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Protest experiences can influence future collective action. By participating in a protest event, people may feel more related and empowered. These feelings have been found to induce positive emotions, which stimulate further action. In this paper, we study whether demonstrators' perceptions of protest atmosphere add to this mobilizing effect. A recent study identified the impact of protest atmosphere on empowerment, but we don't know whether this perception also feeds into future action. For this study we use survey data of two Dutch protest events that were staged early 2013 (N=352). Path analyses show that demonstrators' atmosphere perceptions indirectly stimulate further action. The mobilizing effect of these perceptions depends on the event, i.e. the other experiences (sense of relatedness, empowerment and enjoyment) protest participants have. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tolerance - putting up with things one disagrees with, disapproves of or dislikes - is generally believed to be an important ingredient of democracies. Dutch schools are obliged to teach tolerance to their pupils, together with other democratic principles. At the same time, the 'freedom of education' act allows for the establishment of schools based on religious or secular worldviews. In this paper we investigate if and how secondary schools tolerate behavior and opinions dissenting from the values the school is based on. In a qualitative study we interviewed school staff and pupils and conducted classroom observations at three Dutch secondary schools. Each school is based on a distinct worldview and was found to communicate the associated values to its pupils. We found that the religious and secular values that schools adhere to, restrain the practice of tolerance. Teachers, school principals and pupils generally support tolerant principles. However, when values collide school staff tend to react intolerantly towards pupils' dissenting opinions and behavior. From this study we learn that the practice of tolerance is always limited: it is inherently restricted when the boundaries of a value system are reached. The implications for the possible promotion of tolerance via schools are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores whether protest dynamics can be discerned in a more nuanced way than by the current peaceful-violent dichotomy. We assess these dynamics from a demonstrator's perspective. For our study, we test how demonstrators perceived police-demonstrator interactions at the demonstration they attended. We employ a multilevel dataset of 64 Western European street demonstrations that took place between 2009- 2012. Our results show that demonstrators perceive four types of police-demonstrator interactions. To understand this divergence, we study why demonstrators perceived police-demonstrator interactions the way they did. Our results show that demonstrators' perceptions are shaped by individual - and demonstration characteristics. As these results confirm studies that explain protest dynamics, they validate our typology. This paper is ended by an exploration of the implications of our findings and an introduction of a new concept to distinguish protest dynamics in a more nuanced way: the perceived 'atmosphere' of street demonstrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the study of protest a division of labour can be observed whereby sociological approaches excel in detailed case studies describing social movements as determined by their specific socio-political structures. Generalization is these studies' weak point. In social psychology, the individual level of analysis allows for investigation of motivational dynamics underlying protest participation but the socio-political structure is neglected. Despite studying the same protest, this division of labour created almost separate worlds by which the crucial interplay between structure and protest goes astray. However, precisely the connection between a socio-political structure that generates a demand for protest and the canalisation of this protest willingness into action by meso- or micro-mobilization is the most thorny but relatively underexposed issue in the protest literature. With the present study we aim to shed light on this structure/action nexus by presenting a model that crosses interdisciplinary boundaries connecting the micro level of motivational dynamics of individual protesters with the meso-level of social movements. To test the model a field study was conducted during two different demonstrations in two different town squares simultaneously organized by two social movements at exactly the same time against the same budget cuts proposed by the same government. But with one fundamental difference, the movements emphasized different aspects of the policies proposed by the government. This unique natural experiment revealed that power-oriented protest appeals to instrumental motives whereas value-oriented protest appeals to ideological motives. We discuss why and how characteristics of the mobilizing structures influence the motivational dynamics of individual protesters. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societies change rapidly. In short, these changes constitute new communication technologies and a network society, both inseparably intertwined. These developments cause formal networks embodied by organisations to give way to more informal networks rooted in the personal lives of individuals. Indeed, both communication and networks are essential elements in contentious politics; therefore we assume that these societal changes also affects dynamics of protest. In this paper we discuss a study which investigates how 'old' formal organizational mobilization versus 'new' informal network mobilization differentially influence the who, the why and the how of protest participation. We collected data in a period of protest with both informal network mobilisation and formal organizational mobilisation for the same group (secondary school students) and the same issue (quality of education). The first results indicate that mobilization practices influence who participates and why. The youngsters in the spontaneous protests were younger, lower educated, and cynical about politics than the protesters in the official event. Moreover, the students in the spontaneous protests were frustrated about the amount of hours in school and identified with others involved, contrary to the students in the official event, for whom qualitative education, ideological concerns and social approval were stronger drives. It seems that an underrepresented group (young low educational level cynical about politics) is brought onto the streets by the 'new' mobilisation practice. This might imply that the 'new' mobilising for social change will bring a more diverse constituency on the streets, which may cause a 'normalization of the protester'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present and test a theoretical framework wherein compare the motivational configurations of individual as a function of perceived political opportunity structure and mobilizing structures. We studied two movements calling on for two collective actions against the same government at the same time and place. However, they emphasized other aspects of the proposed government policies. We show that instrumental motives are more important in the context of instrumental movements and that ideology motives are more important in the context of expressive movements. Moreover, the motivation of protesters who perceive the political opportunity structure as closed is fueled by frustration and anger whereas for protesters with an open perceived political opportunity structure this is indignation and anger. We conclude by stating that instead of viewing the paradigms as competing we see the more structural approaches political opportunity structure and mobilizing structure as complimentary to the more social-psychological approaches. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted two surveys at two different squares of two different movements at exactly the same time against the same proposed budget cutting plans of the same government. This MSSD offered us the ability to test the relation between perceived threat (instrumental or ideological) identity and collective action frames of two movements (trade union federations and Turn the Tide, a movement against the neo-liberal government policies). We explain the relation between collective action frames and perceived threats in a self-regulation framework. Higgins (1997) proposes the existence of distinct self regulatory systems (comparable with mindsets) concerned with achieving different goals (a) ideal goals stem from achievement needs and refer to participants' aspirations, hopes, and wishes (e.g. participating in CA for animal rights); and (b) ought goals stem from security needs and refer to participants' obligations, duties, and responsibilities. Aiming at an ideal goal evokes a promotion mindset and aiming at an ought goal a prevention mindset. We hypothesized and found that the collective action frame of the trade unions has more prevention characteristics and attracted more participants with a prevention mindset, whereas the collective action frame of Turn the Tide contained more promotion characteristics and attracted more participants with a promotion mindset. Our theoretical framework on collective action participation discriminated Turn the Tiders from unionists on all the predictors in the expected direction and showed that the Turn the Tiders perceived a more ideological threat whereas the unionists perceived both an instrumental and ideological threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last week of November 2007, 20.000 Dutch pupils took to the streets in 50 spontaneous protests dispersed around the country to protest the deteriorating quality of their education. These protests were initiated via one MSN message and further diffused via ICTs and interpersonal contacts. Interestingly, one week later 20.000 pupils took the streets again, yet this time to an official demonstration staged by a students Union which employed 'textbook' mobilizing techniques. In this paper we attempt to understand the similarities and differences between the two contentious performances in terms of their mobilising actors, their employed mobilizing techniques and their participants. Our study reveals the crucial role of ICTs in the spontaneous protests. Obviously, spontaneous protest are not new, but, as our study reveals, are facilitated by ICTs. We show how ICTs enabled a micro-mobilizer to bring as much pupils on the streets as a meso-mobilizer, and subsequently, how their mobilizing techniques affected who participated in which protest, why they did so and how they were mobilised. Interviews with the organizers, a newspaper content analysis, a social networks sites and YouTube analysis and survey data collected amongst the participants are employed to collect evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]