Tim Newburn (OLD 240a)

This course is available on the MSc in Criminal Justice Policy, MSc in Social Policy (European and Comparative Social Policy), MSc in Social Policy (Research), MSc in Social Policy (Social Policy and Planning) and Master of Laws. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

Some familiarity with sociology and/or criminology would be an advantage, but is not a formal prerequisite. Anyone unfamiliar with criminology can find a full introduction to the subject in: Newburn, T. (2012) Criminology, London: Routledge, 2nd Edition.

This course focuses on urban or collective violence, or what more colloquially tend to be referred to as 'riots'. The course will consider the various approaches that have been taken to this subject - via history, psychology and sociology - and, focusing on particular examples, the course will examine some of the core issues in the field including: the causes of riots; psychological versus sociological explanations; the role of race/ethnicity; the impact of traditional and new social media on the nature and organisation of rioting; the role and changing nature of the policing of urban disorder;  and how riots might be understood both historically and comparatively. 

15 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the LT.

There was strong and consistent feedback from students this year (the first year of the course) to increase the lecture time from 60 minutes to 90 minutes (in line with a number of other taught MSc modules in Social Policy). 

Students will be required to write and submit two pieces of formative coursework for assessment and peer feedback. The first will be an essay outline - in effect an outline of a answer to a potential examination question, including a full introductory paragraph. The second will be an outline of their intended case study. Both pieces of formative coursework will be shared via Moodle and all students will be encouraged to offer constructive feedback to each other as well, of course, as receiving feedback from the course director. Peer feedback will be utilised as a means of encouraging a degree of group work and collective endeavour among course participants.

Baldassare, M. (1995) The Los Angeles Riots: Lessons for the Urban Future, Boulder: CO

Bergenson, A. and Herman, M. (1998) Immigration, race and riot: The 1992 Los Angeles uprising, American Sociological Review, 63, 1, 39-54

Body-Gendrot, S. and Savitch, H.V. (2012) Urban violence in the United States and France: comparing Los Angeles (1992) and Paris (2005), in John, P., Mossberger, K. and Clarke, S.E. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Urban Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Katz, M.B. (2008) Why don’t American cities burn very often? Journal of Urban History, 34, 2, 185-208

Moran, M. and Waddington, D. (2016) Riots: An International Comparison, Palgrave: Macmillan

Newburn, T. (2015) The 2011 English riots in recent historical perspective, British Journal of Criminology, 55, 1, 375-392

Reicher, S. (1996) The Crowd century: Reconciling practical success with theoretical failure, British Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 535-53

Tilly, C. (2003) The Politics of Collective Violence, New York: Cambridge University Press

Thompson, E. P. (1971). The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century, Past & Present, 50, 76-136

Wacquant, L. (2007) Urban Outcasts: A comparative sociology of urban marginality, Cambridge: Polity Press

Further reading:

Abu-Lughod, J.L. (2007) Race, Space and Riots in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, New York: Oxford University Press

Body-Gendrot, S. (2013) Urban violence in France and England: comparing Paris (2005) and London (2011), Policing and Society, 23, 1, 6-25

della Porta, D. (1995) Social Movements, Political Violence and the State, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Gilje, P.A. 1996) Rioting in America, Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Mason, P. (2013) Why It’s Still Kicking Off Everywhere, London: Verso

Newburn, T., Cooper, K., Deacon, R. and Diski, R. (2015) ‘Shopping for Free’? Looting, consumerism and the 2011 riots, British Journal of Criminology, 55 (5): 987-1004

Reicher, S. (1996) ‘The Battle of Westminster’: developing the social identity model of crowd behaviour in order to explain the initiation and development of collective conflict, European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 115-134

Scarman, Lord Justice (1982) The Brixton Disorders, Harmondsworth: Penguin

Waddington, D., Jones, K. and Critcher, C. (1989) Flashpoints: Studies in Public Disorder, London: Routledge

Waddington, D. and King, M. (2005) The disorderly crowd: From classical psychological reductionism to socio-contextual theory – The impact on public order policing strategies, Howard Journal, 44, 5, 490-503

Exam (50%, duration: 2 hours, reading time: 15 minutes) in the main exam period.
Coursework (40%) and presentation (10%).

The coursework (40%) will comprise a single summative essay offering an analytical case study of a modern riot and the presentation (10%) will comprise a poster presentation at an end of term mini academic conference.