Transforming Activisms 2010+: Exploring Ways and Waves (original) (raw)
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2018
This Section aims to bring together panels around current issues in the study of political participation and social movements. Scholars of democratic theory, participation, social movement mobilization and political parties have pointed to the fact that understandings and expectations of the (political) engagement of citizens are constantly evolving. As a consequence, pathways of critique and opposition to power assume new forms: movements and protests emerge and develop differently than they have in the past. The contemporary rise of right-wing populism as well as shifting movement landscapes and repertoires of political participation bear witness to these moving grounds. This ever-changing landscape of citizen participation demands ongoing research into who becomes active, why, how and to what effect. At the same time, citizen engagement is also hotly debated from various normative standpoints. Many theories of democracy consider citizen engagement to be the solution to multiple crises of democratic legitimation or efficiency. Others see it as a cause for democratic inequality, and point out that it can lead to decreasing democratic problem-solving capacities when the expectation of (direct) democratic influence by the people or social movement organizations make decision-making slow and consensus unlikely. With this section we want to take a closer look at topics that enable to better understand citizen's shifting demands for, and patterns of, participation, and how social movement organizations and other actors, including governments, media, and companies respond to these demands. We call for panels, which speak to both, the more established core interests in the study of political participation and social movements as well as the more recent or emerging areas of academic enquiry. In line with the scope of the standing group on participation and mobilization, this section particularly aims at bringing the literature on political participation and social movements closer together.
2017
Civil society around the world is in flux. New forms of civic activism have taken shape, ranging from protest movements to community-level forums and online campaigns by individual activists.This analysis charts how civic activism is evolving across eight countries:* Brazil* Egypt* India* Kenya* Thailand* Tunisia* Turkey* Ukraine.These case studies reveal crosscutting themes relevant to the future of civil society support:* While there is a global wave of new protests and innovative citizen movements, many civic struggles are increasingly rooted in specific national issues.* New and older forms of civic activism coexist and intertwine in a variety of ways.* Some new activism is highly political and confrontational; some is very practical and pragmatic about trying to circumvent the shortcomings of mainstream politics.* New civic activism includes groups espousing an increasingly wide range of ideological positions.* While the new activism has been effective on some specific issues, ...
https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/european-government-politics-and-policy/street-citizens-protest-politics-and-social-movement-activism-age-globalization What is protest politics and social movement activism today? What are their main features? To what extent can street citizens be seen as a force driving social and political change? Through analyses of original survey data on activists themselves, Marco Giugni and Maria Grasso explain the character of contemporary protest politics that we see today; the diverse motivations, social characteristics, values and networks that draw activists to engage politically to tackle the pressing social problems of our time. The study analyzes left-wing protest culture as well as the characteristics of protest politics, from the motivations of street citizens to how they become engaged in demonstrations to the causes they defend and the issues they promote, from their mobilizing structures to their political attitudes and values, as well as other key aspects such as their sense of identity within social movements, their perceived effectiveness, and the role of emotions for protest participation. Advance praise: 'Using a rich database, which covers protesters marching on different issues, in several years, in various countries, Marco Giugni and Maria Grasso illuminate the paths of (contentious) participation by Europeans, the social bases for the protest, the interaction between protest and institutional politics, the micro-dynamics of mobilization, the emotional dimension of protests and demonstrators’ motivations.' Donatella della Porta, Director of the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos) and Dean of the Institute for Humanities, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa Advance praise: 'In this unprecedented book, Giugni and Grasso give us the most comprehensive, comparative study of protest participation produced to date. Drawing on surveys from some 15,000 individuals involved in seventy-two protests in seven countries, the authors paint a rich portrait of the similarities and differences in the characteristics and motivations of those who protest in different movements and in varying national contexts. A must read for all social movement scholars.' Doug McAdam, co-author of Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America
Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, 2013
The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed an upsurge in mobilization and collective action by a wide range of activists and groups engaging in social and political protest, all over the world, which continues to this day. New media are not only greatly facilitating the ways in which activists communicate and protest, but are also altering the relation of the movements to territorial boundaries and localities. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines have tended to focus on questions about the internet’s role in protest, without attempting to answer the changing meaning of what it means to be a citizen within such movements and through their practices. This article responds to this need by developing an analytical framework for studying the connection between citizenship and ICT-mediated social movements, drawing on existing scholarship on social movements, citizenship and ICTs. Specifically, using citizenship studies as a starting point, it brings together elements that ar...
2013 From the Street and Squares to Social Movement Studies. What have we learned?
In the editors’ introduction they noted how the various mobilizations starting in 2011 raised important questions for social movement scholars. The various articles in this issue have explored the emergence, dynamics, and significance of the social mobilizations, contestations, and confrontations that started with the Arab Spring mobilizations and continue to this day. This concluding article is focused on three main aspects that emerge from the editors’ dialogue with the different contributions. The first is the context, beginning with a political-economic account of neoliberalism, the various crises of legitimacy that it has fostered over the last three decades, and the role of new media (ICTs) in engendering these mobilizations, their coordination, and globalization. The second aspect focuses on some of the characteristics of this cycle of contention, mostly the actors and their networks, identities and the new practices of occupying public space. The third and last part represents an attempt to evaluate the general trajectory of these mobilizations over the last two years.
Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA-PGN
""The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed an upsurge in mobilization and collective action by a wide range of activists and groups engaging in social and political protest, all over the world, which continues to this day. New media are not only greatly facilitating the ways in which activists communicate and protest, but are also altering the relation of the movements to territorial boundaries and localities. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines have tended to focus on questions about the internet’s role in protest, without attempting to answer the changing meaning of what it means to be a citizen within such movements and through their practices. This article responds to this need by developing an analytical framework for studying the connection between citizenship and ICT-mediated social movements, drawing on existing scholarship on social movements, citizenship and ICTs. Specifically, using citizenship studies as a starting point, it brings together elements that are necessary for a two-level analysis: a) the tangible aspects that are seen as the concrete practices of movements and their participants and b) the ideational aspects that are seen as the abstract practices of movements and their participants. This provides a theoretical structure that facilitates connections between different disciplines that might otherwise be difficult to discern, so that the construction of citizenship can be studied on an interdisciplinary basis.""
The new cycle of global protests and progressive politics: a review of two approaches
European Political Science, 2018
In the last few years, the political establishment has been taken by surprise by a ‘tsunami’ of mass demonstrations. The consensus is that this phenomenon started in Tunisia in late 2010 after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, and spread like a virus throughout the world, sparking uncountable effects in contemporary politics. This new cycle of protests brought to the forefront a new protest culture that has affected not only radical politics, but also the way we comprehend them. As scholars, it forces us ask ourselves how to understand such phenomena, the actors involved, the practices and ideas enacted, as well as the role of digital media. The new works by Paolo Gerbaudo (The Mask and the Flag: Populism, Citizenism and Global Protest) and by Natalie Fenton (Digital, Political, Radical) aim to address these important problems and to understand the significance of these events.