Dangelmaier2026
| Dangelmaier2026 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Dangelmaier2026 |
| Author(s) | Tamara Dangelmaier |
| Title | Doing discretion – authority, ambiguity and control in German traffic stops |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Police, Traffic Stops, Germany, Discretion |
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| Year | 2026 |
| Language | English |
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| Journal | Policing and Society |
| Volume | 36 |
| Number | 1 |
| Pages | 106-121 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1080/10439463.2025.2519283 |
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Abstract
This article explores how police discretion is enacted, constrained, and withheld during routine traffic stops in Germany. While traffic stops appear mundane, they are key sites of police intervention where authority is negotiated, suspicion constructed, and legal procedures strategically mobilised. Rather than treating discretion as a static legal margin, this study conceptualises it as a situational and procedural practice embedded in institutional routines, cultural typifications, and interactional dynamics. The analysis draws on ethnographic fieldwork with urban patrol units and uses trans-sequential analysis to examine how police actions unfold in situ. This method allows for a detailed reconstruction of how officers identify enforcement and reference problems, initiate diagnostic sequences, and manage uncertainty through case work. Particular attention is paid to how discretion is exercised within the step-by-step construction of a ‘proper police case’. Three key patterns emerge: (1) discretion as a tool for negotiated order, where officers pragmatically align with compliant behaviour; (2) discretion under resource constraints, where fallback routines are used to resolve ambiguity; (3) the non-use of discretion, where rigid authority is enacted in response to defiance or typified deviance. The findings show that discretion is not a space of freedom, but a methodical intervention that enables officers to construct coherence under institutional and situational constraints. Discretion contributes to the reproduction of order – but also to the reproduction of inequality – when it is guided by typifications, vague legal categories, and unequal access to interpretive agency. The study highlights the need for greater transparency and reflexivity in routine policing.
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