Managed Dissent
The Law of Public Protest

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the wide-ranging body of law that applies to public protest activity.

Timothy Zick (Author)

9781316519561, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 May 2023

300 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.2 cm, 0.61 kg

'Tim Zick has produced the definitive account of the law of public protest. While he offers an impassioned defense of public protest, Zick also warns of the many forces aligned against it. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in how governments manage dissent and how we can preserve our long tradition of public protest.' Nadine Strossen, National President (1991–2008), ACLU

The mass street demonstrations that followed the 2020 police murder of George Floyd were perhaps the largest in American history. These events confirmed that even in a digital era, people rely on public dissent to communicate grievances, change public discourse, and stand in collective solidarity with others. However, the demonstrations also showed that the laws surrounding public protest make public contention more dangerous, more costly, and less effective. Police fired tear gas into peaceful crowds, used physical force against compliant demonstrators, imposed broad curfews, limited the places where protesters could assemble, and abused 'unlawful assembly' and other public disorder laws. These and other pathologies epitomize a system in which public protest is tightly constrained in the name of public order. Managed Dissent argues that in order to preserve the venerable tradition of public protest in the US, we must reform several aspects of the law of public protest.

1. Protest, dissent, and democracy
2. The managerial system
3. Displacing dissent
4. The rising costs of dissent
5. Managing campus protest
6. Arming public protests
7. Protest and emergency powers
8. Protesters' remedies
9. Preserving public protest.

Subject Areas: International law [LB]