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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]

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]

We examine the relationship between material deprivation and different types of responses to economic crises by civil society actors. We are interested in understanding whether material deprivation has an effect on civil society reactions to the crisis and whether political opportunity factors contribute to this relationship. In particular, we wish to ascertain if the effect of material deprivation is moderated by perceptions of political stability, on one hand, and of the effectiveness of government, on the other. Our results show that the effect of material deprivation on various aspects of responses to the crisis varies depending on the perceptions of the political environment. This suggests that perceptions of political stability and government effectiveness feed into the interpretation of present conditions. Therefore, perceptions of political stability and government effectiveness act as signals leading material deprivation to become politicized as a grievance. Related Articles in this Special Issue [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizens may respond to economic crises and to policy responses to such crises in a variety of ways. This special issue focuses on collective responses as they express themselves in the public domain, in the form of social movements or other types of interventions. The special issue originates in a large-scale comparative research project funded by the European Commission and titles 'Living with Hard Times: How Citizens React to Economic Crises and Their Social and Political Consequences' (LIVEWHAT). The eight articles all use a common dataset and adopt a common method, known as political claims analysis, which has proven fruitful in previous work on social movements and contentious politics, consisting in retrieving interventions in the public domain on a given issue, or range of issues, drawing from media sources, most often newspapers. The data stem from a systematic content analysis of newspapers in each of the countries under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of aging European conservation institutions rewilding has emerged as a popular and scientific expression of new directions in ecology and conservation management associated with the restoration of ecosystem function through reassembly of trophic levels involving the reintroduction of large mammals. It introduces a radical new natural archetype that evokes a positive environmentalism. The Oostvaardersplassen experiment in the Netherlands demonstrates the agency of rewilding for nature development and engaging diverse publics in debates on what is natural and the future of conservation policy. If conservation is to retain its cultural and policy visibility and influence in a 21st century multi-cultural Europe, our conservation institutions and the natures we value must adapt. In this forum I frame rewilding as an asset for institutional adaptation that is being constrained by substantive institutional and societal resistance. I argue the need for strategic investment in a European network of experimental rewilding sites. These would bring rewilding into densely populated areas, develop the science and practice of ecosystem restoration, and promote public debate on nature conservation futures. The 'Fitness check' of European nature conservation legislation mandated in 2014 is a case of high politics. In this situation, compromise and negotiation is inevitable and the environmental lobby needs something to advocate as well as defend. A rewilding agenda could fulfil this need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on political participation asserts that protest has increased over the last four decades, all over the world. This trend is derived from surveys asking questions about participation in various forms of protest, including demonstrations, boycotts, and unofficial strikes. The latter question made sense in the context in which it was formulated, Britain in the early 1970s, and with regard to the original methodological aim, measuring 'protest potential'. The absence of a generic question on strikes, however, distorts our understanding of protest. Two sources of data on Britain in the 1980s and 1990s - a population survey and an event catalogue - comprehensively measure strikes. They show that strikes greatly outnumbered demonstrations and other forms of protest. Another claim in the literature, that protesters are highly educated, no longer holds once strikes are properly counted. Strikes in Britain, as in many countries, have dramatically declined since the 1980s. This decline more than offsets any increase in demonstrations and boycotts, meaning that the total volume of protest has decreased. The episode illustrates how survey questions, when replicated without scrutiny, can misconstrue social trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Squatting empty properties for living or to develop public activities has lasted in European cities for more than three decades. Although local and national contexts differ significantly, there are also some general trends and patterns that deserve careful attention. When squatting occasionally appears in public debates, controversy is generated and many gaps open between academic, social and political perceptions. In this article I use evidence from several European cities to argue that the squatters' movement has produced an original impact in urban politics. The main feature of this impact has been to generate a relatively wide autonomous and mainly non-institutional mode of citizen participation, protest and self-management. How has this been possible? Which are the specific contributions made by this urban movement? These are questions that both scholars and activists continuously claim to be relevant, so that this research attempts to offer some general answers based on detailed comparisons and experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the consensus opinion that alterglobalism is in crisis and apparently without a clear objective or vehicle for promoting global change through the ineffective World Social Forum 'model,' a significant anticapitalist tendency continues to remain active. However, questions remain over autonomism's ability to avoid ghettoizing itself and provide more than intense internal criticism of other more institutionalized and 'vertical' currents. Autonomism originated in Europe in the seventies and eighties, specifically around the Autonomia and Autonomen radical social movements in Italy and Germany. Based on Italian workerist theories of worker self-management and autonomy from the mediating institutions of both capital and labor, the movement has since absorbed strong influences from radical feminism, the North American counterculture, French poststructuralism, neoanarchism, Mexican neo-Zapatism, and the Argentinean worker-recuperated factory and self-management movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A table of contents for the issue is presented.

Standard typologies of anarchism are based on categories such as individualism and communism that refer to philosophical issues or to different models of the future society. Such categorizations project an image of anarchism as more concerned with abstract questions than with practical matters. However, they are misleading. Through a cross-national analysis of three major European anarchist movements, Italian, Spanish, and French, around the 1890s, I show that the most fundamental issues that divided all these movements alike were tactical, not theoretical. They concerned participation in the labor movement, collective action, and organization. By revising standard categorizations along these lines, anarchism can be rescued from the stereotypical charge of irrationalism and shown to be a movement in rational search of the best means to achieve its ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the legacy of Europe's constitutional moment. It provides a penetrating assessment of the 2003 constitutional proposals of the European Convention. Weighing various critiques of the attempt to see the work of the Convention as a dramatic new foundation, a constitutional moment, the author responds by outlining the constructivist position, one that breaks with the traditional link between legitimacy and origins and redefines constitutionalism in terms of the interaction of three dimensions such as civil society activism, public discussion, and the deepening of the political culture.

New Urban Sociology began in Europe at the beginning of the 1970s and then spread to the United States. It also influenced urban studies in Japan. This article examines the changing debates that have occurred in New Urban Sociology since its introduction to Japan in the late 1970s. The twenty years since its introduction from the West can be divided into three stages. The first covers the period from 1977 to 1985, when French urban sociology, particularly Manuael Castells’ theory of the state, was highly influential. The second stage, from 1986 to 1992, focused on theories of urban social movements and the concept of global city in a context of urban renewal in Japan’s major cities. The third stage, from 1992 to the present, is characterized by a transformation of New Urban Sociology into a sociological theory of space under globalization that has been heavily influenced by the work of David Harvey. Née en Europe au début des années 1970, la Nouvelle Sociologie urbaine a ensuite atteint les Etats–Unis, mais elle a aussi influé sur les études urbaines au Japon. L’article examine l’évolution des débats qui ont animé la Nouvelle Sociologie urbaine depuis qu’elle y est arrivée d’Occident à la fin des années 1970. Les vingt années qui ont suivi peuvent se décomposer en trois phases. La première va de 1977 à 1985, alors que la sociologie urbaine française, notamment la théorie de l’État de Manuel Castells, faisait autorité. La deuxième, entre 1986 et 1992, s’attache aux théories des mouvements sociaux urbains et au concept de la ville planétaire (global city) parallèlement à une rénovation des grandes villes nippones. La troisième phase, de 1992 à nos jours, se caractérise par une transformation de la Nouvelle Sociologie urbaine en une théorie sociologique de l’espace soumis à la mondialisation, concept largement inspiré des travaux de David Harvey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the recent rash of official reports done by governmental agencies in Western Europe to guide policy development in those societies. Particular attention is given to reports in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, and Italy, and to the changes in such reports that have occurred, perhaps because of the influence of scholarly critiques offered for some of the earlier reports. The reports are divided into "Type I" and "Type II" reports, with the former being thorough-going in their anti-cult orientation, and the latter reports being more moderate in tone, with some attention paid to scholarship on new religions. However, the major thesis of the study is supported, as an examination of both types of reports reveals that they incorporate "brainwashing" and "mind control" imagery imported from the United States, even though such theories have been largely discounted within the United States. Use of such theories leads directly to some questionable policy recommendations, as demonstrated in the reports. Reasons for the spread of "brainwashing" ideas to Europe are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes how the Situationist International was foremost among the movements on the mid-twentieth century in Europe. During the time of fast moving architecture, it responds to the rigidity of programming and zoning of postwar urban planning. It is stated that the situationist project was intended to counter the extraordinary inertia that had beset the mainstream Left through Stalinism, socialist realism and ignorance of issues of everyday life and microcosmic social change.

The environmental movement is one of the most successful social movements in recent decades, garnering substantial public support throughout western Europe and the United States. Environmentalism is also considered a key "new social movement" (NSM), assumed to share fundamental characteristics with other NSMs such as the women's, anti-nuclear, and peace movements. Using the results of a 1990 cross-national survey of western Europe and the United States, we examine three broad suppositions regarding public support for the environmental movement and other NSMs. We first examine the idea that the general public distinguishes between two branches of contemporary environmentalism--the more traditional one of nature conservation and the newer, broader one of general environmental protection--and find that the general publics in 18 nations make little distinction between them. We next examine the degree to which public support for environmental protection is related to support for other NSMs, and find a strong relationship between the two--thereby validating a widely assumed but seldom-tested tenet found in the NSM literature. Finally, we examine the presumed bases of support for environmental protection and other NSMs, particularly the notion that NSM supporters are drawn heavily from the "new class." We find that demographic variables, including membership in the new class, are poor predictors of support for the goals of NSMs in general and of support for environmentalism in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on theories and practices for rural sociology in Europe. Rural sociology has been going through something of an identity crisis with a growing division between a focus on agricultural restructuring, on the one hand, and on the social and economic restructuring of rural space for tourism, leisure and housing, on the other. Developments in the political and social movements shaping contemporary Europe suggest an opportunity for a new synthesis of interests in rural sociology centred on the symbolic significance of rurality and the specific social and economic relations through which this is constructed, rather than on a bounded territorial domain defined as rural. This article has special focus on just two social movements, those centred on struggles for the environment and for women's emancipation; movements which are emerging from the social and political margins to take a prominent position amongst the voices shaping the new Europe and which have particularly strong repercussions for theory and practice in rural sociology. It first looks at a key conceptual challenge which is raised by each of these social movements or discourses, concepts that on the whole remain either un-theorized or under-theorized in rural sociology.

This article formulates propositions about religious economies, thereby treating all of the religious activities going on in a society as interrelated aspects of a system, one of earliest results was the thesis that secularization is a self-limiting process that, among other things, stimulates new religious movements. The researchers tested it on data for the fifty United States, showing that the rate of cult movements was inversely related to membership rates in the conventional churches. Given that many nations of Europe exhibit very low levels of church attendance, then these same nations ought to abound in new religious movements. It must be abundantly clear from the above that the investment of time and effort in locating European religious movements still has been minor compared with that devoted to American religion. For the United States it was necessary to exclude some Buddhist and Hindu as well as Moslem groups because they were based on immigrants. But because of their limited scope they are far less valuable for addressing the question of whether European nations tend to have more new religious movements than does the United States.

The article sheds light on the model of the Great Republic. The article adds that it was conceived in Europe, east of the Elbe. The article deliberately refrains from using the term "Eastern Europe" for the tradition of the Great Republic is shared by certain Central-European societies and only some East-European ones. Further, there is no one single model of the Great Republic but several ones. However, all have certain basic features in common, indeed sufficient to warrant our calling them models of the Great Republic. In addition, all of them have been formulated by thinkers who had been brought up east of the Elbe, or carried and motivated by political movements belonging to the same region. The model of the Great Republic though, has never made an appearance in the modern history of Great Britain; the American model has always been deeply rooted in its own tradition (the only democratic tradition one can mention); French postwar social movements, especially those of May 1968, have borne very little resemblance to the Great Republic.

Distinguishes between two types of theories that attempt to explain public opinion toward new social movements in Western Europe. Macro models emphasizing the social location of individuals as source of public support for new social movements; Psychological models' focus on postmaterial values or problem perceptions as explanations of why citizens support protest movements.

As consumer-controlled organizations, cooperatives have played a vanguard role in consumer protection. This article reviews consumer protection programs of the economically strong European cooperatives, and presents examples of protection programs by American cooperatives in two diverse sectors, funerals and foods. Research questions are posed relating to consumer protection and to social psychology. The article ends by examining the future of consumer cooperatives and assessing their potential contributions to their members as well as to consumers at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on social movements of the year 1986. 1968 was the year of large social movements on a global scale. There were movements of protest in Western Europe and the United States, in several nations of the Soviet bloc, in Japan, Mexico and Spain. Students were prominent in these movements but were by no means the only social groups involved. If, in many countries, 1968 was a climactic year, the movements were usually of longer duration, expressed profound social changes and conflicts and had consequences. The fact that in many places it was a movement or revolution of the educated accounted for a special response from the media - whose managers and workers shared, often enough, a common culture with the groups involved in protest. In the United States, the movement was a revolt against the Democratic Party incarnated the party descended from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's willing compromise with capitalism in the New Deal. The United States had become a plebiscitary consumer democracy with political alternation, but far less coherent and organized social conflict than in the New Deal period. American and West European politics are different, but if we equate the West European socialist and social democratic parties and even their Communist parties to the American Democratic party as the party of institutionalized reform, the same pattern emerges.

Central to the 'new politics' is the increased salience of non-material issues and a heightened concern with participation. 'New social movements' and 'new politics' parties are contingent manifestations of this new politics, which is also manifest in changed orientations toward established political parties. In most respects, the British appear no less well-disposed toward the 'new politics' than their European neighbours. Yet Britain is distinguished by the absence of either a radical ecology movement or a successful 'new politics' party. British exceptionalism is explained by institutional arrangements which constrain the environmental movement toward integration rather than opposition, and an electoral system which polarises political competition and inhibits the development of new parties. One consequence is the preservation of the Labour Party as a beneficiary of, and vehicle for, the expression of much political dissent. As a result, in Britain the 'new politics' is to an unusual degree combined with 'old politics'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important manifestation of freedom of assembly is the right to organize and participate in peaceful public demonstrations. Data from representative cross-sectional surveys of the adult population of seven European countries and the United States show that mass support for this right cannot be taken for granted in Western democracies. Education, age, and political value priorities are three explanatory variables that can be expected to affect the likelihood of a person opposing any attempt by government to forbid public demonstrations. The strength, form, and nature of the relationship between disapproval of a ban on demonstration and the explanatory variables are compared cross-nationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on coordinated research on leisure in various European countries. Coordinated studies on leisure are being planned, carried out or evaluated in 11 countries. Liaison between the research workers is maintained by means of annual meetings, the most recent was held at Portoroz in Yugoslavia in June 1960. The urban communities investigated are selected according to certain common criteria like, population, facilities and degree of industrial development. The socio-graphic study consists, in the first place, of a public opinion poll bearing on a random sample and conducted with the aid of a questionnaire prepared by the group, which was tried out in different localities and modified, where necessary, after joint consultation, in accordance with local requirements. As part of a study of the development of a rural area in Luxembourg, which was begun in 1956 and covers 68 communes, an enumeration was prepared of the collective facilities available for leisure activities and this was followed by a special survey of the leisure habits of the population and the information it possesses about the cultural facilities at its disposal.

In this article the author takes a full view of the panorama of events that arose in Europe after the Boer War. The Entente Cordiale was regarded by many Europeans as a pitiful confession of Great Britain's weakness. However, it should not be considered an agreement shaped by the administrations. For, in France King Edward VII was acclaimed the author of it. This the author may assert without fear of contradiction, for much of his life at the beginning of the century was spent among men of great influence in the political parties of Great Britain and France. In 1900 the author became stage director of the Royal Opera, which position gave me many chances of hearing what was said in high social circles about the politics of the day. It is true many of these people knew the author was labeled a pro-Boer, but somehow, in my case, that did not seem to Concern them much, for they were chiefly interested in my work behind the curtain and the part the author played in the then promising movement for a national opera.

Reports on the misplaced confidence of anti-vivisectionists in changing the landscape of European medical research by getting governments to ban primate research, according to pharmaceutical industry representatives. Arguments advanced by Richard Ley of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry against the use of computer modeling in medical research; Value of the central nervous system therapeutics market; Range of treatments that have depended on primates.

Organic farming has experienced a major break through in Europe during the 1990s. The suggestion here, is to see it as an implantation of post-modernist values into agriculture and as representing a break in the agriculture self-rule,which developed during the 20th century. This rather unusual situation needs an open theoretical framework. Such a framework is suggested. It focuses on institutionalization and combines institutional theory with social movement theory and theory of coalition making. The need for a non-deterministic view on organic farming development is further justified by referring to a comparative analysis of the development of organic farming in eighteen European countries. It emphasizes the need for a distinct organic farming identity and suggests that the growth in European organic farming is neither explained by political support nor by pure market forces. Rather organic farming growth is promoted through a continuous series of initiatives originating in different parts of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]