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The primacy of networks vs. identities divides research on activism. Analyzing activist commitment in CasaPound, a movement organization of the far right in contemporary Italy, this paper advances a sequential multipath theory of activist commitment. In the recruitment phase either networks or identities suffice for movement entry. During the follow-up phase of integration, networks and identities reinforce each other: each is a necessary but no longer a sufficient condition. In the final phase, commitment is solidified by affective ties and emotional investments. To make this argument, our theory introduces a typology that differentiates between coming home and finding home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the consequences of the narrative used to support immigration reform by some immigrant activists, and especially how this narrative may negatively impact potential allies. Policies and policy proposals such as the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals have been consistently championed using a specific narrative of undocumented youths which presents them as well-assimilated, driven, and US-educated. The paper is drawn from 60 in-depth interviews conducted with undocumented youths in 2013 in New York City and northern New Jersey. The paper builds on the literature relative to narratives in social movements, framing and policy-making. Findings indicate that recent campaigns continue to make extensive use of this narrative, even though it creates a divide within the undocumented community. This unintended consequence has recently led some activists to step away from the ‘perfect DREAMer’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how activists conduct participatory democracy and realize prefiguration and horizontality in a protest camp setting. Recently, scholars have shown increasing interest in the internal lives of social movements. Anti-G8 direct action in Japan has provided an opportunity to examine how protesters practise prefiguration and horizontality in everyday experiments in alternative ways of living together. In the protest camp in Japan, participants faced institutional and material limitations. This study discusses the social reproduction processes within protest camps that operate according to these limitations. Three key findings emerged: first, the protest camp shows a great openness towards beginners; they can easily find roles in its social reproduction processes. To accomplish this, they use skills developed in their daily habits outside the protest. Second, the collective practice of social reproduction creates and clearly displays a hierarchical partnership between activists, in the sense that beginners are not only politically socialized, but that they learn the limited cultural codes of anti-globalism movements from other activists. The relationship between teaching and taught serves to create hierarchy and exclusion among participants. The third key finding is related to exclusion. For some activists who have experienced discrimination, the protest camp is a frustrating experience because it forces upon them codes and manners constructed in capitalist society. To them, the camp recreates the cleavage between majority and minority protesters. The paper argues that both exclusive and inclusive sides of the protest camps, particularly when discussing collective lifestyle practices, exhibit ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses debates in the ‘post-Occupy movement’ over the resistant potential of prefigurative politics, and asks how prefiguration can be conceptualized as resistance in relation to activists’ understanding of politics, power and social change. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with activists in New York City, it looks at anarchist politics after Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Here, the absence of spectacular moments of confrontation and the removal of OWS’s space of mobilization and organizing challenged activists to adjust their prefigurative politics to the shifting spaces post-Occupy. This paper advances our understanding of prefigurative politics by conceptualizing prefiguration as resistance in consideration of the elements of ‘intent’, ‘recognition’, ‘opposition/confrontation’ and ‘creation’. Following this, it introduces the ‘logic of subtraction’ as a concept to understand the resistant potential of prefiguration. Here, I argue that rather than being in an antagonistic relationship with dominant power, resistant prefiguration aims for the creation of alternatives while subtracting power from the state, capital or any other external authority in order to render it obsolete. This understanding allows for a nuanced consideration of the proactive and creative potential of prefiguration, as well as of the difficulties of prefigurative practices in shifting movement spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As political activists increasingly use social media in local protests, scholars must redirect attention from large-scale campaigns to scrutinize the ways in which geographically confined actors use social media to engage in protests. This paper analyses how a 2013 anti-mining campaign in Kallak, Sweden, combined on-site resistance with social media strategies via Facebook pages. The study examines which activist roles and forms of social media use that emerged and aims to explore what larger practical and theoretical implications one can derive from this specific case of place-based struggles. Results show that three typologically distinct activist roles emerged during the protests: local activists, digital movement intellectuals and digital distributors. These different types of actors were involved in four different forms of social media use: mobilization, construction of the physical space, extension of the local and augmentation of local and translocal bonds. Based on our findings, we argue that the coming together of these different activist roles and the different uses of social media added a translocal dimension to the peripheral and physically remote political conflict in Kallak. Media users were able to extend a locally and physically situated protest by linking it to a global contentious issue such as the mining boom and its consequences for indigenous populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research on activist participation has aimed to explain motives to engage in protest and collective action or becoming an activist. The outcomes, for the individual, have been neglected. Therefore, we set out to systematically document and organize the psychological and behavioural changes associated with activism into a typology of change. The review contains 57 papers describing changes. Psychological changes identified in the literature can be classified into 19 main forms: marital status, children, relationship ties, work-life/career, extended involvement, consumer behaviour, identity,empowerment, radicalization/politicization, legitimacy, sustained commitment, self-esteem, general well-being, ‘traits’, self-confidence, religion, organizing, knowledge and home skills. Our analysis highlights the lack of analysis of the relation between type of protest and type of change, and lack of research into the processes behind the various psychological changes. What is needed now is more precise investigation of the relationship between types of protests, social and psychological processes, and psychological outcomes. Further, more longitudinal studies are required to explore the relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across Canada, the Raging Grannies are renowned for appearing, invited or not, in spaces not typically open to older women, with outrageous ‘Granny’ costumes and satirical songs. A movement of predominantly non-Indigenous, settler women, the Raging Grannies regularly work in diverse activist coalitions in pursuit of social and environmental justice; many are seeking to ally themselves with contemporary Indigenous movements. However, while analyses have so far focused on their highly visible and iconic activist strategies, their solidarity-building efforts remain under-examined. Based on focus groups, interviews, and participant observation carried out in 2014–2015, this paper probeswhyandhowRaging Grannies are building alliances with Indigenous movements in Canada. What emerges is an important tension. While many view their irreverent and theatrical strategies as quintessential to their ‘Granny Activism,’ such tactics were unanimously deemed inappropriate for engaging with Indigenous movements. Underpinned by reflections on their own settler histories, feelings of outrage at ongoing and state-sanctioned colonial practices, fears of inadvertently reproducing colonial relations, and a sense of interconnected futures with Canada’s First Peoples, they sought different, less-visible ways of practicing their solidarities. Many chose to attend rallies dressed in their everyday clothes, provide resources to Indigenous-led protests, invite Indigenous activists to speak at their gatherings, and work through their churches to redress past harm. Their solidarity efforts incorporated small acts, often pivoting around individual members’ personal connections. This article thus depicts the Raging Grannies as more diverse in their practices than typically recognized. It also addresses an important gap in scholarship on older women’s roles in solidarity movements. Finally, it extends existing scholarship on solidarity-building, suggesting that how solidarity is understood cannot be disconnected from how it is practiced, and thus demonstrating how solidarity can be relational, performative, and contingent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses the legitimation dynamics of the student protests in Chile 2011, explaining how the support of 'strangers' strengthened its position and endurance. By analysing interviews with both activists and uninvolved citizens, I describe a steady pattern whereby they express the strength and legitimacy of the movement by assessing the 'abstraction' of the link between protesters and their supporters. The more abstract these relations - the stranger supporters are - the most relevant and meaningful is their support. Beyond establishing the worthiness of protesters' claims, strangers provide protesters with a mandate, fostering the movement's cohesion and thus affecting its ability to endure through the conflict. While the literature has mostly looked at adherents as only potential (or failed) constituents, I argue that support that remains external plays a crucial role in social movements' chances of success. This support needs, however, to avoid being framed as insufficient engagement. Further analysis shows that the distinction between protesters and strangers often requires active boundary work, allowing the movement to maximize the benefits of strangers' support while managing its risks. The relation between these boundaries, the efficiency of different contention tactics and their adaptation is analysed here. The study argues that strangeness can involve very different, even opposed phenomena, which are often confounded, namely 'otherness' and 'abstraction'. Critically drawing upon Simmel, I explain how it is 'abstraction' in particular that helps our understanding of the role of strangers in social movements and consider how this distinction could enrich research on the symbolic aspects of contentious politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of social movements have often focused on mobilisation and campaigning; by comparison, demobilisation has received little attention. This article adds to the body of literature on demobilisation by examining one case of demonstration campaign demobilisation. The 'Hess Gedenkmarsch' campaign in Germany, initiated in the late 1980s and demobilised by the mid-1990s, is not only a case of a causal mechanism of demobilisation, but also particularly important within far-right social movement activity: it was the vanguard campaign in a emergent pattern of 'demonstration politics' by far-right groups in Germany. The case exhibits a process whereby anti-far-right activists effectively engaged in a sort of kamikaze counter-mobilisation, seeking to shut down far-right events; this, in turn, spurred state authorities to act, imposing coercive measures that demobilised the far-right campaign. This case illustrates a causal mechanism of negative demobilisation that can be observed in other demonstration campaigns, and is particularly relevant to other cases of far-right activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a temporal analysis of the activist remembrance of Silvio Meier, a prominent member of Berlin's radical left scene, who was stabbed to death in 1992. It asks: when has Meier's activist remembrance occurred and been remediated, with what rhythms, and how has it been influenced by different platforms? To answer these questions, the article draws on the literature dedicated to the interface between social movements and collective and connective memory, and applies Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis approach. Within this approach a diverse set of material is used to visualise the timing of the digital and non-digital remediation and mobilisation of Meier's remembrance across different platforms of memory including commemorative events, newspapers, websites and social media. Thereafter the various temporalities of use associated with these platforms and how they can influence the mobilisation of remembrance by social movements is discussed using Lefebvre's concepts of polyrhythmia, arrhythmia, isorhythmia, eurhythmia and with respect to, firstly, a fifteen-year period between 2002 and 2017 and secondly, a fifteen-day period between 15 November and 30 November 2012 around the twentieth anniversary of Meier's death. The article concludes by introducing another Lefebvrian concept – dressage – in order to consider which rhythms of activist remembrance might most benefit social movements and their goals. Overall, by demonstrating the importance of attending to the when and not only the what, who, where and how of social movement memories and by highlighting the need to consider the temporal influence of the different digital and non-digital platforms that activists use, as well as, by indicating the broader potential of applying rhythmanalysis approaches to instances of activism, the article has broader relevance for the further study of social movements, their use of different media and their mobilization of memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconstructs the life trajectories of Portuguese radical left activists who mobilized against the Estado Novo authoritarian regime between the mid 1960s and the mid 1970s. It analyses the consequences of political engagement on the political and life trajectories of the activists across three different institutional settings: an authoritarian regime (until 1974), a revolutionary process (1974-1975) and a democracy (from 1976 onwards). The aim is to understand how the engagement and its consequences changed according to the changes at a political level. The underlying question is 'what became of the radical activists who mobilized against the Portuguese dictatorship in the late 1960s'? To address this question, I adopt a longitudinal perspective, which contextualizes the present life of the former activists in a longer process, composed of different phases of engagement, activism, prison, disengagement, reconversion and life as former activists. I understand these phases as strictly interconnected to the organizational dynamics (groups and networks) and the political processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2011, a series of citizen mobilizations have emerged in Romania, from local replicas of the 'Occupy' movement to the 2017 and 2018 mass protests against corruption. In this article, we develop three arguments for a better understanding of the successive waves of protests that have shaken the Romanian social and political landscape since 2011. First, while each protest has a specific claim and target, the forms of commitments, repertoire of actions and relationship to politics point to clear continuities between protest events that should be analyzed as part of the same cycle of protests. Second, while some analyses have emphasized the specificities of the Romanian context, we maintain that the actors and dynamics of this cycle of protest are simultaneously deeply national, embedded in the mutations of Eastern European civil society, and in resonance with the post-2011 global wave of movements. Third, while it is indispensable to analyze these citizen mobilizations as a whole, it is equally important to understand that they result from the convergence of diverse activist cultures, from left-wing autonomist activists to right-wing citizens and even nationalist militants. Each of these activist cultures has its own logic of action and its vision of democracy and of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the activist identity is constructed within a local anti-austerity activist culture, how it is implicitly gendered, and the emotional implications of this. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 individuals engaged in local anti-austerity activism, the author argues that although presented as an abstract, genderless, individual, the 'ideal activist' is actually male. Despite participants defining activism broadly to include small acts in the everyday, the 'ideal activist' identity is narrowly defined by doing 'enough' of the 'right' type of activism - direct action. It is argued that this identity is easier to achieve for men than women, and that the negative emotional consequences of not achieving the identity are more likely to be experienced by women. The criterion of doing the 'right' amount of activism excludes those who cannot commit to constantly doing activism; women tend to face structural availability barriers to political participation, often related to caring responsibilities. The binary construction of direct action as 'real' activism versus online 'slacktivism' minimizes online activism, which is a form of accessible activism that women can combine with caring responsibilities. While women participants identify and challenge gendered barriers and exclusions to local anti-austerity activism, the implicit gendered nature of the 'ideal activist' identity and its damaging gendered consequences are not recognized, resulting in women feeling guilt and blaming themselves for their perceived failure to adequately perform the identity. This article thus reveals the complex ways that spaces of resistance can reinforce dominant gendered power structures, while ostensibly fighting against them. By utilising a feminist approach, the author establishes the importance of paying attention to the gendered differences between activist experiences in counter-hegemonic movements and contributes to understanding the complexities of the activist identity in the context of anti-austerity activism. Abbreviations: PA: the People's Assembly Against Austerity; BME: Black Minority Ethnic; LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent global eruption of large protests calls for a rethinking of the question of movement participation. The conventional model of movement as organized mobilization led by pre-existing organizations and top–down leadership clearly fails as an adequate portrait. As an alternative, horizontality with its emphasis on direct democracy, decentralized decision-making, and prefigurative politics (the rejection of instrumental view of participation) emerges in the global justice movement. This article explores an intermediate pattern of movement participation between these two extremes. Analyzing the protest occupation of Taiwan’s national legislature in 2014, the so-called Sunflower Movement, I theorize the mechanism of improvisation, defined as ‘strategic responses without prior planning,’ as a vital process that facilitates coordination in a large-scale protest. Improvisation involves decentralized decision-making, but it proceeds as a means to a clearly defined and consensual movement goal. The creative collaboration by dispersed, but experienced activists plays a critical yet often neglected role during contentious confrontations against the government. Improvisation is capable of orchestrating large-scale protests because movement leadership is oft constrained by the lack of real-time information and their command is more effective when it provides room for improvisation from below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over a decade, activists in India have waged a nationwide Right to Food (RTF) campaign aimed at highlighting persistent undernutrition in their country and galvanizing corresponding legal and administrative reform. This article draws on original interview data to demonstrate the process through which the campaign has forged a new and more robust interpretation of the RTF than that prevailing in international law and practice. It has done so by relying largely on domestic law, institutions, and networks rather than through ‘vernacularization’ of international norms or transnational advocacy. The campaign’s innovative conceptualization of the RTF along with the ongoing challenges it faces in attempting to influence the implementation of that right have broader implications for human rights theory and advocacy beyond India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

According to the political opportunity structure (POS) framework, mobilization tends to intensify when channels of access to the authorities open, leading the protest actors to hope for success. This happened during the protest campaign aimed at the reopening of the occupied Social Centre 'Experia' in Catania (Italy), after the eviction by police, because unexpectedly moderate centre-left political actors supported mobilization and the centreright local government accepted to put the issue on the institutional agenda; nevertheless the social centre was not reopened. In order to explain why the mobilization was unsuccessful, we analysed the protest campaign combining the POS framework with the approach to strategic dilemmas by James Jasper; if opportunities and restraints of the political system influence the choices and behaviours of unconventional actors, in their turn the actions and decisions made by movement activists affect the POS. In this case, the social centre activists filtered the constraints and opportunities of the local political system through their cognitive lenses and faced some dilemmas (Naughty or Nice?, Extension, Shifting goals), whose strategic choices extended or reduced these constraints and opportunities, thus affecting the opening and closure of the POS. The failure of the solution attempted by the social centre activists to keep both options of the various dilemmas, i.e. the strategy of 'double track', demonstrates how it is very difficult to be successful by maintaining dilemmas rather than making the strategic choices they demand, when the local institutional POS is substantially closed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the strategic choices that radical activists face when a cycle of contention ends. It investigates the reorientation of the autonomous anarchists or left-libertarian activist milieu in Sweden after the riots at the Gothenburg summit in 2001, which ended a cycle of anti-globalization protests in Sweden. The article identifies five strategies by which this activist milieu attempted to reconstruct collective agency, build a new alliance structure, and renew the repertoire of contention: (1) rescaling and targeting of micro-politics; (2) moving from secluded to open communities; (3) rethinking collective agency with the help of a new movement theory; (4) reversing dominant discourses and opening up discursive space; and (5) redefining militancy and shelving of violent confrontation. The study builds on activist interviews and ethnographic research in Stockholm and Malmö. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]