The policing of the anti-poll tax campaign allows an insight into how
protest is incorporated. Protestors were both accommodated and coerced
as police sought to balance various threats of 'trouble'. Concessions
and overt assistance were offered as a means of 'winning over' the pr
otest organizers, whilst legal conditions were imposed to ensure that
any threat of disorder was contained. This analysis suggests that noti
ons of an ubridled shift towards a more confrontational style of polic
ing in the wake of the Public Order Act are unfounded. It illustrates
the relationship between institutional and interactional social proces
ses, for institutional considerations limit the police's room for mano
euvre, whilst low-level decisions by police officers themselves have i
mplications for those institutions.