrations of “non-peaceful nature”
out of 5,000 registered gatherings annually in Berlin in 2014 and 2015 (cf. Behrendes, 2016; inter -
national literature review: Baker , 2012: 58).
11 Obviously , violence may constitute an important motive for parts of the protesters. Here, it is rel -
ev ant because this aspect becomes decisive for general perceptions of protesters by the police.
1 2 Http://www .mopo.de/hamburg/gruen-gelb-oder-rot-hamburger-polizei-faerbt-jetzt-
demonstranten- ein-17538306; Minor Interpellation in the Hamburg Bürgerschaft, Printed Doc -
ument 20/79, 29.3.2011.

Formal classifications
Classifications primarily result from institutional regulations. One essential distinc -
tion regarding the classification of protesters that may hav e an impact on policing re -
sults from the law 13 and from judicature, 14 as w ell as from currently prominent
socio-psychological concepts of policing: 15 peacefulness/non-peacefulness
(Bundesministerium des Innern, 2004: 81). The exact definition of peacefulness/
non-peacefulness, how ev er , is both juridically and practically precarious (this is true
for the actus reus itself but especially for the preventiv e, i.e. the prefactual attribution
of “inclination”) and therefore subject to discussion.
The traffic-signal-classification that is common among some police authori -
ties constitutes an attempt at a formal operationalisation that largely corresponds
to the A-B-C categorisation used in football policing. At that, “green” stands for
peaceful protesters who are following a cause and are willing to communicate;
“y ellow” stands for potentially violent and uncooperative protesters and “red”
represents violent protesters in the case of which sober protest claims do not play
a role (see footnote 13). The known, formalised traffic-signal-classifications, use
v arying ascriptiv e features. The Lower Saxon operation concept LEO “LEINE”,
for instance, uses personal characteristics, behavioural characteristics and ap-
parel characteristics. The latter criterion in particular demonstrates the role of ex-
tremely v ague and cliché characteristics, using “dark or black” clothing “typical
of the scene” (in contrast to “civil” clothes “adapted to the weather ”) as an indica-
tion of potential threat to public safety .
Ev en in states or units where there is no formal traffic-signal-classification, a
content-wise identical three-stage categorisation is used, though it sometimes uses
different terms (e.g. “peaceful” — “interference-prone” — “pre- pared to use vio-
lence”, 032_INT_P ol). The operational application of such schemes, how ev er , var-
ies. P olice officers from different police authorities report this procedure to be
generally accepted and common, while others distance themselv es explicitly ,
claiming it to be too simplistic and unsuitable (and therefore not practiced).
On the one hand, these classifications are used situationally in order to ev alu -
ate certain groups, situations and scenarios of interaction at demonstrations; on the
other hand, they are equally drawn upon during the planning phase. 16 In so doing,
18 P eter Ullrich
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13 Article eight of the German constitution guarantees the right to freely assemble “peacefully and
without arms”.
14 The Brokdorf resolution of the German Federal Court is of special importance for protest policing. It
obliges police to act in a friendly and cooperative manner tow ards peaceful protesters, even if “dis -
turbers” are present in the protest. More communicative and managerial approaches to protest po -
licing (since the eighties) as well as more selectiv e policing styles relying on the (attempt of )
differentiation between peaceful and non-peaceful can be traced back to this ruling.
15 For example the “Elaborated Social Identity Model” (cf. Reicher et al., 2004; Rikspolisstyrelsen,
2013).
16 In extreme cases like the “W elcome to Hell” demonstration against the G20 in Hamburg 2017
(Malthaner , T eune and Ullrich, 2018: 36) police thw art their legal obligations through illegiti -
mate generalization: the expectations of some “disturbers” is then used to classify entire dem -
onstrations.

they shape a horizon of expectations that is not coined by actual events or actions.
The classification of the overall demonstration additionally uses an assessment of
the expected “disruptive quality” (e.g. on an eight-point scale in one federal state).
Implicit and informal classifications
The organisationally determined categories are v ery broad and not based on un -
equiv ocal rules of allocation. They can therefore be considered a mere option for
schematisation. It remains to be clarified how these patterns are substantiated in
practice, meaning which actual signals are decisiv e in the allocation process to a
certain category . In addition, the question of whether other distinctions of protester
types are relev ant to police needs to be raised.
In a multitude of sequences, examples of positiv e and negative protester types
are mentioned, or rather characteristics and displays of behaviour that are classified
accordingly . These examples support predominantly bipolar oppositions. T rade un -
ions, the DGB (the Confederation of German T rade Unions), “normal protesters” or
“normal citizens” serv e as collective symbols of the affirmed, which are contrasted
with the uncooperativ e, radical disturbers of the “black bloc”, who are violent or at
least willing to use violence.
Similar examples can be found in Zimmer (2014: 88), where a leading police
officer in an interview sequence on sit-ins distinguishes betw een per se “subver-
siv ely acting” members of the autonomous scene and those who choose civil dis-
obedience “out of a personal motiv e”. Another leading police officer from the
Low er Saxon riot police in a similar fashion talks about an “autonomous scene pri-
marily concerned with violence” that — to him — does not represent “protesters in
the proper meaning of the w ord” (Zimmer 2014: 96).
The function of such categorical binaries is to transfer the actually made dis-
tinction legitimate/illegitimate into the relev ant categories of criminal and police law
as well as police organisational processes. This allows officers to escape moral dilem -
mas that result from conflicts with own political views or from conflicts betw een le -
gitimacy and legality . The strict sorting makes real complexity manageable within
the distinctions typical of the organisation. It is a juridification of the social. The ten -
dency tow ards “bipolar perspectiv es” (Kniesel and Behrendes, 1996: 303) is espe -
cially momentous as it equally enables police to integrate ambiv alent or legally
contested phenomena. The equalisation of violence and non-violent rule breaches
(civil disobedience) by police, already criticised in 1996 (ibid.), is equally present in
the current study’ s data. P articipants of a group discussion, for instance, showed
themselv es appalled by the fact that the then presiding officer of the German par -
liament, W olfgang Thierse, had participated in a sit-in against a radical right-wing
march. The discussants understood this as an example of their perception that ev en
the top political lev el did no longer set an example of basic v alues (namely
law-abidance, in this case the respecting of neo-Nazi demonstration rights).
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Indications: actual and political pr ognoses of threat
The sublegal assessments depicted abov e Implicit and informal classifications gain
relev ance when they start to induce actions, i.e. when the protest diagnosis (co-)de-
termines how certain groups are treated. This is all the more true as many police of-
ficers state that their general “experience”, more precisely a certain “intuition”, or a
“gut feeling” as well as a “healthy sense of guilt” determine their actions. A discus-
sant w ords this most concisely as a disposal of an “inner prognosis of danger ”. And
“quite naturally , one’ s senses will be sharpened” if this prognosis is high. It func-
tions as a potential, which is equally explained in another group discussion: 17
But to bring it back to y our question of whether we go in with an increased potential of
danger , w ell, if it’ s a right-wing against left-wing demonstration, you do go in differently
as compared to ten green activists who fight the destruction of the sunflow er , right. […]
Or if I go to a sixth division football match [of tw o hostile teams], that is, you do go into
w ork differently as a police officer than if it’ s about the sunflower . [056_GD_P ol]
The determination of threat potential operates with the basal distinction between vi -
olence expected/not expected. Which factors de facto function as signals for the likeli -
hood of violence remains to be analysed. In the following, I will assess sequences that
include such indicators which justify police action from their point of view in more
detail. Such sequences occurred in group discussions and interviews, for example
whenev er someone reported on the legal requirements of videography (or more
generally speaking the readiness of resources such as cameras). Interviewers
20 P eter Ullrich
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Mentioned as : Positive or neutral Negative
Actors
DGB (Confederation of German T rade
Unions), trade unions,
citizens, normal citizens, the civic
side, the normal, normal protesters,
the Joe Public, farmers, "dairy
farmers", right wingers, students,
environmental demos, animal
protection demos, "bicycle demos",
"little housewives", green activists
Black bloc, autonomists/anarchist s,
left-wingers, right-wingers, (sit-in)
blockers
Characteristics and displays of
behaviour
(equally including cert ain
actors characterised by these )
Cooperative, willing to communicate,
peaceful, calm, orderly
Violent criminals , unpeaceful, willing
to use violence, disturbers,
uncooperative, communication
refuseniks, professional protesters,
hooligan tourists, instigator , radical
rioters
Figure 3 Police assessment of protest actors and their characteristics (representation as in figure 1)
17 Likewise, international research assumes that considerations of risk and pre-knowledge largely
determine the selection of resources (Eggert et al., 2016).

additionally followed up on such-like suggestions, asking about whether certain
nameable groups or other things were the trigger of “higher alert” situations. Indi -
cations of imminent threat are especially interesting for research on police practice
as indications are underdetermined by law, and often prospective (and sometimes
perhaps projective). The decision to act is therefore contingent. This distinguishes
an indication from concrete (factual) misconduct that implies an obligation to act. 18
The different indications can be allocated on a continuum that is determined by the
degree of concretion and therefore by its legal justifiability (the categories are sub -
sequently printed in italics).
The indication most clearly legitimised by law is that of concr ete criminal acts
or administrative offences . The cov ering of the face by protesters (forbidden on de -
mos in Germany), for instance, is taken as a present fact or at least as a preparation
for imminent criminal acts. Concr ete expectations of violence , the indications of which
can be announcements on the internet, police knowledge of and experience with
certain organisers or incidents on preceding ev ents are also judicially unambigu -
ous; this applies particularly to demonstrations with counter-demonstrations . The di -
mensions of the demonstration are also relevant as big dimensions and complexity
signal a certain interference-prone character of the ev ent to the police. Spatial char-
acteristics also play a role (e.g. if symbolic locations or city districts that are some-
how antagonistic to the demonstration are passed by). A further relev ant category
is the pr otesters’ behaviour . While actions perceiv ed as preparations for criminal acts
(such as the cov ering of the face and the grabbing of stones, see above) are men-
tioned as signals of danger , so are totally legal practices such as closed ranks, raised
banners or a countdown culminating in a burst of speed by a group or the front of
the demonstration (“escalation signs”, Nassauer , 2015). The behaviour of the or-
ganisers is equally of importance, with a lack of willingness to cooperate being per-
ceiv ed as unruliness. 19
A v ariety of personal or group characteristics w as also mentioned. While uncon -
stitutional symbols are expected at Kurdish or neo-Nazi demonstrations, green ac -
tivists for example stand for an expectation of peacefulness.
Indicators that are related to topics and the estimation of their radical natur e are
barely cov ered by juridical discretion but constitute an expression of actual or so -
ciological discretion (Arzt and Ullrich, 2016). Protest topics mentioned in this sense
include anti-nuclear politics, anti-fascism, the Israeli-P alestinian conflict, indus -
trial disputes and Islamism. P olitical antagonism in these topics is understood as
increased likelihood of militancy . In the planning phase, for instance, the opera -
tional management raises the question of: “What do left-wing, and partly extreme
left-wing forces do?”. Other expressions typical of this kind of danger diagnosis
are “radicality” or humans who are “against this corrupt capitalist system”. The
w ay in which content-related assessments hav e an influence on protest diagnoses,
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18 In German law there is a strict obligation to prosecute each crime or offence which comes to the
knowledge of the police, although in reality this principle is impossible to accomplish.
19 It is worth noting that preparatory meetings can make the course of ev ents less problematic,
howev er , can also be used to impose restrictiv e requirements on organizers (Aden, 2016: 14).

thereby creating political prognoses of danger , will subsequently be demonstrated us -
ing another sequence.
P: […] which then, of course, depending on the topic of the demonstration , can, of course,
in some circumstances, be more or less problematic.
Int: What are some of the topics that you- that one is more careful with or I don’ t know
how y ou would divide it.
P: Now , these are the experiences w e hav e as police, […] which rely on these gather -
ings or the like, I’ d say , and which require something special, questions of safeguard -
ing and protection. […] Those are these political demonstrations , especially , if it’ s about
right-wing/left-wing, no doubt. But also others, that have a tendency towards, say , indus -
trial disputes [German original “ Arbeitskampf ”] or that ar e about social topics , where
y ou’ d say , from experience, there’ s a need for protection or there will be counter reac -
tions. The clientele [jargon, ironic for the people police usually deal with] are enraged
to a point where third parties are unreasonably hindered or that people, who think
differently , who possibly , say , participate in the protest, are subject to attacks et cetera.
[006_GD_P ol, Department Manager , Riot P olice; emphasis added].
In this case, the topic of industrial disputes equally functions as a signal (among oth-
ers) for potential threat. Another sequence of the same group discussion further clar-
ifies this logic. The rev erse argument (i.e. referring to causes that are no threat)
elaborates that a demonstration as such “is in its fundamental concern , this one w as
about tuition fees, in its fundamental concern not dangerous” (ibid. emphasis added).
The example of the “Blockupy” protests against the European Central Bank
in Frankfurt in 2012 pointedly shows how such normativ e attributions of legiti-
macy work in the translation of protest claims and their perceived degree of antag -
onism into categories of threat and corresponding police interv entions. The police
excessiv ely imposed exclusion orders for the entire city centre of Frankfurt, which,
how ever , did not ev entually last in court. And y et, arriving protesters in buses
from Berlin still received exclusion orders using the equally w orded justification of
“anti-capitalism”. Due to the prev alence of such practices in police practice, the
Federal Constitutional Court recently had to state that police interv entions could
not be legitimised solely with the hostile attitudes of the participants tow ards the
state (1 BvR 3279/14, Arzt and Ullrich, 2016: 49).
T he politically judging binaries of “dangerous” and “non-dangerous” top -
ics point to a strong abstraction of concrete suspicions. T h e regularly mentioned
(police-internal) collectiv e symbols such as the Confederation of German T rade
Unions on the one hand and autonomists or the black bloc on the other symbol -
ise this abstraction and the related binary distinction betw een legitimate and il -
legitimate protest actors. 20 The logic of this attribution of legitimacy culminates
in the frequently addressed figure of the normal citizen , whose legitimate repre -
sentativ es in the streets are — from a police point of view — trade unions or
“normal demonstrators”.
22 P eter Ullrich
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Explaining the social distance
P olitical and normativ e assessments of certain protesters or groups of protesters
as w ell as their concerns can equally be found throughout the interviews, also in
sequences that do not thematise prognoses of threat. One interview ee, for in -
stance, generally sees nothing but “stone casters” and “hooligan tourism” in cur -
rent demonstrations. Unusual forms of protest from a police point of view at
“some sort of stupid demo” become a “fidgeting [with] some kind of umbrellas”
and the militant demeanour of the “fiv e hundred loons” is nothing but “letting
off steam”. In addition to the obviously pointed and profound av ersion of some
police officers and the depoliticising enmity they hav e against the “opponent
side”, an ov erarching pattern of hegemonic social distance becomes apparent with
regards to political demonstrations. This pattern has become a genuine part of
police culture among riot police. Protest and police seem to represent tw o cul -
tures that are extremely foreign to each other . I will subsequently examine the
aspects of police culture and cop occupational culture that are contrary or antago -
nistic to wide sections of protest culture, drawing upon different findings,
including insufficient police knowledge of and experience with protest, demon-
strations as the source of straining experiences and the normativ e distance to-
w ards dissidence.
Insufficient experience with protest
Only few of the interview ees (data from 29 respondents is av ailable) were experi-
enced participants of demonstrations. T wo exceptions among the number of inter-
view ed individuals can be referred to as inclined to demonstrations because they
hav e taken a stand for a cause at a demonstration from political conviction once in a
while. A few other interview ees indicated that they have attended a demonstration
here and there, how ever , the topics largely rev olv ed around police work (police
union activism). Occasionally , they reported on onetime participation in demon -
strations in the past (such as student demonstrations against the Gulf W ar 1991 or
turnaround demonstrations in the GDR in 1989) or — more out of curiosity — in
single-issue-demonstrations (e.g. on environmental issues). P olitical commitment
to fundamental social change (not restricted to single issues) w as not mentioned.
Something which is much more typical of riot police officers w as mentioned by a
respondent who then obtained broad approv al from the group: 21
I’v e got better things to spend my private time on than attending a demonstration. Or
rather , it has become the same [strain] since there are demonstrations or football
23 P eter Ullrich
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20 At that, even research closely linked to the police emphasises that the topic of the protest is not
decisive when it comes to violence (Schreiber and Adang, 2008).
21 Similar to another group discussion with two participants: “Int: Y ou have nev er participated in
a […] demonstration as a protester? // P2: Oh my God, no. // P1: No. // Int: Okay . // P2: I have
better things to do.” [049_GD_P ol].

matches every second day or when asylum-seekers’ hostels have to be guarded. I get
all that in my daily routine with the police, so I don’t need that in my private life as
well. Like, I prefer to spend that time with my friends. [056_GD_Pol]
The hegemonic distance is sometimes carried to the extremes of an absolute lack of
understanding for demonstrations, which are perceiv ed as a pointless thing:
In a democracy , I think, there are other ways to find a solution […] instead of taking to
the streets with a hundred or tw o hundred people who carry banners, ninety percent
of which may be misspelt on top of that. [056_GD_P ol]
Only a tiny minority of respondents shows an interest in the political questions ad -
dressed by demonstrations. This is confirmed by Zimmer (2014: 59, 98), who inter -
view ed a leading police officer . The latter reports on a briefing whose purpose it
w as to giv e the participating police officers an understanding of the highly explo -
siv e political subject as well as the historical background of a big demonstration.
The tw o hundred mobile squad leaders, howev er , show ed no interest but instead,
asked for “tw o guidelines and off we go”. This description is in line with the gen-
eral estimation that knowledge of protests, protesters, and social mov ements does
not play a role in police training (Zimmer , 2014). It is therefore not only certain pro-
testers but demonstrations in general that remain rather foreign to police officers.
In principle, these findings point to the continued significance of W eiß’ findings
(1992: 38) who concludes that “any form of activ e political commitment […] [is]
suspicious” to police officers.
Demonstrations as a nuisance or burden
As indicated by W illems et al. (1988; cf. also Aden, 2016: 9; Nassauer , 2011: 209;
1988: 55), parts of the riot police officers refer to their work as a burden as it includes
on-the-job (as in police operations) trouble and in-the-job (through bureaucratic
and accountability consequences) trouble (P . W addington, 1994). Besides the daily
routine at the office, police officers frequently face tense situations in the context of
demonstrations and football policing (both of which resemble one another from
the officers’ perspectiv e). Common “on-the-job” experiences comprise psycho-so -
cial strain, which can be caused by tiring hours of standing around in the ardent
sun, 22 but ev en more so because of a high density of operations or because of
conflictual and complex operations including situations of high mental pressure.
During such operations, police officers become the targets of criticism, insults and
sometimes physical violence. This causes them to feel like “foot mats” who “put
their head on the block” for others. Moreov er , as has been repeatedly pointed out,
riot police operations often take place in the ev enings and on weekends, which is a
24 P eter Ullrich
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22 Nassauer (2016) shows that such unfav ourable framework conditions (inadequate supplies, ac -
commodation, technological issues, paucity of information, etc.) have an impact on patterns of
interaction, thus contributing to dynamics encouraging violence at demonstrations.

threat to leisure time, especially for families. Further strain for officers results from
the general unruliness of protesters and from protesting tactics that overwhelm the
police’ professional interpretation patterns (the confrontational and ironic Rebel
Clowns Army as well as non-violent disobedience or blockading techniques were
mentioned here). In these situations, police officers are apparently subjected to a
serious conflict between their (ordered) habitus and the (disordered) protest struc -
ture, which is particularly triggered by transgressive protesters.
Interview sequences on video surv eillance also revealed the police officers’ fear
of counter surv eillance by protesters, which could potentially lead to public denun -
ciations or individual harassment. Despite the fact that most descriptions of such in -
cidents w ere circulating standard narratives and w ere not based on concrete own
experiences (or those of actual colleagues), such-like statements underline that po -
lice officers view themselv es as (at least potential) victims at demonstrations. This
position is further reinforced by the frequent public criticism that police officers are
confronted with and that they perceiv e as generally unjustified (cf. Frevel and Behr ,
2015; Ullrich, 2019).
Some interview ees reported on an additional overload caused by the in -
creased number of right-wing protests and police operations in the context of the
so-called refugee crisis at the time of inquiry . This needs to be taken into account,
too, when attempting to understand how the image of the “stupid demo” comes
into being. Each and ev ery complication — whether it be a criminal offence or sim-
ply a task that ev olves from an unexpected blockading action — implies an extra ef-
fort for officers in the form of video sightings, desk w ork, perhaps court hearings
and disciplinary checks following suspected misconduct and offence reports — in
short: in-the-job trouble. All of this, how ever , does not constitute an evident part of
the professional (self ) image that especially the distanced police officers hold, ow-
ing to the low degree of appreciation tow ards demonstrations. Consequently , a
probably quite large proportion of riot police perceiv e demonstrations as an
evitable additional burden , not only in specific situation but in an established
conflictual interaction structure (W ahlström, 2011). 23
Cultural distance from protesters: the figure of the “normal citizen” 24
A lack of knowledge or contact, a schematised perception and negativ e experiences
or expectations all contribute to the distance between the police and the protesters.
It is therefore necessary to include a more basic level in the analysis — a level which
represents the sheer cultural incompatibility of (riot) police with some activist
“NORMAL CITIZENS” VERSUS “ROWDIES” 25
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23 A comparison with other professions w ould certainly be insightful here. Psychotherapists, for
instance, equally have to endure straining experiences with their clients. However , psychother -
apists — as opposed to police officers — are trained not to reproach the person provoking their
strain but to perceive it as a signal for the client’ s deeper problems. This may help them cope
with and integrate such mental pressure — a procedure that is often supported by supervision
in the therapeutic domain as opposed to police service.
24 The word used is “Normalbürger ”, resembling something betw een a “normal citizen” and a
“norm citizen”.

milieus (most notably left-wing, anti-authoritarian and transgressive activists).
This profound difference is marked by a number of visible characteristics, such as
the emphasis on masculinity, strength, military snappishness in police conduct or
sexist posters as seen in a police conference room during field work (cf. also Behr,
2008). The difference is also present in the discussion protocols as the reiterated but
repeatedly disappointed desire to represent authority and to gain respect. The
afore-mentioned distance will subsequently be analysed starting from a discussion
sequence which allows for a reconstruction of key elements pertaining to the riot
police’s normative system of reference. In the following extract, the discussant re -
fers to the conservation and documentation of evidence units’ camcorders, which
used to be very common but have come to be gradually replaced as they were not
particularly suitable, according to the discussant’s opinion:
W ell, technology-wise and with regards to the resolution, that w as really , I mean
threehundred-Euro-cameras, that w as… every father of a family probably has a better
one at home. [022_GD_P ol]
The term “father of a family” is particularly insightful for this context. It is a condensa-
tion of the taken-for -granted, normativ e orientations that govern the discussion group
and that constitutes a communicativ e, symbolic enactment in the sense of Manning
(1997). This sentence discloses an entire w orld. In this world, there is the typical mid-
dle-class (nuclear) family . The father is in possession of a camcorder , which probably
serv es to capture holiday events and family celebrations. This father is most likely also
the breadwinner of the family . Another discussant later says accordingly that he takes
on the effort of w orking at a demonstration while his “wife and the kids are w aiting at
home”. The father of a family or the family’ s breadwinner as a normative reference
v alue equally appears in other situations, e.g. as a crime victim deserving sympathy , as
“ev ery police officer has a family at home, maybe even kids”.
This small sequence emphasises in its uncontested implicitness and in addi -
tion to the many other indicators as w ell as in agreement with opinion polls 25 that
26 P eter Ullrich
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25 The few surveys at hand (which w ere conducted exemplarily in single police bodies) showed
that items referring to family and social order obtained high values of agreement, whereas polit -
ical commitment, sexual freedom and alternative lifestyles as w ell as general social leanings
were rejected more often (Remke, 2002; W eiß, 1992). According to W ehr (1994), young police of -
ficers showed a higher tendency to think in categories of order and norm as w ell as having a
stronger preference for job and security as opposed to personal development when compared
with other people of their age. The hypothesis of particularly conserv ative v alues of police offi -
cers, howev er , could not be confirmed (W ehr , 1994: S. 80). A survey conducted by Liebl (2003)
nevertheless postulated a stronger , legalist attitude and a predominant conformity of police of -
ficers with the criminal politics of the conserv ative party (CDU). An older , similar poll of Mu -
nich citizens and police officers equally pointed to a such-like “law-and-order ” attitude of
police officers tow ards demonstrations. More often than not, they demand no restraints on the
part of the police; quite to the contrary: they deem the behaviour of the police appropriate or
even too considerate but nev er too harsh. While the judgement of police by citizens depends
largely on their preference for a certain political party , police officers judge “rather on the basis
of professional, positional and stereotypical beliefs regarding their role” (Lamnek, 1988: 219).

riot police along with its members constitute a hotbed of conventionality and up -
right narrow-mindedness, which is characterised by normalistic, especially mas -
culine and heteronormative, family-oriented values of a petit bourgeois ideal
world that does not leave any room for deviance. In the words of a police re -
searcher: “Non-conformists leave or are advised to do so” (Behr, 2006: 104, cf. 2008;
on the police self-legitimisation as citizen-oriented guardians of norms see Winter,
1997: 18). 26 One may deem this interpretation exaggerated as it represents a mere
typecasting that in reality is accompanied by a great deal of variance (on the mar -
gins of police culture). Nevertheless, this interpretation uncovers aspects that are
more or less taken for granted, not problematised or criticised in the discussions —
in a nutshell: the implicit norms. This analysis becomes all the more clear when
compared to the afore-mentioned descriptions of the counter image of police con -
ceptions of legitimacy: anti-authoritarian autonomists radically opposing state, re -
ligion, police, capitalism and the like. They do not wear “civic apparel”, as
described by police guidelines and stereotypes of cop occupational culture, but
clothes “typical of the scene”. They may live in occupied houses without fixed tra -
ditional family structures, perhaps in open, polyamorous or homosexual relation -
ships. They have no palate for order, as perceived by police officers, or authorities
and their demonstrations express all of this through specific protest repertoires.
Hence, the organisational imperativ e of the police at demonstrations to main-
tain an “order ” that in fact cannot be defined (and is thus implicitly oriented towards
hegemonic ideas) goes along with attitudes of officers, whose prime objectiv e it is to
“safeguard and preserv e authority” (see also Behr , 2008; Feest and Blankenburg,
1972: 70; Fekjær , P etersson and Thomassen, 2014; Loftus, 2010). 27 The rigid and hier-
archical protest ideals (an orderly procession with a responsible leader) which un-
derlie the German laws concerning demonstrations support and reinforce this
cultural distance, but they do not do justice to the present-day div ersity of protest
(Aden, 2016; Kniesel and Behrendes, 1996: 295). There is an obvious historic continu -
ity of distance and partial enmity betw een the police and the un-civic objects of their
interv entions. The communists of the 1950s and the Free German Y outh (FDJ), fol -
low ed by the Beat concert goers or “the students” — all of which w ere politically and
culturally suspicious to the police (Kleinknecht and Sturm, 2004; Kniesel and
Behrendes, 1996: 299 ff.) — started a tradition that is still applicable to today’ s per -
ception of demonstrations by the police. The normativ e point of reference of the un -
derlying attributions of legitimacy is the “normal citizen” , who does not need to be
defined due to its implicitness and naturalness. The frequency of phrases using the
w ord “normal” and other , synonymous concepts such as “the general population”
underlines the constitutiv e implicitness of these norm orientations.
“NORMAL CITIZENS” VERSUS “ROWDIES” 27
SOCIOLOGIA, PROBLEMAS E PRÁTICAS, n.º 92, 2020, pp. 9-36. DOI:10.7458/SPP20209214197
26 Findings indicate that police are guided by mainstream attributions of legitimacy (della P orta,
1998; D. W addington, 2007: 30 ff.; W inter , 1997).
27 It can be assumed that the distinction between unpleasant groups of fans (often called “would-be
fans”) and the police ideal of a happy family represents a similar structure.

The protester as an enemy image?
The presented findings from the field of protest policing again illustrate a tru -
ism of organisational sociology: the belief that the police be a neutral actor with -
out own interests and be driven by justice and law may be common in the police
legitimising rhetoric, but proves to be a fiction, although a necessary fiction due
to the legal regulations and the bureaucratic structure of the police. In order to
fully understand police practice, much more than the law has to be taken into
account. On the occasion of demonstrations, especially those in which the po -
lice play a more activ e role than merely redirecting the traffic in the back -
ground, they can take on the role of a conflicting party . It is as this conflicting
party that the police are often times perceiv ed by the protesters and comes face
to face with them. This role, how ever , is not exerted as a mere substitute for the
actual opponent, but as a normativ e actor in its own right, as a moral enterprise
at the service of their v ersion of order .
The summary of the findings rev eals v arious factors which contribute to a
negativ e perspective on protesters or groups of protesters. All in all, they can be un-
derstood as knowledge-related and attitude-oriented dimensions within a risk
constellation (Backes, Dollase and Heitmey er , 1998). The individual elements can
take effect independently or amplify each other . It goes without saying that they do
not paint a profound picture of all existing perspectiv es as not all dimensions may
be equally pronounced for all police officers or police units at any giv en time. The
hegemonic pattern is nonetheless consolidated by the fact that the concerned en-
emy images and stereotypes remained largely uncontested in the discussion, ev en
if they w ere not promoted by all discussants, and because they are stabilised by the
police organisational structure and culture.
The views that riot police officers hav e of demonstrations are influenced
by a lack of knowledge regarding social mov ements, schematic perceptions of
protesters and by a hegemonic and intuitiv e social distance that is rooted in the
v alues of the police as an organisation and the attitudes of its members. Affir -
mativ e references to protest(er)s are rare. At best, the right of assembly is for -
mally appreciated, ev en if only for a part of the demonstrations. The notorious
assessment formulated by external as w ell as police-internal reformers over the
past decades that protest policing is determined by clichés of protesters, some -
times explicit antagonism, a lack of understanding for protesters and partly rig -
orous legalism along the lines of raison d’ état, still holds true. This may no
longer be true for the entire police, and probably to a lesser degree (further re -
search may w ant to quantify this), how ever , the basic findings of previous re -
search can be reconfirmed. 28
28 P eter Ullrich
SOCIOLOGIA, PROBLEMAS E PRÁTICAS, n.º 92, 2020, pp. 9-36. DOI:10.7458/SPP20209214197
28 A different approach aiming at a typology of (different) police officers (instead of the risk con -
stellations carried out here) with regards to their attitudes tow ards demonstrations would have
to include at least three ideal types: (a) the statist type , who sees demonstrations primarily as a
threat to public order and to the police risk community (especially prev alent among “street
cops”); (b) the pragmatic type , who accepts the right of assembly at least on a formal, abstract

The dominant system of categorisation is based on the distinction betw een
peaceful and nonpeaceful (Kniesel and Behrendes, 1996: 303). This distinction makes it
possible for the police to process the complexity of reality by transferring the latter into
the juridical framework of interpretation pertaining to the organisation and by linking
it to courses of action. 29 Normativ e distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate
protesters, which are partly assessments of political opinions, outer appearances or
clichés related to someone’ s lifestyle, are equally forced into this bipolar juridical
scheme. The results of acting out sociological discretion are hence transformed into a
juridical entity . This does not mean that today’ s police work according to the authori -
tarianism of the 1950s and 1960s; certain tendencies of liberalisation and democratisa -
tion are at w ork in protest policing, not least because of the academisation of police
training or the processing of ground-breaking court decisions such as the Brokdorf
“NORMAL CITIZENS” VERSUS “ROWDIES” 29
Lack of knowledge about
social movements
Bipolar categorisations
Depoliticisation of protest
Lack of own experience
with protest
Demonstrations as a
nuisance or burden
Cultural distance
Enemy image of
the protester
Instituional framework: law – organisation – police culture/
orientation towards hegemonic values – function to guard “ order ”
Factors working in
opposite direction
. (Higher) Education
. S pecial fields
(College/Research,
communication teams,
lateral entrants)
. Critical perspective
on the police
. Political interest and
commitment
Figure 4 Dimensions of the risk constellations contributing to the police enemy image of the protester
SOCIOLOGIA, PROBLEMAS E PRÁTICAS, n.º 92, 2020, pp. 9-36. DOI:10.7458/SPP20209214197
level as a valuable good without emphatically appreciating it (this is found primarily among of -
ficers of higher rank or with a background of higher education, the “management cops”); and fi -
nally (c) the critical type , situated outside of the hegemonic police culture, who shows political
commitment and words criticism with regards to their own organisation (primarily police offi -
cers with higher education, often times lateral entrants or working in special fields such as train -
ing or communicative teams, etc.). Refer to Reuss-Ianni (1993) for a distinction between “street
cops” and “management cops”.
29 Cf. P olice Service Provision 100: “The consequent separation of individuals willing to resort to vi -
olence from demonstration participants is imperative” (Bundesministerium des Innern, 2004: 81).

resolution. The findings show, however, that these tendencies do not apply to all pro -
test groups in equal measure.
Actors who are perceiv ed as a minoritarian or as antagonistic with regards to
their claims, ideology or action repertoires — and ev en more so if their causes are
interpreted as hostile to the state or the public order or if they are the reason for an
additional w orkload — sometimes face extremely negative expectations, which
prov e themselves time and again in the context of the conflict anyw ay . The norma -
tiv e basis on which such actors are denied legitimacy by far exceeds what can be
justified with their criminal offences and is guided by the ideal of the “normal citi -
zen” . In the context of the theory of democracy , the latter is particularly revealing,
firstly because of its extremely vague counterpart (the “abnormal citizen” ?), and sec -
ondly because it points out the existence of a zone of the illegitimate (the “abnor -
mal”) in the police view , which is not at all substantiated in the law .
These police perceptions, how ever , are an orientation framew ork for planning
processes that can induce actions (cf. especially Eggert et al., 2016) but are not equal
to the actual practice, which, in turn, is determined also by further , e.g. contextual or
situational aspects (Malthaner , 2017; Malthaner , T eune and Ullrich, 2018; Nassauer ,
2016; Ullrich, T eune and Knopp, 2018). Y et, if the described explicit or implicit classi-
fications of protesters as deviant, radical or dangerous (on the lev el of organisation
and operational planning as w ell as in the interaction between police officers and
protesters) take effect, they may hav e consequences for the people concerned. The
latter may hav e to expect selective ov erpolicing and hostile treatment irrespectiv e of
their concrete actions, meaning that their protests are not treated from the “en-
abling” perspectiv e of the German right of assembly but rather , from a preventativ e
and repressiv e perspectiv e of criminal and police law . W ith regards to the normativ e
foundations of this classification, a combination of organisational provisions (the
law , guidelines, and operational concepts), common values and attitudes of the po-
lice officers (cop culture 30 ) and actual protest experience can be assumed.
From a theory of democracy perspectiv e, a constitutive tension betw een police
categorisations and fundamental rights (freedom of assembly , equality before the
law) can be detected. This tension becomes particularly evident in the issue of cate -
gories of threat converging with (sub)cultural norms and political classifications. An
additional problem may arise from the fact that — according to many interview ees
— there is no practice-oriented distinction betw een football policing and protest po -
licing, while the practices of one field are transferred to the other , more legally pro -
tected field of political assemblies and demonstrations through courses of action.
In conclusion, all of this must not be misunderstood as an organisational or
pedagogical problem of deficient police training. It w ould certainly be good to
hear if future police officers w ere familiarised more thoroughly with the colour -
ful world of alternative culture, dissidence and social movements. The right of as -
sembly as a common good could also take centre stage in the context of police
30 P eter Ullrich
SOCIOLOGIA, PROBLEMAS E PRÁTICAS, n.º 92, 2020, pp. 9-36. DOI:10.7458/SPP20209214197
30 Loftus (2010) has pointed to the persistence of central aspects of cop occupational culture de -
spite the passing of several decades since the establishment of the concept.

training and police-internal communication; and of course, the potential for con -
flict could be minimised by consistently respecting demonstrations, through a
pragmatic style of police operations, de-escalation and improvements of the po -
lice working conditions. At least the factor of demonstrations as a nuisance or
burden could be relieved through better logistics 31 and a rejection of neo-liberal
concepts of new public management. More comprehensive training concepts, su -
pervision, and more time for operation post-processing 32 could equally minimise
conflict potential. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that this conflict, which
equally reveals itself on a cultural level here, is of a structural nature. If the hy -
potheses formulated in the present paper are true, the assumption that the police
on the one hand and transgressive protesters on the other attract types of people,
whose sole commonality is their great distance to each other, is not far-fetched.
These groups are often confronted with each other in real situations of conflict.
The actors on one side are characterised by disorder, a lack of hierarchy and struc -
ture as well as uproar against authority, while the other side is shaped by clear
hierarchies, authoritarianism and cultural homogeneity. The legitimatory ambi -
guities of criticism, protest and (non-violent) resistance cannot be easily trans -
ferred to legalistically structured “conditional programmes” (Willems et al. 1988:
22 ff.) of problem processing as they are used by the police. The afore-mentioned
problems can therefore not predominantly be considered a moral failure of the
police’s mission to protect the right of assembly for everyone but result to a large
part from the police’s function of keeping order, its organisational structure and
its participation in as well as the logic of conflict situations in protest.
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“NORMAL CITIZENS” VERSUS “ROWDIES” 35
SOCIOLOGIA, PROBLEMAS E PRÁTICAS, n.º 92, 2020, pp. 9-36. DOI:10.7458/SPP20209214197

Acknowledgements
My special thanks go to Clemens J. P oldrack, J. Künkel, D. Hunold, A. Nassauer
and K. Briken for their comments on an earlier draft; this w as published as a confe -
rence proceeding in German.
P eter Ullrich, Dr . phil. Dr . rer . med., co-head of research unit “Social Movements,
T echnology , Conflicts”, Center for T echnology and Society , T echnische Univ ersität,
Berlin, Germany . E-mail: [email protected]
Receção: 26 de março de 2018 Aprov ação: 1 de março de 2019
36 P eter Ullrich
SOCIOLOGIA, PROBLEMAS E PRÁTICAS, n.º 92, 2020, pp. 9-36. DOI:10.7458/SPP20209214197

Why organizations use Identific for document trust, entry 54

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