Protest and the Politics of Blame

Protest and the Politics of Blame PDF Author: Debra Lynn Javeline
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472024779
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
The wage arrears crisis has been one of the biggest problems facing contemporary Russia. At its peak, it has involved some $10 billion worth of unpaid wages and has affected approximately 70 percent of the workforce. Yet public protest in the country has been rather limited. The relative passivity of most Russians in the face of such desperate circumstances is a puzzle for students of both collective action and Russian politics. In Protest and the Politics of Blame, Debra Javeline shows that to understand the Russian public's reaction to wage delays, one must examine the ease or difficulty of attributing blame for the crisis. Previous studies have tried to explain the Russian response to economic hardship by focusing on the economic, organizational, psychological, cultural, and other obstacles that prevent Russians from acting collectively. Challenging the conventional wisdom by testing these alternative explanations with data from an original nationwide survey, Javeline finds that many of the alternative explanations come up short. Instead, she focuses on the need to specify blame among the dizzying number of culprits and potential problem solvers in the crisis, including Russia's central authorities, local authorities, and enterprise managers. Javeline shows that understanding causal relationships drives human behavior and that specificity in blame attribution for a problem influences whether people address that problem through protest. Debra Javeline is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rice University.

Protest and the Politics of Blame

Protest and the Politics of Blame PDF Author: Debra Lynn Javeline
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472024779
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
The wage arrears crisis has been one of the biggest problems facing contemporary Russia. At its peak, it has involved some $10 billion worth of unpaid wages and has affected approximately 70 percent of the workforce. Yet public protest in the country has been rather limited. The relative passivity of most Russians in the face of such desperate circumstances is a puzzle for students of both collective action and Russian politics. In Protest and the Politics of Blame, Debra Javeline shows that to understand the Russian public's reaction to wage delays, one must examine the ease or difficulty of attributing blame for the crisis. Previous studies have tried to explain the Russian response to economic hardship by focusing on the economic, organizational, psychological, cultural, and other obstacles that prevent Russians from acting collectively. Challenging the conventional wisdom by testing these alternative explanations with data from an original nationwide survey, Javeline finds that many of the alternative explanations come up short. Instead, she focuses on the need to specify blame among the dizzying number of culprits and potential problem solvers in the crisis, including Russia's central authorities, local authorities, and enterprise managers. Javeline shows that understanding causal relationships drives human behavior and that specificity in blame attribution for a problem influences whether people address that problem through protest. Debra Javeline is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rice University.

Iceland's Financial Crisis

Iceland's Financial Crisis PDF Author: Valur Ingimundarson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317209737
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Being the first casualty of the international financial crisis, Iceland was, in many ways, turned into a laboratory when it came to responding to one of the largest corporate failures on record. This edited volume offers the most wide-ranging treatment of the Icelandic financial crisis and its political, economic, social, and constitutional consequences. Interdisciplinary, with contributions from historians, economists, sociologists, legal scholars, political scientists and philosophers, it also compares and contrasts the Icelandic experience with other national and global crises. It examines the economic magnitude of the crisis, the social and political responses, and the unique transitional justice mechanisms used to deal with it. It looks at backward-looking elements, including a societal and legal reckoning – which included the indictment of a Prime Minister and jailing of leading bankers for their part in the financial crisis – and forward-looking features, such as an attempt to rewrite the Icelandic constitution. Throughout, it underscores the contemporary relevance of the Icelandic case. While the Icelandic economic recovery has been much quicker than expected; it shows that public faith in political elites has not been restored. This text will be of key interest to scholars, policy-makers and students of the financial crisis in such fields as European politics, international political economy, comparative politics, sociology, economics, contemporary history, and more broadly the social sciences and humanities.

Policy Controversies and Political Blame Games

Policy Controversies and Political Blame Games PDF Author: Markus Hinterleitner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781108816441
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In modern, policy-heavy democracies, blame games about policy controversies are commonplace. Despite their ubiquity, blame games are notoriously difficult to study. This book elevates them to the place they deserve in the study of politics and public policy. Blame games are microcosms of conflictual politics that yield unique insights into democracies under pressure. Based on an original framework and the comparison of fifteen blame games in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and the US, it exposes the institutionalized forms of conflict management that democracies have developed to manage policy controversies. Whether failed infrastructure projects, food scandals, security issues, or flawed policy reforms, democracies manage policy controversies in an idiosyncratic manner. This book is addressed not only to researchers and students interested in political conflict in the fields of political science, public policy, public administration, and political communication, but to everyone concerned about the functioning of democracy in more conflictual times. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Why Bother?

Why Bother? PDF Author: S. Erdem Aytaç
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108475221
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
Using surveys, experiments, and fieldwork from several countries, this book tests a new theory of participation in elections and protests.

Contention in Times of Crisis

Contention in Times of Crisis PDF Author: Hanspeter Kriesi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108835112
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Documents the waves of protest that spread across Europe in the wake of the Great Recession.

The End of Representative Politics

The End of Representative Politics PDF Author: Simon Tormey
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745690513
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Representative politics is in crisis. Trust in politicians is at an all-time low. Fewer people are voting or joining political parties, and our interest in parliamentary politics is declining fast. Even oppositional and radical parties that should be benefitting from public disenchantment with politics are suffering. But different forms of political activity are emerging to replace representative politics: instant politics, direct action, insurgent politics. We are leaving behind traditional representation, and moving towards a politics without representatives. In this provocative new book, Simon Tormey explores the changes that are underway, drawing on a rich range of examples from the Arab Spring to the Indignados uprising in Spain, street protests in Brazil and Turkey to the emergence of new initiatives such as Anonymous and Occupy. Tormey argues that the easy assumptions that informed our thinking about the nature and role of parties, and ‘party based democracy’ have to be rethought. We are entering a period of fast politics, evanescent politics, a politics of the street, of the squares, of micro-parties, pop-up parties, and demonstrations. This may well be the end of representative politics as we know it, but an exciting new era of political engagement is just beginning.

Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis

Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis PDF Author: Donatella della Porta
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9780745688589
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Recent years have seen an enormous increase in protests across the world in which citizens have challenged what they see as a deterioration of democratic institutions and the very civil, political and social rights that form the basis of democratic life. Beginning with Iceland in 2008, and then forcefully in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece and Portugal, or more recently in Peru, Brazil, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine, people have taken to the streets against what they perceive as a rampant and dangerous corruption of democracy, with a distinct focus on inequality and suffering. This timely new book addresses the anti-austerity social movements of which these protests form part, mobilizing in the context of a crisis of neoliberalism. Donatella della Porta shows that, in order to understand their main facets in terms of social basis, strategy, and identity and organizational structures, we should look at the specific characteristics of the socioeconomic, cultural and political context in which they developed. The result is an important and insightful contribution to understanding a key issue of our times, which will be of interest to students and scholars of political and economic sociology, political science and social movement studies, as well as political activists.

Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement

Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement PDF Author: Wendy Pearlman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139503057
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Why do some national movements use violent protest and others nonviolent protest? Wendy Pearlman shows that much of the answer lies inside movements themselves. Nonviolent protest requires coordination and restraint, which only a cohesive movement can provide. When, by contrast, a movement is fragmented, factional competition generates new incentives for violence and authority structures are too weak to constrain escalation. Pearlman reveals these patterns across one hundred years in the Palestinian national movement, with comparisons to South Africa and Northern Ireland. To those who ask why there is no Palestinian Gandhi, Pearlman demonstrates that nonviolence is not simply a matter of leadership. Nor is violence attributable only to religion, emotions or stark instrumentality. Instead, a movement's organizational structure mediates the strategies that it employs. By taking readers on a journey from civil disobedience to suicide bombings, this book offers fresh insight into the dynamics of conflict and mobilization.

Elections, Protest, and Authoritarian Regime Stability

Elections, Protest, and Authoritarian Regime Stability PDF Author: Regina Smyth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108841201
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
This comprehensive study of Russian electoral politics shows the vulnerability of Putin's regime as it navigates the risks of voter manipulation.

World Protests

World Protests PDF Author: Isabel Ortiz
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030885135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
This is an open access book. The start of the 21st century has seen the world shaken by protests, from the Arab Spring to the Yellow Vests, from the Occupy movement to the social uprisings in Latin America. There are periods in history when large numbers of people have rebelled against the way things are, demanding change, such as in 1848, 1917, and 1968. Today we are living in another time of outrage and discontent, a time that has already produced some of the largest protests in world history. This book analyzes almost three thousand protests that occurred between 2006 and 2020 in 101 countries covering over 93 per cent of the world population. The study focuses on the major demands driving world protests, such as those for real democracy, jobs, public services, social protection, civil rights, global justice, and those against austerity and corruption. It also analyzes who was demonstrating in each protest; what protest methods they used; who the protestors opposed; what was achieved; whether protests were repressed; and trends such as inequality and the rise of women’s and radical right protests. The book concludes that the demands of protestors in most of the protests surveyed are in full accordance with human rights and internationally agreed-upon UN development goals. The book calls for policy-makers to listen and act on these demands.