Protest Publics [electronic resource] : Toward a New Concept of Mass Civic Action /
Belyaeva, Nina.editor.
Albert, Victor.editor.
Zaytsev, Dmitry G.editor.
This book examines the waves of protest that broke out in the 2010s as the collective actions of self-organized publics. Drawing on theories of publics/counter-publics and developing an analytical framework that allows the comparison of different country cases, this volume explores the transformation from spontaneous demonstrations, driven by civic outrage against injustice to more institutionalized forms of protest. Presenting comparative research and case studies on e.g. the Portuguese Generation in Trouble, the Arab Spring in Northern Africa, or Occupy Wall Street in the USA, the authors explore how protest publics emerge and evolve in very different ways – from creating many small citizen groups focused on particular projects to more articulated political agendas for both state and society. These protest publics have provoked and legitimized concrete socio-political changes, altering the balance of power in specific political spaces, and in some cases generating profound moments of instability that can lead both to revolutions and to peaceful transformations of political institutions. The authors argue that this recent wave of protests is driven by a new type of social actor: self-organized publics. In some cases these protest publics can lead to democratic reform and redistributive policies, while in others they can produce destabilization, ethnic and nationalist populism, and authoritarianism. This book will help readers to better understand how seemingly spontaneous public events and protests evolve into meaningful, well-structured collective action and come to shape political processes in diverse regions of the globe.
Self-Organized Publics in Mass Protests: An Introduction -- PART I: Dimensions of Protest Publics in the Recent Wave of Unrest -- Exploring Protest Publics: A New Conceptual Frame for Civil Participation Analysis -- Shoulder to Shoulder against Fascism: Publics in Gezi Protests -- Emergent Protest Publics in India and Bangladesh: A Comparative Study of Anti-Corruption and Shahbag Protests -- The Grammar of Protest Publics in Skopje, Macedonia, May 2015 -- Retracing Public Protest in Portugal: A Generation in Trouble -- Justification in Protest Publics: The Homeless Workers’ Movement in Brazil’s Crisis -- So Strong, Yet So Weak: The Emergence of Protest Publics in Iceland in the Wake of the Financial Crisis -- Five Stars of Change: The Transformation of Italian Protest Publics into a Movement Party through Grillo’s Blog -- PART II: Protest Publics and Political Change in Different Political Regimes -- Cross-national Comparison of Protest Publics’ Roles as Drivers of Change: from Clusters to Models -- Protesters as the "Challengers of the Status-Quo" in Embedded Democracies: The Cases of Iceland, the United Kingdom and the United States -- Protest Publics as the “Watchdogs” of the Quality of Democracy in Global South -- Protest Publics as the Triggers of Political Changes in Hybrid Regimes: The Cases of Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt -- Protest Publics as Democratic Innovators in an Authoritarian Environment -- The Transforming Role of Protest Publics in Processes of Sociopolitical Change in the Global South and Southern Europe: From Occasional Challengers to Institutionalized Watchdogs -- Conclusion: The Common Features and Different Roles of Protest Publics in Political Contestation.
This book examines the waves of protest that broke out in the 2010s as the collective actions of self-organized publics. Drawing on theories of publics/counter-publics and developing an analytical framework that allows the comparison of different country cases, this volume explores the transformation from spontaneous demonstrations, driven by civic outrage against injustice to more institutionalized forms of protest. Presenting comparative research and case studies on e.g. the Portuguese Generation in Trouble, the Arab Spring in Northern Africa, or Occupy Wall Street in the USA, the authors explore how protest publics emerge and evolve in very different ways – from creating many small citizen groups focused on particular projects to more articulated political agendas for both state and society. These protest publics have provoked and legitimized concrete socio-political changes, altering the balance of power in specific political spaces, and in some cases generating profound moments of instability that can lead both to revolutions and to peaceful transformations of political institutions. The authors argue that this recent wave of protests is driven by a new type of social actor: self-organized publics. In some cases these protest publics can lead to democratic reform and redistributive policies, while in others they can produce destabilization, ethnic and nationalist populism, and authoritarianism. This book will help readers to better understand how seemingly spontaneous public events and protests evolve into meaningful, well-structured collective action and come to shape political processes in diverse regions of the globe.
Public policy.
Democracy.
Comparative politics.
Economic development.
Social change.
Public Policy.
Democracy.
Comparative Politics.
Development and Social Change.