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Skolstrejk för klimatet - en undersökning om skolelevernas klimataktivism

Scholars working from the political opportunity approach have upheld the notion that the political context sets the grievances around which activist mobilizes. Inspired by Tarrow and colleagues plea to explain political activism by analyzing how activists are mobilized, this article focuses on the individual protester. The research question in this article reads how are activist’s protest emotions shaped by characteristics of the political context, specifically by their political alliances? We focus on the emotional constellation evoked by environmental issues (e.g., climate change and nuclear energy) with Green Parties as movement allies and anti-austerity issues with Social Democratic parties as movement allies. Specifically, the parliamentary position of these allies is linked to the relative stake anger and frustration have within the emotional constellation of demonstrators. Results are based on survey data collected among 6,598 demonstrators, and their emotions dispersed over 28 demonstrations in seven European countries. We conclude that having a politically well-connected friend seems to matter more to demonstrators’ emotional constellation than the ideological support provided by that friend.

With the rapid development and wide popularity of the Internet, Chinese people have acquired a revolutionary channel to mobilize collective action and to participate in politics. In order to depict the various factors influencing online collective action in China, and to further explore the dynamic interaction between the Chinese authorities and the public in this new era of collective action, the article attempts to integrate the demand-supply model with relevant studies from both China and abroad to make a systematic analysis of the demand, supply and mobilization of Chinese online activism. The impact of the new communication technology on political participation and the political ecology is discussed and questions are raised for future research.

"Twitter protests" and "Facebook revolutions" imbue the coverage of contentious politics in news media and academic outlets alike. As long as such protests are not compared to conventional mobilized events it is hard to ascertain the supposed differences between connective and collective action. We report a study that does just that: we examine if it makes a difference whether people are recruited through self-organized rather than organization-centered routes. We surveyed participants and nonparticipants in both actions (N = 319), asking who participated in the respective action, how they were mobilized, and why they participated. Results reveal that in some ways the recruitment route does make a difference, while in others it doesn't. Recruits of connective action were lower educated, felt politically efficacious, and mainly mobilized via informal (virtual) mobilizing channels, while recruits of collective action were highly educated, politically interested, and mainly mobilized via formal mobilizing channels. Social embeddedness played a crucial role in both campaigns, but more so in self-organized actions: approving networks increase the chances of being asked, influenced, and motivated by significant others, while disapproving milieus decrease the chance of being asked, influenced, and motivated by others. Approving networks thus expand informal mobilization, the more so for self-organized connective action.

In het onderzoek zijn de volgende vragen beantwoord: Hoe ziet de wisselwerking tussen het anti-islamveld en het radicale-islamveld eruit in de verschillende landen? In welke mate leidt die wisselwerking tot polarisatie en tot radicalisering van denkbeelden en actierepertoires? Is hierbij sprake van escalatie? Welke de-escalerende maatregelen nemen de overheden in de bestudeerde landen? Het uitgevoerde onderzoek omvatte een verkenning van de wetenschappelijke literatuur, een vergelijkende analyse van vier landen (Verenigd Koninkrijk, Duitsland, België en Frankrijk), expertinterviews en een analyse van relevante inhoud op sociale media (Facebook en Twitter).