Temporal conflict and challenging the police

Abstract

This paper builds on research that shows that differences in the temporal properties of organisations can lead to temporal conflict, posing a barrier to collaboration. It considers how temporal diversity might shape political contention by examining how different temporal properties of New York and Toronto police and protesters manifest in their interactions. Vignettes of three protest events in Toronto and New York City in 2020–21 are constructed from fieldnotes, government planning and police oversight documents and media coverage. These illustrate how police and protesters understand protest events differently and how these collective actors strategically alter the temporal properties of their tactics (pace and duration) and their narratives (temporal orientation and temporal horizon) in order to gain leverage over their opponents. The temporal conflict that ensues varies in intensity, and shapes the sequence, emotional tone and outcome of these events. This shows how differences in temporal properties shape contention; how these properties can be used strategically to gain leverage and suggests that analyses of temporal conflict should be incorporated into research on contentious politics and studies of strategic interaction.