From Management to Control: Protest Policing and Democratic Erosion in Portugal and Spain (2000–2020)

This paper investigates protest policing across Portugal and Spain between 2000 and 2020, positioning both the practices and discourses of protest control as central to understanding contemporary democratic trajectories in the Iberian Peninsula. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines Protest Event Analysis with Critical Discourse Analysis, the study uncovers patterns of escalation in police tactics, especially in relation to the erosion of the negotiated management model and the discursive legitimisation of coercion. In so doing, it situates Iberian developments within the broader global trend toward the securitisation of protest, even under formally democratic regimes. Quantitative data from a protest events dataset (~8000 cases) reveals divergent but converging trends. Spain has long featured high levels of protest policing, with frequent deployment of riot units and, at times, military forces. Portugal, by contrast, aligned more consistently with a negotiated management model – until a significant shift marked by heightened police presence and increased reliance on coercive and information-based tactics. Notably, in neither country does police intervention appear linked to the reported illegality or repertoire of protest events. A key finding is the disproportionate targeting of youth-led protest, even when conventional protest repertoires are used. Lacking institutional access and social capital, young actors face intensifying police tactics revealing how protester identity – not just action – shapes the state’s coercive response. The CDA reveals how these shifts are normalised through discourse. In Spain, protest policing is broadly legitimised across political and media narratives, often framed as necessary to protect democracy (conversely framing protest as threatening to democracy). In Portugal, discursive contestation was initially present but eroded in recent years. Police forces actively participate in copaganda practices to frame coercive policing not as democratic rupture but as responsible governance. In both countries, then, protest policing functions not only as a set of practices but as a discursive boundary-drawing mechanism – demarcating legitimate from illegitimate citizens and shrinking the space for dissent. These shifts occur alongside the rising electoral presence of far-right parties in both countries who have explicitly endorsed intensified protest control and aligned themselves with police interests. These developments are analysed in light of the countries' distinct but resonant authoritarian legacies. Portugal’s 1974 Carnation Revolution and Spain’s negotiated transition left different institutional and cultural imprints on public security forces, civic mobilisation and the boundaries of acceptable dissent. Yet both cases reflect how unresolved or reactivated authoritarian repertoires to shape democratic governance. These dynamics resonate with patterns across Latin America, where post-authoritarian regimes confront similar legacies. By analysing protest policing as both a set of practices and a mode of meaning-making, this paper contributes to broader debates on democratic erosion, authoritarian drift and the situated nature of militarisation. It argues that protest policing in Iberia is emblematic of how democratic regimes can reproduce authoritarian logics – not by breaking from democracy, but by redefining its limits.