Regulating Resistance: The ideological control of the protests in Gothenburg 2001

Abstract: This C-paper is a study of state practices around the anti-EU demonstrations in Gothenburg 2001. Based on Louis Althusser's recognition of repressive and ideological state apparatuses, I look at how a democratic state tries to control the political message of a demonstration, by relying on its force and ideology. My argument is that the state controls protests by locating them within a "space of sanctioned resistance." Being defined by state practices and discourse, this space becomes a part of the state system and can because of that never oppose it. This strategy of inclusion is in other words a way for the state to locate resistance under its own umbrella, thereby silenting it to become nothing but a pseudo-affirmation of the freedom of expression within the democratic state system.