Call for participants: RAN POL meeting - The challenges of anti-authorities extremism for police

On behalf of the RAN POL chairs Marzena Kordaczuk-Wąs and Luc Van Der Taelen, we are currently looking for suitable participants from national police forces who

• have experience with anti-authorities extremism (AAX) or radicalised protest and can discuss cases from their countries.

Background and aim of this meeting

The topic of the meeting is police dealing with new, hybrid forms of anti-authorities extremism (AAX) and radicalised protests. Police forces are operating in turbulent times with violent AAX, officers being doxed and conspiracies undermining police authority. James Sheptycki (York University in Toronto, CA) predicted in 2020 that police will be tested during the Covid-period: ‘All the signs are, when it comes to the politics of policing and social order, that nothing will ever be the same’.

Police can have a positive or a negative impact on the radicalisation of protest movements. Police, being “the oppressing authority”, are also one of the prime targets of AAX. In the narrative of AAX, police and authorities are “the threat”.

AAX is a “wicked problem” for law enforcement. It is difficult to predict how it will evolve, and police interventions change the process and potential outcome, perhaps for this form of extremism even more than others.

Target audience

This a meeting for police officers with experience in dealing with AAX or radicalised protest; we are looking for officers who can discuss cases from their country.

Deadline and practicalities

If you match the target audience and think you can contribute to the discussion, please motivate your participation by sharing a relevant case and/or police P/CVE responses with an e-mail to Steven Lenos and Ceren Özkan. Preferably as soon as possible, ultimately before 03 June. 

Practicalities 

• RAN will arrange and pay for costs of travel, hotel and meals (during the meeting)
• As a rule, the meeting only allows one expert per EU Member State to attend in Copenhagen.
• The meeting will be held in English without translation. We expect the participants to be able to actively contribute to the discussion in English.
• We will follow the explicit Chatham House rules.