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ABSTRACT
Technological change has brought a new dimension to the interaction between civic protest and policing in post-Soviet societies. Social media has had a revolutionary impact on protests during the last decade, mobilising citizens to resist state corruption and despotism, notably in states like Armenia, the Republic of Moldova and Belarus. Enhanced surveillance techniques and new communication channels have, at the same time, changed policing techniques and the modes of interaction between citizens and the police. This article examines the dynamics of transformed protest and policing practices, particularly of public order police, in the context of digitisation and social/political protest and change. It sheds light on the transformation of citizen-police relations and, ultimately, on the repercussions this has on the respective polities. The principal findings of the paper reveal that digital technology has been an important element in the evolution of practices of policing and police reform across the region. Yet, it is only one aspect of many in the somewhat divergent development of citizen-police relations. So far, it has produced rather negative effects instead of having been conducive to the mentality and ethos of the police. The disconnect between people and the police remains large in societies across the region.
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Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 In contrast to the pertinent literature (see e.g. Roché and Oberwittler Citation2017), this contribution deliberately chooses to speak of ‘citizen-police relations’, as opposed to ‘police-citizen relations’, starting from the premise that, especially in authoritarian contexts, it is the citizen’s perception that defines the relationship.
2 Protest or public order policing refers to the ways in which the police handles protest events. While activists consider it a form of repression, state authorities usually see it as a means to guarantee law and order (Della Porta and Reiter Citation1998, p. 1).
3 European Commission, The EU provides €36.4 million to tackle COVID-19 and support police reform in the Republic of Moldova, 28 September 2021, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_21_4923 (accessed 4 July 2022); European Commission, Informal Home Affairs Council: EU launches the Support Hub for Internal Security and Border Management in Moldova, 11 July 2022, https://ec.europa.eu/ commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_4462 (accessed 15 December 2022).
4 Documents that have been analysed concerned mainly the police and security sector reforms in the respective country cases, online sources drew primarily on media reports about current developments that have not found entry into the relevant literature yet, and the opinion poll data covers in particular national surveys on trust in and assessments of the performance of law enforcement entities. The 17 interviews, quoted in this paper, representa cross section of the larger sample of 65 interviews. They explicitly cover the topics digitisation, social media and surveillance.
5 Beyond that, the three countries have in common that they have all been part of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership Programme since 2009 (although Belarus abandoned it in June 2021).
6 Police of the Republic of Armenia, Police History: https://www.police.am/en/about/history.html (accessed 16 December 2022).
7 Nikol Pashinyan, former opposition leader and MP, came to power in 2018 as a result of the so-called ‘Velvet Revolution’ and a democratic election confirming it. He has been governing the country since then, but lost much momentum and support in the course of the 2020 44-Day War between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh.
8 Final findings of Promo-LEX Association on the implementation of Police Reform, The European Union for the Republic of Moldova, 12 January 2021, https://eu4moldova.eu/final-findings-of-promo-lex-association-on-the-implementation-of-police-reform/ (assessed 16 December 2022).
9 European Commission/High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Association Implementation Report on the Republic of Moldova, 13 October 2021, https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/ files/swd_2021_295_f1_joint_staff_working_paper_en_v2_p1_1535649.pdf (assessed 16 December 2022).
10 OSCE together with international partners supports project on police reform in Armenia, 26 January 2022, https://www.osce.org/secretariat/510704 (accessed 16 December 2022).
11 In Armenia, the so-called red berets, or Special Interior Forces of Armenia, have taken on a role comparable to the Soviet-era OMON special forces. They are responsible for crowd control and act as riot police during mass protests. Public order in Moldova continues to be maintained through a dual system of police special forces and carabineri. Carabineri are a paramilitary gendarmerie-type force, tasked with ensuring public order and protecting state buildings (Ostaf Citation2009, p. 12). Public order police officers belong either to the public order sections of the district police commissariats, the General Police Inspectorate, or the patrolling and sentinel unit Scut. In exceptional situations, public order is maintained by Fulger units – police special forces battalions – assisted by carabineri. The Belarusian OMON units act as the country’s riot police, at times supported by Interior Ministry troops and operating under the Ministry’s supervision. They gained notoriety for their indiscriminate brutality during the crackdown on post-electoral protests in 2020.
12 In 2009, civil unrest broke out after the parliamentary election and four people died as result of the turmoil and violent clashes between the police and demonstrators. These anti-governments protests, where many protesters had mobilised and organised themselves on Twitter, were later dubbed the ‘Twitter revolution’.
13 These channels function through built-in blocking-bypass mechanisms and additional proxy servers.
14 ‘Nexta now’ has more than 2.5 million subscribers; for more information, see Hurska (Citation2020).
15 ‘Occupy Guguţa’ is a grassroots movement that emerged in 2018, at the time with the purpose of occupying a Soviet-era children’s café in one of Chișinău’s central parks to prevent the demolition of the building. The property has since been bought by an investor who plans to erect a new business centre there. The group became increasingly politicised and got involved in the protests against Moldova’s oligarchic structures.
16 The decree was supposed to prevent so-called social parasitism, but effectively sanctioned the unemployed.
17 Belarusian Cyber Partisans Declared War on Lukashenka's Regime, Charter 97, 16 September 2020, https://charter97.org/en/news/2020/9/16/393340/ (accessed 16 December 2022).
18 While the police has to strike a balance between maintaining public order and respecting fundamental liberties, civic activists face the challenge of acting in a commensurate way, by maintaining their democratic right to monitor state institutions and, at the same time, respecting the personal rights of police officers.
19 See, for example, public opinion polls by the International Republican Institute and the Caucasus Barometer.
20 Mass protests were held in the wake of the Armenian presidential election in March 2008. Supporters of the unsuccessful presidential candidate and first president of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, protested against allegedly fraudulent election results. Thousands of demonstrators mobilised in Yerevan’s Freedom Square, and after nine days of peaceful protests, on 1 March, the national police dispersed the protesters. Ten people were killed.