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Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. 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.)

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]

This article explores the constructions and dynamics of subaltern migrant subjectivities in three arrival cities, Athens, Istanbul and Nicosia. The paper draws on empirical research in three cities geopolitically located in the most south-eastern part of the Mediterranean basin and the boundary triangle connecting Europe, Asia and Africa. This is essentially a process where the will, agency and praxis of subaltern migrants in the context of social struggles are interwoven with precarious spaces. Precarity is at the core of their daily existence: precarious labour, precarious stay and precarious lives. The generation, maintenance, evolution, even erosion of mobile commons are consequential of social processes and struggles driven by subaltern and precarious subjects, migrants and non-migrants alike. The article explores how the generation of claims to rights is restructuring Lefebvre’s ‘right to the city’, as new forms of commons through mobility, resistance and digital materialities are contesting the sovereign governance and surveillance technologies in Europe and beyond. The paper contends that such perspectives from the borders of Europe, that is, in and out of Europe, are not only crucial to the understanding of what is happening in Europe, but are an advanced glimpse into potentialities of the world ahead. [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]

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]

Austria legally recognized Islam in 1912 and has thus been characterized as a “liberal” country regarding the inclusion of Muslims. But when the law was revision in 2015, it was largely criticized as discriminatory, anti-constitutional, and authoritarian towards the Muslim minority. The paper asks how a number of different social movement organizations and networks have framed their political participation, protest, and activism. It asks what demands were expressed regarding justice, criminalization, alienation, discrimination, and other contested issues. The paper also ponders the implications of political inclusion versus distance from the system for Muslim agency, as the protest movement ranged very widely from state-affiliated institutions to state-independent individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on an EU-wide empirical survey, this paper proposes the alternative concept of collective and politically motivated renewable energy (CPE) projects that includes different forms of enterprises such as co-operatives and participatory public utilities. In doing so, we intend to take a clearer stance on both organisational and ownership features and the political motivation of these projects. The aim is to overcome the vagueness of the term 'community energy' and to widen the perspective beyond the British context. Mapping CPE projects across different European countries we have identified three development trends and provide a project case study for each trend: the further dissemination of local CPE projects, the formation of regional projects, and the occurrence of urban CPE projects. Countries covered are the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany. We also reflect our findings for the concept of community energy and invite researchers to expand upon our research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

In 2015, sex worker activists across Europe celebrated the 40th anniversary of their political mobilisations. Despite having sustained and further institutionalised their transnational movement, these activists are currently confronted with an increasingly adversarial context formed by neo-abolitionist prostitution opponents and repressive policies. In this paper, I explore how sex workers in Europe engage in activism in this adversarial context and investigate how the latter impacts on their contemporary mobilisations. My analysis of the movement's framing processes demonstrates that it is indeed strongly influenced by neo-abolitionism and repressive policies. Yet, activists continue to mobilise and adjust strategically in an attempt to reclaim self-representation, build coalitions, achieve legislative reform and ultimately, drive social change. [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]

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]

The article places Hungarian demonstrations in autumn 2014 within an overview of the construction of the political idea of democracy in post-socialist Hungarian politics, and the changes induced by the Fidesz government after 2010. Instead of a short-term, politically focused analysis, it understands recent changes as part of a long-term history of integration into the history of the capitalist world-system. In that interpretation, I rely on the collective work of the Budapest-based Working Group on Public Sociology "Helyzet". Based on the national and international press of the events, as well as on my previous knowledge of movement groups, I explore the ideological forms through which mobilizations' issues are channelled into more politicized vocabularies. Although a full analysis of this complex and hierarchical process falls beyond the purposes of the present paper, it nonetheless points at a major factor within the local dynamics of politicization: that of vertical alliances within a renewed geopolitical tension, framed in the vocabulary of a "New Cold War". [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.)

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]

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]

Many authors have proposed cooperatives as one of the preferred governance structures for realising alternative food systems, being recommended both in farming and also downstream at consumer level. However, recommendations for the cooperative model still draw dividing line between producer and consumer cooperatives. As opposed to conventional agricultural cooperatives (ACs) made up of farmer members only, the multi-stakeholder model brings together producers, consumers and/or restaurateurs under one single enterprise. This paper analyses multi-stakeholder cooperatives’ (MSCs) potential to recreate more sustainable food flows between rural and urban areas and to overcome the limitations of conventional farmer cooperatives focused more on economic than social and environmental benefits. As part of this research, historical data from cooperative archives is used to look at the history and early attempts of multi-stakeholder cooperation in food and farming. Additionally, current supporting evidence from Spain and UK, in the context of European food policy frameworks, is also presented. A four-fold proposal for open cooperatives is discussed and applied to the analysis of the case studies in the framework of global transformative networks and alliances. The introduction of different types of members seems to both complicate and enrich the cooperative mission, both theoretically and in practice. Their networks with other social movements reveal how the MSCs presented are trying to change, rather than adapt to the market economies they struggle to survive in. The findings suggest MSCs in food and farming are striving to achieve more-than-economic benefits and are moving into the arena of the open and pro-commons economy and other global social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Trakya University Journal of Social Science is the property of Trakya University, Institute of Social Sciences 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 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]

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]

This article discusses the Europeanization of social movement organizations using the case of ILGA-Europe, the umbrella of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organizations in Europe. It examines the impact of Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which bans discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and focuses on three entrenched dynamics ILGA-Europe has rapidly undergone: NGOization, institutionalization, and professionalization. It argues that although we should be aware of the role of the European political opportunity structure in shaping civil society organizations, we cannot overlook internal organizational dynamics and movement identities. Following the literature on the Europeanization of social movements, this piece confirms institutional opportunities and interactions with European institutions are a major cause of transformation: The adoption of Article 13 and the development of a European equal opportunity policy constitute a pivotal moment in ILGA-Europe’s history, endowing it with easier access to EU institutions and core funding. This allowed the organization to NGOize, contributed to a transformation of its internal structures, and led to the appointment of highly skilled professionals. However, this article also insists on the importance of movement identity. These transformations are not solely the result of interactions with the European institutional environment, but had been prepared by long-term orientations within ILGA, that is a preference for reformist claims and institutional strategies. ILGA-Europe’s NGOization is thus not only a response to institutional and political changes, but also results from specific ways of imagining activism. It is the interaction between movement identity and arising institutional opportunities that allowed the organization to transform. [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 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 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]

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 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Solidarity alternatives have emerged as the response of organized social activists to periods of economic hardship all over the world, in different times. This article explores to what extent such activities have emerged across European regions following the financial crisis of 2008. Research has addressed the relationship between the economic context and the emergence of alternative action groups, tracing their spatial variation, but few works offer systematic comparative data at the regional level. This article offers a spatial overview of temporal changes among 2,600 Alternative Action Organizations (AAOs) at the regional level in nine European countries, before and after 2008. It also provides evidence of how the number of AAOs and their focus on the most needy change as a function of the intensity of the crisis and its effect on the poor and unemployed. We find no differences between countries either in terms of the number of emerging AAOs nor in their capacity to refocus their attention on the most needy, due to the intensity or type of crisis. We thus confirm existing research that explains alternative action as a response to crisis within the context of resourced and experienced social action organizations rather than as a direct reaction to economic hardship. Our results provide comprehensive evidence across multiple contexts showing that social resilience through alternative action is not produced directly by contextual distress but seems to be mediated by existing resources. This is relevant to understanding the mechanisms behind the widely acknowledged claim that alternative economies arise in contexts of economic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alternative action organizations (AAO) usually rise during economic crises to offer direct support and solidarity to their constituency groups. These groups may be less involved recipient beneficiary groups or more participative groups collaborating and creating networks of support to sustain the needs of their members. This article compensates for the lack of empirical knowledge about such groups by systematically describing AAOs’ constituency groups in nine different European countries. The analysis is based on detailed data from the websites of a random sample of more than 4,000 AAOs in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom—countries representing different welfare regimes, as well as experience of the 2008 economic crisis. Results demonstrate that there are significant intracountry variations of groups reported as major beneficiaries and participants by the AAOs, but this variation is related to the solidarity orientation of the organization rather than the country’s welfare regime or experience of economic crises. Mutual support organizations, which focus on collaborating for common interests, tend to target active constituency such as less vulnerable local communities and alternative economy consumer-producer initiatives. Distribution-oriented organizations, however, are more likely to target more vulnerable recipient beneficiary groups such as children, families, the poor, and migrants. We also show some significant country differences, as different constituency groups are represented relatively equally as targets of AAOs in Sweden, while being more “biased” toward alternative consumers and small enterprises in France. Results encourage further comparative research about constituency beneficiary and participant groups and the voluntary sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual introduction seeks to frame and provide a context for the following special issue on “Football from below in South-Eastern Europe”. The special issue focus on fan activism and protest aims to understand, theorize and interpret the efforts of football fans both visible as (sub-)political actors in public space and/or as collectives engaged in experiments with new forms of club ownership and direct/participatory democracy. This introduction first details various features of the South-Eastern European context, before exploring how the texts relate to each other in terms of fan, activist and academic positionalities. Following this, one dimension to the concept of protest ‘from below’ - namely that of a strict ‘people/politics' (narod/politika) opposition - is explained and critiqued. Finally, thematic gaps within the special issue are identified and possible areas for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New political groups directly or indirectly related to the European fascist past are gaining strength and significance in the political arena of the new millennium. Starting from an analysis of CasaPound in Italy, a movement and party whose activists define themselves as ‘third millennium fascists’, this article explores the legacy of fascism in current Italian politics. Analysing CasaPound’s history, political programme and some of the main features of its organization as a community, the article examines the prominent role the fascist legacy plays in structuring this movement, for which history constitutes a source of legitimization and identity formation. Fascism is not traced as something isolated in history, but instead its history is presented as a legitimate legacy with a significant place in Italy’s political landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the special issue is to investigate through a comparative lens the impact of the recent economic crisis and consequent austerity measures on party competition and political representation in Europe. All six contributions focus on the substance of political conflict and provide new insights about the impact of the crisis on (a) the policy agendas of political parties, (b) the relationship between government and opposition parties, and (c) how citizens’ preferences are represented by political parties. Theoretically, the contributions link the literatures on party competition, responsiveness, agenda-setting, and social movements. Empirically, they provide new empirical material, in particular on the countries in Southern Europe which were hard hit by the crisis. The introduction presents the rationale of the special issue and summarizes the focus and findings of the six contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this article is to explore the role of individual sociodemographic characteristics and national social backgrounds in forming people’s decisions to engage in voluntary work. We have drawn data from the European Value Survey (1990, 1999, and 2008). We analyze voluntary work as an aggregate measure and also through four different categories. We have performed multilevel regression models taking into account a hierarchical structure of two levels: individual and country. There are no relevant gender and age differences, and, in fact, the most important differences lie in the impact of social factors rather than individual characteristics. We also highlight that geographical effects are diluted after controlling for social factors, but a certain level of geographical variance remains unclarified by the explanatory variables. This conclusion has important policy implications because it opens the door to implementing social policies that could be effective for all European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews three strands in the scholarship on the populist radical right (PRR). It covers both political parties and extra-parliamentary mobilization in contemporary European democracies. After definitional issues and case selection, the authors first discuss demand-side approaches to the fortunes of the PRR. Subsequently, supply-side approaches are assessed, namely political opportunity explanations and internal supply-side factors, referring to leadership, organization and ideological positioning. Third, research on the consequences of the emergence and rise of these parties and movements is examined: do they constitute a corrective or a threat to democracy? The authors discuss the growing literature on the impact on established parties’ policies, the policies themselves, and citizens’ behaviour. The review concludes with future directions for theorizing and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article states that the social movement that emerged in Romania in 2012 is part of the global anti-austerity movement. It proposes the movement's analysis in the key of Karl Polanyi's theory of double movement, portraying it as a countermovement opposing the third way of marketization, which involves commodification through dispossession of access to water, land, air and other free public goods. The articles shows how the movement, which started as an antisystem protest articulated a series of claims that contested the post-communist consensus and revealed some fundamental conflicts of the society, obscured and mystified by the dominant power structures. It demonstrates that the social movement's anti-system agenda had a powerful repoliticization potential and announced a new discursive regime challenging the hegemonic discourse, which uses depoliticization tactics for maintaining the existing power structures. The article describes how in parallel to the anti-system discourse the social movement accommodated an anti-governmental narrative that became dominant in the most recent protests of 2017, diminishing the repoliticization and, thus, the emancipatory potential of the movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protest and social movements are drivers for the Europeanization of national public spheres. This is suggested by the literature on the emergence of Europeanized public spheres and the Europeanization of social movements as well as the discussion about the politicization of the European polity. The article tests this assumption in a standardized content analysis for newspaper reporting on the Eurozone crisis in Greece and Germany. Focusing on the public attribution of responsibility, the analysis looks for horizontal Europeanization (senders/addressees from other EU countries), vertical Europeanization (senders/addressees from the EU level), and discursive Europeanization (similar topics discussed at the same time). The findings do not identify protest as a strong driving force towards vertical or horizontal Europeanization of the public spheres in Greece and Germany. There is a weak tendency towards discussing similar topics at the same time in German and Greek media reports on protest. Consequences for European democracy and crisis politics are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European financial crisis has inspired a wave of social activism, challenging established party politics. In Ireland, a large social protest movement produced a Right2Change political campaign in 2015 that confronted the right-wing consensus in Irish politics. Some activists sought to emulate and learn from the example of new parties like Spain’sPodemos. Yet, to date, the traditional party structure remains intact, and hopes of emulating the success of activists elsewhere remain muted. At the same time, anti-austerity activism in Ireland has seen a conscious attempt to engage in intense dialogue with the pan-European experience. Irish activists have looked to Europe before for inspiration and a sharing of experiences; but the most recent attempt to create a Europeanised public space in response to the perceived ‘blockage’ in the Irish party system is something fairly innovative. This article, based in part on ten semi-structured interviews with politicians and social movement activists, considers the achievements and failings of the Irish anti-austerity movement to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movements do not appear spontaneously. They are rooted in cultures and contexts and their evolution depends both on macro structural factors and on the action and organisation of pre-existing actors. In particular, the anti-austerity protest events that characterised southern European countries in the last few years cannot be understood through a focus on them as isolated incidents. They need, instead, to be analysed as part of a cycle of protest. Furthermore, some of their components are rooted in the activity and elaboration of pre-existing actors. We contribute to this issue by analysing the role of the student movement in the lead up to the anti-austerity mobilisations in Italy and Spain. This analysis allows us to show that a relevant component of the discourse of anti-austerity mobilisation comes from a long-standing trajectory of critique of neoliberalism, and that specific actors in specific fields of action reshaped and recontextualised this heritage in the context of the economic crisis, paving the way, at least from the discursive point of view, for the emergence of anti-austerity mobilisations. Our analysis, based on qualitative interviews of Italian and Spanish activists, point outs how student activists acted as initiators of anti-austerity mobilisations and as brokers in the adaptation of the anti-neoliberal discourse in the new context, with the goal of addressing a wider audience. We stress that pre-existing political trajectories play a significant role in the development of social movements, we highlight the importance of discursive continuities of cycle of protest and we argue that this role needs to be taken into account, together with structural factors and political processes, in understanding protest. Furthermore, we aim to contribute to the study of social movement continuities and cross-temporal diffusion, pointing out the active role of movements in this process in a dialectic relationship with the structural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the change in political vision of anti-austerity movements in southern Europe in comparison with previous protest movements. It focuses on the emergence of a discourse of citizenship at the core of the new protest wave, as seen in frequent references to ‘citizens’, ‘citizenry’ and ‘citizenship’ in movement manifestos, and the resolutions and declarations of popular assemblies. I investigate the meaning and motivations of this ‘citizenism’ and how it reflects the change in economic conditions and popular perceptions in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. The analysis draws from movement documents, and in-depth interviews with 40 protest organisers and participants from theIndignadosmovement in Spain and theAganaktismenoimovement in Greece. I argue that within these movements, the idea of citizenship has acted both as a source of popular identity interpellating a diverse set of demographics, and as a central demand, organising calls for greater popular participation in decision-making, freedom of expression and against corruption. Anti-austerity movements put forward an anti-oligarchic view of citizenship, which is different from the liberal, civic-republican and social democratic approaches, in its understanding of citizenship as the power of the dispersed ‘citizenry’ against the concentrated power of economic and political elites. This grassroots re-appropriation of citizenship highlights how anti-austerity movements in southern Europe have departed from the anti-statism of autonomous movements and have developed a more positive view of the state as a basis of social cohesion and a possible means of ‘people power’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In light of the rise of ultra-right ideologies in Europe, this article offers an indepth analysis of the discourse on immigration presented by CasaPound Italia (CPI), a self-defined fascist organization in Italy. This case study illustrates the importance of media and communication activism for the promotion of contemporary ultra-right movements. Specifically, the analysis focuses on how CPI reported one of the first widely covered immigration-related disaster in the Mediterranean, on 3 October 2013, and on the audience interactions that followed on the organisation's website. In this article, I argue that CasaPound Italia's online communiqué and its members' comments need to be considered as one discursive event in which the encoding/decoding processes at play can be explored in detail. The examination, which draws from critical discourse studies, reveals audiences' contributions in unpacking the implicit message contained in the original communiqué and underlines the active role that "rank and file" members play in the promotion of ultra-right ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to demonstrate that during an economic crisis political protest increases. Recently, economic performance has suddenly worsened in Europe after a period of relative prosperity. The economic crisis affects citizens, who may turn to political protest to voice their discontent. However, the literature on social movements has often dismissed the link between economic performance and political protest, arguing that dissatisfaction is not sufficient for mobilization. Despite this argument, in the wake of the ‘Great recession’ that hit Europe, some scholars have argued that the economic crisis has been a factor in the mobilization of political protest. Nonetheless, a broad assessment of the link between the economic crisis and political protest has yet to be carried out. Based on a comparative longitudinal analysis of 25 European countries between 2000 and 2014, this article complements recent publications on the topic, and shows that economic performance, measured using both objective and subjective indicators, has a strong association with the number of political protests. The literature on the topic has not always presented conclusive results on this association. In contrast, this article provides updated and clear findings showing that the state of the economy matters for mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Black Supplementary School Movement has a fifty-year tradition of resisting racism in Britain. Central to the movement is a construction of African Diasporic Blackness that is marginalized in British scholarship. 'Political blackness', based on the unity ethnic minority groups, is an important frame of reference in Britain. This article will examine the limitations of 'political blackness' in relation to research carried out in the Black Supplementary School Movement that involved interviews with key activists and an archival analysis of documents at the George Padmore Institute. Political blackness is based on an inaccurate understanding of the relationship between multiculturalism and anti-racism; a misreading of the complex and global nature of racism and a non-strategic essentialism. The concept also creates a form non-whiteism, which disempowers ethnic minority communities and works to delegitimize African Diasporic Blackness, which has a tradition of resisting racist oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks whether the Indignados social movement can be seen as a counterpublic that is capable of fostering genuine forms of cosmopolitan citizenship. It is argued that via the artful use of the possibilities of digital media (for example, social networking Websites, live video, blogs), the Indignados social movement goes on to devise new forms of public discourse and organized protest, as well as shared ways of thinking and acting that are capable of fuelling cosmopolitan solidarity. It is suggested that the movement serves as a springboard to analyse how new forms of public communication can foster both a shared sense of European solidarity and cosmopolitan publics. Looking at examples of protest camps in various European settings and their public communication, the article puts forward the claim that the movement's self-definition as leaderless, global, inclusive and non-hierarchical owes much to its performative dimension. This latter dimension is visible, for instance, in the theatricality of the protest camps, ludic forms of protest (for example, the carnivalesque use of the V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes' mask), and forms of public debate and decision making that are underpinned by embodied practices (for example, silent gestures) as much as by the procedural legitimacy of rational-critical discourse. In targeting the political and financial elites (including those associated to the EU), the performance of protest offers new insights on what it means to be a European citizen against the backdrop of the EU debt crisis, the emergence of unelected governments in Italy and Greece, and the so-called 'dictatorship of the markets'. We will see that this transnational movement goes on to engender radical modes of citizen participation that while locally rooted are also powerfully shaped and informed by the creative appropriation and reinvention of a shared repertoire of European symbols, meanings and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Politics & Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell 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 study brings an overview of selected transdisciplinary theoretical approaches to the study of urban movements and activism placed within the framework of civil society and social movements, focused on the region of Central and Eastern Europe, and seen from a social anthropological perspective. It attempts to challenge older academic writings that described civil society in Central and Eastern Europe as underdeveloped and weak, and presents research that points out a specific nature of activism in the countries of the region. It builds primarily on the concepts of civil society, social movements, urban movements and urban activism as presented by scholars both from “Western” and “Central and Eastern” European countries and demonstrates that after more than two decades since the fall of communism it is still important to take different historic, political, economic, social and cultural contexts into account when comparing urban movements and activism within Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research concerning the standardization of Galician as a Romance language intermediated between Portuguese and Spanish. It highlights the strict oral language from the late Middle Ages in the 20th century. Information about the description of the intense process of standardization in the 1970s as well as the summary of key issues in the normative debate, is provided. Documentation of standardization includes selection, codification, implementation and elaboration. An overview on the historical background of Galician in the Roman languages, is also mentioned.