New Approach in Maintaining the Order During Political Assemblies — Can the Police Rely on Communication and Dialogue as Strategic and Tactical Tools?

Abstract

Several European police organizations have realized that the traditional way of public assembly management and the old strategies and tactics of riot control are obsolete. Crowd control operations cannot be purely based on coercive power. The police as one of the defenders of the rights to freedom of assembly and speech had to look for new methods to achieve their aims. Nowadays new police strategies and tactics based on communication, dialogue, and facilitation supported by the results of social sciences have become widespread all over the European Union.