Dilemas políticos y de orden público: Alcaldías y fuerzas de seguridad en disturbios etnicistas

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of local authorities and police forces in the development of several cases of collective violence against stigmatised minorities, such as gypsies and immigrants, that have taken place in Spain during the last two decades. The research is based in ethnographical interviews and secondary sources. The several cases are analysed taking into account the sociological and historical literature that deal with inter-ethnical relations and State’s repression of collective protest. This research finds out that in this kind of events, police forces frequently misapply the basic modern principles of preventive action that they routinely use to deal with other kinds of collective protest. In order to explain the policing failures it is also necessary to analyse the community’s political structures. Local authorities belong to, an represent, the rebel local communities and do usually take a special part in the definition of grievances and the collective gatherings that precede collective violence, constraining local police forces action.