Exploring the dynamics of identity, procedural justice and police legitimacy in the context of anti-war demonstrations in the UK

This study explores the role of social identity and group-level processes in shaping public perceptions of police legitimacy and procedural justice during anti-war demonstrations in the United Kingdom. Building on procedural justice theory and extending the findings of Radburn and colleagues, we conducted two studies to examine how social context and identification with protestors influenced evaluations of protest policing. Study 1 investigates the impact of prior attitudes towards the Israel–Palestine conflict on perceptions of procedural fairness, identification with police and legitimacy. Results show that participants who viewed a video of the policing of protests over the war in Gaza who identified with pro-Palestine protestors viewed the police as less procedurally fair and legitimate than with neutral or pro-Israel attitudes. These findings affirm the importance of social identity in shaping vicarious experiences of policing. Study 2 extended this analysis by examining how the perceived operational independence of the police influenced these relationships. We found that perceptions of police independence moderated the effect of protestor identification on evaluations of procedural justice, police legitimacy and identification with police. This research highlights that police legitimacy is a dynamic and contextually embedded social psychological process. By demonstrating how social identity, vicarious experience and perceptions of police–government relations shape public evaluations of policing, the study underscores the importance of maintaining operational independence and engaging with group-level dynamics to foster legitimacy and trust in diverse democratic societies.