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.

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: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745688624
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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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.

Spreading Protest

Spreading Protest PDF Author: Donatella della Porta
Publisher: ECPR Press
ISBN: 1910259209
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Which elements do the Arab Spring, the Indignados and Occupy Wall Street have in common? How do they differ? What do they share with social movements of the past? This book discusses the recent wave of global mobilisations from an unusual angle, explaining what aspects of protests spread from one country to another, how this happened, and why diffusion occurred in certain contexts but not in others. In doing this, the book casts light on the more general mechanisms of protest diffusion in contemporary societies, explaining how mobilisations travel from one country to another and, also, from past to present times. Bridging different fields of the social sciences, and covering a broad range of empirical cases, this book develops new theoretical perspectives.

Street Citizens

Street Citizens PDF Author: Marco Giugni
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108475906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Explains the character of contemporary protest politics through a micro-mobilization analysis of participation in street demonstrations.

Democracy in Social Movements

Democracy in Social Movements PDF Author: Donatella della Porta
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230240860
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
This collection explores conceptions and practices of democracy of social movement organizations involved in global protest. Focusing on the global justice movement this book shows how they adopt radical new democratic approaches and thus provide a fundamental critique of conventional politics.

Street Politics in the Age of Austerity

Street Politics in the Age of Austerity PDF Author: Marcos Ancelovici
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789089647634
Category : Demonstrations
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This collection is designed to offer a comparative analysis of street-level protest movements, setting them in international, socio-economic, and cross-cultural perspective in order to help us understand why movements emerge, what they do, how they spread, and how they fit into both local and worldwide historical contexts.

Social Movements and Europeanization

Social Movements and Europeanization PDF Author: Donatella della Porta
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191619698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Are social movement organizations euro-sceptical, euro-pragmatic, or euro-opportunist? Or do they accept the EU as a new level of governance to place pressure on? Do they provide a critical capital, necessary for the political structuring of the EU, or do they disrupt the process of EU integration? This book includes surveys of activists at international protest events targeting the European Union (for a total of about 5000 interviews); a discourse analysis of documents and transcripts of debates on European politics and policies conducted during the four European social forums held between 2002 and 2006 and involving hundreds of social movement organizations and tens of thousands of activists from all European countries; about 320 interviews with representatives of civil society organizations in six EU countries (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy) and one non-member state (Switzerland), and a systematic claims analysis of the daily press in selected years between 1990 and 2003. The empirical research shows the different paths of Europeanization taken by social movements and civil society organizations.

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.

Contesting Austerity

Contesting Austerity PDF Author: Anuscheh Farahat
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1509942823
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
This book addresses the different forms of austerity, contestation and resistance, in order to understand how they relate to one another and the impact they have on the democratic quality of public debates, the trust in public institutions and the legitimacy of law. Contestation of austerity includes not only traditional activism strategies such as human rights litigation and direct democracy instruments, but also new forms of collective action and collaborative resistance. Most importantly, many of the new anti-austerity initiatives also aim to renovate existing modes of democratic decision-making on the European, national, regional and local levels. The book focuses on different types of contesting austerity measures and the interaction between institutional and civil society actors. It will enhance understanding of how the various actors frame not only their goal but also the underlying social conflict to contest austerity and through which means they try to achieve political and legal changes. With 16 chapters written by contributors from Spain, Germany, Greece, Portugal and the UK, the book approaches 3 crucial areas of austerity policies: cuts in payment and pensions, labour law reform, and old and new poverty. In each field, the contributors analyse the processes of decision-making and contestation from 3 perspectives: institutions, democratic theory and societal responses.

Can Democracy Be Saved?

Can Democracy Be Saved? PDF Author: Donatella della Porta
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745670415
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Financial crisis, economic globalization and the strengthening of neoliberal policies present stark challenges to traditional conceptions of representative democracy. Yet, at the same time, new opportunities are emerging that propose alternative visions for the future of democracy. In this highly articulate book, Donatella della Porta analyses diverse conceptions and practices of participatory and deliberative democracy, building upon recent reflections in normative theory as well as original empirical research. As well as drawing on key historical examples, the book pays close attention to the current revitalization of social movements: the Arab Spring uprisings in processes of democratic transition; the potential of new technologies to develop so-called e-democracy in the Indignados and Occupy Wall Street protests; and proposals for cosmopolitan democracy found in recent campaigns for democratization of the European Union and United Nations. Alongside such social movements, the book also assesses institutional reactions, from the policing of protest to efforts at reform. This contribution to a critical contemporary debate, by a leading political sociologist and scholar of social movements, will be of great value to students and scholars of political sociology, political science and social movement studies, as well as anyone interested in the shape and development of democracy.