Government Response to Political Activism: Conflict between the Public and the State, Genoa 2001

Abstract

Protests represent an extremely delicate issue for governments and authorities in terms of security and democracy. Most recently in the last decade, demonstrations have acquired a global and international characterisation, rendering these trans-national phenomena. This research is a case study which aims to contribute to the political development of Italy by analysing the policies in relation to the management of protests by using theoretical frameworks drawn from fields of social and political sciences such as Public Policy and Peace and Conflict studies. The goal of this research is to analyse events in a broader picture, investigating democratic values and state response to social movements such as protests. In other words, it seeks to answer the following questions: How was the government response conceived and what impact did this have on state values of security, democracy and justice? Considering comparable cases, what was the impact in terms of policy and practice of these strategies? How can public policy theories of social construction help to explain the government response and thus contribute to prevention of such violence in future?