bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Social Movements and Citizenship: Conscientious Objection in France, the United States, and Israel
Authors: Lainer-Vos Dan
Published: April 2020

This article examines the ways in which citizenship regimes shape social struggles. It traces the conscientious objection movements in France during the war in Algeria, in America during the Vietnamese War, and in Israel after the invasion of Lebanon to show how they employed different practices and formed different alliances despite having similar goals. These differences can be attributed, in part, to the different citizenship regimes in each country: republican in France; liberal in the U.S.; and ethnonational in Israel. Arguments and practices that seemed sensible in one locale seemed utterly inappropriate in another. Social movements' activists did not manipulate conceptions of citizenship strategically. Rather, citizenship regimes constitute subjectivities and thereby shape the sensibilities and preferences of activists and state actors. Citizenship regimes shape social dramas by structuring the repertoire of contention available in a particular struggle.
The Dynamics of Emotion and Activism: Grief, Gender, and Collective Identity in Revolutionary Nicaragua
Authors: de Volo Lorraine
Published: April 2020

This article argues for a multidirectional and gendered understanding of the causal relationship between emotion and collective identity. Based on interviews and participant observation with core members of a Nicaraguan mothers' organization, I identify four ways in which emotion and identity are causally linked: emotion-based identity, therapy, affective bonds, and change in collective identity leading to change in grieving style. These indicate a dynamic relationship between emotion and collective identity. Furthermore, to understand emotion-based collective identity and perceptions of the emotional benefits of participation, this relationship must be understood through gendered cultural expectations about emotion.
Attraction Without Networks: Recruiting Strangers to Unregistered Protestantism in China
Authors: Vala Carsten , O'Brien Kevin
Published: April 2020

Social movements research points to the role of networks in recruiting intimates and public spaces in recruiting strangers. But for Chinese Protestants, creative outreach strategies can be a substitute for existing relationships and initiate recruitment. In China, public proselytizing is forbidden, religion is rarely mentioned in the media, and direct contact with potential converts is discouraged. To attract strangers, evangelists in China rely on door-to-door proselytizing in the countryside, cultural performances embedded with religious messages in the cities, and one-on-one conversations when the opportunity arises. By contacting targets in the ordinary flow of life and fashioning appeals using resonant language, Protestant recruiters have become adept at attracting non-networked individuals in "safe-enough" spaces that appear in the creases of a reforming Leninist regime. At a general level, the analysis suggests that networks sometimes play a smaller role in recruitment than is commonly thought, at least at first, and that social bonds may be as much a result of recruitment as a precondition for it.
Benefits and Burdens of Transnational Campaigns: A Comparison Of Four Oil Struggles In Ecuador
Authors: Widener Patricia
Published: April 2020

Through an examination of four sites of contention in Ecuador, this study explores the impacts of transnational campaigns on domestic organizations and community groups while holding constant the focus of conflict, the construction of an oil pipeline. The international organizations verified local claims, enabled access to international venues such as conferences and investor meetings, and influenced the financing of future large-scale projects. Yet, the transnational campaigns unintentionally emphasized environmental conservation at the expense of local dignity-in-life claims, resonated only with select groups, and potentially undermined domestic networking building. The Northern campaigns emphasized World Bank standards that were arguably weak on environmental protection, especially when compared to the environmental justice demands arising in the oil hubs. Indeed, community participation, environmental health regulation, and economic redistribution may be better achieved through grassroots efforts that target the state, rather than through transnational engagement dependent on international bodies and concerns.
On the Radical Cusp: Ecoterrorism in the United States, 1998-2005
Authors: Beck Colin
Published: April 2020

Political action on the cusp between social movements and militancy provides a robust test of universal theories of both collective action and terrorism. In particular, radical environmentalism and the new wave of ecoterrorism in the United States deserve social science consideration as one such radical cusp movement. Data on 84 ecoterrorist events in the United States, 1998-2005, from the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism's Terrorism Incident Database are considered vis-à-vis previous theories to identify possible patterns. A methodology for research on clandestine organizations, the imputation of cells from incident data, is proposed. Analysis suggests that radicalism is a product of social movements and that it diffuses according to exogenous factors, in particular local political climates. Little support is found for theories of continued radicalization in militant movements, but some evidence indicates that a general life cycle of political violence exists.
Three-Step Model of Terrorist Violence
Authors: Bergesen Albert
Published: April 2020

Terrorist violence is a distinct type of violence. It has a different design architecture than personal (suicide), interpersonal (murder, theft, assault), or collective (mob, riot, crowd) violence. Employing three primitives, the social roles of perpetrator, victim, and target, which can be distributed across different sets of individuals, one-step, two-step, and three-step models are derived as structural descriptions of personal, interpersonal/collective, and terrorist violence. Why the unique design properties of terrorist violence poses a problem for the present theory of collective violence is also discussed.
Signals or Mixed Signals: Why Opportunities for Mobilization are not Opportunities for Policy Reform
Authors: Cornwall Marie , King Brayden , Legerski Elizabeth , Dahlin Eric , Schiffman Kendra
Published: April 2020

Drawing on political opportunity theory, the theory of legislative logic, and political mediation theory, we hypothesize differential effects of the political environment on the actions of challengers (suffragists) and state actors (legislators) in the women's suffrage movement. We use sequential logistic regression to assess the effects of explanatory variables on two intermediate stages of mobilization and policy change. In the case of challengers, we estimate the likelihood a state-level organization is present in any given legislative year. In the case of state actors, we estimate the likelihood a bill passes one legislative house given the presence of a state-level suffrage organization and that a bill has been introduced. Mixed signals are apparent in that challengers and legislators respond to the same environmental factors differently. Challengers respond to perceived opportunities for change. Legislators seek to enhance their political careers and are responsive to the demands of challengers when they perceive challengers as politically powerful or when social and cultural change signals a demand for policy reform. Legislators, in the end, are much more conservative in their response to the political context.
Spillover or Spillout? The Global Justice Movement in the United States After 9/11
Authors: Hadden Jennifer , Tarrow Sidney
Published: April 2020

This article focuses on a seemingly paradoxical sequel to the 1999 Seattle WTO protests: the weakening of the global justice movement in the United States. While the movement has flourished in Europe, it seems largely to have stagnated in the American context. This outcome cannot be explained by either American exceptionalism or by a general decline in activism in the wake of the tragedies of 9/11 and the Iraq War. First comparing expressions of the American and European global justice movements and then turning to original data on social movement organizing in Seattle after 1999, we argue that the weakness of the American global justice movement can be tied to three key factors: (a) a more repressive atmosphere towards transnational protest; (b) a politically inspired linkage between global terrorism and transnational activism of all kinds; and (c) what we call "social movement spillout." We further argue that the strongest movement since September 11th—the antiwar movement—exemplifies a broader trend in the United States towards the "spillout" of transnational activism into domestic protest.
In the Name of the Prophet? Danish Muslim Mobilization During the Muhammad Caricatures Controversy*
Authors: Lindekilde Lasse
Published: April 2020

The twelve Muhammad caricatures published in September 2005 led to unforeseen Muslim mobilization and claim making in Denmark. Several academics, public intellectuals, and politicians have explained this by referring to the caricatures as the culmination of an existing Islamophobic climate in Denmark. The caricatures were "the straw that broke the camel's back" and Danish Muslims, thus, were bound to react to the imposed grievances. Such sociopsychological arguments require further investigation as to (1) how this unforeseen large and sustained Muslim mobilization in Denmark came about, and (2) why the "confrontation line" of action was chosen by Danish Muslims on this occasion? In doing so, the article argues for a need to de-essentialize, de-exceptionalize and dynamisize the study of Muslim mobilization.
The Sequencing of Success: Organizing Templates and Neoliberal Policy Outcomes
Authors: Almeida Paul
Published: April 2020

In the 1990s and early 2000s, government privatization and austerity programs served as the cornerstone of free market reforms implemented throughout the developing world. The selling off of government utilities, resources, and services laid the groundwork for a highly contested battleground in the global South over social and economic distribution. This study examines the sequencing of campaigns against neoliberal reforms in Central America. Two successful movement campaigns against privatization in El Salvador and Costa Rica followed failed collective attempts to impede similar economic reforms. The policy outcomes against neo-liberal measures are explained by the path-dependent nature of the organizing templates activists chose to employ and the breadth of social movement unionism achieved. The article offers insights into similar battles currently waged in the third world over the pace of economic globalization and the conditions in which oppositional movements are likely to succeed or fail.
Transcending Marginalization: The Mobilization of the Unemployed in France, Germany, and Italy in a Comparative Perspective
Authors: Baglioni Simone , Baumgarten Britta , Chabanet Didier , Lahusen Christian
Published: April 2020

Mobilization by the unemployed has traditionally been considered a highly improbable phenomenon. However, recent observations challenge such a supposition. Our article compares protest waves in France, Germany, and Italy, where the unemployed successfully organized themselves and acted on their own behalf for several months. We argue that mobilization of the unemployed—although it empirically proved to be a possibility—remains very fragile, particularly depending on beneficial "windows of opportunities." Our analysis is above all interested in deciphering macrostructural conditions and opportunity structures, arguing that the unemployed benefited from external developments causing changes in potential mobilizing resources, and brought about new allies and political entrepreneurs. At the same time, however, these opportunity structures were actively exploited and, at the same time, their opening was fostered by the mobilization itself.
Deliberative Discussion, Language, and Efficiency in the World Social Forum Process
Authors: Doerr Nicole
Published: April 2020

The World Social Forum (WSF) and European Social Forum (ESF) processes represent a new platform for experimenting with multilingual practices of "deliberative talk." Activists come together in meetings that take place at the regional level between these larger social forum events. The "European Social Forum Preparatory Assemblies" (EPA), for instance, allow activists in the ESF process to hold regular meetings in a multilingual format using simultaneous translation. I will explore how activists in such transnational meetings deal with the tension between time consuming, multilingual discussion processes and efficiency. Comparing meetings of European and South African groups within the umbrella of the ESF and WSF processes, I found the "politics of language" to be a very fragile aspect of the practice of deliberative discussion. However, some groups have developed innovative tactics or have made creative use of cognitive resources to tackle the challenge of linguistic exclusion.
Velvet Glove, Iron Fist, or Even Hand? Protest Policing in the United States, 1960-1990
Authors: Soule Sarah , Davenport Christian
Published: April 2020

Most scholars of social movements agree that since the 1960s protest policing in the United States has decreased in severity. Yet this characterization runs counter to sociolegal arguments that virtually all forms of state social control have become more forceful. We maintain that both of these arguments obfuscate what is really of essence to policing of protest: the character of the protest event and the level of threat posed to police. We examine U.S. protest policing over the 1960-1990 period and show that while it is generally true that aggressive policing is less likely following the 1960s, threatening protests are always policed aggressively, regardless of the period. The findings suggest that general claims about the increasing or decreasing severity of policing over time are less useful than are arguments about the character of the protest event and the level of threat posed to police officers.
The Importance of being "We": Collective Identity and the Mobilizing Work of Progressive Activists in Hartford, Connecticut
Authors: Valocchi Stephen
Published: April 2020

This article examines the ways that collective identity influences the mobilizing work activists perform in a wide variety of progressive activities in Hartford, Connecticut, as reported in open-ended life history interviews. Using a collective identity typology based on ideology, organization, and biography, the analysis demonstrates the variety of ways in which these different "group allegiances" affect how activists raise consciousness, choose strategies and goals, pursue allies, and build coalitions. These myriad differences in mobilizing by activists with different collective identities within the same movement sector speak to the flexibility of social movement structures and to the importance of activist identity in maneuvering within those structures.
Violent Fan Fluctuations: A Diffusion Perspective to Explain Supporters' Violence
Authors: Braun Robert , Vliegenthart Rens
Published: April 2020

In this article, we address the question of how diffusion mechanisms predict the level of violence among soccer fans. We embed possible causes of violent fan behavior in a theoretical framework of diffusion, as social movement scholars deploy it to study other instances of collective violence. Four possible diffusion explanations are examined: social status of transmitters (both other fan-sides as well as soccer players), status similarity of adopter and transmitter, direct ties as captured by geographical distance, and indirect ties as measured by media coverage. These explanations are tested for the occurrence of violence around soccer matches in the Netherlands during the period 2001-2005. We employ a pooled complementary log-log analysis of fourteen teams over two hundred match weeks and control for repression, city size, and several match characteristics. We find considerable evidence for three of the four proposed explanations and demonstrate that aggressive play on the pitch, hooliganism by fan-sides with similar status, and media coverage are significant explanatory factors for the evolution of fan violence.
External Pressure and Local Mobilization: Transnational Activism and The Emergence of the Chinese Labor Movement
Authors: Friedman Eli
Published: April 2020

This article elucidates connections between two strategies of transnational social movements-external pressure and local mobilization-and two potential outcomes-paternalism and psychological empowerment. Application of this theoretical framework to the nascent Chinese labor movement indicates that an overreliance on an external-pressure approach results in paternalism, thereby precluding psychological empowerment for aggrieved actors and potentially inhibiting movement growth. Conversely, strategies that relegate external support to a secondary role and privilege local mobilization are more likely to result in psychological empowerment. In this study, I argue that psychological empowerment is a prerequisite for the emergence of a worker-based movement in China. Many studies of cooperation between movement actors from the global North and South have seen this relationship as essentially unproblematic. I begin to problematize the inherent power inequalities between the two sets of actors and will theorize the implications for movement emergence in Southern countries.
The Other Ride of Paul Revere: The Brokerage Role in the Making of the American Revolution
Authors: Han Shin-Kap
Published: April 2020

The celebrated tale of his "Midnight Ride" notwithstanding, Paul Revere's role in the events leading up to the American Revolution remains rather obscure. Joseph Warren, known as the man who sent Revere on that ride, presents a similar quandary. What was the nature of the roles they played in the mobilization process? I address the question from a social structural perspective, reassessing the evidence and reconsidering the key concept of brokerage. The analysis shows that these men were bridges par excellence, spanning the various social chasms and connecting disparate organizational elements of the movement, thus bringing together "men of all orders" to forge an emerging movement.
Do-It-Yourself Mobilization: Punk and Social Movements
Authors: Moore Ryan , Roberts Michael
Published: April 2020

The intersection between music and social movements is a fertile area of research. We present three case studies taken from punk-the Rock Against Racism campaign in Britain during the late 1970s, the American hardcore scene of the 1980s, and the riot grrrl feminism of the early 1990s-as instances where music and subculture have not simply figured as symbolic forms of resistance and identity formation but also as a means of organizing protest, raising consciousness, and creating change. The central mechanism that has allowed punk subcultures to achieve high levels of mobilization has been the do-it-yourself ethic, which demands that punks take matters of cultural production into their own hands by making music, fanzines, and record labels, creating a network of venues for live music performance, as well as creating other forms of micromedia that are commercially independent of the corporate culture industry. We use these case studies to both draw attention to neglected areas of empirical research and as a means to intervene in theoretical debates that have tended to polarize social movement studies between paradigms that emphasize structural phenomena and those that emphasize cultural factors.
Sector-Level Dynamics and Collective Action in the United States, 1965-1975
Authors: Larson Jeff , Soule Sarah
Published: April 2020

To explain varying levels of collective action by social movement organizations in the United States operating during the height of the 1960s protest cycle, this article examines social movement sector-level dynamics alongside indicators of resources and political opportunities. Drawing on hypotheses from neoinstitutional, organizational ecology, and embeddedness perspectives, the paper emphasizes the importance of understanding the sector-level dynamics of legitimacy, competition, and embeddedness when explaining levels of collective action. Results show strong support for neoinstitutional, organizational ecology, and embeddedness theories, but more mixed support for arguments about how political opportunities and resources affect levels of collective action by social movement organizations.
Discursive Opportunities, Feeling Rules, and the Rise of Protests Against Aircraft Noise
Authors: Bröer Christian , Duyvendak Jan
Published: April 2020

Social movement researchers propose different ways to incorporate meaning into structural approaches, notably into political opportunity structure (POS) theory. In this article we further develop one of the recent attempts to do so: discursive opportunity structure theory (DOS) as proposed by Koopmans and Olzak. We pay particular attention to the role of feelings. Although the DOS model correctly points toward the discursive construction of political opportunities, it does not explain why certain events are experienced as opportunities by potential activists. We propose the reason is two-fold: 1) discourse contains feeling rules and 2) discourse resonance implies the shaping of protest subjectivity. Our model is applied to a specific case: protests against aircraft noise annoyance in two countries. We show that feeling annoyed by aircraft sound is shaped by specific policy discourses, which then prepares the ground for protests.
The Policy Impact of Social Movements: A Replication Through Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Authors: Giugni Marco , Yamasaki Sakura
Published: April 2020

This article reanalyzes the data of a previous study on the policy impact of antinuclear, ecology, and peace movements in three countries with the aim of replicating its findings. Our goal is to see whether using a different analytical technique will yield similar results. The previous study used a regression approach to time-series analysis. Here, we use qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to analyze the previous study's data. Specifically, we test the two main hypotheses based on the joint-effect model of social movement outcomes: (1) that the policy impact of social movements is conditioned by the presence of powerful allies within the institutional arenas, by the presence of a favorable public opinion, and/or by both factors simultaneously; and (2) that social movements are more likely to have policy impacts when they address issues and policy domains of low saliency. In addition, we compare the policy impact of social movements across countries. Our analysis confirms to a large extent the findings of the earlier time-series analysis, namely, the strong explanatory power of the jointeffect model of social movement outcomes and the varying impact of different movements on public policy.
Cultural Context and Social Movement Outcomes: Conscientious Objection and Draft Resistance Movement Organizations in Israel
Authors: Zemlinskaya Yulia
Published: April 2020

This article aims to contribute to the debates on how cultural context influences mobilization outcomes through a comparative analysis of two Israeli social movement organizations that supported conscientious objectors and draft resisters during the second Palestinian Intifada. This analysis has two objectives. The first is to show how cultural and institutional conditions of Israeli militarism influenced both the discourses and the tactics of resistance of the movement organizations. The second is to demonstrate that different tactics of the movement organizations had a differential impact on the Israeli public and the Israeli political system. It is argued that both the culturally and institutionally embedded gender inequality within Israeli society has determined the choice of the available strategies for the movement organizations, which has in turn influenced the relative success of their campaigns.
War Pictures: The Grotesque as a Mobilizing Tactic
Authors: Halfmann Drew , Young Michael
Published: April 2020

This article examines the uses and effects of grotesque imagery in the antislavery and antiabortion movements and considers implications for theories of movement framing and mobilization. Grotesque images can produce strong emotions that may increase the resonance of movement frames and provide physiological "evidence" of immorality. Such images may also produce confusion and ambiguity that deeply engages readers or viewers and potentially breaks frames. But grotesque images can also be counterproductive for activists. They can cause readers or viewers to turn away in disgust, and their use can taint activists as prurient, irrational, uncivil, or manipulative. Finally, the effects of grotesque images are likely to vary across audiences, social contexts, and the skill of the activists that deploy them.
Bureaucracy, Power, and Threat: Unions and Strikes in The United States, 1990-2001
Authors: Martin Andrew
Published: April 2020

The bureaucratization of many social movements has generated controversy among scholars and activists alike. While there is considerable evidence that formalized social movement organizations (SMOs) tend to be successful, critics maintain that such actors invariably shift resources away from protest, reducing their disruptive potential. The current research seeks to reorient this debate by introducing the concept of threat as an integral, but overlooked, dimension of protest. Specifically, I hypothesize that the costs associated with collective action will motivate formalized SMOs to leverage the threat of protest to achieve new gains. The empirical case is made using data from a sample of labor unions and their strike activity from 1990-2001, a period of growing acrimony between organized labor and firms that is particularly well suited for analyzing threat. The findings highlight the role of threat in movement challenges and how it interacts with the broader environment within which the SMO is embedded.
Everyday Routines in Free Spaces: Explaining the Persistence of The Zapatistas in Los Angeles
Authors: Glass Pepper
Published: April 2020

While examining the radical potential of "free spaces"—small-scale, grassroots sites for social movements—researchers neglect the daily activities underlying their continued existence. Based on participant observation at Zapatista community centers in Los Angeles, this article argues that everyday routines are important for the persistence of free spaces. Participants spent the majority of their time involved in routines. These were repetitive tasks for maintaining the organization; their focus was practical and immediate, as opposed to theoretical; and the rituals of participatory democracy structured them. At rare times, members reflected on their work, initiating abstract political talk to inspire and unify themselves in response to tedium from mundane activity or a crisis. Yet, reflection also distracted from applied work and even proliferated organizational schism. This suggests that free spaces retain stability by balancing both routine and reflection.
Political Protest and Personality Traits: A Neglected Link
Authors: Opp Karl-Dieter , Brandstätter Hermann
Published: April 2020

We examine the extent to which personality traits and variables based on the theory of collective action (i.e., incentives) can explain protest participation. We use the Big Five personality traits, measured by a list of bipolar adjectives: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Incentives are political discontent and perceived personal influence, perceived obligation to protest and social incentives (i.e., integration in protest encouraging social networks). We hypothesize that personality traits have an effect on incentives and, together with incentives, on protest behavior. We test our hypotheses with a two-wave panel study, conducted in Leipzig (East Germany), where a total of 438 persons were interviewed in 1993 and 1996. Major findings are that personality traits have only weak effects on protest, compared to the variables of the theory of collective action, and that personality traits have various effects on the independent variables (i.e., the incentives) of the theory of collective action.
Changing the World One Webpage at a Time: Conceptualizing and Explaining Internet Activism
Authors: Earl Jennifer , Kimport Katrina , Prieto Greg , Rush Carly , Reynoso Kimberly
Published: April 2020

Researchers studying Internet activism have disagreed over the extent to which Internet usage alters the processes driving collective action, and therefore also over the utility of existing social movement theory. We argue that some of this disagreement owes to scholars studying different kinds of Internet activism. Therefore, we introduce a typology of Internet activism, which shows that markedly different findings are associated with different types of Internet activism and that some types of Internet activism have been studied far more frequently than others. As a consequence, we ask an empirical question: is this skew in the selection of cases, and hence apparent trends in findings, a reflection of the empirical frequency of different types of Internet activism? Troublingly, using unique data from random samples of websites discussing 20 different issue areas commonly associated with social movements, we find a mismatch between trends in research cases studied and empirical frequency.
Sources of Certification and Civil Rights Advocacy Organizations: The JACL, The NAACP, and Crises of Legitimacy
Authors: Furuyama Katie , Meyer David
Published: April 2020

The Dynamics of Contention program emphasizes the role of external authorities as key to the certification of social movement actors. Its examples highlight the power of authorities to legitimate and affect the flow of resources to challengers. We focus on the continual work done by a social movement organization to be certified by multiple sources as the legitimate representative of its respective group or constituency, through an iterative and dynamic process. Using a comparative case study of two long-lived civil rights organizations in the United States, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Japanese American Citizens League, we argue that social movement organizations must gain certification from multiple certifiers, including those whom they claim to represent, government authorities, and the media. Certification from one authority may undermine its likelihood from another, and therefore an organization must negotiate these tensions as it works toward its larger goals.
Introduction: Dynamics of Contention Ten Years On
Authors: McAdam Doug , Tarrow Sidney
Published: April 2020

Ten years from the publication of Dynamics of Contention, written with Charles Tilly, the editors of Mobilization have asked us to identify work that reflects on the perspectives presented in that book. Dynamics of Contention attempted too many things: accounts of contention in Western and non-Western societies; consideration of a variety of forms of contention; a critique of the too-narrow focus on western reformist movements in social movement research; a call for a mechanism-and-process approach. For this symposium, we asked our colleagues to focus primarily on that final goal because we see it as the one making the most progress in this area since the publication of DOC. We dedicate this symposium to the memory and the example of Charles Tilly.
Opportunity/Threat Spirals in the U.S. Women's Suffrage and German Anti-Immigration Movements
Authors: Karapin Roger
Published: April 2020

Many have noted that protesters sometimes expand political opportunities for later protests, but there has been little analysis of how this occurs. The problem can be addressed by analyzing opportunity/threat spirals, which involve positive feedback among: actions by challengers (bold protests and the formation of alliances between challenger groups); opportunity-increasing actions by authorities and elites (elite divisions and support, procedural reforms, substantive concessions, and police inaction); and threat-increasing actions by authorities and elites (new grievance production and excessive repression). Interactions among these eight mechanisms are demonstrated in two cases of social movement growth, the U.S. women's suffrage movement of the 1910s and the German anti-immigration movement of the early 1990s. The cases show similar positive feedback processes despite many other differences, a finding which suggests that the specified interactions may operate in a wide range of social movements in democratic countries.
Introduction to a Special Issue on Political Violence and Terrorism: Political Violence as Contentious Politics
Authors: Goodwin Jeff
Published: April 2020

Five lessons for future research on political violence may be drawn from the articles in this special issue. Researchers should (1) analyze political violence not as a sui generis phenomenon but as one form among others that contentious politics sometimes takes; (2) attempt to determine actors' own reasons for their choice (or rejection) of violent strategies; (3) take the "conflict situation" that encompasses the interactions of all the relevant actors (not single states, movements, or networks) as the unit of analysis for explaining collective strategic choices; (4) take the networks in which individuals interact (not single individuals) as the unit of analysis for explaining individuals' strategic choices; and (5) examine actors' decisions to eschew violence as well as their decisions to employ it in order to avoid overgeneralized explanations for the latter.
the View from Below: Exploring the Interface of Europeanization and Basque Language Activism in France
Authors: Heidemann Kai
Published: April 2020

This article explores how Basque language activists in France have evaluated and engaged with European-level minority language policies in relative terms of "opportunity." Focusing upon the social construction of political opportunity from below, I consider how actors affiliated with a community-based schooling initiative cultivated a strategic stance toward the Council of Europe's Charter for Regional or Minority Languages between 1997 and 2007. Drawing upon qualitative case study data, I show how activist stances toward the European Charter were both motivated and minimized by their institutional containment within the French national state and the educational sector more specifically. The article contributes to scholarship by shedding microsociological light on the ways in which grassroots actors experience the intersection between national and supranational political processes in Europe. The article also contributes to the study of ethnic mobilization in Europe by shedding light on the underexamined field of linguistic-rights activism in education.
The Complex Agenda-Setting Power of Protest: Demonstrations, Media, Parliament, Government, and Legislation in Belgium, 1993-2000
Authors: Walgrave Stefaan , Vliegenthart Rens
Published: April 2020

We conducted pooled time-series analyses to assess how number and size of demonstrations affect the political agenda in Belgium (1993-2000). Taking twenty-five issues into account, this study finds that protest matters for the political agenda setting. This study also advances scholarly understanding of the agenda-setting power of protest by showing that the causal mechanisms of protest impact are complex and contingent. The parliamentary, governmental, and legislative attention for issues is significantly and differently affected by preceding protest activities. The media act as an intermediary variable: media coverage emerges in response to protest and, in turn, affects the political agenda afterwards. Protests on some issues have more effect than on others: in Belgium, new social movements protests are especially effective in causing parliament and government to focus attention on the issue.
Explaining Differential Protest Participation: Novices, Returners, Repeaters, and Stalwarts
Authors: Saunders Clare , Grasso Maria , Olcese Cristiana , Rainsford Emily , Rootes Christopher
Published: April 2020

Protest participation scholarship tends to focus on the special characteristics of novices and the highly committed, underplaying the significance of those in between. In this article, we fill a lacuna in the literature by refocusing attention on four different types of protesters: novices, returners, repeaters, and stalwarts. Employing data from protest surveys of demonstrations that took place in seven European countries (2009-2010), we test whether these types of protesters are differentiated by biographical-structural availability and/or psychological-attitudinal engagement. Our results suggest that biographical availability distinguishes our four groups, but not as a matter of degree. Few indicators of structural availability distinguish between the groups of protesters, and emotional factors do not distinguish between them at all. Some political engagement factors suggest similarity between novices and returners. This confirms the need to avoid treating protesters as a homogenous group and reinforces the importance of assessing the contributions of diverse factors to sustaining "protest politics."
Political Embeddedness and the Management of Emotions
Authors: Blocq Daniel , Klandermans Bert , van Stekelenburg Jacquelien
Published: April 2020

This article explores how variation in political embeddedness of social movement organi-zations (SMOs) influences the management of emotions. By variation in the political embed-dedness of SMOs, we mean variation in the strength and the number of ties between SMOs and the political establishment. By management of emotions, we mean the efforts of SMO leaders to evoke particular emotions among SMO members. Using data from protest surveys conducted at demonstrations regarding climate change in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2009, we find that protestors who are members of more politically embedded SMOs are generally less angry than protestors who are members of less politically embedded SMOs. The finding that this pattern is especially strong among SMO members who heard about the dem-onstration through an SMO confirms the assumed role of SMO leaders in the management of emotions.
The Independent Psychological Effects of Participation in Demonstrations
Authors: Fillieule Olivier
Published: April 2020

Street demonstrations have received the lion's share of scholarly attention to collective action. This article starts by returning to this research in order to raise some methodological questions about how to collect data on demonstrations and on the validity of the subsequent results. Next, based on my own research on demonstrations, I suggest some questions that deserve to be analyzed. In particular, I argue that we should work more on the psychological effects of participation in demonstrations. One potential line of investigation would be to more systematically explore the socializing effects of political events. Indeed, vivid political events should be important catalysts because they can have significant effects. Events may have an impact at any age but socializing effects will differ based on one's position in the life cycle, from conversion for younger participants to substantiation for older participants. I hypothesize, in line with Mannheim's (1952) "impressionable years" model of socialization research, that people especially recall events as important if they happened in their adolescence or early adulthood.
The Arab Spring Uncoiled
Authors: Kurzman Charles
Published: April 2020

If this special issue on Middle East protest had been published two years ago, it probably would have focused more on accounting for the failure of opposition movements than accountting for their successes. Since the "Arab Spring" emerged in the winter of 2011, however, observers have rushed to explain mass revolts in the region. This introduction to the special issue reviews some of the explanations offered for these extraordinary events, and finds that the factors that are frequently cited in these explanations do not map comfortably onto the sites of greatest protest in the region. The essay then suggests an alternative approach, one that looks past causation in an attempt to understand the lived experience of the uprisings. The goal is to examine how actors changed as they perceived the possibility of protest, how they made meaning of their lives through the act of protesting, or not protesting, during moments of exceptional confusion and stress. This approach focuses on the twists of history that confound social scientific explanation. One twist that is highlighted in this essay and throughout the special issue is the sudden prominence of bravery—the ineffable but potentially influential desire to engage in risky protest. Bravery is not a causal variable but a disposition that may appear and disappear with the vagaries of the moment, altering the micro-flow of events and making a noticeable, if tiny, difference in the course of mass protests.
The Brokered Exuberance of the Middle Class: An Ethnographic Analysis of Iran's 2009 Green Movement
Authors: Harris Kevan
Published: April 2020

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation, this article moves from a microscopic to a wide-angle view to explain the dynamics of the 2009 post-election Green movement in the Islamic Republic of Iran: how it manifested, why it weakened, and who participated. After mapping out the protest wave, I make three main arguments. First, pre-electoral campaigns created spaces for interaction rituals of "brokered exuberance" among participants in public rallies that lowered perceptions of risk and spilled over into contentious protest after the election. Second, ordinary, non-networked Iranians utilized face-to-face interaction to broaden and recharge the protest wave, while Internet activism confused as much as coordinated the organization of street protests. Third, the social power and political orientation of Green protestors were connected to the increased relative size of the middle class in Iran, which had been empowered and enlarged through the state's developmental efforts over the past two decades.
Anti-Sexual Harrassment Campaign in Egypt
Authors: Rizzo Helen , Price Anne , Meyer Katherine
Published: April 2020

This article analyzes how, for the decade before the Arab Spring, the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights (ECWR) promoted women's issues and sustained its campaign against widespread sexual harassment in Egypt. The article also reviews ECWR's activities after the mass mobilizations of the January 25th revolution. In authoritarian states, the risks inherent in challenging the regime decrease the probability that challenges will ever emerge or, if they do, continue for any significant duration. ECWR's prolonged campaign against sexual harassment, however, belies this observation. Analysis of the organization's activities provides an opportunity to examine elements that promote contentious claims making in high-risk, neopatriarchal environments. We found that the depth and strength of networks at the local level played a significant role. Also significant were ties with national and international group, which where were partly facilitated because of tourism's importance in Egypt. Through these ties, the ECWR leadership guided the organization toward increasingly promising outcomes in a unresponsive context. This case illuminates how, in the Middle East and elsewhere, civic organizations that focus on women's issues can navigate high-risk environments, whether due to neopatriarchal culture, authoritarian governance, or both.
Intellectual Opportunity Structures and Science-Targeted Activism: Influence of the Ex-gay Movement on the Science of Sexual Orientation
Authors: Waidzunas Tom
Published: April 2020

Social movements frequently seek to shape knowledge-producing institutions, including those found within the sciences. This essay takes up and refines the concept of intellectual opportunity structure to describe factors that enable or constrain movement efficacy in these efforts. Based on interviews with key claimants, participant observation at conferences, and content analysis of media, scientific, and activist literature, this article explains how the ex-gay movement in the United States mobilized knowledge and protest to shape mainstream science. Since 1973, gay-affirmative policies in mainstream mental health institutions have increasingly blocked construction of scientific facts based on the pathologization of homosexuality. Yet, the ex-gay movement has more recently found limited success blending theological premises and science-based methodologies. Shifts in intellectual opportunities, including formal acknowledgement of religious diversity by psychologists, have led the American Psychological Association (APA) to incorporate some ex-gay movement ideas even as the APA maintains that sexual orientation, newly defined, cannot be therapeutically altered.
Repressive Coverage in an Authoritarian Context: Threat, Weakness, and Legitimacy in South Korea's Democracy Movement
Authors: Chang Paul , Vitale Alex
Published: April 2020

While most studies of the repression-mobilization relationship have focused on the impact of the former on the latter, recent work has shown that characteristics of protest can influence state repression strategies. This article corroborates recent work on the repression of social movements and shows that both weak and threatening attributes of protest events contribute to the "repressive coverage"—the likelihood of repression—of social movements in an authoritarian context. In addition, results from logistic regressions show that authoritarian states not only respond to weak-status actors and situational threats but also act strategically to repress social movements that challenge their political legitimacy. This article extends the scope of the repression-mobilization literature by differentiating factors affecting the repressive strategy of a non-Western authoritarian state.
Mass Media and Instituional Change: Organizational Reputation, Strategy, and Outcomes in the Academic Freedom Movement
Authors: Rohlinger Deana , Brown Jordan
Published: April 2020

We conceptualize mass media as a field of action and consider how a social movement organization's reputation affects its media strategy as well as the quality of coverage it receives. Drawing on an analysis of two organizations mobilizing around academic freedom, Students for Academic Freedom (SAF) and Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), we find that an organization's reputation is consequential. FIRE, which has a strong reputation, gets high-quality coverage and primarily uses this media attention to threaten its targets. SAF has a weak reputation and, consequently, uses alternative and organizational media to create opportunities to spread its ideas to a broader public. It does so by exploiting the linkages among media outlets and moving its ideas from smaller to larger news outlets. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this research for understanding the role of mass media in strategy, outcomes, and institutional change.