Social Movements (Political Science)

Toplumsal Hareketler ve Yeni Alternatif - Radikal Medyalar

by barış çoban

Yeditepe Üniversitesi İletişim Çalışmaları Dergisi 2011, no:14

The Rhetoric of the Web: The Rhetoric of the Streets Revisited Again

by Brett Lunceford

Lunceford, Brett. “The Rhetoric of the Web: The Rhetoric of the Streets Revisited Again.” Communication Law Review, 12, no. 1 (2012): 40-55.

Protest rhetoric has always provided a prime example of how communication can work to change the human condition, but... more Protest rhetoric has always provided a prime example of how communication can work to change the human condition, but strategies of protest have evolved as the United States has transformed into an information economy. Although protest remains “on the streets,” it has also moved into the digital realm. This essay builds on the work of Franklyn Haiman by considering the ethical and rhetorical dimensions of hacktivism (politically motivated computer hacking). After briefly tracing the historical development of hacktivism, I discuss several recent politically motivated website defacements and denial of service attacks, concluding that Haiman’s argument that the rhetoric of the streets should be held to different rhetorical and ethical standards still holds true in the online world.

Society as an Actor in Post-Soviet State-Building

by Serhiy Kudelia

Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, vol. 20, No. 2, Spring 2012, pp. 149 – 156.

Repressing Protest: Threat and Weakness in the European Context, 1975-1989

by Phillip M. Ayoub

Research on state repression of protest focuses on two key factors: threat and weakness.  States repress protest... more Research on state repression of protest focuses on two key factors: threat and weakness.  States repress protest events when they threaten state authorities and social norms (threat), when they lack organizational strength and political voice (weakness), or when they do both.  I test these competing explanations in the context of Western European protests from 1975 to 1989. This analysis goes beyond previous research by exploring the effect of threat and weakness in multiple domestic contexts. The findings suggest that threat is the most powerful explanation of repression, whereas weakness only occasionally predicts repression and depends on country-specific contexts.  The importance of the findings lie in their ability to emphasize (1) the universality of situational threat to police “on-the-ground,” over theories that view a calculating state “up-above” and (2) the seemingly unified perception—in advanced democracies—of protest as an increasingly legitimate form of political participation that does not beget repression.

Paradoxical publicness: becoming-imperceptible with the Brazilian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement

by Jan Simon Hutta

published in 'Rethinking the Public', Eds Nick Mahony, Janet Newman and Clive Barnett

[2002] “The People’s Strike”: Analyzing A Day of Action by the DC Anti-Capitalist Convergence

by Michael Loadenthal

On September 27th, 2002, thousands of activists from around the world converged in Washington D.C. for a day of... more On September 27th, 2002, thousands of activists from around the world converged in Washington D.C. for a day of “non-compliance and resistance” in response to the bi-annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.  Many groups from around the country helped to organize protest actions against these organizations, but one collective of radicals took a chance and broke from tradition.  The People’s Strike, organized by the D.C. based Anti-Capitalist Convergence (ACC), was a uniquely innovative attempt to create a new structure for the organization of mass protest actions.  The ACC’s plan was a revolutionary first that helped to promote an empowering organizational structure and create an unstoppable, self-fulfilling prophecy that indirectly caused a work strike, and effectively caused the stoppage of business in downtown D.C.

Violence, democracy, and the neoliberal ''order'': the contestation of public space in posttransitional Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2009. Violence, democracy, and the neoliberal "order": the contestation of public space in posttransitional Cambodia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 99 (1), 138-162.

Neoliberal policies explain why authoritarianism and violence remain the principal modes of governance among many... more Neoliberal policies explain why authoritarianism and violence remain the principal modes of governance among many ruling elites in posttransitional settings. Using Cambodia as an empirical case to illustrate the neoliberalizing process, the promotion of intense marketization is revealed as a foremost causal factor in a country's inability to consolidate democracy following political transition. Neoliberalization effectively acts to suffocate an indigenous burgeoning of democratic politics. Such asphyxiation is brought to bear under the neoliberal rhetoric of order and stability, which can be read through the (re)production of public space. The preoccupation with order and stability serves the interests of capital at the global level and political elites at the level of the nation-state. Citizens themselves may fiercely contest these particular interests in a quest for a more radical democracy, as evidenced by the burgeoning geographies of protest that have emerged in Cambodian public spaces in the posttransition era.

Public Space as emancipation: meditations on anarchism, radical democracy, neoliberalism and violence

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Public Space as emancipation: meditations on anarchism, radical democracy, neoliberalism and violence. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography. 43 (2), 525-562.

In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article... more In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article proceeds as a theoretical inquiry into how an agonistic public space might become the basis of emancipation. Public space is presented as an opportunity to move beyond the technocratic elitism that often characterizes both civil societies and the neoliberal approach to development, and is further recognized as the battlefield on which the conflicting interests of the world's rich and poor are set. Contributing to the growing recognition that geographies of resistance are relational, where the “global” and the “local” are understood as co-constitutive, a radical democratic ideal grounded in material public space is presented as paramount to repealing archic power in general, and neoliberalism’s exclusionary logic in particular.

Ultras call for retaliation as parliament blames fans and security for Port Said deaths

by James M. Dorsey

By James M. Dorsey

An Egyptian parliamentary inquiry into this month’s death of 74 soccer fans in the Suez... more By James M. Dorsey

An Egyptian parliamentary inquiry into this month’s death of 74 soccer fans in the Suez Canal city of Port Said has blamed fans and lax security for the worst incident in the country’s sports history. The inquiry’s preliminary report also suggests without going into detail that unidentified thugs were involved in the violence that erupted at the end of a match between Port Said’s Al Masri SC and crowned Cairo club Al Ahli SC.

The report is scheduled to be debated in parliament on Monday. It was drafted by a committee headed by Ashraf Thabet, the assembly’s first deputy speaker and a member of the Salafist Al-Nur Party, which is believed to enjoy backing from Saudi Arabia and advocates adherence to Islam in line with 7th century practices at the time of the Prophet Mohammed.

A controversial member of Al Nur, Salafist preacher Sheikh Abdel Moneim El-Shaha, was last week attempting to talk his way out of reports that he had condemned soccer as a sin and said that the 74 fans were killed because they had been watching a forbidden form of entertainment. Mr. El-Shaha charged that he had been misquoted.

The parliamentary report is unlikely to reduce tension between the fans or ultras – militant, well-organized, highly politicized, street battle-hardened soccer support groups modelled on similar organizations in Serbia and Italy – and Egypt’s ruling military and security forces. At least 16 people were killed in the wake of the Port Said incident in six days of fighting between security forces and youths seeking to storm the interior ministry in central Cairo.

The military last week said troops and tanks would ensure security in advance of a general strike last weekend called by activists and youth groups to demand the immediate return of the military to their barracks and the formation of a civilian government. The failure of the strike on the first anniversary of the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak after religious leaders called on Egyptians to ignore it signalled the increasing isolation of the ultras – the military’s most militant opposition – and other activists who led the protests that forced the Egyptian leader to resign after 30 years in office.

Ultras Ahlawy, the Al Ahli support group that lost scores in the Port Said incident, called in a statement on Facebook on the eve of the release of the parliamentary report for retaliation against those responsible for the death of their comrades. The statement also called for the cleansing of the interior ministry, under which the security forces, the focus of their animosity whom they accuse of engineering the fatal brawl, resort.

The interior ministry or dakhliya symbolizes for many ultras their battle for karama or dignity. Their dignity is vested in their ability to stand up to the dakhliya, particularly in the wake of Port Said; a sense that they no longer can be abused by security forces without recourse; and the fact that they no longer have to pay off policemen to stay out of trouble.

“This Wednesday will mark two weeks since the passing of some of Egypt’s finest youth. They died because they refused to live without dignity and screamed loud calling for freedom,” the Ultras Ahlawy statement said.

It demanded an investigation of what it alleged was the failure of the interior ministry and the security forces to ensure safety and security during the match in which Port Said defeated Al Ahli 3:1 as well as “the cleansing of the ministry of interior and a full reconstruction of its system.”

The ultras further demanded that authorities drop references to involvement of a “third” party in the incident, a reference to the military’s attempt to position the Port Said incident as part of a foreign conspiracy to destabilize post-revolt Egypt. The ultras said they would not “accept the outcome of an investigation that blamed an anonymous (group for an incident) that wasted the lives of the martyrs.” They demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits whom they said were known to authorities “so as not to put us in the position of taking the right (into our own hands).”

While the Ultras Ahlawy charge that security forces failed to intervene in the lethal attack on their members and accuse thugs hired by the government of instigating the incident they also appeared to agree with the parliamentary inquiry’s conclusion that television footage documents the involvement of Al Masri fans in the attack on them. Ultras Ahlawy believes it was targeted because of its key role alongside other ultras groups in the toppling of Mr. Mubarak and its opposition since then to military rule.

Leaders of the ultras suggested that the incident was intended to exploit waning public support for the ultras, which were revered for their fearlessness, years of confrontation with security forces in the stadiums, role in manning defending Tahrir Square during the anti-Mubarak protests last year and militant support of their clubs. Their militancy and contentious street politics is however increasingly out of step with the mood in a country that is protest weary, retains confidence in the military despite its brutality, is frustrated that its revolt has not produced immediate tangible economic fruits and yearns for a return to normalcy so that Egypt can recover economically.

Deputy Parliament Speaker Thabet said in parliament Sunday that the Port Said incident had been sparked in part by incitement on sports TV channels. Disclosing details of the inquiry, he charged that thugs and hard core soccer fans had taken "advantage of the tension surrounding the game to achieve some political gains," but gave no details. Mr. Thabet promised to release the names of the instigators a later stage. He said 12,000 tickets had been sold for the match but 18,000 spectators had been admitted to the stadium.

Mr. Thabet said fans were not inspected while entering the stands and there was a lack of order inside and outside the stadium. "Security facilitated, allowed and enabled this massacre," he said, adding that security forces ignored mounting tension in advance of the Al Masri-Al Ahli match. "Both ultras and thugs attacked Ahly fans and this is part of Ultras' culture," he said.

Mr. Thabet acknowledged that similar pitch invasions had occurred in Port Said in the past year. Like in stadiums elsewhere in Egypt, security was often lax and security forces where more interested in avoiding clashes with fans in a bid to shore up their tarnished image as the Mubarak regime’s henchmen than in ensuring security. The Port Said incident has sparked suspicion that more than just laxness was involved because stadium exits that were normally open had been locked and because security forces refused to intervene despite the fact that the brawl had turned lethal.

The parliamentary inquiry also took the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) to task for violating world governing body FIFA’s security standards that call for monitoring by a security official of the security and political situation before, during and after a match.

The charge cast a further shadow over FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s demand for the reinstitution of the EFA board that was last week dismissed by the government in the wake of the Port Said incident. Mr. Blatter’s charge that the dismissal constituted political interference rings hallow given that the board consists of Mubarak appointees who furthered the ousted president’s efforts to control and manipulate the game to his political benefit. It also rings hallow given the fact that despite a nominal 2013 FIFA deadline for a restructuring of Egyptian soccer FIFA essentially tolerated the fact that the vast majority of Egyptian premier league clubs fail to meet the soccer body’s criteria for league membership.

FIFA sources said the Mr. Blatter’s demand was part of a flawed communications strategy designed to position the FIFA president as a leader and defender of soccer in a bid to repair the reputational damage he suffered as a result of a series of scandals in the last year that have rocked the soccer body and tarnished its image and that of its president. One source described the strategy as dating from the 1930s.

The sources said FIFA’s announcement that it was donating $250,000 to the families of those who died in Port Said was part of Mr. Blatter’s strategy. They noted that it was being handled personally by the FIFA president rather than the soccer body’s emergency committee and doubted that there was a mechanism to distribute the funds. In a separate move, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) which is headed by a controversial Blatter ally, Issa Hatou, said it was donating $150,000.

In the first regional fallout of the Port Said incident, Tunisia’s interior ministry ordered that all league matches be played behind closed doors because of concern about deteriorating security. Le Presse sports editor Sami Akrimi said the decision stemmed from the failure of the Tunisian soccer body to work with fan groups to ensure security.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Women and Girls' Activism in 1960s Southwest Georgia: Rethinking History and Historiography

by Alisa Harrison

In Boswell and MacArthur, Women Shaping the South: Creating and Confronting Change (Univrsity of Missouri Press, 2006)

'A happy blend'? Irish Republicanism, Political Violence and Social Agitation, 1962-1969

by Liam Cullinane

Saothar 35: Journal of the Irish Labour History Society 2010, pp.49-65

Beyond Civil Disobedience and Counter-hegemony: Legitimacy, Strategy and Tactics in the 2010 Anti-Olympics Movement

by Nick Montgomery

What makes it possible (and maybe even inevitable) for protesters to be condemned, dismissed, or infantilized? I will... more What makes it possible (and maybe even inevitable) for protesters to be condemned, dismissed, or infantilized? I will suggest that these tendencies are built into the structure of protest itself, and the types of questions that are asked about it. This paper seeks to destabilize these questions by tracing out some of their assumptions, and situating them within broader historical tendencies. I will argue that these questions reproduce assumptions about politics that have their roots in liberal notions of civil disobedience and Marxist imperatives of counterhegemony, and that these assumptions create serious difficulty for thinking creatively about the politics of (and beyond) protest. These discourses help to produce a narrow form of politics that is centered on the state as the locus of politics. However, I will also argue that anti-Olympics activists have avoided capitulating to this form of politics. Although they make use of these dominant discourses, contemporary anti-Olympic practices also point to alternative forms of politics that destabilize sovereignty and open up new political possibilities. If we continue to ask the same old questions of protests and protesters (Who are they? What do they want? How do they propose to get it?), we will miss these alternative politics at work. New questions are called for, questions that call into question traditional forms of politics, as well as enabling an understanding of the way new activist practices destabilize these traditional forms and point to new ones. This paper ends by seeking out different sites of anti-Olympics activism where politics works differently.

Participação Política e Desenho Institucional: Uma Proposta Para a Concepção De Mecanismos Participativos / Political participation and institutional design: A proposal for the conception of participatory mechanisms

by Francisco Paulo Jamil Marques

Title in English: Political participation and institutional design: A proposal for the conception of participatory... more Title in English: Political participation and institutional design: A proposal for the conception of participatory mechanisms. Text in Portuguese. Abstract in English available: This paper focuses on the study and development of those institutional innovations conceived to promote participatory practices in contemporary democracies. In a first moment, one considers some of the main arguments addressing the scope, limits and the effects of the institutional design on the political game. Then, the article explores, through a brief history regarded the configuration modes of modern democracies, the relationship between institutional design and political participation. This fact calls the attention to the need of a change in the current institutional design of democracies. Finally, one proposes the idea that three features must be taken into account in any attempt to offer effective mechanisms of participation in the decision-making process: (a) to improve citizens’ repertoire of skills and political information; (b) to pay attention to motivational factors that encourage the involvement in politics; (c) to be careful about the setting and the availability of input channels whose goal is to lead the contributions of civil sphere.

Include ‘Em All? Culture, Politics and a Local Hardcore/Punk Scene in the Czech Republic

by Ondrej Cisar

by O. Císař and M. Koubek. Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts 40 (2012): 1–21.

Emerging forms of political protest as participation: The political space of 15M movement

by Manu Fernandez Garcia

Abstract presented to the International Conference "FROM SOCIAL TO POLITICS. NEW FORMS OF MOBILIZATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION
University of Bilbao – Spain
9th – 10th February 2012

Organizated by ISA RC47 – Research Committee Social Classes and Social Movements - And ISA RC48 – Research Committee Social Movements, Collective Action and Social Change

Kind of work: This work is analytical approach to the new type protest movements, as the Spanish 15m movement or... more Kind of work: This work is analytical approach to the new type protest movements, as the Spanish 15m movement or Occupy Wall Street. It is a part of a wider research comparative research about these new movements in Spain, United Kingdom and Italy. In this work we focus on the theoretical analysis of the political space generated by these movements in Spain.

Keywords: Political Space, protest movement, political participation.
Description of the object and/or main subject of the work: Nowadays political participation can be defined as “any dimensions of activity that are either designed to influence government agencies and the policy process, or indirectly to Impact civil society, or which attempt to alter systematic patterns of social behaviour” (Norris 2001). This wide definition is largely connected to the activity of the so-called new social movements. Those movements promote and gradually normalize political protest as way of participation in public life together with the more traditional participation through interest association and obviously, through electoral participation.
In 2011 a new type of protest movements has globally spread. From 15m movement in Spain to the protest of “Occupy Wall Street” in the United States. These new-type movements are mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people combining classic forms of mobilization with an intensive use of the information and communications technologies (ITC), especially social networks based on the internet. These instruments have been incorporated in a particularly successful manner to the protest; they moves the mobilization from the net to the streets, but also transform social networks as Facebook or twitter in a new space of debate, a real public square where consensus can be built. They have also led to the incorporation of a large number of citizens to protest for the first time. These new protester, together with an important group of militants belonging to different organizations and social movements, have brought to life a movement that adopt a new language, share a common discourse and a profoundly democratic performance.
This movement connects directly with movement of protest from the late 90s. It specially incorporates a wide range of formal and ideological aspects of the so-called anti-globalization movement. However it also introduces new elements as its democratic approaches and its inclusive vocation that make it attractive to many people. As a result, this movement has generated substantives impacts in the society, as evidenced by numerous opinion surveys, their proposals and demands reached high levels of acceptance in the whole society.
In few words, this work aims to analyze the political space of participation generated by these protest movements. The focus will be on the Spanish case but we will also take into consideration the global framework. We analyses the continuities and changes in this emerging model of participation in relation to those generated by other, conventional or not, forms of collective participation.
Methodology
To analyze this new political space it will be divided in several dimensions in order to create a table. This table will show differences and similarities whit the political spaces generated by the conventional and non-conventional participation. The analyzed dimensions will be:
- The political subject of participation
- The type of organization of the collective action
- The object of participation
- The interactions with the public administration and with other non-institutional actors.

Main findings, conclusions and/or contributions:
This work will link the vast literature about political participation with the not less vast literature about social movement. In order to do that the key concept of political space will be used. The main hypothesis is that these movements -especially through their democratic claims massive inclusive practices and their critics of the neoliberal current crisis management- are promoting the development of new kind of political space. This political space involves a new phase in the evolution of social movements. This is possible thank to the intensive use of ITC and, specially, a profoundly democratic leitmotiv, not only in the discourses but also in practices. As a result, process of re-politization beyond the post-political consensus had been generated.
References;
Aelst, Peter, y Stefaan Walgrave. 2001. «Who is that (wo)man in the street? From the normalisation of protest to the normalisation of the protester». European Journal of Political Research 39(4):461-486. Recuperado Noviembre 30, 2011.
Dalton, Russell. 2008. Citizen politics : public opinion and political parties in advanced industrial democracies. 5o ed. Washington D.C.: CQ Press.
Dalton, Russell J. 1998. «Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracie». Recuperado (http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/8281d6wt).
Della Porta, Donatella. 2002. Social movements : an introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mouffe, Chantal. 2005. The return of the political. Verso.
Norris, Pippa. 1999. Critical citizens: global support for democratic government. Oxford University Press.
Norris, Pippa. 2001. Digital divide: civic engagement, information poverty, and the Internet worldwide. Cambridge University Press.
Offe, Claus. 1997. Partidos Politicos y Nuevos Movimientos Sociales. Sistema.
Porta, Donatella Della. 2003. I new global. Edicoes Loyola.
Tarrow, Sidney. 2004. El poder en movimiento: los movimientos sociales, la acción colectiva y la política. Alianza.

Other elements which are considered of interest: This work is part of a doctoral research develop at the Institute of Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC) financed by the JAE program,

A Political Sociology of Socionatures

by Damian White

Getting stuck into the grow or die/treadmill of production/ecological modernization, political ecology/new ecology/skepticism debate around political economy. Wrote this five years ago and I'm still amazed by how little US environmental sociology and political ecology engage with each other. It's almost as if they live in different worlds.....

White Kossoff Anarchisme, libertarisme et environnementalisme 

by Damian White

French version of Anarchism, Libertarianism, Environmentalism - a review of the relations between the traditions

Blumberg y el vínculo representativo. Liderazgos de opinión en la democracia de audiencia

by sebastián mauro

From offence to defence : The Australian Global Justice Movement and the impact of 9/11

by Elizabeth Humphrys

Submitted for the requirements for Master of Arts in Humanities and Social
Sciences (Research), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UTS, Sydney, 2011.

This thesis examines the trajectory of the Global Justice Movement (GJM) in Australia and the impact of the 9/11... more This thesis examines the trajectory of the Global Justice Movement (GJM) in Australia and the impact of the 9/11 attacks, in particular focusing on the period 1999- 2002. The questions of the dramatic rise and, as many argue, fall of the movement are assessed. While some have argued 9/11 was the death of the Australian GJM, others believe it didn’t constitute a significant setback. This thesis therefore inquires into the extent to which these arguments about a ‘setback’ provide an accurate account of conditions and circumstances of the GJM in Australia post 9/11. In this sense, the research is at once concerned with the question of the development of the movement in Australia and the wider neoliberal global context the movement was a part of. This thesis considers the complexity of factors that shaped the trajectory of the GJM in Australia and argues against the simplistic notion that the 9/11 attacks caused the collapse of the movement. Rather, it argues there are key internal and external factors that negatively impacted on the movement and fundamentally altered its shape in the period after the attacks. While these factors are not in practice separate, and are part of the global environment the movement found itself in, it is useful to delineate them analytically so their particular shape and impact can be clarified. Significant attention is paid to the activities and insights of the activists interviewed for this research, and their understanding of the course of the movement. It is argued that although there was a spread of views amongst the activists, their understanding of the impact of 9/11 crystallised as two tendencies (to be called Campaigners and Networkers). It is argued that the particular reflexive activity, or praxis, of the Networkers, provided them with a more holistic appreciation of the movement and the impact of the attacks. The thesis uses the work of Antonio Gramsci to analyse these two tendencies, arguing that his concept of an organic intellectual offers a useful way for understanding how such differentiation developed and its significance.

« Egyptian Leftist Intellectuals’ Activism from the Margins: Overcoming the Mobilization/Demobilization Dichotomy », in Joel Beinin and Frédéric Vairel (eds.), Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, Stanford University Press 2011

by Marie Duboc