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Around the globe the amount and frequency of social protests have been increasing. However, we do not fully understand when such protests are effective. This is in part due to conflicting findings in the literature, and the lack of a framework that can integrate these divergent findings about why types of social protests are effective. We introduce a framework for evaluating effectiveness of social protest made up of three components: (i) what types of action are being considered; (ii) what target audience is being affected; and (iii) what outcomes are being evaluated? We apply our framework to organize the literature, and in doing so find a pattern that suggests that normative nonviolent forms of action may be most effective in mobilizing sympathetic target audiences, and more extreme disruptive action may be effective at motivating policy concessions from resistant target audiences. Around the world, people engage in social protests aimed at addressing major societal problems. Certain protests have led to significant progress, yet other protests have resulted in little demonstrable change. We introduce a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of social protest made up of three components: (i) what types of action are being considered; (ii) what target audience is being affected; and (iii) what outcomes are being evaluated? We then review relevant research to suggest how the framework can help synthesize conflicting findings in the literature. This synthesis points to two key conclusions: that nonviolent protests are effective at mobilizing sympathizers to support the cause, whereas more disruptive protests can motivate support for policy change among resistant individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high overdose mortality rates in the United States poses several questions: Why have they been increasing exponentially since 1979? Why are they so high? And how can they be greatly reduced? Building on past research, the causes of the increase seem to be deeply rooted in US social and economic structures and processes, rather than due only to opioid prescription patterns or the advent of synthetic opioids. Given this, we consider what changes might be needed to reverse the exponentially-increasing overdose mortality. We use a path dependency argument to argue that the United States political, economic, and public health systems have helped create this crisis and, unfortunately, continue to heighten it. These same systems suggest that proposals to expand harm reduction and drug treatment capacity, to decriminalize or legalize drugs, or to re-industrialize the country sufficiently to reduce "communities of despair" will not be enacted at a scale sufficient to end the overdose crisis. We thus suggest that in the United States serious improvements in overdose rates and related policies and structures require massive social movements with a broad social change agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the multi-actor making of the ruralscape in Hong Kong. I critically adopt the theoretical framework of Ingold's concepts of walking to understand how different "wayfarers", including but not limited to farmers, residents, land activists, agriculture learners, researchers, journalists, leisure practitioners and government officials, walk to make a multi-sensorial landscape. This paper encapsulates the observation outcomes of multiple times of walking by different individuals and groups recorded during my ethnographic fieldwork between 2008 and 2021. I shed light on the local practices and perspectives of hang cyun (walking in villages) and hang tin (walking in fields) to illustrate my observations. By analyzing the wayfarers' walking experiences and embodied movements, I consider the ruralscape as a vibrant space where people configure its meanings and materialize their lifestyle. The wayfarers' embodied experiences reflect the continuity and changes of a rural Hong Kong. Their making of ruralscape helps alleviate people's anxiety and enhance people's hope concerning the current Hong Kong society that faces food safety issues, environmental degradation, social class disparity and spoon-feeding education. I consider that being an agent who exercises his/her subjectivity during the walking in the ruralscape, a wayfarer makes the ruralscape meaningful in various aspects. My explanation contributes to the theoretical discussion of embodied movement and space making particular to the construction of a politicized nature telling us stories of (in)equality, (in)justice, and hope (lessness). • Walking is a political and socio-economic process that produces a multi-sensorial ruralscape. • Embodied movement and space making alleviates anxiety and enhances hope in rural Hong Kong. • Actor-actant interactions in Hong Kong's ruralscape entails stories of (in)equality, (in)justice, and hope (lessness). • People configure meanings and materialize lifestyle in walking in villages and fields. • Wayfarers's experiences reflect the continuity and changes of social movement, education, and agro-economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degrowth and environmental justice movements share overarching aims of sustainability and justice and pursue them through radical social change and resistances. Both movements are diverse and comprised of groups that originate and operate in different contexts. The ever-growing metabolism of the world economy presents an obstacle to both movements' aims, while a socio-metabolic perspective unveils very different characteristics and contexts of the specific struggles. The strategies of many environmental justice movements located at the frontiers of resource extraction are employed to resist coerced socio-ecological transition towards industrialization and to protect more customary ways of life. Movements for the degrowth of industrial metabolism tend to push for socio-ecological transformation, pursuing new ways of life and reimagined social relations in alternative societies. The overarching aims and obstacles of these movements may be shared, but their struggles, strategies and required actions are not the same. Alliances should seek advantages from this plurality of perspectives and positions within their struggles, while acknowledging potential tensions arising from these different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The controversy over packing therapy used in psychiatry was studied here to illustrate how leading associations can influence public health policies. The main French associations of parents with autistic children succeeded in obtaining the prohibition of packing, announced by the French Secretary of State to the Ministry of Health in April 2016. Parents and professionals who had observed the positive effects of packing when nothing else worked for their part wondered what could be done for self-harming patients. The political authorities followed the opinion of the main associations of parents with autistic children at the expense of that of professionals. In this paper, the actions and discourse of the associations against packing are explored, as are the arguments of the psychiatrists who defend packing therapy. The different phases in the controversy from the first opposition in 2005 and the role of opinion leaders in associations are analyzed. The strategies to discredit psychiatry and to promote behavioral methods are also studied to understand the shift in the balance of power from professionals to association leaders. The mobilization of the associations prompted some psychiatrists to conduct evidence-based research and to formalize their practice. The controversy over packing, involving political decision-making processes, ethical issues and clinical questions, enables us to illustrate a case of lobbying by associations. • The controversy over packing illustrates how associations can influence public policy. • This controversy involves a political decision, ethical issues and clinical questions. • A shift in the balance of power from professionals to association leaders has been shown. • A case of lobbying by associations has been described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A contemporary challenge is inequality. This paper illustrates why ideas matter, and how they can change over time. Inequalities are reinforced when they are taken for granted. But this can be disrupted when marginalised people gain self-esteem; challenge hitherto unquestioned inequalities; and gain confidence in the possibility of social change. Slowly and incrementally, social mobilisation can catalyse greater government commitment to socially inclusive economic growth. This is illustrated with ethnographic research from Latin America, where income inequality has recently declined. Clearly, however, no single paper can provide a comprehensive account of political change in an incredibly diverse region. By highlighting some ways in which ideas matter (and the limitations of alternative hypotheses about increased fiscal space and democratisation), this paper merely seeks to persuade political economists to go beyond ‘incentives’. Future efforts to tackle inequality might harness the power of ideas: tackling ‘norm perceptions’ (beliefs about what others think and do); publicising positive deviance; and strengthening social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movements are increasingly using social media, and Twitter in particular, to reach existing and new publics and advance their mission. While historically movements had to rely on traditional media to connect with such publics, via social media any user can share content, helping to connect the key players within the movement to new publics. The quality of highly shared content, however, has been under scrutiny. The #BlackLivesMatter movement, one of the most prolific and popular hashtag movements on Twitter, is examined as a case study, in order to determine the role of content importance and emotion on the virality of the movement. Four aspects of importance were examined – Policy or Action, Group, Social Actor and Politics– as well as direction of sentiment. Findings suggest important tweets were more likely to be retweeted, where tweets associated with Policy or Action showing the strongest relationship with retweeting. Tweets with expressed emotion were more likely to be retweeted than neutral tweets. When tweets contained important content related to Policy or Action or a Group as well as sentiment, these tweets were most likely to be retweeted, revealing a method for social movements to increase effectiveness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with illnesses and disabilities routinely face obstacles to political participation, including participation in social movements. Conventional social movement studies primarily theorize impediments to social movement participation in terms of personal constraints, as implied by the term "biographical (un)availability." However, studies in disability, health, and illness resist locating disability-related constraints solely within the individual, pushing fields to ask how environments can be disabling in and of themselves. Thus, by extending social movement theory through this Disabled/Crip/Mad lens, this article attempts to balance the notion of personal biographical availability or constraints with the notion of what the author calls "movement accessibility." Drawing on data from almost ∼130 respondents, this article develops a framework for understanding how movement accessibility might be deepened within social movement contexts. • Psychologically vulnerable people face barriers to political participation. • Impairments alone do not constrain participation; environment also matters. • "Movement accessibility" affects psychological diversity in social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western ethnocentrism in the social movement discourse keeps cropping up now and again. An attempt is made to arrive at a theoretical orientation unconstrained by historical contingency, but at the same time, without being a-historical. Conceptually, a distinction is made between social mobilisations and social movements, and between social movements and quasi-social movements. Since social movements are inevitably linked with social changes, a classification of social movements by its intended changes is presented to distinguish between varieties of social movements. Finally, the use of means -- institutional and non-institutional -- is factored into the theoretical orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This article focuses on political relationships between citizens and local government in sub-Saharan Africa, with special attention to leadership responsiveness. Cross-national survey data provide popular insights into performance. Citizens regard local councils as weak institutions with limited functions (rarely performed well) and elected councilors as largely unresponsive. Although civic activism is a corrective, people have yet to make use of tax payment as a device to hold councilors accountable. In endeavoring to improve client satisfaction, policy actors should attend as much to the procedural dimensions of local government performance as to the substance of service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between the women's movement and the government over the two women-friendly administrations in South Korea (1997-2007), a period marked by flourishing civil society activism and participatory democracy. As the Korean government transformed from a military dictatorship to a participatory democracy, the women's movement became increasingly involved in policy making and formulating legal changes. By the end of 2007, the Korean government had established or rewritten numerous far-reaching laws in order to rectify gender inequality. However, many feminist activists and scholars are asking whether the very success of Korean gender policy resulted in the institutionalization and demobilization of the women's movement. This study will focus on the dynamics of cooperation, tension, and conflict between feminist organizations and formal politics in order to analyze the trajectory of institutionalization during the ten-year period of women-friendly administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article contributes to the field of innovation studies by addressing the role of cultural legitimacy in technical innovation journeys. The article develops a new perspective that connects insights from discourse theory, interpretive approaches to culture, cultural sociology and social movement theory. In contrast to functionalist and structuralist approaches (which tend to conceptualize culture in a top-down deterministic manner), our cultural-performative perspective emphasizes agency, collective sensemaking and framing struggles. Cultural change is a contested process, in which various groups perform on public stages to influence the attitudes and opinions of relevant audiences who provide financial resources, protection or support relevant for innovation journeys. We demonstrate the usefulness of this perspective with a longitudinal case study of nuclear energy in the Netherlands (1945–1986), which encompasses both the creation of legitimacy in the 1950s and 1960s, and its contestation by an anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s, which halted the innovation journey. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Recent, “rights-based approaches” offer a promising route for bringing about social change. However, we have little experience with state-provided legally enforceable socio-economic rights. This paper examines one of the few examples of a legally granted socio-economic right—a limited “right to work”—that has existed in one state of India for over 25 years in the form of the Employment Guarantee Scheme. The paper argues that legal underpinnings do not automatically enable the poor to obtain rights; however, legal rights have important indirect effects for pro-poor activist organizations including mobilizing membership, protecting activists from arbitrary action, and shifting public discourse. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Across plantation communities in the Philippines, farm workers are locked in struggles about their entitlement to land. Who may qualify as 'rightful beneficiaries' in the current government programme of land redistribution has become a deeply contentious issue. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 has produced — besides landowner resistance — an extensive renegotiation of land rights at the community level that may set landless workers against one another. This paper explores, for the sugarcane plantation region of Negros Occidental, why these intra-poor conflicts take place and how the boundaries between competing groups are drawn. Central to the analysis are: (1) a multi-actor perspective that considers the interactions of farm workers with state agencies, landowners, farm worker movements, NGOs, and different categories of the landless poor; and (2) a focus on the multiple social fields in which farm workers are involved (the fields of the state, market, social movements, landowner patronage, and the plantation community, among others), each with a defining social tie and legitimising discourse, each prompting a specific type of claim and justifying argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: At the outset of this research, two fields of transport research were in the ascendant. The first reflected technological change, considering the growth of new information and communications technologies and their impacts for transport systems and travel behaviour. The second reflected social change, considering the growth in inequality and disadvantage and the contribution of transport systems and travel behaviour to the same. This paper investigates a potential link between the two, exploring the hypothesis that virtual mobility, via the Internet, could provide a viable alternative to physical mobility in reducing mobility-related social exclusion. The paper presents data from a longitudinal, panel-based diary study. Results support the hypothesis that virtual mobility can provide a viable alternative to physical mobility in reducing aspects of mobility-related exclusion, by providing additional accessibility (virtual accessibility) without an increase in physical mobility. Furthermore, there is no evidence in this research to support a link between physical mobility and virtual mobility; and no evidence to suggest a negative effect of virtual mobility for sociability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The past decade has seen the coalescence of a new ideology that envisions social movements in a cataclysmic struggle against global capitalist Empire. Controlled by U.S. militarism and multinational corporations, in cahoots with Zionism, Empire contaminates environments and destroys cultures. Its defeat will bring about a new era of social justice and sustainable development, in which the diverse cultures harmoniously share the earth. Is this a totalitarian ideology? From fascist and communist precedents, we learn that lovers of renewed humanity are not sufficiently motivated by abstract ideals. They must also identify humanity''s enemy, the cause of all suffering. Equipped with a scapegoat, diverse communities can achieve solidarity through shared execration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper explores potential new directions for a sociology linked more to Asian social theory and to new forms of knowledge emerging from ecology and the new social movements than to its older foundations in Western philosophy and conceptions of society. It suggests that there is a route beyond the trajectory of modernist and postmodernist social thinking and it calls into question the anthropocentric, Cartesian and dualistic assumptions of most conventional sociology. It does so by exploring the possible relationships between sociology and the existential issues thrown up by Asian philosophical and religious traditions, and in particular Buddhism, and the in many ways parallel arguments of Deep Ecology. In doing so it calls into question the adequacy of current sociology as a vehicle for addressing fundamental existential questions and in particular the issues of social suffering, the emerging ecological crisis and the alternative conceptions of society generated by many of the new social movements, and suggests ways in which this inadequacy might potentially be resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synopsis: This article, which draws from semi-structured interviews with activists, advocates and professionals engaged in addressing the needs of disabled women experiencing violence and abuse, explores the extent and nature of interaction between organisations affiliated to the movement against domestic violence and the disability movement. It takes a comparative approach to qualitative data, exploring how activism around the needs of this particular group of survivors in England and North Carolina, U.S.A. has resulted in interaction between individuals and organisations associated to these two movements. The article draws out some of the key differences in how the needs of this particular group of survivors are being articulated and politicised across two different social movements and within two different socio-cultural contexts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: The incentives and governance system of organizations are important in explaining how they behave in localized development processes. This article builds on the observation that the literature on territorial development does not generally address the action of social movements. At the same time, research on social movements rarely studies their effects on the territories in which they act. This text is a contribution to fill this gap. It compares two social movement organizations: a trade union federation and a credit cooperative system operating throughout southern Brazil. Both organizations share common origins and social bases, yet their impacts on territories have been quite different. The analysis focuses on the social ties that link trade unions and cooperatives to their territories to show that governance systems may explain the performance of each organization, especially with regard to their capacity for innovation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This special section brings together 4 of the 12 studies conducted within a research program analyzing the relationships among social mobilization, governance, and rural development in contemporary Latin America. The introduction gives an overview of the contemporary significance of social movements for rural development dynamics in the region, and of the principal insights of the section papers and the broader research program of which they were a part. This significance varies as an effect of two distinct and uneven geographies: the geography of social movements themselves and the geography of the rural political economy. The effects that movements have on the political economy of rural development also depend significantly on internal characteristics of these movements. The paper identifies several such characteristics. The general pattern is that movements have had far more effect on widening the political inclusiveness of rural development than they have on improving its economic inclusiveness and dynamism. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In the past 15–20 years, the rural areas of England have been used by a wide diversity of groups as the stage for their protest activities. Some have argued that this is due the rise of a rural social movement; this paper contends that rural areas have become both available and advantageous as the locale of protest through a range of interlocking factors. Firstly, that the rise of the network society has repositioned the societal importance of rural areas. Secondly, that the governance of rural areas has changed, allowing the social stake of rurality to be more widely contested. Thirdly, that opportunities to protest have shifted in favour of rural spaces, in terms of technology and policing. Through a discussion of recent changes in rural England and three case studies, The Land is Ours, Farmers for Action and the Organic Food and Farming Movement, this paper examines these changes and what they mean for the future of rural England. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Contemporary rural social movements bring diverse interest groups and stakeholders together at the local scale in the pursuit of common visions and goals, often against the backdrop of an external threat. The challenge for a movement''s leaders is to negotiate and design a rural agenda that resonates with this complex constituency. One way to approach this problem is to construct and politicize a local sense of place as a means of rallying insiders against outside forces and pressures. This article explores the place-making activities of rural leaders operating within a complex social setting through an analysis of a grassroots social movement in Anahim Lake, British Columbia. The study uses the concept of the “place frame” to explore how Anahim''s activists created a local discursive framework that enabled them to bridge dissimilar environmental values and practices within the community. The removal of external pressures following protest, however, saw the dissolution of this alignment. In documenting this process, the article contributes to a fuller understanding of the significance of place in grassroots protest and activism. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines the usefulness of the new social movements (NSMs) paradigm in the changing context of East European post-communist societies and their agricultural systems and rural communities. Starting with statements formulated in Western sociology in the context of Western democratic societies about NSMs as a protest against modernity, the paper analyses the role of such movements in the still modernizing Eastern European reality. The first part of the paper briefly examines some basic elements of the NSMs paradigm in European and American social science. The goal of this section is not only to identify the basic characteristics of NSMs, but also to identify the typical frames used by them. The second part of the paper focuses on the presence of NSMs in the communist era. Drawing on the idea of NSMs as indicators of a ‘post-materialist shift’ as well as of ‘anti-establishment’ and ‘pro-participatory democracy’, the paper examines the frames of democratic opposition in Eastern Europe before 1989. The final part of the paper considers several selected examples from Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to explore the role of NSMs in the process of shaping new ruralities during the post-communist transformation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: In 1987, World Development published a supplement entitled “Development Alternatives: the Challenge of NGOs.” Although this challenge now seems far more complicated, this paper suggests one way of giving meaning (and possibility) back to the juxtaposition of “development alternative” and NGOs. NGOs might benefit from rethinking the notion of development alternatives in terms of the politics and political economy of social change, of adopting a Gramscian reading of civil society and their role therein, and from reflecting that their role in realizing genuine alternatives has usually been in conjunction with political programs of social movements and/or developmentalist states. Such a rethinking will help define the contours of a theory for NGO action. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Madrid is undergoing powerful urban changes. As in other big cities, the economic and territorial restructuring also means deep social changes. Madrid’s socio-spatial configuration is becoming more segregated, with the recent evolution of the real estate industry one of the key issues of the process. In this context, different social groups have understood some of the urban projects implemented by the local and regional administrations as posing a danger to urban projects implemented by the local and regional administrations as posing a danger to urban segregation in the city. The article analyses social mobilization in a central neighborhood where an ambitious urban regeneration project is being developed. Since 1997, a social mobilization is in progress against a plan that could mean the first step of a gentrification process. A very diverse set of social groups (immigrants associations, squatters, ONG, cultural associations, etc.) joined to create the Red de Colectivos de Lavapiés [add diacritical] (Lavapiés, Groups Network). Over the last few years the evolution of the mobilization has favored a process of convergence with other social organizations and, finally, they have developed a critique of the overall transformation of Madrid, seen as excessively oriented towards middle class consumption and the city’s tourist industry. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Providing adequate shelter and improving the lives of people living in informal settlements represents a major development challenge. Upgrading informal settlements holds many unique challenges for external agents involved in this process. It is important that these agents understand the social and political dynamics of informal settlements and how these can influence project plans and strategies. Moreover, project planners should also understand how a changing national social and political environment and the general quality of governance in society impact on intervention projects. Social change theory provides a basis for understanding the social and political dynamics of informal settlements. The Marconi Beam informal settlement in Cape Town has been analysed from a stage of rapid growth in the early 1990s through to the settlement''s demolition, following which people have been living in formal houses in the nearby suburbs of Joe Slovo Park and du Noon for at least 3 years. This has taken place during a period of far-reaching social, political and economic change in South Africa. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Synopsis: This paper focuses on recent developments in Wales in order to explore the extent to which changes in the gendering of political institutions create new opportunities for social movements to influence policy change. We develop a conceptual framework which includes a consideration of the political and discursive opportunity structure, the way issues are framed, and the challenge posed by social movements in terms of redistribution. Using this framework, recent developments in Wales in the context of devolution are analysed. Particular attention is paid to the influence of social movement organisations on the policy-making process in relation to childcare and domestic violence, to the new political and discursive opportunity structures within which social movements are operating, and to the ways in which reframing of key issues within feminist social movements results in their incorporation into the policy agenda but, at the same time, marginalises more radical feminist voices. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: South Africa has undergone one of the most drastic political changes of the late 20th century. Its 45-year tradition of public relations practice and education allows for the study of change on practice. Results indicate public relations becomes more important and strategic during times of change, and while affecting change it is also affected by change. Practitioners felt they made an important contribution to social upliftment and black economic empowerment. The more democratic political environment forced practitioners to be more aware of important political constituencies, particularly community and grassroots publics who hold high symbolic value. Cross-cultural communication became more important but also problematic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Synopsis: Through activist scholarship Women''s Studies has helped to support material and cultural change in the university and in social-change projects around the world. To strengthen Women''s Studies social-change applications, this article stresses the importance of consciously integrating material and cultural knowledge and recognizing material feminism''s historical, social relational, and local-to-global contributions. Applied activist knowledge in Women''s Studies would be enhanced by more engagement in theoretical, classroom-based, and organizational work in regional and cross-border feminist social-change networks. Examples are drawn from the author''s experiences teaching Women''s Studies, her work in feminist theory construction in relation to historical analysis, and her activist research in U.S. urban areas, the U.S. Great Plains, and in regions of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Emphases are placed on the grounding of gendered and intersecting hierarchies within our historical, global society; the connection of social-change frameworks to an exploration of democratically defined women''s and community needs; and the preparation of applied activists for the work of developing new, redistributive models of inclusive regional and global development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the role of civil society in environmental movements in the context of globalization. Exploring the various meanings of civil society, it argues that to understand civil society as a politically meaningful concept, due consideration should be given to social movements, which recharge civil society. At the same time, the efficacy of social movements rests on the vibrancy of civil society. In the present day world, civil society has become quite active in a large number of public interest issues of which environment has become quite central. This paper explores the conditions of the environmental movements as a truly global phenomenon and its role in the rise of a global civil society. The paper also reflects on the implication of the emergence of a global civil society for the protection of the environment. Drawing upon the cases of the Three Gorges Dam in China and the Narmada Dam in India the paper examines the role of an incipient global civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that current academic approaches to environmentalism in developing countries understate the role of class in either dominating political alliances, or in constructing underlying environmental discourse. The paper uses examples of various social movements in Thailand to illustrate the diverse ways in which environmental activism may represent or support different political objectives. It is proposed that analysts need to pay more attention to the origin of much environmental discourse from new, or identity-based social movements both within Thailand and elsewhere, and to seek ways to understand the 'co-production' of social activism and environmental knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southeast Asia has come under scholarly focus for the contradictions of rapid development and environmental protection, and the ensuing politics. Most give Singapore a miss because it is a "strange" case that does not fit into a region where affected local peoples, "middle class" activities and developmental states struggle over the exploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation. This paper claims that analysis of the "quit" politics of environment in Singapore is instructive, and can correct the materialist bias evident in the understanding of Southeast Asia political economy/ecology. It argues that urban "middle class" environmental activism is a manifestation of resistance to enlarging systems of governance allied with capital. Environmentalism can be seen as a response against the encroachment of the system into the intimate living places of the lifeworld. This response is embedded within an international public sphere that enables environmental politics. These activists derive their motivation and political strength from public moral discursive actions. Environmentalism is a contemporary reflection of a fundamental sociological theme, the discontents' moral struggle for the good society, not necessarily reflecting parochial class interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The worked carried out by social movements is integral to, if not synonymous with, the construction of social problems. Narrative and related concepts have become central concerns in the social sciences generally, sociology, and social movement research. Employing an answer-improving strategy, this chapter ponders how narrative concepts can inform causal investigations of individual movement participation. To explore this possibility, concepts and findings from the general field of social psychology are introduced. First, identity and framing concepts are defined in narrative terms. Four alleged "problems" that might impede the development of a social psychology of individual movement participation are then addressed: psychological reductionism, overemphasis on the analysis of culture, narrative as an universal, and tautology in narrative analysis, and eight aspects of individual movement participation identified and discussed: onset, frequency, range, dispersion, risk- intensity, persistence, disengagement, and drift. The paper concludes by considering how those interested in a social psychology of individual movement participation might proceed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly discussions of AIDS in South Africa fall into three categories: biomedical discourses (the most prevalent), socioeconomic/political discourses (linking poverty and disempowerment to AIDS), and women's empowerment strategies. These discourses set up the construction of women and men in different ways with relation to AIDS: biological discourses individualize sexual behavior; socioeconomic/political discourses present women and men as disempowered by poverty; and feminist/empowerment strategies come from a Western perspective and tell women to be active in their own, individual, empowerment. South African AIDS discourses focus on women, while men are culturally excused for the AIDS epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article lays out the framework for a major longitudinal research project encompassing East and West Germany and the Netherlands. The authors of the article present a category scheme for investigating the impact of modernization and civilization processes in the everyday lives of children. The results of first analyses indicate that the process of civilization and modernization is taking shape with differences in degree and with regional and national-cultural peculiarities in each of the selected three regions. In East Germany the authors found a development, which might be termed "selective modernization" but also could be seen from the perspective of a theory of radical social change. In the latter case, the modernization processes are seen to produce winners and losers and contain contradictory developments resulting of overlapping "pre-modern" and "post-modern" trends and civilized standards at the same time. The Netherlands can be placed somewhere in between, since the authors found that there is a surprising coexistence of traditional and modern lifestyles and value orientations.

The article presents information on socialism and the death penalty. Throughout its history, the workers' movement has been strongly opposed to the death penalty. Today, all Eastern European countries are ideologically communed to abolition of capital punishment, but have failed to act on the strength of their ideological convictions. Demands to abolish capital punishment antedate both the workers' movement and socialist theory. As an ideology and a social movement, socialism has been traditionally opposed to capital punishment. As a political system, however, socialism has been stubbornly clinging to the death penalty in practice. Once in power, the socialist (communist) parties have scarcely paid more than a lip service to their indisputable theoretical and ideological commitments regarding the abolition of capital punishment. The movement to abolish capital punishment was an integral part of the entire corpus of the liberal reform, and it shared the fate of many other political freedoms under socialism: its aims were granted Legitimacy and accepted as desirable only formally, at the level of pure ideology.

The article presents information on the relationship between the state and society. In this reference two major hypotheses were framed. According to the hypothesis that the principle of social and ethical cohesion shifted, in the transition of social science from nineteenth century Europe to twentieth century America, from a concept in which it was seen as embodied in the state to one in which it was seen as an outcome of process of social control and that such a change can be explained only in the context of a broader social change which deeply affected the cultural, political and economic representations of reality from one situation to the next. The author develops his argument by examining the historically shifting relationship of state and society through the eyes of social thinkers. The concept of the state in a way that revealed its antagonism to democracy and that this antagonism was understood and made explicit. Although a sociologist tried to present the ethical as the very core of the state, after economist Karl Marx critique it became impossible to conceive of the state as a medium for social cohesion. According to the author, two theoretical directions were pursued by those who refused to accept Marx's formulation the idea of a super-individual ethical feeling which held the social fabric together and the notion that Marx was basically correct in his diagnosis of class conflict but that the state could only be conceived as isomorphic with the legal other.

Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project, illuminates the impact of women's movements in the UK in tracing the life histories of key UK-based activists and intellectuals, but it more directly eludicates the biographical consequences of activism. This, I suggest, has a different but also important value, not simply in terms of understanding the impact on the many individuals who do become life-long activists, but as a contribution to cultural memories that show how gender relations can be different and better. In this respect, oral history projects can be part of a process of feminist influence that goes beyond the more measurable aspects of campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research linking health and social capital is often cited in relation to global public health policies and programmes that mobilise local community participation in health promotion in marginalised settings. A long-standing criticism of this body of analysis and action is its inadequate attention to the power inequalities that drive poor health, often linked to macro-social forces beyond the reach of local community activism. Supplementing social capital research with attention to more ambitious and wide-ranging forms of health activism tackles this criticism. It puts the reproduction and transformation of health-relevant power inequalities at the heart of social capital research and community mobilisation strategies. We use the South African Treatment Action Campaign as a prototype for expanding understandings of social capital for health promotion. Existing social capital work currently focuses on facilitating community mobilisation to create co-operative bonding and bridging social capital (networks of solidarity within and between marginalised communities respectively), as well as linking social capital (networks uniting marginalised communities and more powerful champions). We call for an expanded focus that takes account of how these co-operative networks may serve as springboards for community involvement in adversarial social movements. In such cases, these networks of solidarity serve as launch pads for various forms of demand and protest where the marginalised and their allies confront power-holders in conflictual struggles over health-relevant social resources. We illustrate this expanded framework with two examples of collective action for mental health: the Movement for Global Mental Health and the UK Mental Health User and Survivor Movement. Both seek to use bonding, bridging and linking networks as the basis for movements to pressurise power-holders to increase access to appropriate psychiatric services, adequate welfare support and social respect and recognition for people living with mental distress. • Applied social capital research in global health often neglects power inequalities. • Including attention to social movement participation could start to address this. • Local network participation may be a launch-pad for more ambitious health activism. • The Treatment Action Campaign serves as a useful prototype of this process. • This approach puts power inequalities at the heart of social capital thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual worlds can provide a safe place for social movements of marginal and oppressed groups such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT). When the virtual safe places are under threat, the inhabitants of a virtual world register protests, which have critical implications for the real-world issues. The nature of emancipatory practices such as virtual protests in the digital realm research remains somewhat under-explored. Specifically, it remains to be seen how the oppressed communities such as LGBT take radical actions in virtual worlds in order to restore the imbalance of power. We conducted a 35-month netnographic study of an LGBT social movement in World of Warcraft. The lead researcher joined the LGBT social movement and data was captured through participant observations, discussion forums, and chat logs. Drawing on the critical theory of Michel Foucault, we present empirical evidence that illuminates emancipatory social movement practices in an online virtual world. The findings suggest that there are complex power relations in a virtual world and, when power balance is disrupted, LGBT players form complex ways to register protests, which invoke strategies to restore order in the virtual fields. • Virtual worlds are gendered political social environments. • The binary gendered landscape of virtual worlds is challenged. • Social movements employ digital technologies to resist power. • Digital technologies can enforce the dominant discourse but also empower people. • Several methodological and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]