Project information
Project manager
Johan Rosquist
Other project members
Helena Ekelund, Martin Bergqvist
Participating organizations
Linnaeus University
Timetable
The project will undergo an ethical review application during the summer of 2024; planned project start January 2025
Subject
Criminology, police work (Department of Criminology and Police Work, Faculty of Social Sciences)
Political science (Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences)
More about the project
The purpose of the Policing Democracy (Poldem) research project is to develop theory-based understandings of how democratic values are learned in public institutions, using changes in the Swedish Police Authority’s protest policing strategies as an empirical example. The aim is to deepen the understanding of how the Swedish Police Authority learns about, re-questions and sustains its role in the maintenance of democratic values before, during and in between politically motivated public gatherings.
The aim attaches to a knowledge gap concerning how the Swedish Police Authority understands and performs its democratic mission with regard to rule of law; individual and group rights; freedom of expression and representation; and communication with the surrounding society briefly before and during public manifestations (what we call short-term learning). In addition, knowledge is lacking with regard to how the Swedish Police Authority learns about its democratic role over time with regard to questions concerning the policing of public gatherings and crisis management (what we call long-term learning).
The project is time framed between 2021 and 2026, with an initial focus on the Easter 2022 riots, their preludes and their aftermath, continuing with studies of projected public gatherings of a similar kind up to and including the Swedish election campaign of 2026.
The project is part of the research in the Centre for Police Research and Development research group and the Linnaeus Knowledge Environment A Questioned Democracy.
Staff
