I-CSI CONFERENCE: “Police Actions and Citizen Mobilization in Democratic Societies”

The power to police the citizenry has been a central feature of state development, of definitions of citizenship, of group boundary making, and of exercise of state authority. The police have also been the objects of political contestation and political agency by citizens and engage in projects of aiding, surveilling, managing, and disciplining the citizenry. Yet, theories of police behavior and collective action have been slow to develop. Ferguson, Tahrir Square, and Gezi Park, have brought this neglect into stark relief. This conference considers the police as central political actors in the governance of modern states. Given that police play pivotal roles in the operation of state power, government, citizenship, and politics, what tools, concepts, and analytical frameworks can political science offer to better understand these dynamics?

The conference will feature a series of workshops in which scholars will present their work-in-progress organized around the following themes:

- Theorizing the Police as Political Actors
- Police Repression: Targets and Tactics
- Popular Responses to Police Actions: Protest
- Popular Responses to Police Actions: Beyond Protest
- What are the Broader Political Effects of Police-Motivated Movements?

This conference is being sponsored by the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies, the Yale Center for the Study of American Politics, the Yale Law School Justice Collaboratory, and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale.