Search

Europe has experienced the adverse effects of climate change due to the human footprint on a scale never seen before. The region's future appears challenging as it persistently adheres to conventional practices. To address this, social movements in Europe must advocate for policymakers to earnestly undertake the widely advocated energy transition within the existing socioeconomic model. A crucial aspect for governments is to comprehend the status along the trajectory of this transition. In this study, we investigate the intricate relationship between emissions, economy, and energy spanning the years 1990 to 2019 across 32 European countries. Our analysis differentiates among major polluting sectors, utilizing a dynamic model that accounts for potential structural breaks. Our findings confirm the presence of ruptures in the stability of the parameters, revealing three distinct periods marked by historical shocks. While the majority of European countries exhibit a decoupling between emissions and economic growth, a contrasting trend is observed between emissions and energy consumption. Notably, the energy supply and residential sectors emerge as the most problematic due to their high carbon intensity. However, the decoupling process remains distant in terms of energy, underscoring the imperative shift toward renewable energy sources over conventional fossil-based fuels. This study emphasizes the urgency of adopting sustainable practices to mitigate climate change and encourages a revaluation of current energy paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Agora (0211-6642) is the property of Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research aims to identify values related to political and civic participation methods among the two groups of radicalised youngsters: native youth who support movements labelled as far-right (N= 122) and migrant-origin self-identified Muslim youth with strong organisational ties with religious communities (N=109) in Germany, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. The study posits that these these radically aligned youngsters position themselves against politically moderate European citizens, who are less intuitive when making judgements on political affairs comparing to them. Diverging from the unifying European values and hypersensitivities, these youngsters' political reactions are often radical and loud in their safe-to-speak, segregated movements. By using the narrations of the range of mainstream modes of political participation, the current qualitative research asks what appears valuable for the two groups of young people to express their political discontent. Findings revealed that both groups highlighted similar values regarding voting. Self-identified Muslim youth stressed the importance of volunteering and street protests (despite not having participated in one). Many native youths, on the other hand, stressed the function of unlawful behaviour in street protests to pursue political objectives. The findings such as these are discussed considering the group differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When do the media cover far-right protests? News coverage matters for the entrenchment of the far right in contemporary democracies, but little comparative research has looked at what drives news attention to far-right mobilization. We apply a classic input–output process model of news selection bias to test the hypothesis that the visibility of far-right protests events depends on the characteristics of protest initiators, type of action, and reactions. We appraise this via logistic regressions on an original dataset of 5972 protest events retrieved from online press releases by far-right groups (input) and national quality newspapers (output) in 11 European countries (2008–2018). The analysis confirms that news media are particularly responsive to contentious action, protest around migration issues, and action–reaction chains between political opponents. Our findings shed light on the role of news organizations in the success of the far-right and on the pathways by which these movements shape public agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a growing body of literature has analyzed radical left parties in Europe. However, internal party life and the sociology of party elites have remained an understudied topic, mostly dominated by non-systematic accounts on party leaders. This article offers an empirical exploration of the sociology of Podemos party cadres, based on a prosopography of the elected members of the Consejo Ciudadano Estatal and the Consejo de Coordinación, its main internal institutions, since 2014. This research questions Podemos' status of "outsider" in the partisan landscape by quantifying three fundamental dimensions of its cadres' public image: their links with social movements, academia and Latin America. By measuring the social and biographical characteristics of Podemos' elites as they institutionalize, this article offers a new scientific lens to analyze the trajectory of radical left parties, and provides a method to test common hypotheses on contemporary political forces after the Great Recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of feminist democratic societal projects relies on the production of feminist knowledge and ideas within social movements, as well as academic, professional, and institutional settings. In the context of a rising opposition against democracy and gender, race, and sexuality equality at a global level, the European Union has launched the call Feminisms for a New Age of Democracy with the purpose of supporting knowledge production about opposition to gender equality in Europe and feminist democratic responses. The CCINDLE (Co-creating Inclusive Intersectional Democratic Spaces across Europe) project is one of the funded research projects under this call. CCINDLE's objectives include analyzing not only anti-gender politics and the problems that they create for democracy in Europe but especially feminist movements' and institutional responses to anti-gender and anti-democratic forces. The project aims to co-create feminist knowledge with the actors that are already working to counter the antidemocratic project that anti-gender movements and far right parties are trying to construct, and to envision feminist futures building on theories and practices of intersectional justice, inclusion, and participation in European democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of urban living is evolving, and there is a growing interest in creating smaller, more connected, and hyperlocal neighbourhoods, where everything people need is within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. This paper challenges the concept of the '15-minute city' as a panacea for urban ills, by exploring the history of utopian urban planning and regeneration aimed at creating sustainable, inclusive and vibrant communities by desegregating disadvantaged groups. Specifically, we examine social mixing policies, which are recurring top-down interventions that pathologise concentrated urban disadvantage. We trace the evolution of these policies in Europe from the Garden City movement to post-war social housing redevelopment to the current 15-minute city, which we consider to be social mix by stealth. While such policies can reduce the degree of concentrated disadvantage in the short term, they tend to be ineffective in the long term, as deprived neighbourhoods often remain so despite attempts to make them more diverse. The paper argues that the 15-minute city would be implemented through de facto social mix actions at the neighbourhood level, which are insufficient to address the deeper structural issues that perpetuate spatial inequality and deprivation. We propose that longitudinal and comparative analyses, combined with 'right to the city' perspectives, should be considered in future research and policymaking to understand – and more importantly address – why urban renewal initiatives that aim for equitable outcomes at the neighbourhood scale ultimately fail to deliver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'politicisation of Europe' has mainly been discussed with reference to Eurosceptic parties in the 'conventional' political arena. From the perspective of the anti-Brexit campaign in the UK and Pulse of Europe in Germany, this article focuses on grassroots pro-European mobilisation to explore the potential of politicisation 'from below'. The two movements stood out in their ability to provoke considerable levels of grassroot mobilisation. We argue, however, that both movements reached a strategic impasse that was marked by a lack of clarity about their desired future of Europe, and which hampered their ability to generate political change. Our comparative analysis of campaign materials and interview data reveals that these movements struggled to articulate a) diagnostic frames that struck the right balance between problematising the current political situation whilst supporting the established order, and b) prognostic frames that extended much beyond the defence of the status quo (ante). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, we have seen a significant increase of memory politics among far-right political actors. In public spheres across Europe, discursive repertoires and historical tropes that mythologize the past have been (re)articulated by far-right actors who construe themselves as the true heirs and bearers of national historical traditions and values. This special issue, comprising six research articles on French, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Serbian and German cases, adds to new scholarship on memory politics among the far right in Europe: empirically, by presenting a wide range of geographically and culturally distinct case studies, and conceptually, by shedding new light on the role of memory politics and the use of historical legacies as factors and context variables in various far-right mobilizations today. In particular, this new research shows how supply and demand-side dimensions of far-right memory politics are mediated through discursive performance by parties, leaders, protest movements and social media. Methodologically, these studies demonstrate how mixed-methods approaches can yield remarkable and sometimes counterintuitive findings. They point to aggressive new far-right instrumentalizations and weaponizations of the past which ultimately seek to rehabilitate nostalgic ethno-nationalism as part of a politically articulated authoritarian revolt against liberal democracies and cosmopolitan social change in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marcel Van Der Linden's two-volume Cambridge History of Socialism aims to provide a comprehensive and inclusive account of the history of socialism. The first volume focuses on anti-state socialisms, exploring various forms such as libertarian socialism, syndicalism, anarchism, and Marxist-libertarianism. The book challenges the dominant narratives that focus solely on Europe and communism, and instead offers a global perspective that includes diverse regions and social movements. It also highlights the role of religion and gender in the development of early socialisms. The book's thorough examination of the subject makes it a valuable resource for researchers interested in the history of socialism. [Extracted from the article]

In this paper, I present the mobile commons and migrant commoning as the constituent power of a Europe-to-come. The theoretical basis for the proposed conceptualization comes through a well-known dispute around the concept of the 'nomos' that involves Carl Schmitt, on the one hand, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, on the other. I revisit this argument, and suggest that it expresses a difference between two ways of constituting Europe. The Schmittean line is organized around current policies of enclosures of borders of EUrope. The nomadic line today takes shape in a migrant (auto)nomos that resists enclosures, institutes mobile commons and possibly transgresses the concept of citizenship to the institution of commonship. I draw on contemporary theories of the commons and commoning to develop arguments for a nomadic approach to European belonging. Besides contributing to the debate on mobile commons, the article intervenes in the discussion on the future constitution of Europe in the context of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Poznan Theological Studies / Poznanskie Studia Teologiczne is the property of Adam Mickiewicz University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Faced with multiple crises, recent years have seen the rise of degrowth as a newly emerging field of research on alternatives to development in the Global North, as well as increasing calls for ecological reparations to the Global South to address the harm done by colonial, capitalist, and extractivist development over the past centuries. This article makes a twofold argument about the need to closely interlink these. Degrowth and ecological reparations discourses, policies and related movements could gain from strengthening their connections and a mutual integration of core perspectives and demands. On the one hand, we argue that degrowth needs to develop into a global justice perspective by integrating demands for (ecological) reparations, freedom of movement, and a global-justice oriented reshaping of the international economic system—demands most prominently articulated from Global South movements. Without this global justice outlook, degrowth risks becoming an inward-looking, provincial, localized, and eventually exclusive project within Europe and the Global North. On the other hand, demands for reparations—strongly articulated from the Global South—could benefit from incorporating the call for degrowth in the Global North. Without this call—which can, of course, be articulated by using different terms—the reparations agenda risks a key opportunity to address core structural and systemic drivers of extractive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bingol University Journal of Economics & Administrative Science is the property of Bingol University Journal of Economics & Administrative Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores the notion and method of discourse and frame analysis in social movement studies. Different cases of frame analysis applied to various types of social movements and contentious politics in Europe are used to illustrate the argument. As stressed in the introduction to this special issue, although the concept of frame and framing is used in several disciplines and approaches in the cognitive, language and social sciences, research on social movements still presents some gaps. One is the prevalent application of frame analysis approach to progressive left wing movements, leaving aside actors on the Right. A second weakness is the scarcity of empirical research combining the micro (i.e. activists) and meso (i.e. organizations) level of framing and exploring dynamics of frame '(dis-)alignment'. Third, there is mainly a focus on the framing of national rather than transnational contention, although as this article shows, social movement research is increasing on this regard. The fourth weakness is the scarcity of applications of framing and frame analysis to collective actors and policies - a promising line of research to which social movement studies could make valuable contributions. This article will address these issues to highlight promising venues of research and application in social movement studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an original and critical interrogation of how disabled activists establish claims and coordinate activities to progress the independent living agenda. The article achieves this by employing Beckett and Campbell's (2015) concept of 'oppositional device', which is used to understand resistance practices and the technologies of power that coalesce around disabled people's collective action. The article argues that the independent living concept could, similarly, be understood as an oppositional device and this holds potential for furthering the emancipatory claims of disabled people's social movements. This allows for an understanding of Independent Living Movements as assemblages of technologies that open heterotopias, which engage in the experimentation of what disabled people can be and do through the ideas of independent living. The article draws on empirical data from a study exploring young disabled people's views and experiences of disability activism across Europe to evidence the claims made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg began a school strike that quickly spread across the globe. After a ritual strike every Friday by school pupils to call for urgent action against climate change had gone on for several months, what had become Fridays for Future (FFF) called for various global days of action throughout 2019, bringing millions of people out onto the streets in the largest climate protests in world history. Drawing on unique protest survey data on FFF events across European cities in 2019, this article explores the structural bases of organized collective mobilization for climate justice. Nuancing narratives that focus on either the privileged background of climate justice protesters or the environmentalism of the poor, our results show the heterogeneity of the social composition of the protests, suggesting the need for cross-class alliances for mass mobilizations. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the social background of protesters shaped their attitudes regarding what institutions and approaches can be relied upon to tackle climate and environmental challenges. This suggests an important and under-studied connection between social background and the strategic choices of environmental movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Kultur- und Kollektivwissenschaft is the property of Transcript Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The main purpose of the study is to examine conservative arguments during the anti lockdown and vaccine actions, in the examples of the USA and Europe. Three principal axes, the actions taking place with conservative arguments, the emphasis on freedom and its transformation into a global discourse will be examined. In this framework, it will be argued that the ties between liberalism and conservatism have been stretched, and the normals established by the neoliberal world on the functioning of free markets have been shaken. The main point that drives conservatives to action is that the possibility that the current situation created by the epidemic will radically change the foundations of the previous political system. The debate is also directly related to the political pursuits created by populism. The political and economic framework in which these movements emerged will be drawn with the basic determinations of the concepts of neoliberalism and populism, and then the context of freedom, emphasized on the institutions and organizations coordinating the movements in the USA and Europe, will be examined. Neoliberalism, which has become the main axis of the global order in the context of market security and personal freedom, has become the new target of social protests. Conservatism's desire for reasonableness and a slow change through leaders has turned into a sharper resistance and a wave of criticism not only at the local level but also at the global level in these actions, with radical methods that this thought is not very suitable for. It can be seen that grassroots formations, spontaneous formations expressing the demands of ordinary people about the daily life problems and accompanying new associations, without being in a hierarchical or tight organization as in the anti-globalization movement, have started to be the form of action and expression of the masses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically engages with the political strategies of the new social and political movements that emerged in Europe in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-8. It takes issue with discussions of contemporary alter-political practice and theory that overlook the crucial point that the creation of new social institutions and relations in the here and now - a central part of this politics - must itself be political: it argues for the need to tackle the whole question of the collective subject and agent of change. This leads into a discussion of the theory of hegemony put forward by Gramsci, and, later, Laclau and Mouffe, and, drawing on this, a new strategy is proposed, for the construction of powerful collective subjects. Taking its cue from recent social movements such as 15M (the Indignados) and new municipalism in Spain and Italy, it looks at new ways of configuring the strategy of hegemony, by making its concepts of leadership, unity and representation more participatory, bottom-up, accessible to ordinary people, plural and flexible. A historical transition to egalitarian democracies, solidary economies and environmental sustainability is dependent on a wider counter-hegemonic project and contest. This needs to be carried out in all social relations and fields. It must energise critical masses on the ground, and conjoin institutional interventions with new social invention and multiple assaults on the status quo. The object of a contemporary alter-political organisation should be to animate, bolster and help articulate the multi-faceted texture of current oppositional and constructive activities, re-instituting the social in all its far-reaching diversity and complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cinta de Moebio is the property of Universidad de Chile, Facultad de Ciencas Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article titled "Solidarity Economy: Synergies and Conflicts with the Public" from Prisma Social Magazine No. 42 addresses the crisis of the conventional economic model and the emergence of alternatives such as the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE). It highlights the importance of these alternatives in the democratization of the economy, the construction of community, and the ecological management of resources. However, it is noted that the daily management of these projects faces difficulties in sustaining themselves over time and consolidating as a real alternative. The relationships between social and solidarity enterprises and public institutions are analyzed, as well as public policies that support this type of initiative. The objective of the monograph is to identify the elements that strengthen SSE organizations and those that limit their autonomy. The article presents experiences from Europe and Latin America and addresses topics such as co-construction, public-community strategic alliances, and shared governance between the State and social movements. [Extracted from the article]

What explains far‐right mobilisation in the protest arena? After decades of growing electoral support and policy influence, the far right is experiencing an increase in grassroots mobilisation. Scholars of social movements and political parties have devoted little attention to the determinants of far‐right protest mobilisation in Europe. In this article, we bridge previous research on the far right and social movements to advance hypotheses on the drivers of far‐right protest mobilisation based on grievances, opportunities and resource mobilisation models. We use an original dataset combining novel data on 4,845 far‐right protest events in 11 East and West European countries (2008–2018), with existing measures accounting for the (political, economic and cultural) context of mobilisation. We find that classical approaches to collective action can be fruitfully applied to the study of the far right. Cultural grievances, notably concerns about immigration, as well as the availability of institutional access points in contexts characterised by divided government increase far‐right protest mobilisation. But far‐right protest mobilisation also rests on the organisational resources available to nativist collective actors, that is, the network in which they are embedded, their visibility in the media and elected officials. These findings have important implications to understand far‐right success in advanced democracies. They show that far‐right mobilisation in the protest arena not only rests on favourable circumstances, but also on whether far‐right actors can profit from them. More broadly, the study links party politics and social movement research to grasp the far right's modes of political contestation, locating research on this phenomenon at the intersection of political sociology and comparative politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Union Is Killing MigrantsAt Europe's Edge: Migration and Crisis in the Mediterranean. A stark and unavoidable conclusion in Mainwaring's and Stierl's respective studies is that the immigration control policies of the European Union (EU) and its member nation-states are killing unauthorized migrants. Mainwaring begins by showing that the response of the European Union (EU) to what is widely characterized by nation-states, most media, and even some migration scholars as a "migration crisis" has been entirely disproportionate, even perverse (p. 5). [Extracted from the article]

The subject of this article is anarchism interpreted as a form of opposition and an alternative to the dominant narrative about the contemporary Western world. The aim of the article is to indicate the areas that shape the dominant narrative about the world and the methods and arguments used by anarchists in attempts to disrupt this narrative by creating their own narrative. The author formulated a hypothesis according to which European anarchism defined the idea of freedom in opposition to the concept of freedom inherent in liberal democracy and consumerism, redefined democracy, criticized the tendencies inherent in modern politics, such as European integration and militarism, as well as the spread of economic patterns inherent in neoliberalism and materialistic and consumerist attitudes of modern societies. The method used to verify this hypothesis is an aspectual analysis carried out in the context of the above mentioned problems on the basis of program documents, propaganda texts and journalism of the contemporary anarchist movement in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent upsurge in healthcare labour disputes across Europe signals a shift in the attitude of public service professionals towards contentious politics. However, the analysis of these events so far has neglected the specific dilemmas of contention among professionals. To fill this gap, the article builds on social movements theory and claims that to achieve success, professional organizations need to adjust the protest tactics of the labour movement along the three dimensions of targeting, framing and coordination. As an alternative to mass strikes, the targeted use of the protest repertoire minimizes the costs and maximizes the visibility of collective action. Framing around service quality links wage demands to wider justification themes that resonate with the public. Coordination across groups with different skill levels strengthens the effect of both targeting and framing. A comparative study of four healthcare campaigns in four countries (Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland) confirms the key role that these dimensions play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a conceptual framework and introduction to the special section 'Mobilising around Europe: pro and anti-EU politics in an era of populism and nationalism'. By means of its four articles, the special section seeks to address the 'politicisation of Europe' outside of the conventional party-political arena. Whilst the future of European integration has become increasingly contested, not least due to the rise of Eurosceptic political parties of the populist radical right, we observe that politicisation has also occurred in the protest arena through grassroots activism. The contributions in this special section analyse these mobilisations, which have thus far received limited scholarly attention, and the positions and frames activists and various social movement organisations (SMOs) adopt concerning the future of European integration. By doing this, these articles reveal the often complex and context-dependent stances towards 'Europe' amongst actors across the ideological spectrum, which extend beyond dichotomous pro-/anti-EU positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent, among progressive social movements, has critical Europeanism ceded terrain to Euroscepticism, including within this alter-European vision, is a central question this article seeks to address. After summarizing the theoretical debate on Europeanization and social movements (part 2), the article looks at three main sets of frames. As far as the diagnostic framing is concerned, in comparison with the period of the ESF, the critiques of the existing European politics and policies became even more acute (part 3). Looking at the prognostic framing, part 4 of this article points however to the lack of a generalized request for a return to the nation states, with rather the search for an alternative formula. Even if the closing down of political opportunities is reflected in the diagnostic frames, the prognostic frames single out the solutions in the transformation of European institutions, rather than in their demise. At the motivational level, addressed in part 5 of this article, the progressive social movements still see themselves as main engine of these transformations, even if acknowledging the difficulties in transnational mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines public contestation of Europe by the far right in France. It investigates whether far-right mobilization on the EU has changed over time, and how it diverges in the party and non-party sectors. Specifically, we follow a politicization approach and address mobilization in terms of three interrelated dimensions: intensity, issue focus, and action repertoire. This allows comparing collective action in the electoral and protest arenas, thus assessing how the far right politicizes Europe in public debates. The study relies on a mixed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the content of the press releases posted by far-right parties and movements on their official websites, scraped automatically from 2012 to 2019. The results show that European integration is increasingly at the core of far-right politics in France, but its politicization unfolds in different ways in the protest and electoral arenas. As political conflict over the EU expands, far-right parties and non-party actors are challenged to differentiate their respective profiles. These findings complement existing research on the linkages between protest and elections, and suggest that the rooting of the far right in society is reconfiguring the structure of political conflict in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2013 the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) 'Right2Water' collected 1.9 million signatures across Europe against water privatization. It became the first ever successful ECI and has built a Europe-wide movement. Right2Water sought for Europe's legal enforcement of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation (HRWS) as a strategic political tool to challenge European Union market policies. The paper examines the ECI from a social movement perspective. Although the European Commission subscribed that 'water is a public good, not a commodity', its implementation is subject to continuing politics and socio-political struggle, with growing urgency in times of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to present findings from an original dataset on collective action in the protest arenas of Bulgaria and Slovenia in the aftermath of the global economic crisis, 2009-2017. Unlike other empirical studies which focus either on particular social movements or individual-level measurements, this dataset consists of all reports of collective action in the form of protests demonstrations, strikes, blockades, occupations, sit-ins, marches, petitions etc., derived from the national Bulgarian and Slovenian press agencies, including information about claims and actors. Along with a description of the data collection, techniques, and coding, the article identifies the phases of protest cycles and explores general protest patterns. The findings depict three distinct periods of activity in Bulgaria and Slovenia: the ascending phase of protest cycle involving immediate protest responses against austerity measures (2009-2011), massive anti-establishment discontent involving the dominant role of new informal protest movements (2012-2013), and the de-mobilization phase of mass protest and the rise of contention about cultural issues (since 2014). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing commodification of housing and urban space in Europe has led to the formation of a burgeoning housing movement, consisting of large anti-eviction networks in Southern Europe, as well as tenants' unions and right-to-the-city networks in Central and Northern Europe. These different forms of housing activism have become increasingly connected at the transnational level, primarily due to the work of the 'European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City'. Consisting of activist groups from over 20 different countries, this coalition facilitates mutual exchange, organises collective campaigns and has begun engaging in institutional advocacy at the European Union level. It steadily expands in size and tactical repertoire, aiming to develop a more unified transnational strategy for attaining affordable and self-determined living space across Europe. Drawing on the writings of Antonio Gramsci, this article makes the case that the 'European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City' increasingly performs the function of a 'collective intellectual' that organises a transnational struggle against neoliberal hegemony. Based on qualitative analyses of documents, interviews and field notes, it demonstrates that the 'European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City' exhibits a counter-hegemonic perspective that opposes neoliberal capitalism as a whole and manages to facilitate mutual solidarity across different activist communities explicitly on the basis of class struggle. At the same time, instead of organising a democratic centralist political project the 'European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City' pursues a more decentralised approach to collective intellectual leadership that prioritises domestic struggles, yet also lacks a cohesive long-term strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To unlock the explanatory potential of grievance, I conceptualise it through a multidimensional and multilevel theoretical model and test it on cross-national data from European Social Survey Round 8 Data (2016). I define three forms of grievance: economic, political, and social. Such a typology assumes that inequalities are reproduced not only within the field of the economy but also structured by political and social mechanisms. I also argue that grievances have multiple dimensions of complexity. I define two dimensions of grievance, that can be captured by indicators used in cross-national survey data: conditions and cognitive perceptions. Conditions are structural components that reflect existing inequalities when cognitive perceptions indicate an individual feeling of dissatisfaction about economic, political or social issues. Furthermore, grievances may interact differently with specific forms of contentious political action. I examine three forms of protest behaviour: signing petitions, attending demonstrations, and boycotting products. While the results are consistent with the PPT showing that grievances highly intersected with the lack of income and political opportunities create constraints for protest participation, they also show that factors related to dissatisfaction with external institutions and association with a discriminated group of people could increase the chances of protest for deprived individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an introduction to the 20th Anniversary Special Issue of the Journal of Classical Sociology. It begins with some brief observations on the key developments that have shaped the disciplinary core of sociology over the past decades. It goes on to reflect on the role of classical sociology in Europe and beyond, drawing attention to its continuing presence in British and Anglo-American intellectual circles. Far from existing in a bubble of academic ivory towers, the paradigms emerging from disputes in the social sciences in general and in sociology in particular are profoundly shaped by wider historical trends – notably those influenced by different forms of collective action, as illustrated in the impact of social movements on the university sector in the late 1960s. In light of recent calls for 'the decolonization of academia', we ask to what extent sociology can, and should, strive to go beyond the hegemony of the 'Western' canon. Having given a succinct overview of the 20-year history of JCS, we elucidate the different formats of the material published in the journal, stressing the importance of editorial flexibility. On a more substantive note, we point out that the thematic scope of the work published in JCS has been wide-ranging and inclusive – not only because of its editors' broad conception of 'classics' and 'classicality', but also because of the interdisciplinary spirit permeating the journal. This commitment, as we explain, manifests itself in the wide range of thinkers and topics discussed – from a multiplicity of perspectives – in the journal. We also grapple with noteworthy challenges posed by the academic publishing industry in the early 21st century, including the difficulties arising from peer-review processes. Finally, we express our gratitude to those who have contributed to this 20th Anniversary Special Issue and emphasize the journal's commitment to defending the legacy of classical sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly debates over precarity are gaining unprecedented visibility across fields. From labor insecurity forming a growing dangerous class to the existential condition of vulnerability induced by millennial capitalism, precarity has become an object of both empirical study and theoretical reflection. While European social movements have been organizing and writing about precarity from the late 1970s to today, still, from the US perspective, the term precarity might be mistakenly taken as strictly a scholarly invention. "Precarious Writings" offers an important corrective to the ways that precarity has been taken up in anthropology and cognate disciplines, addressing the specific epistemological and political limitations of existing usages and returning the concept to its overlooked grassroots history in social movement struggles in southern Europe. By returning precarity to these activist roots, this paper makes the case for the recognition of social movements as knowledge producers as well as sources of theoretical insight and innovation in their own right. By failing to recognize precarity's development within contentious struggles, scholarly uses miss how the activist notion enables identity reformulations toward a kind of "precarity pride." That is, the politicization of insecurity has become a source for nurturing a fluid space of political creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have explored the rise of far-right reactionary political parties in Europe over the last decade. However, social movements reflecting similar political orientations have rarely been conceptualized as "reactionary." To better understand the political orientations of reactionary transnational social movements such as the Identitarians and the Defence Leagues, we explore how and why ethnonational symbols derived from the medieval period are utilized by adherents. This interdisciplinary investigation argues that, through processes of mediated political medievalism, ethnonational symbols are used as strategic framing devices to reimagine an idealized "golden age" of distinct European nations, to assign blame for the erosion of ethnonational identity through multiculturalism, immigration and "Islamization," to establish an intergenerational struggle against the supposed incursion of Islam in Europe, and to proscribe and justify the use of violence as a means of re-establishing the primacy of European nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the notable successes of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) activism in the region, individual European countries have varied considerably in the extent and speed with which they have adopted legislation to recognise the rights of their LGBTI citizens. Scholars have often turned to modernisation theory to explain these variable outcomes and argue that high levels of national wealth are an important factor in the success of LGBTI movements. Although the correlation between modernity, economic development and tolerance of LGBTI lifestyles is often treated as a truism in the literature, scholars have paid less attention to the precise mechanisms by which the complex processes associated with modernisation facilitate policy change. Drawing on the classic works of both modernisation theory and gay and lesbian history, we examine a less explored route by which modernisation leads to the expansion of LGBTI rights. Specifically, we posit that urbanisation facilitates the adoption of rights policies by strengthening LGBTI movements and enhancing their political effectiveness. To test this proposition, we use event history analysis and an original dataset that contains measures for institutional, cultural, economic and movement variables, as well as measures of urbanisation in 44 European countries between 1980 and 2015. Our findings support the contention that urbanisation has a strong effect on the formation of LGBTI movement organisations as well as the speed with which European states adopt both same‐sex union and anti‐discrimination legislation. The relationship between urbanisation and rights expansion persists even after controlling for a country's level of wealth, religious adherence and the influence of European institutions and norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understandings of time have long formed a fundamental part of political ideologies and served to structure political action. The articles in this special issue of the European Review of History explore different ways in which different groups of activists have drawn on, experienced or projected different understandings of time in Europe in the second half of the twentieth century, often in contexts shaped by substantial upheaval and uncertainty. This introduction outlines the strands of the historiography of time, summarizes some of the underlying themes of the following articles and examines what may be gained from writing time into the history of political activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global or planetary reach of gentrification has become a mainstream in critical urban studies. Yet, the 'travels' of a concept originated in specific places and times have often brought about a loss of explanatory and strategic power. In this article, we argue that another concept, that of articulation developed by Laclau and Mouffe, is particularly adequate to help gentrification, touristification and financialisation to travel among places and levels of abstraction. In order to make this argument, we focus on Southern Europe, whose cities had long been considered scarcely gentrifiable and where, more recently, critical urban scholarship has made large use of gentrification, touristification and financialisation to explain the impacts of crisis, austerity and afterwards economic rebound driven by real estate and tourism. We explore from a multi-scalar perspective the trajectory of Mouraria, a historical neighbourhood in Lisbon – and particularly the dimensions of housing and local politics. We show how Mouraria, during the last decade, shifted from being a 'deviant' case – capable of taking advantage of neoliberal regeneration policies in order to keep its social diversity and most of its long-term residents – towards one 'paradigmatic' of urbanisation-as-accumulation and contentious urban politics. We explain this shift by focusing on its multi-scalar determinants, concluding that present urban change in many Southern European cities should be understood as the articulation of various processes, which include gentrification, touristification and financialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called 'Eurozone' and 'migration' crises mark critical moments in Europe's recent political history and share similarities to the extent that they both have increased political conflict, mobilised large parts of civil society, and put renewed attention upon the notion of 'solidarity'. Focusing on the specific case of solidarity with migrants, this articles argues that times of crises have increasingly blurred the lines between contentious and non-contentious forms of civil society engagement. Scrutinising these dynamics of hybridisation, we bridge diverse, yet largely disconnected literatures, including social movement, civil society and humanitarian studies. In particular, we suggest that the disciplinary and analytical distinction between volunteering and non-profit activities on the one hand and social movements and political activism on the other is too rigid and does obscure parts of a complex phenomenon, which is characterised by activities that often intersect between humanitarian practices and contentious politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2015, residents in Europe have responded to the so-called "refugee crisis" by undertaking bottom-up activities in which they engage with newcomers. These resident responses—both supportive and restrictive towards refugee reception—apply pressure on governments to change protection regimes. In the Netherlands, for example, "ordinary people" join anti-migrant patrol groups that target refugees, or assist border-crossers and accommodate refugees. In this article, I study grassroots movements in which residents undertake practices focused on refugee reception in the Netherlands, and discuss the democratic potential of these undertakings. In the wake of extensive neoliberal processes that seek to "craft good citizens" and emerging forms of public action that bring perceived injustices to light, this article investigates the cracks and continuities between practices of care and control. It does so by analysing and comparing two explanatory mechanisms that prevail in recent literature to account for grassroots movements: active citizenship and counter-powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article uses insights from social movement theory (SMT) to comprehend how a local Salafi youth group in Britain promotes ideas, recruits new members and shares organisational features with other forms of collective action. A social movement perspective has not been employed systematically for the study of quietest Salafi activism, partially because of an urban, elite bias within SMT and fusion of SMT with terrorism studies. This omission within SMT is discussed, stressing that, although insights from SMT can be useful for understanding Salafi youth groups, its current application may further contribute to the stereotyping of Muslim minorities in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This thematic issue analyses trans* politics, and the problems and policies articulated by societal, political and legal actors in national and international contexts in Europe and Latin America. Trans* issues are at the heart of politics concerning sex and gender, because the sex binary ordering is producing the categories, identities, and related social relationships around which gender inequalities are constructed. Scholarship on trans* politics promises to bring more fundamental knowledge about how the gender binary organisation of our societies is (dis)functional, and is therefore relevant and beneficial for all gender and politics scholarship. Contestations around trans* issues continue developing, between state and non-state actors, transgender people and medical professionals, and also among and between social movements. This thematic issue is our contribution to dimensions of trans* politics that revolve around the issue of sexed and gendered bodies (the making and unmaking of "deviant" bodies, non-binary language about bodies, and voice given in bodily re/assignments), the limits of recognition (undermining of trans* agency, persistent binary thinking, and disconnect with material dimensions of gender justice), and the potential of trans* movements (processes and practices through which political claims are generated in the movement, a more forward looking and pro-active perspective on the possibility of alliances between the feminist and the trans* projects, and between the trans* project and the disability project, and alliances of movement actors with institutional power holders such as international courts). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on changing patterns in labor mobilization in the shadow of the Great Recession. While the Great Recession has produced a return of the movements in the streets and the squares of many European countries, labor has mobilized in very different forms in different countries and circumstances. During the crisis, protests took forms resonant with Polanyi-like countermovements but also with Wallerstein-like antisystemic movements, with the latter spreading especially where the disruption of the quotidian was stronger. The article addresses anti-austerity protests, with particular attention to the development of the labor movements in light of the 2008 financial crisis, looking at some quantitative indicators of unions' strength/weakness and industrial conflict in European countries, but also at qualitative evidence on the role unions have played in the struggles against austerity and increasing inequalities, particularly in the European periphery that suffered the recession's consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sosyologca is the property of Sosyologca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Th is aft erword discusses the analysis of "austerity" and globalization and the possible parallels between a history of structural adjustment policies in the Global South combined with further cuts in social funding of recent years with the experience of "austerity" in Europe following the 2008 economic crisis. Questions with respect to the ways in which uneven development and the history of colonialism might complicate the experience in the Global South despite parallel governing strategies are raised. In addition, I suggest the consideration of scale in terms of the implementation of global versus national or local policies, the diff erent scales at which resistance occurs, and the historical circumstances in which classes or subaltern groups coalesce might be important further considerations in this analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the activities and mode of operations of various peace groups in Europe. Though various ideological differences exist among the European peace groups, they seem to be united with regard to their opposition to Pershing II missiles and cruise missiles. In Norway, 71% people were against the siting of cruise missiles and 60% of Dutch people were against the nuclear weapons. North European peace supporters focused on the creation of Nordic weapons free zone. In Norway, Labor Party Social Democrats and other smaller parties supported the call for a weapon free zone.

The article discusses some of the changes occurring in European business schools. The article defines the difference in the nature of business in Europe, which is tied closely to and influenced by the economic, social and cultural environment. Discussion centers on the influences on business education, which include scientific, technological and social changes, market expansion and distribution, professional management, educational systems and student expectations. The article presents a review of specific changes in selected countries, particularly Great Britain, Sweden, and Belgium, and identifies continuing problems in business education such as attitudes of businessmen, faculty values and university organization, theory and practice, and methodologies.

Across a crisis-stricken Europe battles rage for post-neoliberal hegemony, with "race" and "austerity" as central signifiers. One of the places where the frontlines are most pregnant is Sweden; long perceived as a role model for its welfare state, cultural equity and social equality. Sweden is, however, facing social conflicts following in the tracks of a deep transformation in terms of welfare cuts, racialization and growing social polarization, targeting in particular a disadvantaged migrant and post-migrant population. On that background, the paper focuses on the upsurge of mutually antagonistic popular movements - "racist" and "anti-racist". We use Sweden as an exemplary case of Europe's present Polanyian moment, reminiscent of the 1930s. Yet, current upheavals expound, the authors claim, a different configuration of crisis and racism as well as a dissimilar utopia for the imagineering of nation and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ulster-Scots is a contemporary case of ethnicity-building, materialising in Northern Ireland at the end of the 20th century. As the ‘Troubles’ began to be reinterpreted as being about cultural identity in the 1980s, avenues were sought through which to find a ‘Protestant-ness’ comparative to the considerably more developed discourse of Irishness. It was at this point that Ulster-Scots emerged. While its initial decades were marked by derision, hostility, and resistance, it has gained considerable ground in recent years. This article outlines the development of Ulster-Scots from its beginnings in the late 1980s to the present. Utilising in-depth interviews with a variety of current and historical actors, I contend that this development entailed three phases. First, grass-roots educationalists operated independently while unionist elites lobbied for official recognition. In a second phase, the official recognition and institutionalisation of Ulster-Scots in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement initiated a process wherein the Ulster-Scots Agency came to be established as the key player in the field. A third phase began in the early 2010s with the Agency establishing a monopoly over the processes of Ulster-Scots peoplehood-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]